*** From the Archives ***

This article is from August 6, 2010, and is no longer current.

Create Your Own Custom WordPress Blog

Press Release
Want to move past your own basic blog? Ever wonder how the big professional blogs handle such large sites with multiple authors? Whether you’re promoting your business or writing about your travel adventures, Head First WordPress (O’Reilly Media, $34.99 USD) will teach you not only how to make your blog look unique and attention-grabbing, but also how to dig into the more complex functionality available on the WordPress platform.
“My book will help give users more control over their web publishing,” says Web and User Experience designer Jeff Siarto. “We spend time dealing with WordPress as a content management system and the real-life work of managing a site on the web. It’s the next step toward Webmaster status.”
While reading Head First WordPress, you’ll learn how to customize your blog with your own URL and templates, embed video and audio, support multiple authors, and much more. By the end of this book, you’ll have a full-fledged website.
* Get your site up and running by setting up a MySQL database and creating configuration files
* Work with the WordPress platform to create posts and pages, learn the difference between tags and categories, edit content, moderate comments, and manage spam
* Explore how to extend WordPress with plugins and templates
* Convert custom designs (in HTML and CSS) into functional themes and use them in WordPress
Siarto continues, “I think many people are scared off by the PHP code they see and figure it’s best not to touch things. My book encourages users to ‘hack’ around in their WordPress themes to make custom changes and learn how things work under the hood.”

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