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Reduce Comment Spam to Zero Without Akismet
After my trouble with Akismet, I tried Arpit’s suggestion on reducing spam. It worked! I used to get hundreds of spam comments and trackbacks per day, which makes it hard for me to find ones that were accidentally marked as spam. Now, I get less than a handful of spam comments every couple of days. Although I am still using Akismet as a back up, I have other plugins acting as the first line of defense.

48 Unique Ways to Use WordPress
Bothered by the complexity of installing magazine themes, about ten days ago, I told everyone that WordPress is a blog platform first and foremost so stop trying to do too much with it. This link basically proves that I was wrong. Hey, when you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And ten days ago, I was wrong! However, that doesn’t mean some WordPress theme authors aren’t trying to do too much. Like I said before, if I don’t need to read a lengthy manual to install WordPress then don’t make me read one to install a WordPress theme.

The Future of WordPress Themes
Warning: This is a very long post made up of opinions by notable theme authors and bloggers blogging about WordPress.

Migrating to WordPress 2.5
A guide for plugin authors to prepare their plugins for WordPress 2.5.

“Market” is a new premium theme from Andrew of Astereostudio.com, which allows you to use your blog as an online store or marketplace. View the live demo here.

Via custom fields, you can enter a description, 1 large image with 3 smaller images, a price, and other information for each product or item. It also allows people to pay you through PayPal.

Installation

Market is actually very easy to install. I have a copy of it installed offline (on my computer). It took me less than five minutes to add the first product to the offline test blog. If you haven’t had any experience with using custom fields, which is easy, it might take you ten minutes to read the instructions and to add the first product.

Structure

I’m impressed by how close Market’s layout is to the 17 New Rules for Successful E-commerce Websites. Thanks to the function over form approach, Market is also easy for customers to use. Everything is clearly laid out and you’re not overwhelmed by all of the information for each product.

Function

Andrew integrated the phpThumb thumbnail generator for converting large images for each product, which saves a lot of time for the administrator or store manager by automatically converting the images to the right size without distorting them. Also, one of the product display features that I like is the ability to zoom in on the smaller images. Here’s an example of the zoom feature:

Minor Improvements

This is the first version of Market so of course there’s room for improvement, but the following suggestions are more like bonuses.

• An optional space for a store banner right above the products listing on the front page would be nice.)
• The single product page doesn’t have a direct page edit link for administrators.
• Although this theme is easy to install, I’d like to see extended instructions on how to upload images and how to grab the image locations added to the read-me file.
• And if possible, don’t make the this theme duplicate the smaller thumbnails in case the administrator uploaded only one small image.

Pricing

Market costs only $40 and you can use it on multiple websites.

Conclusion

Besides my suggestions above, I’m thoroughly impressed by Market. It’s compact, easy to install, and easy to use. I think it’s safe to say that premium is not just a marketing term for this theme.

The following tips will help you get help for WordPress problems. If you don’t follow my tips, your question will get ignored, no matter who or where you’re trying to get help from.

Search Before You Ask

WordPress.org, Google.com, within the site you’re trying to get help from, etc.

Double Check the Read-Me File

Themes, plugins, and even WordPress have installation and usage instructions. They’re usually in the readme.html or readme.txt file.

Find the Right Place to Ask

Do not email or post codes in the comments if the site or author specifically told you not to. Email is probably the worse tool to get and give support by. Even if you have a unique problem, avoid email.

Skip the Introduction and Just Get to the Question

Don’t say “I’m a total newbie.” It’s one of the most annoying signs of possible laziness. Ask for a solution, what you need to know, and what you need to search for.

Link to the Problem

Even if your description of the problem is understandable and thorough, it’s best to link to your blog or a specific page and point out the problem.

No Customization Questions

Unless it’s obviously very technical and requires a great deal of knowledge and experience, do not ask “How Do I Customize ______” questions. WordPress volunteers and individual theme and plugin authors do not have the time to help you tweak your blog and then re-tweak it because maybe you don’t like the color. Show that you respect their time and they’ll try to get your problem solved ASAP. Avoid asking the following quesitons:

• How do I change the header image?
• How do I change link colors?

Those are general XHTML and CSS questions. They don’t have anything to do with WordPress. Your best guide for those questions is W3schools.com or one of those “how do I make a website” sites.

Don’t Be Lazy

If it looks or even sounds like you’re not willing to do the work in order to fix the problem, good luck because you’re on your own. NEVER ask for copy and paste. Also, if it sounds like you haven’t done any searching, then good luck because you’re on your own again.

Actually Follow the Instructions

If the answer or instruction is too technical, it’s understandable and someone will clear it up for you if you point out the parts where you don’t understand, but make sure what you don’t understand is more than just a term, which you can look up on Google.

On the flip side, it is NOT understandable and people will ignore you if you don’t follow the instructions while you keep saying that it doesn’t work.

What Your Question Should Look Like:

• Here’s my problem and where/what it is.
• How do I solve it and what do I need to do or know?
• Which file should work with?
• Thank you (this would be nice)

This article was written by Chris Cagle.

Do you want to create a moderated membership directory that showcases your member’s information? Do you want it to be flexible, be very little work after initial setup, and use a world-class open source platform that you are already familiar with?

Your first thought might not be to use WordPress for such a project, but since it already has an extremely easy way to accept, moderate and update registrations – it’s a perfect candidate.

In this tutorial I will show you how I built a successful membership directory using nothing more than a standard WordPress 2.3+ install and 2 very powerful plugins. (more…)