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If you haven’t heard yet, version 2.2.1 of Wordpress is now available. It is a bug fix release for the 2.2 series which was released a month ago. Since that release, the Wordpress community has been improving small details and fixing bugs. Click here to see the full list of corrected bugs. Here are some highlights:

• Atom feed validation fixes
• XML-RPC fixes
• Widget backward compatibility fixes
• Widget layout fixes for IE7
• Page and Text Widget improvements

But 2.2.1 is not just a bug fix release, because some security issues came to light recently, which has made 2.2.1 a required upgrade. These vulnerabilities are addressed by 2.2.1:

• Remote shell injection in PHPMailer
• Remote SQL injection in XML-RPC
• Unescaped attribute in default theme

For the official post notice from Wordpress, click here.

Will you be getting Wordpress 2.2.1 pronto, not just for the bug fixes for for the security issues as well? Personally, I don’t think I’m going to worry about it too much right away. I will get 2.2.1 but it’s not on my top list of priorities right now.

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I’m so happy I switched to Wordpress, and I love all the plugins that are offered. Because my domain with Wordpress is still new, I’m installing new plugins and tweaking things all the time. The 10 plugins I am about to introduce to you are ones I use and love - and ones I know other bloggers use and love! Not all of these are installed on my blog, but some here you might be very interested in.

1. NoWWW - I have this installed on my blog and I found out about it on CourtneyTuttle.Com. This makes it so your URL never has the WWW included, and even if people type in WWW, they are redirected. This is so Google doesn’t double index your site and its pages; and have both the WWW and the non-WWW version. I really recommend this one!
2. Adsense - Another plugin currently installed on this blog. This is not one of those fancy Adsense plugins, this one is very simple. Whenever you want to place an Adsense ad in a post, all you do is click the Adsense button on the Write Post page.
3. Brian’s Threaded Comments - A lot of bloggers have this and it helps keep things a lot more organized, so I put this plugin on Super Blogging as well. Basically you can reply directly to a comment, and the reply appears right underneath, no matter how many other comments there are already. This is great for answering questions, so you don’t have to search for the answer through all the other comments. However, I’ve noticed it does mess up a couple of times and when someone leaves a reply to a reply, it just leaves an empty space (if someone knows why let me know please).
4. Related Posts - This probably would be one of my favorite. It’s not installed on this blog (yet!) because I’m having some trouble getting its installation script to work. But a lot of other blogs have this one and it’s very handy. Basically this plugin has a list at the bottom of each of your posts and links to other related posts, so the visitor keeps reading your blog!
5. Google Sitemap Generator - This plugin helps all your pages get indexed by Google, faster and more efficiently. Each time you add new content, the plugin creates a new sitemap for search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN to index your site. Also see this sitemap generator that makes a sitemap visible to people who visit your blog.
6. Akismet - If you hate to deal with spam, the Akismet plugin is for you! It comes as one of the default Wordpress plugins and all you need to activate it is your API key. I don’t have this one installed on my new Wordpress, but only because I haven’t had any spammy comments yet.
7. Wordpress Database Backup - Imagine if ALL of your content and ALL of your files are lost, and you can’t recover them? To avoid this horrible situation, I’d advise you to keep a backup regularly. This plugin helps you do just that.
8. Show Top Commentators - This sure is a plugin that really encourages people to comment on your blog. It’s a great reward to your readers when they comment enough so their name and their link appears on your list of top commentators. I don’t have this yet, but I’ll be getting it up real soon, so keep commenting!
9. Dofollow - This plugin encourages people to comment almost as much as ‘Show Top Commentators’. Basically it removes the ‘nofollow’ attribute from the links which makes them real to Google.
10. Contact Form - A blog without a contact form is sure to be doomed. If you paste your email and let readers contact you from there, that’s bad because a) you will get spammed and b) your readers are too lazy to take the time to go to their email and do that. Or at least I am. Right, this blog currently doesn’t have a contact form, but I’m getting this one up real soon!

Like I said, I don’t have all of these plugins installed on my blog, but they are all quality plugins that I am excited over and I WILL be getting. I thought I’d share them with you because surely some of these would be a great addition to your blog. If you know of any other interesting plugins you think I should check out for this blog, please leave me a comment and let me know! Or share your experiences with the plugins listed above

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I’m happy I switched to Wordpress for many reasons, but one of my favorite parts is the ability to write a post and decide exactly what date and time it will be published. This is called the timestamp feature, and I’m using it right now! In all honestly, I’m writing this post June 8th, at 3:30 PM. But it will actually appear on my blog in a few days!

I’m not a morning person, unfortunately. I stay up too late and sleep in too long. There is a big downside to this in the blogging world. Whenever I would make a post, it would be late in the day, and it would be much better if I could get it up early in the morning. But now with Wordpress timestamp, I can do just that! I write my posts the night or a couple nights before, and then I timestamp them to publish in the morning. It’s so helpful to a person like me!

Also, if you’re ever going on a trip and will be away for a few days or a week or however long (I’ll be gone on a trip from around the 13th-19th), you can write your posts in advance and set them to publish while you’re gone. People get annoyed with a blog that hasn’t had any new content in many days (I used to make that mistake all the time). But if I’m ever busy, I can count on the Wordpress timestamp feature to pull me through, as long as I write the posts early.

If you have Wordpress and you’re not using post timestamp, you’re really missing out!

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I just got a new plugin, and it’s called Brian’s Threaded Comments. Usually when a post has comments from numerous people and I reply, I have to address those people by name and reply all in one comment. With Brian’s Threaded Comments, I can reply directly, and my response will appear right under your comment you so won’t have to search

This plugin also allows more discussion throughout the comments, since you can basically comment on other people’s comments! I’ve seen threaded (aka nested) comments on other blogs before, and they’ve proved to be a big success and help.

One thing I don’t like is that when I replaced my usual comments.php file with the new one, it changed how my ‘leave a comment’ area looks. Of course, it’s not such a big deal, but the worst part is that now I have to sign in and leave my name and email with every comment. I used to never have to sign in, as it recognized me as the blog owner. I wonder if when I get my top commentators plugin that this will make any difference… ANYWAY -

If you’d liked to try this out and see it in action, just leave some comments Or, if you’d like to download this plugin for your own Wordpress blog, click here.

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Man, was I stupid when I first seriously stepped foot in the blogging world. I’ve been planning to write up a post with my top blogging mistakes for awhile now, and not hosting my blog on Wordpress would be first on the list. What was I thinking? I wanted to blog for free, that’s what I was thinking. I signed up for Blogger, which I now hate. But now paying 15 dollars a year for a Wordpress blog doesn’t sound all that bad. In fact, it sounds more than wonderful!

When I first began to blog, I didn’t care about fancy little plug-ins, better overall layouts, all the widgets, the better interface, or anything that Wordpress offered, really. And I also didn’t care to pay 15 dollars a year for full customization, because I didn’t see the point. Now I realize how stupid I was! Before I didn’t have money in my Paypal to buy the Wordpress blog with, but now I do. And now I really regret not blogging on Wordpress.

Here’s a tip for all you new bloggers out there, who have yet to make their blog: Use Wordpress as your host! Even if it takes you a little while to earn 15 dollars to buy your full customization (if you even need that), it’ll be worth it in the long run. Having Blogger is my biggest regret. I know I could switch (it’s possible, isn’t it?). I know it would be better to switch to Wordpress before my blog gets any bigger. But it’s just something I don’t know how, and don’t want, to deal with. What should I do? Wordpress is better in a million ways. But should I make the switch from Blogger to Wordpress, or should I stick it out with Blogger for years to come? What all would switching entail, and how would I go about it (as in, how would I get a www.MYBLOG’SNAME.com domain, etc.) Is it possible?

And if I DO make the switch, I’ll have a lot of questions and need some help along the way, so maybe you can help me for once. I’ll be hanging out in the comments section of this post.

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