Accessing your WordPress-powered admin panel from your mobile phones may seem impossible — or at least hard to do — a couple of years ago, but with the help of native WordPress for iPhone apps managing and maintaining your site on-the-go will be as easy as it can possibly get.
IPhone users now enjoy the luxury of being able to maintain their blog on-the-go with the help of Wordpress for iPhone. The latest version (2.1) allows you to create posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod touch.
The user interface of Wordpress for iPhone is extremely intuitive, allowing you to access features with a few simple touches. Uploading photos, even photo-blogging extensively, will not be a problem at all because the app integrates nicely to iPhone’s camera and multimedia features.
Categories and tags as well as old posts and media will be accessible as well; they are streamed to you as soon as you configure your app. Since the Wordpress for iPhone works for both self-hosted Wordpress platform as well as free Wordpress.com blogs, so you will have no problem at all configuring the app to work with your site. It supports SSL-encrypted connection for streaming data, so you wouldn’t have to worry about security issues at all.
The Wordpress for iPhone 2.1 is now available on iTunes. You can also install the app on your iPod Touch, so get your copy right away.
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Akismet is a proven way to prevent comment spam in wordpress powered blogs. It does a great job of sifting spam comments and redirecting them to the spam folder.
There is still a problem with this. Though spam get redirected to the appropriate folder but it unnecessarily clogs our MYSQL database. Moreover there is always a chance that among the hundreds of spam comments there is one good comment and unknowingly you might end up deleting that good comment as well, while cleaning up the folder.
I did some analysis on my spam comments (wordpress dashboard > comments > spam) and found that they mostly originate from 2-3 common IP’s. If I can get some way to automatically delete comments coming through those IP’s my problem would be partially solved(other spammers would still be there…grrr).
Here is a simple SQL script I wrote to do this:
DELETE FROM `wp_comments`
where `comment_author_IP` = ‘66.159.18.9′ OR
`comment_author_IP` = ‘84.19.188.218′;
Keep on adding the spammers IP’s that you see from your wordpress dashboard.
Now you can set up a cron job that runs every night or every week or every fortnight (depending on your requrements). All your spam comments would get deleted automatically at a given interval.
Gozar!
You have a lot of blog posts on your wordpress self hosted blog where you refer to a particular URL. Now somehow that URL got changed and you need to edit your posts. To change all those URL’s, one way is to go one by one, open and edit 
all your posts. Not a smart way.
Other way would be to use MySQL and batch edit them at a click of a button. No need to be a techie, anyone can do this.
This was useful for me when recently I made a move from blogger to wordpress. There were about 25 posts where I needed to change a particular URL. Here is how I did and you can do this in under 5 minutes.
- Log on to PHPMyadmin. [Your webhost should have provided the URL to access it.]
- Select your database name from the drop down given on the left hand side.
- In SQL tab type UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, ‘OLD CONTENT’, ‘NEW CONTENT‘); and hit GO.
The above SQL statement replaces all the occurrences of OLD_CONTENT with NEW_CONTENT inside the content(post_content) of all posts(wp_posts). Make sure that wp_posts is indeed the name of your posts table. On shared hosting the name of this table is different sometimes.
For techies: Here is the syntax of MySql Replace function REPLACE(str,from_str,to_str)
After a lot of dilly-dallying, finally I made up my mind to move from blogger to wordpress. With the introduction of “Import” feature in wordpress, the process has become quite simple but there are some points to take care of. Here is a step by step process how I made a shift, hope it would be useful for you too. In my case I had to move from blogger custom domain to wordpress. ie from xyz.com on blogger to xyz.com on wordpress. [This tutorial will be useful even for those who are moving from blogspot domain to your own domain on wordpress]
[We assume that you have wordpress installed on the domain you want to move to]
Change your Name Servers to point to the new webhost.
Go to your DNS settings page and point name server to your new host. 
While registering, your webhost should have provided you with the name server info. If you are moving from custom domain name to wordpress with the same domain name, give ~ 24hrs of time for name server settings to propagate.
Switch to blogspot.com
If you are moving from blogger custom domain (and same domain) to wordpress, read on. Otherwise skip this step.
You need to switch to blogspot.com otherwise you would not be able to complete next step. 
Import all your blogger posts and comments with a click of a button.
Go to wordpress dashboard > Manage > Import. Click on blogger. 
On the next page you need to key-in your blogger account details to let wordpress access your blogs. Click on Import button. Your blog posts and comments will now get imported to wordpress.
Redirection through .htaccess file.
This is one of the most important part. Proper redirection ensures that you don’t lose the old traffic and Google juice. We assume that permalinks custom structure that you would be using is /%postname%/ [btw this is one of the most SEO friendly structures] Create a .htaccess file on the new domain.
- If you are NOT in the habit of fiddling blogger post slug after publishing: The world would be nicer to you.
Here is what you can do to ensure proper redirection.
RedirectMatch permanent ^/[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}/([a-z0-9A-Z_-]+) http://xyz.com/$1
$1 in the end takes anything that comes out of ([a-z0-9A-Z_-]+) and append to your new blog URL. - If you are in the habit of fiddling post slug after publishing (like me): Get ready to do some techie stuff.
If you tend to change the post slug in blogger after publishing, the above method would simply not work for you, as it didn’t work for me. Here is what I did that ensured 100% redirection. I used one to one mapping for the URL’s. I have tried to automate this process so that it would consume minimal time of yours.Download and install Notepad++
Go to blogger dashboard. Posting > Edit Posts. View Source.
Select All and copy paste everything in notepad++ window.
Find http://xyz\.blogspot\.com.*" and click find all. You will see the results in a window below. Copy paste from this window into a new one.
Find (.*)(http://xyz\.blogspot\.com.*")(.*) replace with \2
Find " and replace with blank [ie leave the replace field blank]
Find .*#comments and replace with blank [ie leave the replace field blank]
Find http://xyz\.blogspot\.com and replace with RedirectMatch permanent ^
Now Log into phpmyadmin of your new domain. Go to SQL tab and execute this query.
SELECT post_name
FROM wp_posts
WHERE post_status = "publish"
AND post_type = "post"
You will get all your posts slug. Copy paste them in notepad++ window and:
Find (.*) and replace with to http://www.xyz.com\1
Hereafter you need to manually place the URL in-front of the corresponding matching URL. I know this is kind of a boring stuff but this is closest to which I could reach and have tried to automate the process as much as I was able to.
Rest of the part should be no brainer.
Change the “Let Search Engines find your blog” under blogger settings to No.
Change the original feed address in feedburner to your new blog’s feed address.
Done. Enjoy!
While I moved from blogger to wordpress I took help from this post of blogbloke.com. I found there were some points that could be improved upon hence wrote a full post on it.
An excusive and exhaustive list of hand picked tools for bloggers. The inclusion of articles and sites would be on an ongoing basis. You might want to bookmark this for future reference.
Create a Back Up of your blog
Blog Back Up Online: A great free resource. Works for blogspot as well as wordpress users. 
Free Photos for your blog
Free Photos for blog from SXC One of the best source for royalty free photos.
Free photos for blog from istockphoto 
High quality free photos from HP 
Huge list of free photography sites
Free icons for your blog
Free Icons from UserInterfaceIcons 
Web2.0 like free icons from FreeIconsWeb 
Create a free logo for your blog
Create those 125*125 ads free
Image Editing
To enlarge or shorten image use the ‘Stretch and Skew’ option present under ‘Image’ in our very own MS Paint (Windows user 
)
Track your website visitors in realtime
With maps.amung.us you get to see exactly where your site visitors are from – live! These maps update themselves on your site without having to reload the whole page
Check your website rankings on major search engines, the easy way
Google Position Checker Simply Enter a URL and get its current position on Google Search Engine.
Page RankChecker
Pagerank Checker Tool in over 700 datacenters You can check your blog’s PR across 700 datacenters. Handy tool during those freaking PR updation days.
How to check fake page Rank Check if the Google Page Rank for a particular site is fake. This can be especially useful for those who are into buying and selling domain names.
Site Statistics Tools
Sitemeter: Simple and nice interface. 
StatCounter: Similar to sitemeter but have an advantage that you need not show it’s icon on your blog which is mandatory in case of sitemeter. 
Google Analytics: Best, but for geeky guys. Otherwise all the options might confuse you. 
SEO for Firefox by Aaron Wall: Quickly check your Page Rank, Yahoo Links, edu links, Alexa, DMOZ status, BOTW and what not. Highly recommended. 
Grammar Checking Tool: Good writing creates an lasting impression. Don’t let your bad grammar let you down. If you are not sure about grammar skills. Check these blogs.
Check for speeelling and grammar mistaked 
40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation – Dumb Little Man 
Find out who is hosting a website
whois.sc The best service of all. You can even drill down to find how many other websites are hosted by this person. 
Who is Hosting This? Nice intuitive and easy to remember name, incase you forget the one given above. 
Find out how a website is made.
Web Technology Profiler Will tell you the technology used to create a site. 
Test your websites in diferent browsers and mobile phone
Test your web design in different browsers – Browsershots Nice tool to check the layout of your blog in different browsers and their versions. 
Check your site on mobile phone 
Check your Robots.txt for errors
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml Excellent tool to check and validate your robots.txt file. Very Impressive. 
Web Directories
DMOZ: Open Directory: Considered to be one of the best web directories. Only negative point is the moderators are very slow to respond. It can days weeks even months before your site gets included. 
Free Directory List:Contains exhaustive list of free web directories.
Free Websites Template
http://www.interspire.com/templates/ 
Determine your internet connection speed
http://www.computers4sure.com/speed3.asp?Sp=379.4 
Download entire website on your computer
Webaroo Download entire website on your computer. 
Learn blogging.
Problogger A great source to learn about blogging
Daily Blog Tips Again nice blog on blogging. Daniel- the author is always ready to help you(even on IM’s) 
Yaro Starak Go over any ‘A’ lister’s blog, you will find them recommending his blog mentoring program. For sure, he must be doing something right.
LearnPHP
Learn PHP:PHP For the Absolute Beginner
For Blogspot Bloggers
Some useful tips to increase your traffic 
Recent Comments Widget For Blogspot Users with Source Code
Web Hosting Coupons
Best Web Hosting Discount Coupons
Email Address To Image Converter
Convert your bots readable address to human readable address and avoid spam Must have for every blogger. You have to give give away your address some or the other time on your website. Finally do away with those (at) and (dot)
WordPress Add-In
125 x 125 advertising plugin for wordpress: Not so talked about. 125*125 banners are hot and the best plugin to cooly manage them.
Adsense
A nice list of adsense Alternatives If unfortunately you get kicked out of adsense or denied entry into it.
Should you find a tool/site worthy of being included above please mention in the comments below
You can add me here on StumbleUpon
Here, I would like to share my experience of finding and setting up my blog on my web hosting service provider.
1) Choosing the host:
Since the start of my blogging activities I have followed Digitalpoint Forums religiously, which in a way have immensely helped me in choosing my blog host. I found the reviews for dreamhost web hosting more or less good all over. With features like 500 GB of disk storage on sign up increasing by 2GB every week, 5TB monthly bandwidth increasing by 40 GB every week, one free domain, unlimited domains and subdomains (that can be hosted), very less outage time. It took me no time to choose this as my preferred choice of Web Host.I registered with dreamhost on 11/Dec/07, luckily that was the last day when they allowed $97 discount for the new members. Now the maximum discount offered by them is $50.
2) Wordpress Installation:
Within half an hour of subscribing and making payments, I received emails detailing about email and FTP services. Then came wordpress installation part, dreamhost offers a very simple ‘one click installation’ for wordpress(along with other installation options like forums). This can be done either in the root folder eg: ReviewOfWeb.com or you can create a wordpress folder of your own for eg: ReviewOfWeb.com/wordpress. Unless you intend to put your blog itself at the subdomain level, I would suggest you to stick with root folder only and not a seperate wordpress folder ( because of some security issues that comes along with it)
3) Choosing theme:
WP provides a number of built-in themes( through the presentation tab) or through http://themes.wordpress.net/. Other than these, you can get zillions of themes for a google search on “wp themes”. I suggest if you are a newbie to blogging stick with themes provided by WP, they are tested for IE, Firefox layout and other possible problem areas.
4) FTP client or Web Ftp:
FTP stands for File transfer Protocol whereby you can transfer your files to the web host. There are step by step instructions in the mailer from dreamhost to accomplish this task. You have two options here, either download any FTP client or use the web option provided by dreamhost https://webftp.dreamhost.com/ . I prefer the latter just because its simplicity.
Thats it! You are all set to make your mark on web. Enjoy Blogging.
Note: You can use the promocode HIGHESTDISCOUNT1 to get the maximum possible discount of $50 on dreamhost.
