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Wordcamp Birmingham 2009
The document discusses blogging platforms and compares WordPress.org and WordPress.com. WordPress.org is an open-source software that requires installation on a hosting service, while WordPress.com is a free hosted service with some restrictions. The document then provides step-by-step instructions on getting started with WordPress.com, including signing up, selecting a theme, writing a post, and refining the blog. It also discusses some paid upgrade options for WordPress.com that remove ads or allow custom domains.
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Wordcamp Birmingham 2009
- 1. Wordcamp Birmingham 2009Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org How to get started with Blogging and Wordpress.com  Tom Brander, September 26, 2009 © Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 2. Popular Blogging PlatformsBlogger (service owned by Google) MS Live (service) TypePad (paid service six Apart) Live Journal (service; paid upgrade; now Russian owned) Movable Type (software six Apart) Tumblr (service) Posterous (service) Many others Wordpress.Org (software) Wordpress.com (service) © Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 3. Wordpress.com vs. Wordpress.org.org Open source software that you install on a paid hosting service (starts about $7.00/month domain inc.) Many features and add-ons to support many options No restrictions for commercial use Requires some technical expertise (as much as you want) You can do many tons with it (much covered at this conference) .com Free hosted service (minor paid upgrades available) No commercial use May have some ads (have seen very few and not obnoxious) Very suited for non technical users You can do a ton with it (not as well covered at this conference!) © Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 4. How to getstarted with .com Sign up (Your site will be at http://acctname.wordpress.com) Select theme (optional) Write something Post Refine Next we will review screenshots of the steps, followed by screenshots of features for refinements © Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 5. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Sign up!
- 6. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Follow Instructions!
- 7. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Extra info if you need
- 8. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org The dashboard
- 9. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Theme Selection Demo a few themes here & explain only those here can be used and that the themes define how much customization can be done
- 10. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Your 1st Post
- 11. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Jazz it up!
- 12. Some example siteshttp://tbrander.wordpress.com (Real Estate) http://tombrander.wordpress.com (Tech) http://bigcityblink.wordpress.com (Personal) http://teewinot7.wordpress.com (Dogs) http://uakd.wordpress.com (College Sorority) http://birminghamblogging.wordpress.com/ (Consulting) © Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 13. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Free Features Page
- 14. But I don'twant ..... if you don't want any chance of ads.. Minor paid upgrade, $29.97 per year If you don't want a .wordpress.com address but do want your own i.e. http://tombrander.com vs. http://tombrander.wordpress.com Minor paid upgrade Domain name registration + domain mapping costs $14.97per year, per domain. Domain mapping for a domain (or subdomain) you already own costs $9.97 per year, per domain. I don't want a blog I want a web site... Just use pages and right theme I want a static front page... Same as above © Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 15. © Tom Brander2009 http://oswco.org Extra cost options
- 16. My DashBoard ©Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 17. Stats © TomBrander 2009 http://oswco.org
- 18. My site featuresWant to do live but just in case! © Tom Brander 2009 http://oswco.org
Editor's Notes
- #2Â Slide #1 Welcome to Wordcamp 2009 in Birmingham, AL Â All the slides and most of my speaker notes with most all links working will be on http://tombrander.wordpress.com. Â The purpose of this presentation is to go over the differences between Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com. Â Most of which will be hearing at the rest of this of this conference is about Wordpress.org which is to software that powers Wordpress.com. Â Also, this is sort of a 101 presentation up for beginners. So if you are extremely skilled this may not be of interest. However I have found a lot of people who are very skilled with Wordpress.org do not really understand the restrictions that Wordpress.com has. So if that is of interest to you, hang in there. Â
- #3 Slide #2 There a lot of popular blogging platforms out there one of the best known is Blogger, owned by Google which has had a reputation for quite some time as having a lot of pretty spammy sites they have cleaned that up quite a bit, but still the blogs are not a quite at the same high quality as those on Wordpress.com. To some degree you are known by the company you keep. There are of course exceptions to the rule on all services.  Microsoft Live is a service as well which does have a very basic blogging platform that is available for free. Type-Pad s a paid service from six apart which is very well known and it is a structurally quite similar to Wordpress. Live journal is a service, and they have a free service and a pay upgrade available. They used to be owned by six Apart but have been sold off to a Russian ownership group. Movable Type is software that powers a lot of the six Apart offerings similar to the Wordpress.com vs.  Wordpress.org  There are two up and coming services that are a somewhat more basic but that really building functionality, Tumblr and Posterious are both free services and both have a lot of very neat features for doing blogs. Many beginners looking for very simple yet rich blogging platforms might want to look at them. They are well worth taking a look if you're just starting often are your blogging career. There are of course many, many others but these are probably the primary ones out there.
- #4Â Slide # 3 Wordpress.org is the software that powers Wordpress.com. Â So you can download (open source) software and install it on your own webserver or on a webserver service such as Bluehost (starts at about $7.00 per month). You have complete freedom in terms of the kinds of themes features and commercial activity that you can do with the software. Does require some technical expertise, depends some on the hosting company, I donât do it so there are better people here to consult if that is the direction you want to go. Â However for free, you can sign up for Wordpress.com. It is a free service it has limited paid for upgrades that can add some features but it does not permit âcommercial useâ. The commercial use prohibition is fairly broad but also not completely unreasonable. You really need to read the terms of use and browse the forum answers to get a good read of what is and what is not permissible. The site does not offer upgrades to âfullâ commercial use unless you are someone like CNN. You may not post ads. You may not use Google to post ads. You may not sell stuff. To do those things, you will need to use a hosting service and install your own copy of Wordpress, from Wordpress.org. Â So recapping Wordpress .org is software that you can download and install on any servers which you separately pay for. The software itself is free. There are numerous extensions and features that one can download for Wordpress.org. Â So if Wordpress.com the service, is what you want, DONâT go to the Wordpress.org web site, it will confuse you unnecessarily, all the documentation you need and all the forums for support you need are on the worpress.com site. Wordpress.com is complete. Wile commercial use is prohibited, A lot of professional organizations such as myself use it to display their information, and capabilities. In my case I do real estate reporting and technical work. I have blogs that reflect both of those interests as you'll see coming up. Â Wordpress.com does not require much technical expertise; Much of what will be covered at the conference will only apply to .org. Â Â Paid upgrades are available on .com which allow you to modify the look and feel of your blog and to get your own domain name, which I do encourage you to do. Â .Com may have some ads provided by Wordpress.com. I have never seen them. For the most part they are very low key. But you need to know the possibility is there, for a fee you can eliminate the possibility. I personally don't find ads to be a problem. You don't need any technical expertise because it is all done for you so you donât need to worry about upgrades or security, which is a really nice feature! Â
- #5Â Slide #4 How to get started with.com, go to http://wordpress.com and you will see this. Sign up by pressing the orange button.
- #6Â Slide # 5 The next page will get your information and the name you enter will become your initial site.
- #7Â Slide#6 The site will be your account name and wordpress.com you don't need to do anything else. You may at any later time register your name so you can select having a full domain registration again small charge. Select a theme (not required but the basic one is pretty boring). You may only choose themes supplied by .com. (shown later)
- #8Â Slide#7 Note also, you can have multiple blogs on your same account for free. Give some thought to your sub domain name you will have to determine that it is available.
- #9Â Slide#8 When you get up and running, you get into the dashboard, shown here. Â Â The dashboard comes up for free on your account. It tells you how many people have hit your site and how many posts you have and so forth.
- #10 Slide # 9 Theme selection: you can choose any one of the themes that Wordpress.com provides for you Show some examples to you what themes are all about. The theme you choose will impact many features of your site going forward. Donât freak out however because it is fairly easy to change later if you feel that you have made a mistake. Some popular ones ate Cutline and my personal favorite is Vigilance. Features governed by the theme include widgets, column layout color selection and customization. (extra cost CSS) Again much of this conference will be talking about a. Neat themes, and b. neat plug-ins⊠They only apply to .org⊠The only stuff you can use on .com is what .com suppliesâŠ.. Â
- #11Â Slide # 10 Your first post this works very much like a word processor simply write what you want and post it. In some cases you may want to write it up in Microsoft word or some other text editor offline. In the case of Microsoft word there is a âpaste from Word buttonâ press and it will bring up a window and you cut and paste from the Microsoft word document into that window. The reason for doing that is Microsoft word has all kinds of what we call cruft and special formatting characters that the special window strips off so that it'll work properly on the web. There are many options for enhancing a post like tagging it and categorizing it, putting photos or charts in it and all that sort of thing. Over time you will determine how you want use the features. It is something that is always evolving. Â
- #12Â Slide #11 Now, turning to jazzing up your web site. You get widgets and customization options which depend on the theme that you have chosen. In order to use a widget just click on it and move over to select where you want it to appear (in the right hand column) it will appear on the web site the next time you view your web site.
- #13Â Slide # 12 Here are some examples sites will click on those live in the presentation. You can see a walk through of some of the things that widgets do and how they operate. Some in particular are real time syndication (RSS). You not obligated to use all the features and we do not use all of them because using too many of them can be highly confusing and create a very bad web site design
- #14Â Slide #13Â Free features: see this page on the wordpress.com web site. 60+ themes Integrated Stats Good tools for editing posts and including Media (pictures) Spam protection Tagging Support Reliability Import tools (if you want to move to or for that matter from) Private posts and private blogs Multiple authors Lots of widgets Â
- #15 Slide # 14 But I donât wantâŠ. No ads Donât want to see .wordpress.com on my web site address Donât want a blog but want a more conventional web site with pages (pages with Navigation theme dependent) I want a Static front page (static page theme dependent) I want some static information at the front (static post theme dependent) Â
- #16Â Slide # 15 Custom domain More storage (pretty unlikely to need) Custom css (Explain) Video press (59.97 per year) Ad free Unlimited registered users (35 free)
- #17Â Slide # 16 The Dashboard This is where you do everything Page navigation Themes Widgets Comment options Users Stats(basic) and so on
- #18Â Slide #17 Stats For free generally better than most other outfits charge for Who comes Search terms What do they click on and so forth
- #19Â Slide # 18 My main WP site and some of the features that I like Pop-ups RSS and E-mail subscribes (via feedburner) RSS headlines from Google reader (so there is always fresh content) On the tech site my recent tweets