If you’ve ever visited my author site, you’ll see a little block in the sidebar that contains fun sex facts.  The cool thing about that block is that the facts rotate with each page refresh.  Woot!

Today, I’ll discuss two different plugins that allow quote rotation and another that allows images to rotate.

First up: Quote Rotator

From the Wordpress.org Site: Creates widget for adding quotes (or other content) on the sidebar. Content will rotate through. Adds section under Manage tab to create and edit content.

The interface is easy to follow and simple to use.  The main management of the Quotes or “Quotes Collection” can be found in the Manage sub-menu.  The system allows the adding of quotes, their source along with variables such as viewable or hidden.  All options are found on the single Management page, which is nice and keeps you from running all over the place to get things just right.

Two booty shakes for Quote Rotator!  (_!_) (_!_)

But, Celia, what about images?  Ah, we’ve got something for those too!

Introducing…Image Rotator!

This plugin allows you to specify images that should be included in the rotation along with where said images should link to if someone clicks on the image.  Tres cool, yes?  Put this bad boy in your sidebar with your book covers and you’re golden!  The interface is pretty straight forward as was the Quote Rotator which makes this a fairly simple plun-n-play plugin for Wordpress users.

Rotate away!

Celia

Another question from Jeanne and I’m sure others of you out there have this same question.

You can login to wordpress.com to work on your blog in one of two ways:

1) Go to www.yourblog.wordpress.com/wp-login.php

2) Add the Meta widget to your blog and use that link to get to the above address each time.  The Meta widget has a Login/Out link along with a few other little tidbits that are already pre-coded within the widget.  To add it, go to Design > Widgets.  Click “Add” on the Meta widget and then click Save Changes.

Hope that helps!

Celia

Shhh…  No laughing.  All ranges of techno-scared persons are welcome here.  Even those who don’t know quite how to use photobucket.

So, last lesson we discussed how to put a linkable image in your Wordpress sidebar and Jeanne asked how to upload images to photobucket.

Here we go….

1) Register and confirm subscription to photobucket:http://register.photobucket.com/?ref=homejoin

2) Login to photobucket via the upper right hand corner login area at photobucket.com.

3) After logging in, in the upper center of the screen, you’ll see a box with the title “Upload Images & Video”.  Click the “Choose Files” blue button.

4) Navigate through your computer and select the image you’d like to upload and click Open. Photobucket will take over at that point and upload the image.  The page will refresh and you’ll see a thumbnail of your image below the “Upload Images & Video” box.

5) Surrounding the thumbnail, you’ll see a few different options on what to do with the image or how to link to it.  Your options are as follows:

• Email & IM: If you click the link within the box next to this option, the link will be automagically copied for you so that you can paste it into an email or instant message program.
• Direct Link: If you click the link within the box next to this option, the link will be automagically copied for you so that you can paste it into your coding.  If you’re using my code in the previous lesson, this would be the link you copied.
• HTML Code: If you click the link within the box next to this option, the link will be automagically copied for you so that you can paste it anywhere html code is accepted and the image would be linked to the original image at photobucket.
• IMG Code: If you click the link within the box next to this option, the link will be automagically copied for you so that you can paste it anywhere BBcode (bulletin board code) is accepted and it would display the image only.

So, if I were to link to my banner stored on photobucket, the code would look like this:

<a href=”http://getcesigned.com”><img src=”http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x126/celiakyle/getcesignedbanner-1.jpg”></a>

Tada!

Next up, a question about rotating image plugins!

Celia

Jeanne asked how she could put a picture in her wordpress.com sidebar and I’ll gladly answer her today.

Note:  These instructions work for BOTH a wordpress.com blog AND a self-hosted wordpress site.

1)Upload your image somewhere.  Either to your host space via your wordpress installation or to somewhere like photobucket.  But, it MUST be uploaded somewhere for this to work.

Got that done?  Great.  Step two.

2) Login to your site.  Once logged in, navigate to Design > Widgets.

3) Along the left hand side of your screen, you’ll see a bunch of widgets/items with descriptions.  Each little block does something different based on the description shown.  “Pages” gives you a list of pages, “Archives” gives you a list of archives, etc.  You want Text.

4) Search until you find the Text widget and then click “Add”.  By clicking Add, the Text widget will pop over to the right hand side of your screen.  Yay!

5) Click Edit on the Text widget on the right hand side of your screen.

6) The widget will expand to give you room to type.  In the first box enter the title of the widget (this will display as the title of this area on your website), title it whatever you’d like.  New Releases, Books, etc.

7) Here’s where we get techy.  In the second, larger, area, put the html code to call the image.  I’m going to show you how to insert an image that is linked to a specific place on the web.

First, the part that tells the internet that we’re dealing with a linked item be it text or an image:

<a href=”http://getcesigned.com”>

This code MUST ALWAYS GO FIRST before a linked bit of text or an image.  Notice that my link is wrapped by quotation marks.  This is also very important as it’s telling your browser where the text/image is linked to.

Next, we’ll call the image:

<img src=”http://www.celiakyle.com/pornwithaplot/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/kksmall_135.jpg”>

This says “hey!  put up an image and here’s where you’ll find it!”  Again, anything that is a link ie. beginning with http is in quotations.

Now, we’ll put the period on our bit of code:

</a>

And that’s it!  Together, it looks like this:

<a href=”http://getcesigned.com”><img src=”http://www.celiakyle.com/pornwithaplot/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/kksmall_135.jpg”></a>

And in action, like this:

I like to think of code as a paragraph…

We start with the first sentence…

<a href=”http://getcesigned.com”>

Put in some descriptive filler:

<img src=”http://www.celiakyle.com/pornwithaplot/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/kksmall_135.jpg”>

and end it with a bang:

</a>

Now, if you want to do “special” things with this, you could also center the text/image in the sidebar by putting <center> before everything and </center> after everything.  Order is important and if you don’t put those two bits of code before and after EVERYTHING in that little box, it’ll be fudged up.

So, that’s the basics and if you want something you can easily copy and paste into your widget, look below:

<a href=”http://replaceme.com”><img src=”http://replaceme.com”></a>

Have fun!

A lot of wordpress blogs/sites (and blogs in general) fall victim to spam and the icky, annoying comments they leave on posts.  One nearly built in way to avoid the yuckiness that is spam is by using Akismet Spam Blocker.

Akismet is auto-installed with every new wordpress installation.  It’s like magic!  *poof* It’s there.  Unfortunately, it’s there, but needs a little bit more techno-goddess help to get going.

So, first, let’s gather our techno-goddess magic.

1) Go to wordpress.com and sign up for an account.  Just before completing sing-up, it asks you if you want an just an account or a blog as well.  You want just an account.

• Once logged in, do the following

In the upper right corner, hover over My Account and click Global Dashboard in the drop down menu.

In the new screen, look all the way to the right and click on Profile.

Just below the title “Your Profile and Personal Options”, you’ll see a sentence that says:
Your WordPress.com API key is: 0ae8blah80ad13. Don’t share your API key, it’s like a password.

Copy Your API KEY!

We are now done with wordpress.com.  Forget you ever signed up because all we need is the API key.  Yes, dear readers, we’ve used them.  But I swear, it’s okay. 

2) Go to your website dashboard.  Usually via www.yoursite.com/wp-login.php and login.  Once logged in, do the following:

• Look to the upper right corner of your screen, you should see a set of options.  Click Plugins.
• There, it will give you a list of plugins.  Green highlighted plugins means that they are active, white or unhighlighted plugins are inactive/not in use.
• Click ACTIVATE on the Akisment plugin.
• The page will refresh and you’ll see this message:
  Akismet is almost ready. You must enter your WordPress.com API key for it to work.
• The portion of the sentence that says “enter your WordPress.com API key” is a link.  Click it!
• In the next screen, you’ll see an entry box, put your Wordpress API key into that box and click Update Options.

Voila!  You are done and are now Spam Protected!!!!!!!!

Have any questions?  Leave them in the comments and I will answer them asap.

Celia

With every new website comes a set of frequently asked questions.  Today, I’ll be addressing inserting a picture into posts/pages.

So, lets get to it!

Obviously, the first thing we have to do is go to Write > Page (or Post) so that we have somewhere to upload the image to.  When you do that, your screen will look similar to this:

(Click Image for larger view)

Now, just above your text edit area, in the upper right corner, is an area that says Add Media:

You’re looking for the first icon that represents a picture.  Click on that icon and it opens a new window similar to this:

You want to click the Choose File to Upload button.  This opens a window that allows you to browse your computer for the image you want to upload.  Once you find the image, click it and then click okay, the website goes to work, uploading the image automagically.

After it’s done, you get a screen similar to this:

First, I’ll explain the numbered areas of this screen:

1) Title:  You can change this if you’d like, but it defaults to a variation of the file name.

2) Description: You can edit and add to this.  I usually leave it blank unless necessary.

3) Link URL:  Your options are None, File URL and Post URL.  You can have the image linked to any of those options.  My normal choice is None, however for this walk through, I chose File URL.  Why?  Because what you see in the post is the thumbnail (small) version of the image and by giving that image a link to the File URL, you’re able to click the little images and open them up to their actual size.

4) Alignment:  Options are None (what I’ve used today), Left, Center or Right.  Choosing one of these options tells the text in your posts to “wrap” around the image wherever it is.  Look closely at the icons they show you and you’ll see exactly how your text will shape around your image.

5) Size:  Is your image big and you only want a smaller version to go up?  Choose thumbnail or Medium.  If it’s okay to post in the size that it is as uploaded, choose Full Size.  For this post, I chose thumbnail.

6) Insert into Post:  Means exactly what it says.  After choosing your options, click the button and your image will appear.  If you want to move it, simply drag and drop the image as necessary.

Now, you’ll notice in the third image, there was also a blue circle indicating “Browser Uploader”.  Sometimes, the normal “Flash Uploader” doesn’t play nice with internet explorer.  If something isn’t working right, please try the Browser Uploader.  Nine times out of ten, you’ll be able to use that method.

There you have it!  You should now be able to upload an image like a pro.  If you have any additional questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll answer ASAP.

Celia