The Older Geek

When we think of getting web hosting service, we almost always think of a WordPress blog or plain old website. But you can do just about anything when you have web hosting service: store photos and documents as backups online (although some hosts frown on this so be sure to check your host’s policy); blogs [...]

When I get a new computer or do a reformat, I have a little arsenal of favorite programs that I install almost immediately. And when I start up a new WordPress blog, I have a little arsenal of plugins that I install right away. Quite a number of bloggers (and would-be bloggers) have asked me [...]

WooThemes is having a terrific sale on their themes this weekend! I haven’t seen such a good sale. It’s a 5-for-1 sale– buy 1 theme for $70, get 4 more for free. I am a big fan of WooThemes, I use their themes on nearly all my blogs. I think they are of exceptional quality [...]

It’s a heart-stopping moment, when you get an email from one of your blog’s readers notifying you of “weird popups” or “redirects to other websites” when they visit your blog. Or, worse still, Google has emailed you informing you that they have blacklisted your blog and removed it from their search engines, due to a [...]

It’s becoming more common so you may have heard of it: someone’s WordPress blog was hacked. Usually it is by a spammer, who inserts images or code to spread the spam. You can protect your WordPress blog in numerous ways. One of the easiest is to hide your plugins directory. Plugins are wonderful little tools, [...]

I’ve already showed bloggers how to add a Twitter “tweet this” Button to their WordPress blogs. You can also insert the same button to a Blogger blog, too. Before we begin, you should backup your Blogger template. In case anything goes awry, you’ll have a copy of your old template to restore. Also, go to [...]

Twitter is my social networking app of choice. I wasn’t initially too keen on it; the thought of being bombarded with thousands of chattering socialites 24/7 made my head ache. But now, it’s grown on me. Sure, there is a lot of unnecessary drivel on Twitter, but I am able to tune most of it [...]

As much as many bloggers prefer the versatile WordPress as their blogging platform of choice, Google’s Blogger remains a very popular (and adequate) blogging platform, too. Unfortunately, Blogger hasn’t been exactly friendly toward other blogging platforms (WordPress users are routinely restricted from leaving comments with their WP url unless the blog’s owner “opts in” to [...]

The font in the WordPress HTML editor section is, well, dull. Courier and Arial are, in my opinion, lifeless and sometimes difficult to read. You can change the default font of the HTML editor quite easily. If you are unfamiliar with the WordPress HTML editor font, here it is: Changing the font is as easy [...]

Did you ever see a “dotcom” commercial that ran in the 90s? It showed a bunch of young people in their shop lamenting lack of sales for their hip new product. One of the young men had an idea– create a website and an online shop for the product. Next day, they check their orders [...]

Having tinkered with various blogging platforms, such as Blogger, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and others, I really like WordPress. The others certainly have their advantages, but I love WordPress because of plugins. Plugins have really made WordPress a terrific software suite. Not only is WordPress suitable for blogging, it is a superb content management software suite. [...]

Yes, you can ban certain viewers from your Blogger blog by banning their IP addresses. Now unfortunately, Blogger offers no native assistance for its users to ban unwelcome visitors. Your only choice is to ban ALL viewers from your blog, unless pre-approved by you (whitelisting). Unless your blog is a highly personal blog, this move [...]