The Older Geek

PollDaddy is one of the most popular (and fun!) web polling services on the Internet. Created by two blokes in Ireland, PollDaddy skyrocketed to stardom. Bloggers and online demographers love PollDaddy’s flexibility and nice look. I recently installed Polldaddy on one of my blogs and have been having great fun with it. What Would You [...]

Just recently, two pals of mine had their blogs hacked. Apparently, the hackers gained access through the website themes. The themes were either coded poorly or contained loopholes though which hackers could gain access. It’s a very vulnerable feeling to have your blog hacked. All your precious posts and comments can be wiped out in [...]

A reader asked me how to create those very convenient sub menu categories in the popular WooThemes Fresh News theme for WordPress. It’s actually very easy. Short version: The sub menus are automatically created when you attach posts to them. BUT before you can create sub menus, you must create main menu selections on the [...]

A reader once asked me about the concept behind the “sticky post.” A sticky post is an article, forum thread, or blog post that remains at the top of the website even after it has been outdated by new and fresh content. Like a sticky note on top of your computer monitor or corkboard, a [...]

I came across a slight conundrum recently when an advertiser wanted to display an ad in my blog’s sidebar, but requested that the ad appear only on my homepage and not on single pages. Hm. I’m sure there’s some great, mystical method in the vast, geeky WordPress universe where you can insert text or an [...]

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 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, [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]