MicroWebmaster Blogging Community

It has a softer, cleaner appearance. That is the first thing you’ll notice. I’ve upgraded a few, and the upgrades went without a hitch. Not so the first post!

Most of your access to items in the admin area are the same. But the admin links have moved into two categories. You feel lost for a moment when you go to look for Settings, Plugins, or Users. But a quick glance around quickly reorients you.

The Post page though, is different. Everything is still there, but they changed the name of a few things, hid a couple, and moved them into radically different locations. I’m not sure I’ll get used to having to scroll down to the bottom just to select the category.

It may take you a bit to find how to schedule a post also – but if you click the edit button above the Publish button, you’ll find it – it pops out.

Overall, I think WordPress is moving forward, even when some of the features they add are features I’m not quite ready to move forward with.

We’ll be upgrading to 2.5 shortly.

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The MicroWeb Blog Community has some spam protection plugins available for your use. Select the Plugins tab, and browse through the plugins that are available.

Bad Behavior will stop most automated spam. It may interefere with trackbacks, so test it out (it does on one of our blogs, not on another). It is a favorite with us though for stopping automated spam and automated harvesting spambots. You’ll want to activate it if you choose to use it, then go into Options, and click on the Bad Behavior tab there, and set the settings for it.

Akismet is also a spam protection plugin. You have to get an API key from the company that produces the plugin - it is free. An API key is just a code that you plug into the plugin to activate it. I have never used it, so I cannot vouch for it, but it is one of the more respected spam plugins.

There are many others, which can be found at WordPress.org. If you would like to use one from WordPress.org which is not installed here, you may contact us and ask us to install it. If we do, it will then be available for your use, and for the use of every other blogger in our community.

It is important that you understand that automated spam protection is never 100% accurate. They can, and do, stop a good deal of automated comment and trackback spam, and a good deal of the automated spam harvesting bots. But they cannot stop everything without also running a very high risk of stopping legitimate traffic or search engine bots. So we strike a balance, and stop MOST of it, which will cut it down to a manageable level. This is just the nature of blogging at this time.

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This article is a companion article to one written on Frumpy Haus Frau on the topic of getting ideas for blogging.

I find that ideas occur to me at the strangest times. Now it seems that every business conversation, every new problem or solution is a fit topic for blogging. Ideas usually occur to me in batches, and I’ll think of topics at the oddest times!

So how do you keep track of them? I use Notesbrowser.  It is a great little free program that helps me keep track of a whole lot more than blogging ideas - I’ve used it for keeping track of article ideas for over a year (along with marketing tasks, project outlines, reference information, and more). I can categorize lists, and sub-categorize them. I like hierarchal thinking, so this program works perfectly for me.

When I’m in the middle of something and cannot be distracted, if an idea occurs to me, I can jot it down, and then go back to my work. I can let it go, because I no longer have to remember it.

The only time it really isn’t helpful to jot it down, is when I’m in the bathtub… no computer there! And an amazing number of ideas occur to me in the tub!  I have learned to repeat them to myself a few times, then to recall them as soon as I do get back to the computer.

As many blog posts, articles, and instructional materials as what I have to produce, I have no choice but to get organized about how I come up with ideas, and how I record those ideas until I have time to write them. I spend an average of 2-3 hours a day just writing some kind of article or instruction. Ideas are gold - they have to be recorded for use when I need them!

Nothing is more frustrating to me than having a good idea in the morning, and then failing to remember it when I am ready to write for the day! Recording those ideas has helped me to be able to reference back, and use well, the inspiration for writing that seems to sleet down throughout the day. I’m less likely to get distracted by an idea that intrudes at an inappropriate time, and I’m more likely to have a good idea to refer back to when I need one.

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I tend to get ideas in bursts, they never seem to come one at a time. And they tend to all land on one focus - so I end up getting a lot of ideas for one blog, none for the others. Sometimes it is easier to write a series of articles at one time, or to just go with the inspiration when it hits. I’ve taken to scheduling ahead when I get a flood all at once.

Most blogging platforms allow you to schedule posts in advance, and to specify the date and time that they will appear. In WordPress, this is called “Post Timestamp”. Change that, and it changes the time your post will appear.

This feature is usually promoted as a way to compensate for vacation time, or other events. But it is also a great way to just start getting ahead, with a pre-archive of articles, allowing you to write when you feel like it, relax when you don’t, without having to build a separate archive of stuff on your local computer.

I like to write once, and be done with it. I have some sites in Joomla which require that I write the article in a separate document, then paste it in and remove the formatting that came in from the program I wrote it in, then reformat. The system times out otherwise and I lose my work. I like that WordPress does not time out. I can do everything within a single environment. So writing ahead, and scheduling, saves me a little time too, because I don’t have to copy and paste.

With four blogs to manage, keeping up with posts takes a little time each day. By spending about an hour a day, I can keep up with all four, and get ahead a little for those days when I cannot post. This is something I intend to run with!

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