There are many tools available for you to write blog posts on your PC. In this article I picked up Windows Live Writer because

• It is Free (even many others are free like Zoundry Raven)
• It is faster
• It is more user friendly
• It has got many third plugins
• It has got theme support (where you can live preview your blog)
• A free product from “Microsoft”. Lol yeah!

So first you need to download and install Microsoft Live Writer from here (and for those who love offline installers like me here is the link).

Lets begin installing. In the mean time, open the admin panel of your blog. Go to Options > Writing Settings

Make sure XML-RPC is checked which is under Remote Publishing. Save your settings.

Now lets start with the Windows Live Writer. I hope it is already installed by now. There should be a window that would be asking you for which blog service do you use. Select “Other blog service” and click Next

Now add your blog writing your blogs URL followed by your admin username and password. Then click Next

The Windows Live Writer will not try to connect to your blog and validate your username and password to set up your blog.

You will be prompted to create a temporary post to detect the current theme for Live preview. In our case, I selected No.  Now you should see something like this

That brings this to an end. Windows Live Writer is now connected to your blog. Simply write a new post, click publish and see the magic.

Pagination on blogs is quite in common. But an AJAX powered pagination on a cool themed blog is the apple of my eye. In this tutorial we are going to see how to change your old styled pagination into an AJAX powered dynamic pagination.

In this tutorial I assume that you have basic knowlege of editing HTML, PHP and Javascript. I have used jQuery for handling ajax and the modified code for pagination from Lester Chan’s WP-Page Navi

The tutorial will consists of creating a basic pagination using PHP, jQuery and editing some template pages. Make sure you backup your ooriginal theme before trying this.If you arent able to follow the tutorial download the zip file at the containing the required files. (including css style).

Step 1

Firstly, open up the index.php and/or home.php if it exists. Wrap the div that holds all the posts with a div of id #ajaxcontent. And add <?php pagenavi(); ?> just before the end of the content div.
Will look something like this

<div id="ajaxcontent">
<div id="content">
<?php if (have_posts()):
   while (have_posts()):
      the_post(); ?>
.......
.
.
.
.
<?php endwhile;
endif; ?>
<?php pagenavi(); ?>
</div> <!-- end #content -->
</div>
<!-- end #ajaxcontent -->

Step 2

Create a new folder called plugins in your current template’s directory. Download the zip package containing all the files. Copy the pagenavi.php and pagenavi.css file into the plugins folder in your current template’s directory.

Step 3

Now just copy everything inside the #ajaxcontent wrapper(Make sure you dont include the ajaxcontent wrapper div too.) and create a new file called wp-ajax-post.php in your root directory and paste it there.

Step 4

Add this code on top of wp-ajax-post.php

<?php
require ('wp-blog-header.php');
query_posts('paged=' . $_GET['p']);
$paged = $_GET['p'];
?>

Step 5

The last thing to do is, open functions.php in your template directory and include the pagenavi.php plugin like this

<?php include("plugins/pagenavi.php"); ?>

So that was the tutorial, check out the working example/demo on the home page of my blog MyGeekpal

Download Ajax Pagination Files

Yoast (@yoast)

Yoast is a blog written by Joost de Valk. Joost de Valk is known as a WordPress Guru and learn his cool SEO Tactics for wordpress. This blog can bring you the best from wordpress.

PlanetOzh (@Ozh)

Written by Ozh RICHARD, The guy who has written dozens of plugins of which most popular like Admin Drop Down Menu and contest winnin  g like Who Sees Ads. This guys has many resources and articles on his blog to check out.

WPCandy (@wpcandy)

Brings you best of wordpress themes, artivles, tutorials, etc.

WP Hacks (@wphacks)

WP Hacks was the website that I used to visit when I was learning to create wordpress themes. The website brings great resources like theme hacks, plugin hacks, guides, tutorials for SEO and latest wordpress related news.

WpRecipes (@catswhocode)

Another website like WP Hacks but here I have seen some cool tweaks exclusinve on this website which aren’t found anywhere else.

WPZOOM (@WPZoom)

As the logo states, not the largest collection though but the colletion is great. All things at one place.

WPTavern (@wptavern)

WPTavern brings you latest news directly related to wordpress, along with interviews, meetups, and a special area where you can ask any of your doubts to the professionals.

WPEngineer (@wpengineer)

I guess the name is quite self explaining, wide range of tutorials and resources for wordpress

WPCULT (@wpcult)

Another wordpress tips, tricks, news and resources blog.

WordPress Garage (@miriamschwab)

Tutorials and articles associate to wordpress.

Bonus Sites

FUN with WordPress

WPInformer

The theme is incorporated with various features listed below

• Syntax Highliter Integration
• Carousel
• Gravtar Support
• Widgetized
• Custom Theme Options
• TweetMeMe Ready
• Lightbox Integration
• In Built Advertisement Support
• Automatic Post Thumbnails
• WordPress 2.7 ready

DEMO

Click here to view

DOWNLOAD

Click here to download (69)

Do take time and write a comment about the theme below.

Syntax Highliter Integration

TweetMeMe Ready

Customizable Options

Lightbox Integration

Gravatar Ready

Twitter Follow Me Button

Automatic Post Thumbnails

Demo

Click here to view

Download

Download (630)

License

Keep the footer links intact

When it comes to backup, thought my host provides me regular backup like most of the pout there, but I still backup my blogs on my own and sync them up to date. I feel this very convenient to keep all my blogs synchronized on my local computer. It makes me feel secure to have everything updated on my local PC. So basically I keep my local backup by, synching my blogs after every 2-3 posts. The main reason for doing this is I don’t have to download those large big backup files generated by the server.

Things to have in your Inventory

Before starting up, these are the things that you may require

Firefox 3.0 – Yeah you need this if you don’t have

FireFTP – So you have firefox like everyone does huh! Grab this extension that we need to synchronize all the image files

WP-DB-Backup – This plugin will help you get the fresh copy of your updated wordpress database

Lets get started – How to backup the Database

We’ll start off with the downloading the database as this is a one step method, next we’ll move on to synchronizing files. Activate the downloaded plugin. Click on DB backups in the sidebar under the posts.

You get to see something like this, Select all the tables that you want to add in the database and click on backup button

You will now get a link to your backup file. The backup is created somewhere in wp-contents folder. Simply download that file. You now have the backup of your database.

The next big thing – How to backup and sync files

This is what is somewhat lengthy process but easier though.Let us first create a new folder where we will be saving/synchronizing the blog. Now keep ot ready and open the Firebug Extension from the Tools menu in your browser. Connect to your website using FTP and navigate to the /wp-contents/uploads/ folder of your blog. Do the same with the local folders, I mean to say navigate to the /wp-content/uploads/ folder in your local sync directory.

Now click on the Tools button and click sync directories and subdirectories menu.

You will see some FTP activity going on in hte log and then you may see a dialog box like this.

Click on the Download button and then click on the Sync button. You will see some files get downloaded and that’s it, you get both the directory synched up to date.

This is what I do with all my blogs. Got a better idea? Please write below…