WordPress Theme Design by Tessa Blakeley Silver My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book does a decent job teaching WordPress theme design. It walks you through wireframing, writing the HTML and CSS, and creating graphics, then building a WordPress theme from those pieces. It’s mostly WordPress-specific, addressing the WordPress Loop, template files, template tags, […]
Note: Backupify is no longer available for WordPress. Use ManageWP, Solid Backups, or another solution. You know it's important to back up your WordPress sites. Backupify gives you 2 GB of storage for free, and the Backupify plugin backs up your site files and database. You can back up multiple WordPress sites into a single […]
To keep improving my WordPress skills when I'm away from my computer, I listen to podcasts. It's difficult to teach the technical aspects of web design through audio, so many of these cover WordPress news and opinion, but a few have WordPress tips and tricks as well. These are the best WordPress podcasts I've found […]
WordPress In Depth by Bud E. Smith My rating: 3 of 5 stars Based on the title, I expected to be overwhelmed by the “in depth”, technical details of WordPress. Instead, I was bored by the first 3 parts, which are mainly aimed at novice WordPress.com bloggers, and explain posts, graphics, links, and content creation. […]
Update 10/2/2012: The Update Notifier plugin hasn't been updated since 9/20/2010. I've switched to WP Updates Notifier, a fork of Update Notifier that's being actively maintained. The Update Notifier plugin sends email notifications for updates to WordPress, and, optionally, updates to plugins and themes (the components that would normally notify you on the Updates page […]
I used the Export and Import tools in WordPress to move this site to new web hosts, twice. In the process, many of the images were broken. They didn't appear in the page, and I could see that the links all pointed to file names ending in 1, such as picture1.jpg, picture1.png, and picture1.gif. My […]
These are 10 free, popular WordPress plugins that I've found useful for most WordPress sites. I presented this list at the Kalamazoo/West Michigan WordPress Users Group on Dec 9, 2010. Please add your feedback and favorite WordPress plugins in the comments! Akismet Chap Secure Login Contact Form 7 FD Feedburner Plugin Google Custom Search Plugin […]
WordPress For Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the best WordPress book I’ve read so far; it’s great for beginners and intermediate WordPress designers. Lisa Sabin-Wilson, a well-known WordPress authority with firsthand experience, starts with the basics and builds up in each chapter. Beyond the essentials, there’s an appropriate […]
Sams Teach Yourself WordPress in 10 Minutes by Chuck Tomasi My rating: 2 of 5 stars Don't let the title fool you, because you won't learn WordPress in 10 minutes! Each of the 13 lessons takes 10 minutes, and at the end, you won't be able to say you taught yourself WordPress because it barely […]
Teach Yourself Visually WordPress by Janet Majure My rating: 2 of 5 stars This book is for absolute beginners looking for the most basic essentials of WordPress. If you've graduated from beginner to amateur or above, there's not much for you here. I also wasn't a fan of the cartoony robot pictures infesting the book. […]
Smashing WordPress by Thord Hedengren My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is for the experienced WordPress designer, not the beginner. Although it does touch on some WordPress essentials, it's mostly a how-to guide for creating WordPress themes and plugins, and generally bending WordPress to your will. The book is laid out well, with […]
Update: here's my latest list of WordPress podcasts. These are the best WordPress podcasts I've found so far. Please share your favorites in the comments!
