It was also WordPress’ 7th Birthday and there was a big cake again at Automattic headquarters!

Update: announcement on WordPress blog for WordPress RC-1

• You can upgrade your WordPress install under Tools > Upgrade. Make sure you backup your files and database first!
• You can see the full list of releases in the WordPress Archive.

3 Google Analytics Tips

1. Make Sure Google Analytics is installed.  It’s the baseline tool in the industry when it comes to tracking visitor traffic.  It’s free.  It’s also fairly easy for someone who “does web stuff” to setup so make sure your webmaster (even if that’s you) have it setup.
2. Learn how what your traffic means. Congrats you’ve set up Google Analytics but make sure you understand what’s going on.  Bounce rates, Top visited content and popular keywords provide you with important information on what visitors to your site are looking at as well as how they are finding you.
3. Plan your strategy. Use what you’ve learned to plan your blog articles and website content.  If you find you are being “Googled” for an undesirable term that isn’t related to your products or services (In the case of Marni’s law firm, they may come up for “digestive problems antacid” since they deal with food poisoning) so go back and adjust your content.

Tutorial How to install Google Analytics in 5 Minutes or Less

Video Google Analytics Setup

There is a comparison of the two at the WordPress.com site because people ask this question quite often.

Today we’ll go through how to create an RSS feed to save your twitter stream for the upcoming SXSW conference:

When folks start out with Twitter, they often start by using the web interface. As their needs grow, they begin to look for other tools to manage their “Twitter lives” and ahem, “Twibes”.

Say Hello To Tweetdeck

Eventually, people find Tweetdeck. This is a great desktop application which allows you to sort people you follow on Twitter into columns. You can also create custom searches here and follow the discussion. Conference hashtags are also another popular thing to put into Tweetdeck.

Missing Tweets

Looking for something you said last month on Twitter? You’re not going to find it searching on Twitter’s page at http://search.twitter.com. Twitter does not store Tweets in their search for more than 7 days. If you have the specific URL to the tweet then you can see it.

This has caused a demand for ways to backup or store tweets.

Searching for Tweets

You go over to http://search.twitter.com
You do a search. In this case, I am going to do “#SXSW” for the upcoming SXSW conference
and we can see I have a list of tweets

Capturing Tweets in RSS

One handy way to store Tweets is by using the RSS option.
When you do a search in Twitter like we just did, to the right you will see the little orange RSS icon

Capture the RSS Twitter Feed

When you click it, you will get a screen of RSS.
No worries.
Just copy the url at the top.
In this case, http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23SXSW
We’re going to put this into our RSS reader

What The Heck is RSS?

I’m going to share Common Craft’s video, “RSS in Plain English” here so we’re on the same page about RSS

Adding Your Twitter Search To RSS With Google Reader

Ok, now that we know what RSS is, a very popular RSS reader is made by Google called, “Google Reader”.
It’s free and you can use it here http://google.com/reader
If you already have a Gmail account, you are ready to go with Google Reader

Twitter Search Meet Google Reader

Once you’re signed into Google Reader, you will see in the upper left hand corner, “Add a subscription”

Add a subscription

Click it and you will be presented with a box to fill out.

Enter Your Twitter Search

Here I’ve added in the url I got when I clicked on the RSS icon from Twitter search

It’s Alive!

We can now see there are 10 new items in our RSS for that Twitter search!

Keep Your Tweets

When you click to view the RSS feed, you can see the details of the tweets.
You can now search for them
Make notes about them
Share them
and most importantly, keep them around!

So with that, enjoy and look for me at SXSW!
I speak on Friday, March 12th at 2pm, “How Sci-Fi Shapes The Internet” and then I’m free to attend sessions, discussions and dinners! yay!

Monday night, ShareThis released new functionality to their ShareThis button, one of the first social media buttons available to bloggers and website owners. By adding a snippet of code, ShareThis makes it easy for your visitors to email, tweet and share your content. You also get traffic information.

I just updated my ShareThis button which now supports multiple icons so you can individually list email, Facebook, Twitter, Digg and ShareThis as seperate icons! Before, it was sort of confusing and you had to receive a secret email from ShareThis.

Not anymore! ShareThis is rolling out the code tonight to all accounts!

And I’m going to show you how to get it setup in this tutorial.

Visit ShareThis.com

http://sharethis.com
Click, “Get The Button”

Choose ShareThis Breakout buttons aka “Mulitple Icons”

Select, “Multiple icons”

Select your platform

Select the location you will be embedding the ShareThis button
In my case, I will select, “WordPress”

Generate the code

Click, “Get The Code”

Grab the code

You will see a screen like this.
The top code goes into your header.php file in your WordPress theme between the <head> and </head>
The bottom code goes into your single.php and/or page.php WordPress files based on where you want the buttons to show up.

I like my buttons at the top so let’s see how this works!

Edit Your Files

I am using Filezilla to access my WordPress files via FTP.

WARNING ONE
- Backup your files before you start editing your WordPress theme. It will save you a lot of headaches later on.

WARNING TWO
- If you use the built in “Editor” in WordPress and make a mistake, there is no undo so I highly encourage you to use a text editor like Edit Pad Lite (PC) or TextWrangler (Mac) along with an FTP client when making changes to your WordPress theme.

Get to your WordPress theme

To get to your WordPress them, you want to drill down. This is shown on a host that supports cPanel
Go to: public_html > wp-content > themes
and select your theme

Inside you will find the header.php and single.php files
Your file names may vary. Check your theme documentation

WordPress theme directory

This is a classic example of a WordPress theme directory.
Once inside, we can see that many of the common files to create a WordPress theme are here including:
page.php
single.php
header.php
style.css
search.php
archive.php
index.php
footer.php
sidebar.php
functions.php
404.php

I have several additional files for page templates I’ve created (I love to use Google Docs to embed forms in my contact pages!) plus some additional templates that came with the theme.

The only one’s we’re touching today are header.php, single.php and page.php

Open header.php with text editor

Here, I’ve right-clicked on the header.php file within Filezilla. Since I’ve already associated it with my text editor (in this case, Edit Pad Pro since I’m on a Windows 7 box and purchased the Pro version), the file will now launch for me.

View the header.php file

Grab the ShareThis code from the top box

Code will go in the blank area before </head>

Code inserted!

Save the file

Upload via FTP

Grab the code for single.php from ShareThis website

Open up single.php

Here’s single.php in Edit Pad Pro

“Reading the tea leaves” – single.php code

Same code but on the front end of WordPress

Code inserted!

Time to save single.php

Ta Da! There are our buttons!

When making a purchase at Freshworkshops, we use Paypal. Paypal allows for secure transactions without the need to for you to give your credit card number on the internet.

If you want to use a credit card, Paypal supports that too!

The Paypal Button

Click on the button to select the item you want to purchase. You will then be taken to the Paypal check out window.

Paypal Checkout Window

At the Paypal checkout window, you will get a screen like this.

You have two choices for checkout:
- On the right side, you can sign into Paypal and complete your purchase
- On the left side, you can complete your purchase using a credit card

Click on the “Continue” link on the left that comes after the following text, “Don’t have a Paypal account? Use your credit card or bank account (where available.)”

Complete Purchase With Credit Card

You now have the opportunity to complete the check out process using your credit card.
Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover accepted

Fill out your information as you normally would and your transaction will be processed

Volia! You’re done!

Flickr just announced this as a new feature!

I created a video tutorial and a step-by-step to complement the instructions from the Flickr website.

1. Sign into your Flickr account at http://flickr.com
2. Go to You
3. Got To Your Account
4. Go To Extending Flickr
5. Scroll down to Your Blogs
6. Select Edit
7. Select Add Another Blog
8. Select Twitter from the drop down
9. Select Next
10. You now need to sign into Twitter at http://twitter.com
11. Select Go To Twitter To Authorize
12. Done!

All attendees get 50% off February’s Live WordPress training.  It is a 4 week workshop that give you time to learn.

Many people are not sure what WordPress is. They think it’s a blog while others think it’s something you install onto your computer.

WordPress is an open source application to run blog and websites. You install WordPress to a hosting account and connect a domain name so you have a unique presence online.

Getting Started

• WordPress For Beginners
• Ditch Your Blogging Training Wheels

Setting Up Your WordPress Site

• How To Install WordPress On Your Site – WPBeginner
• Installing WordPress – WordPress.org

Plugins

• All-In-One SEO Pack
• Audit Trail
• Page Links To
• My Link Order
• My Page Order
• WP iPhone Touch

WordPress.org Resources

• WordPress Forums
• WordPress.tv
• WordPress Documentation

Unofficial resources

• Lorelle
• WPBeginner
• Smashing Magazine

WordPress Tools

• Filezilla – FTP Client for PC and Mac OSX
• Edit Pad Lite – Text Editor PC
• Text Wrangler – Text Editor for Mac OSX

Domain Name Registration

• GoDaddy.com

Hosting

• Rochenhost
• Hostgator
• Bluehost

Themes Free

• List at WordPress.org
• 100 Amazing Free WordPress Themes for 2009
• 40 Awesome and Fresh WordPress Themes

Themes Premium and Commercial

• List at WordPress.org
• Thesis
• Studiopress

Maintaining WordPress

• 13 Vital Tips and Hacks to Protect Your WordPress Admin Area
• WordPress Upgrade Preparation Checklist

Development

• WordPress Developer’s Toolbox
• WordPress Theme Cheat Sheet For Beginners
• WordPress Cheat Sheet PDF

Think Outside the Blogging Box

• 21 Popular Brands Using WordPress
• 15 Unconventional Uses of WordPress in Action
• 17 Popular Universities Using WordPress

Today, we will go through the steps to upgrade your WordPress blog.

In this example, my blog is on version 2.8.6

Steps To Upgrade To WordPress 2.9

1. Verify your version

It matters what version you’re on.  Most people are running a branch version of 2.8 (2.8.4, 2.8.6).  If you are running something older such as 2.6, 2.6, 2.5 or shudder 2.3, you should refer to the upgrade information

2. Backup your database and files

If you are using a host that provides you with Cpanel, it’s very easy to make sure your database and files get backed up by going to files>backup and selecting the both for download.  Hosting companies that offer Cpanels as a part of their hosting packages are HostGator, Rochenhost and Bluehost.  GoDaddy, Media Temple and Network Solutions do not.

3. Start upgrade

If you’re on version 2.8 or later, you can do an in-place upgrade right from WordPress!  The actual upgrade takes less than 10 seconds…even if you have 5,000 posts.

Bill, MeetMeWhereIAm

This site is about faith and religion. Bill has done a great job using images to convey emotion, perspective and has done a nice job with his WordPress widgets on the site. I’m awarding Bill BEST SITE for this workshop session!

Janine, Omsah Blog

This blog has made steady progress. Janine is incorporating more photos and starting to link to other sites. Congrats to Janine for rolling up her sleeves and launching her blog!

Velma, Nonprofitpal

This site is focused on helping nonprofits understand the world of technology as it relates to building a strong foundation of loyal supporters and empowering staff to reach volunteers and decision makers for funding. Velma has been putting a good amount of time into researching topics, linking up to other sites and connecting with the blogging community offline. Great job Velma!

Zanne, Zannedu.com

This site was launched as Zanne’s first WordPress blog/website. She initially put information about her career focus (social media) and her hobby (scrapbooking). Upon reviewing this, I recommended she put the focus on her hobby and then develop a second site just for her career as not everyone who likes scrapbooking would want to hire Zanne for her social media skills. Upon making these changes, the site content flows nicely now and Zanne can focus her energies for work and play to build up two great sites! Nice work Zanne!

Jacque, JacqueBona.com

This personal site is where Jacque shares her experiences about life, books and technology. She is a great writer and her posts truly draw you in and leave you thinking about parallels in your own life. Her recent post about the technology she used on a recent road trip to New York City with her husband was a goldmind of useful technology links on GPS, Kindle reading, Audible books, Sirius radio, iPhone apps and more! It sounds like this trip was much easier to complete since she had so much information at her fingertips! Great work Jacque!

Terrance, Brothatechblog

This new blog was setup to complete the workshop brothatechblog.com. Make sure to visit his current blog at brothatech.com as he has some great articles on technology with beautiful images complimenting his reviews and opinions.

How to get an awesome WordPress website

Want more hands on training for your blog? Check out our LIVE, 4 week course for WordPress!

Make sure you sign up for our mailing list to be notified of upcoming workshops!