The Wordpress Guru is morphing into The WordPress Wizard. Effective this evening, this page will redirect to http://www.thewordpresswizard.com. All the posts from guru are already there and so much more! I invite you to check out our new home and while you are there, sign up for WordPress Wizard newsletter!

Look just to your right and you will see a new poll.  Each poll will be up for 7 days, which means a new poll every Monday morning so if you want to see the results, check back on Sunday evening or very early Monday morning.

Please vote and I will have comments on the outcome of each.  Let me know how you like polls by leaving a comment.

It looks like we are settling into our new home here at our new hosting company.  The last week has been spent making sure things are where they are supposed to be and that everything works.

The next step is to get the newsletter signup available.  That will be within a few days so stand by.  That’s the last piece of the puzzle before we start adding lots of new things for you.  Thank you for your patience.  I’ve heard from many of you who have been and continue to be patient with this move.

A funny thing happened on the way to the new hosting company. The site was transferred but the domain name was not pointed yet. This is the intermediate stage when you must check to make sure everything works. Only then can you point the domain name to the new host with any confidence.

So - the entire site was there and it displayed except for one thing. The posts didn’t display. Instead there was a cryptic message saying, ‘Oops - you are looking for something that isn’t here’. WHAT? The header, sidebar and footer were fine. I knew the database was there because the categories in the sidebar were there and they are contained in the database. Besides, I looked at the database and the post records were there.

It was time for a note to support. The message I got back was that the support person saw everything ‘fine’. I fired back an e-mail telling him that it was NOT fine - the posts were not displaying. In return he said that I had SEF URLs and I would have to turn them off in order to see the posts before the domain was pointed. Huh? What in the world are SEF URLs?

I puzzled over that for awhile until I suddenly knew what they are - Search Engine Friendly URLs. But how could I ‘turn them off’ if I didn’t know how I had turned them on in the first place? Then it struck me - it’s the Permalink Structure! It’s that very important option in WordPress that makes the post titles mean something.

As soon as that light turned on, I decided to take a chance and point the domain name to the new host. You are now reading this at the new hosting company and all is well.

So - if anyone talks about SEF URLs in reference to WordPress, you’ll know what that means. If Permalink Structure is Greek to you, we’ll talk about that shortly. Look in Options in the dashboard and you will see Permalink Structure. Yes - it’s important. It’s what makes your post titles search engine friendly.

No - not as far as you are concerned, but WordPressGuru is moving to a new hosting company this week.  During this time you might find the site available one minute and not available the next.  I apologize in advance for that inconvenience but we are running up against limits at the old company and the need to grow is great.  I’ll let you know as soon as the site is stable again and thank you for your patience.

When you install WordPress there will be one category. Its name is ‘Uncategorized’ and unless you change it, every post will go into that category by default.

First, let’s get rid of that word-with-no-meaning, ‘Uncategorized’. Login to your Administration Panel and click on Manage and then click on Categories. Click on the ‘Edit’ field beside the category name. Enter a new category name and ’slug’. Give this category name some thought because it will become the default. That is, if you forget to check a category, this category will be used automatically. We’ll add new categories shortly, but this is the one to think about for now.

Enter the category name and ’slug’, if you want one. The slug is the link title of your your category and is separate from the name of your category. For example, if your Category is named General and the slug is named Miscellaneous, your General category will be located at yourdomain.com/wordpress/archives/category/general/. Click on ‘Edit Category’ to save your changes.

Adding new categories is easier. Simply look on the right side of your screen while you are in Write from the Admin Panel. You will see the word Categories with a + or - next to it. If it shows a +, click on the + sign to expand the item. You will see a box with the clickable word ‘Add’ next to it. Add as many categories as you want but make them meaningful to the subject of your blog. You can change or delete categories in the Manage, Categories window.

Categories are cool because they help your reader find posts on a certain subject without wading through the whole blog to find them. If your reader wants to see every post related to one subject, he can simply click on that category in your sidebar and see all posts filed under that category.

You can create a subset of categories under a larger category and we’ll talk about that next. Until then - start creating your categories!

As 2006 comes to a close and we look forward with anticipation to 2007, think about those resolutions that you won’t keep. My friend, Jill Koenig, has a way to keep those resolutions. Turn them into GOALS! Jill is The Goal Guru and she has written a new book called New Year, New Life: How To Make 2007 your Best Year Ever!

I urge you to visit her site, http://www.goalguru.com, and grab a copy of her book. Here is what Jill has to say about goals,

“The purpose of setting Goals is to help us stretch and grow beyond
where we are today, to live a life that is fulfilling beyond our wildest
dreams, to bring our visions to fruition. Goals are meant to provide
us with direction.“

As entrpeneurs, we need to set our goals and see them clearly. Jill’s site and book help us do that. A note: the link in this article is not an affiliate link so don’t think I’m promoting to make money. I am not! I believe strongly in goal setting and want you to believe in it too.

Obviously, the video is not up yet.  I have had issues with my video recording software but in the meantime there have been many requests for a podcast rather than a video.  Many of you have pointed out that a podcast will make it easy to follow along with your own project while a video requires both listening and watching.

So - podcast it is.  Look for it soon - this time I promise that it will be sooner rather than later.

Has everyone had time to check out the problems you might encounter when installing a new theme? I’ll leave this theme up for another day to give you more time to see what I mean.

Let me emphasize that this will NOT be a problem if you are putting up a new blog and don’t have posts yet. However, if you do have posts and you change themes, check every post and make sure your links still work.

The new theme I’ll put up tomorrow will point out another problem but one that is easily fixed if you look for it.

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By now you have no doubt seen the defualt theme that comes with your initial installation of WordPress. Here is a screen shot of it so you won’t forget.

This default theme has some options like changing the header color and font color. Notice the difference between the original pictured above and the colors I chose - at the top of the page.

This is a simple change to make. After you are logged in click on Presentation and then Header Image and Color.

When you click on Upper Color, Lower Color or Font Color, a color picker will pop up so you can simply click on the color you want. No hex color codes embedded into the HTML or anything complicated.

When you get it the way you think you want it, click on Save. If you don’t like what you picked, just click on Revert and it will be as it was before you started picking new colors.

This is a change to the default theme. Next time we will install a new theme. Until then - change your default theme as many times as you want. Have fun!

Just a reminder - take my survey and tell me what you’d like to see and learn here.