I’ll be the first to admit that security is far from a fun issue to deal with. If it wasn’t for this cool masthead I whipped up for the occasion, I probably wouldn’t even be excited to talk about it!

But in all seriousness, without taking these precautions you will, eventually, suffer the consequences. It happens to big sites hoping to profit and smaller personal weekend blogs. No one is safe. The most you can do, and the smartest you can be, is to follow the steps I’ve outlined below. With any luck you’ll avoid any WordPress security issues in the future.

First: un-cross your fingers. That won’t help you at all. Okay, now proceed.

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Everyone knows how easy it is to publish a blog. At this point, who doesn’t have one of their own? But where blogs have picked up and become more mainstream, podcasting has yet to reach the Mom Plateau. The Mom Plateau is a name I just made up to describe the point at which my mom knows about and understands just what something is. Podcasting isn’t quite there yet.

The only way podcasting will ever reach that plateau is if it’s as easy to start up and publish a podcast as it is to start up and publish a blog. Luckily, with WordPress, a Plugin, and a bit of guidance, anyone can publish their own podcast.

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If you manage a website, the load time of your site should be of your utmost concern. While many of us are living in the broadband fast lanes (that’s what the kids call them, right?) this isn’t the case for everyone, and this is especially not the case for anyone trying to browse your site using a mobile device.

Around here we use WordPress, and just as many problems can pop up with WordPress as any other system out there today. There is one building block to our sites that is somewhat unique: Plugins. Other content management systems have their own names for what WordPress Plugins do: some call them modules, others extensions. You get the idea. Plugins give us the ability to add further functionality to our sites. They also can add some nasty speed bumps and (dare I say the word) bloat to our pages that can slow down the load time.

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Every WordPress site uses Plugins to some capacity. Some use them for simple things like dishing up a geeky quote like the Hello Dolly Plugin that comes with every WordPress install, while others are doing complex things like turning your blog into an eCommerce platform.

In this post I’d like to offer up my selection of Plugins that every WordPress site should use, particularly because they represent the features that every website, in general, should have. I’m interested in quality over quantity here, so don’t expect a huge list. This is about finding a manageable, dare I say memorizable, list of go-to Plugins that get done what we need done.

Sound good? Let’s get started then.

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I’ve said before that what makes WordPress so powerful is the community behind it. I’ve pushed the importance of getting to know your WordPress developers before, and would like to think I’m doing my part in publishing interviews with members of the community as well. This time around, I’d like to publish my own “Who’s Who” of WordPress.

This list is intended to direct you toward the most influential members of the WordPress community. If you’re reading this page, it’s because you’re interested in getting involved. The list below will give you not only a quick bio, but links to their sites and Twitter profiles so you can follow them. On with the list!

Update: For more great WordPress community/news resources, see my list of suggested news sources, all of them straight from my own feedreader.

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If you have WordPress pride (as I do!) you may be curious, every now and then, about whether or not a website is running on WordPress or not. I try to mention whenever I notice a big one, but you can locate them yourselves. I can’t say that these tests are foolproof (they can be dodged if the site owner knows what they are doing) but I would suggest giving these steps a shot if you suspect a site may be of WordPress descent.

1. Try adding

   /wp-admin

   or

   /wp-login.php

   to their domain

. Any site using WordPress is accessed by the authors using that address.

2. Check their file structures. Oftentimes WordPress users will add a

   /archives

   to their URL before the post title. Often

   /category

   on pages listing category posts also.

3. The default permalink structure is a dead giveaway. Anytime you see ?page=123 used at the end of a page or post, you can rightfully suspect they are using WordPress.

Anyone out there spotted any really cool and/or popular WordPress sites out there, using the methods above? I’d love to hear about it.

I’ve noticed a trend in WordPress Plugins, themes, and development. I’ve been interested in these things since I started using WordPress, a little over a year ago with my personal blog.

In this time I’ve noticed an extreme lack of interest in the individuals behind WordPress advancements, and quite a bit of interest in the actual advancements. This makes sense to me, since the advancements appeal to the selfish nature we all share (what’s in it for me). There are very few WordPress users I’ve seen that are concerned with who is responsible for some of the niceties they enjoy.

I have a couple of theories based on these trends, and what are (hopefully) some ways to improve the current situation.

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It’s been almost a week since WordPress 2.3 was released. Technically a work week, but you get the idea. Here’s a recap of the coverage so far at Theme Playground, as well as some more links of interest I’ve stumbled over in the past couple of days.

If you have any WordPress 2.3 links I haven’t linked to yet, drop them in the comments. I’d love to know what else is going on out there.

Theme Playground’s Week of Coverage

• First Hands on Dexter: Playing with WordPress 2.3
  The first night WordPress was released (night, not day) I grabbed the first download I could and installed it on my personal blog. Included are my hands–on experience and thoughts on the new features.
• The Dust Settles: Thoughts on WordPress 2.3
  A simple post giving some links around town, so to speak, and what others are saying about WordPress in it’s first few days out.
• Exploring the New Tagging System of WordPress 2.3
  The big news of the upgrade, tagging, is explored in detail, with tutorials and examples.
• Overlooked Additions to WordPress in Version 2.3
  I rounded out the week with a look at some of the lesser talked about additions to WordPress in version 2.3. Topics included multiple category widgets, improved SEO through smart URLs, and the speed of the new version.

Of Interest Elsewhere on the Web

• What’s Right with WordPress 2.3
  Wordlog is hosting a discussion, not only for what’s right with 2.3, but also what’s wrong with it.
• Boren.nu on WordPress 2.4
  For some insider information on the next version, check this link out.
• 2.3 Search on WordPress.org Support Forums
  How much time do you spend browsing the support forums? I’m sure you’ve gone there for help/troubleshooting before, but how much time do you spend reading? I’m trying to get into this habit myself. For those concerned with the dangers of upgrading to 2.3, keep an eye out for what others are having problems with.

On the Write Page portion of the WordPress Dashboard you are given an option at the rightmost part of the page. The box is called Page Order and by default is blank. By entering a number here, you can change the order of Pages on your menu.

Why Use Page Order

Your pages should be ordered with two factors in mind:

1. Conventional practice and
2. Level of interest.

I list both of these because there will be times when the level of interest a page presents may determine that it deserves a rank other than it is usually deemed by conventional practices among websites.

Certain conventions have developed when it comes to the web. One of them (although there are many) is that pages like About tend to show up closer to the top of the listing of pages and Contact or FAQ show up closer to the bottom. You want to lend your site to as many user expectations as possible, and this is one that can be easily achieved in WordPress.

It’s also important that you order pages by their importance. This can be helpful when it comes to deciding between pages that aren’t common enough to be present across many conventional websites. For example, Theme Playground has the following pages, in no specific order: About, Contact Us, Advertising, Consulting, and Home. In the end I chose to order them this way:

1. Home
2. About
3. Consulting
4. Advertising
5. Contact Us

The main decision I’ll highlight here is to set Consulting above Advertising because the average reader here at Theme Playground would probably be interested in consulting before they would be interested in advertising.

Try and use some of the though processes above to help when you are planning your pages for WordPress. When you actually get to the point of having Pages to order, use the process below to kickstart the process.

Using Page Order

1. First you want to think ahead to the number of Pages you predict you will have in total. If you don’t have a lot of Pages in mind, start off with two basic ones: About and Contact.
2. Create a Page (Write Page) and put its page number in the Page Order box before hitting Publish.
3. Double-check by visiting your site to be sure your Pages are in the correct order.
4. Anytime you add a new page, fix its number accordingly and adjust the rest to fit.

Disclaimer

This won’t work if your menu is hand coded in. Your menu must be dynamically generated by WordPress (or Plugin) PHP tags in order for this method to work. Of course, if you are hand coding the pages in anyway, the order of Pages shouldn’t really be something you have to worry about. However I would highly suggest maintaining the WordPress dynamic system for your sake and the sake of everyone else, assuming you ever release your theme for public use.

That headline may seem redundant (that’s the idea!) but this is an issue worth discussing.

When it comes to creating fresh and time-sensitive content, Posts are perfect. No one would question that. Static, time-insensitive content is, however, up in the air sometimes.

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