newbie-friendly

WordPress, technology, and miscellaneous thoughts.

Communities Design Development Kate's Updates Non-Technical Search Engine Optimization Social Media Webdev 101 WordPress Workflow

Getting Stock and Project Photos

A common question I see is, “How do I find images to use on the Internet?” Whether you’re looking for something to just play around with and learn the basics or you’re seeking non-copyrighted images for use in paid projects, there are lots of places to find free images on the Internet. My aim here isn’t to create any kind of comprehensive list. I’m giving a list of the sites I tend to use more frequently than not, and what I tend to use them for. All freebie sites are not equal; you’ll have a better time searching if you […]

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WordPress Plugins I Like

Tools Jetpack I’m putting this here because Jetpack does so many things. In particular, I like Sharing, Enhanced Distribution, Monitor, and Widget Visibility. A lot of other stuff is nice — like automatic verification of sites for Pinterest, Bing, and Google Webmaster Tools. Enabling Jetpack and this service on websites makes it ridiculously easy to verify these things. Subscriptions are also nice — and when I have multiple authors, Spelling and Grammar always helps!

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Turn Off Taskbar Pop-Ups in Windows 7+

Ever since I started on Windows 7, the little pop-ups you get over your taskbar when mousing down there annoyed me. I know they have a real name — but they aren’t really “previews” for me on Windows Classic, and they’re not really tooltips, either? They’re basically just pop-ups that allow me to close a window — which isn’t useful for me because I turn off collapsing.

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Introduction to WordPress Posting (Without Strong Technological Background)

This post assumes knowledge of logging in, navigating to the post section, getting into the editing screen on a post, and basic familiarity with the editing screen. If you need more basic information than this post provides, see the Simple WP Guide. It walks you through the very basics and is a great way to get started. If you know all of that already, this guide should help you bring your WordPress posting skills to the next level. If you’re looking to go even further, there are a number of side-notes in this post. Use them as opportunities to search […]

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Buying a Website 101

This is a 101 guide to buying a website. It’s intended to guide first-time website buyers through some preliminary preparation steps. As the buyer of a website, these are things you can do to prepare before talking to anyone or asking questions. Note: if you’re thinking about buying a website and you have a specific developer in mind, you should probably read their information on preparation.

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Gotchas and Other Notes for the Absolute Beginner Web Developer

“#*@#, why isn’t it working?” If you find yourself saying that a lot, think about these basic coding gotchas. These are some very basic things that can trip you if you’re just starting out with HTML, CSS, and other things (I guess). Just remember — everything is different, everything has its own troubleshooting steps. Understand how to fix problems in general — don’t just remember how to fix specific problems you’ve encountered before. It’s more useful for you to have general problem-solving and troubleshooting knowledge that can be applied in a variety of different environments.

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