Setting Up Wordpress

This post was created as a response of a reader question - how we can get rid of the date of a post, and what is a "calendar".

So I do my best to respond, and I intend to explain the best practice of the general settings of a blog with emphases on permalinks.

Note: It is clear that my response is based on be personal experience and my way is not the single way...  so I bet that talking with a lot of bloggers you will get a lot of other ideas and techniques as well.

I already stated in other posts that  Wordpress platform is blessed with a huge amount of functionality which is coming from a variety of sources:

• The plug-ins
• The theme itself
• The widgets
• The design as a whole, details beyond the theme functionality
• The general settings, and the settings of plug-ins

There are so many possibilities, but the cold hard truth is that some parameters can contradict each other, so sometime we don't have a glove fits all, and we must take one case at a time.

I have had a big surprise loading the last version of Wordpress... which is not compatible with "Tweet this" plug-in. I spent a lot of time with this simple bug until I was able to determine the source of errors... and so on.

Note: People are talking a lot about monetizing Blogs. In a nut shell, monetizing is part of the above classification. In addition of having good content which will attract viewers, the design must have the readers/customers in mind: their needs, their habits; must be user friendly, SEO friendly... so any itty bitty piece of knowledge, and any twist counts.

General:

it is a place to fill in: Blog's name, Tagline of the Blog, URL address of the Blog, Time and Date format and so on.
It is trivial but the date format will appear under line of Title, in this case "July 9, 20011"

What you can do is

• unmark the first bullet which is the default
• mark Custom line where you can delete the year  symbol, exactly like you see in the next picture. I am not doing this but I notice some Blogs with this modification

Note:
I don't think hiding this date is a great idea, the system itself don't let us un-mark all the possibilities... for a reason. So to completely get read of that date, you must go in one .php and alter this. Again I don't recommend, and if you want to do it I strongly suggest that you have to know some  .php, have an .php editor, always copy the original and keep it, then make the changes and replace the original.
All those precautions are necessary because it is extremely easy to mess up a .php file, you need to at least know to read and interpret this language... to be on the safe side.

Writing:

In this section I modify:

• Size of the post box (in the editor) - I use 20 or 25 lines
• Update Services - When you publish a new post, WP automatically notifies the sites from update services, the default is very small, I have a long list up there which is almost like the list from ping-o-matic and
• I live the rest with the default

Reading, Discussion, Media, and Privacy:

It is up to you, it is self explanatory, the default is good to have it.

The Calendar is a widget which we use to put in the right or left sidebar, it will visualize when you write your posts in which month. In the example, in Aprill 2011 on 9, 18, 20, and 29 I write my posts.
You also can scroll to see other months.

Note:
Based of the theme you use, you have it already as a widget, and all you have to do is to drag the Calendar into sidebar, or you have to load a plug-in to have the calendar if the theme don't offer this widget for you.

WP Content Management System
Wordpress is not only for Blogging, it really is a CMS, and the diversity of functionality is impressive. You will find out what you can do with WP in addition of creating Blogs.

WP Email for a Specific Domain
I have had a question about setting up an e-mail for a domain in Wordpress. So I try to respond in a post, a comment is to restricted for the answer.

Wordpress Plug-in Part 01
Being and open source, WP is enhanced daily with new plugins and themes. So when we think that our Blogs are stable, new ideas and functionality via new plugins is added... as we speak.

Wordpress Plug-in Part 02
This post is dedicated to give you a solution if a server crush or other calamities destroy your Blog. I add some miscellaneous plugin topics as well.

Wordpress Help
Wordpress platform is well established now, but some professorial help to get better is still a need, so I present sources of knowledge written by successful bloggers and Web Site designers.