As a writer, the thoughts and ideas that flit around your head are the most important things you own. Random thoughts become great works of art … or posts, and with your skill the most esoteric and specialist topic can bring knowledge to the masses. For every thought you have, there is a blog post or story to go with it. Sure you may not write a post about how it would be cool to play shuffle puck with superconductors, but it could be — and it would be such a good idea, and whoever invents it needs to invite me over to play. The worst enemy to a writer is not not having ideas, but losing them — you can always get more ideas, but there is no recycle bin in the sky where lost ideas go.

As a self-proclaimed writer and programmer, I always need new ideas, and as someone who has an insatiable need to know, my curiosity piques itself on the most esoteric of topics, but for years these ideas and desires would come, but they would be pushed aside if I had something more important to do; thus, countless golden ideas vaporized into the abyss as my mind moved from each “ooh shiny” thought to another. But I’m a writer, and my ideas are the most important part of me.

It was a losing battle for me. The evil empire of forgetfulness and sloth frequently defeated the kingdom of the idea in battle, but I decided to fight unfairly: I started carrying a notebook — specifically a moleskin one (caution: amazon referral link) — with me everywhere I go. Suddenly, I didn’t have to worry about forgetting my most ingenious ideas because I could just write them down. I no longer lay awake for hours at night just thinking about a thousand things because I can now just write them down and go to sleep secure in the knowledge that I can continue composing them in the morning.

Today these notebooks have been filled several times over, and their pages are filled with everything from website designs and programs to code, topics to research, movies to watch, recipes to cook, ideas for posts on my website, and to-do lists. My notebook has never let me down — although my pen often does. Now that you are officially a writer, do what a writer does and keep your thoughts alive. It doesn’t have to be a shiny new Moleskin notebook, even a $0.30 one from a corner store will work perfectly — although it will disintegrate from use, so go buy one, and you will see what a notebook means to you, and you will find that it truly is the most important writing tool you will ever own.

1. Go to start and either search for “notepad” or go to All Programs > Accessories
2. Right click “notepad” and select the “Run as Administrator Option.”
3. Once Notepad opens go to File > Open and browse to “C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc”
4. Set the file filter to “All Files”
5. Select and Open “hosts”
6. Edit it and save it.

If you get an error about it being read only:

1. Go to File > Open, right click the “hosts” file and select properties
2. Uncheck read-only at the bottom and click OK.
3. Click Cancel to go back to notepad”
4. Save it

TED talks tends to focus on the grand scheme of things, but this talk by Yossi Vardi talks focuses acutely on the local issues that plague many bloggers. The topic of this talk effects at least 50% of bloggers and all bloggers who care about the future of the world should not only watch this video, but also take immediate action. (If you are not in this 50% you should probably pass it on to someone who is.) Warning this video is not for the faint of heart.

It’s is nice to wake up once and a while to something this amusing in your feed reader isn’t it?

1. Pick an an interesting, significant topic.

   Too many times posts are done on something insignificant or unoriginal. It doesn’t really matter if you write a gorgeous tutorial or a powerful, inspiring and riveting essay if it just explains something most people already know about. Similarly, it doesn’t help to write about issues that very few people have an interest in unless you are writing it solely for your pleasure.

   The biggest problem though is when people write about general topics that they have no real knowledge of and don’t say anything new about. Most people don’t care what your position is on abortion, religion or politics if all you are going to do is repeat mainstream thoughts and party lines, so if you must rehash well-covered ground, make sure you do it better or more in-depth than what others have already done.

2. Pick a topic that isn’t too general.

   Unless you are writing a top 10 list, you need to make sure you don’t pick a topic that is so broad that you end up just making comments about a dozen different topics rather than a detailed discussion of one or two. The internet is full of broad and general information, so by focusing on specific topics you will be able to carve out your own niche.

   This is not to say you can only write about one topic, but you should only write about one topic in any given essay or post.

3. Once you pick a topic, stick to it.

   I beat this one like a dead horse. Don’t ramble. The law of averages suggests that you are probably are not good enough at manipulating prose to do it in such a way that people will enjoy reading it.

4. Introductions should suggest a purpose.

   If you aren’t writing for a diary, then you are trying to say something. Make sure you at least allude to this in your first paragraph. Don’t forget that the introduction is a sales pitch: it is where you show what you are going to talk about and demonstrate most of the points and conclusions that you will make. If the reader is interested after reading the introduction, they will read the rest where you explain everything in greater detail. Remember you are not writing a mystery novel, so don’t make your reader guess, and don’t go too far and explain everything in the introduction. Try to find a nice balance between giving it all way and keeping some mystery.

5. Each paragraph should be well developed with vivid and concrete details.

   On the internet, generalities are worthless because there are lots of other places where people can get specific facts about whatever they want. See what I mean? That last sentence was worthless because it was too general and stated the obvious.

   For other hints for working with individual paragraphs you can read about paragraph structure and paragraph style elsewhere on this website.

6. Use supporting evidence (facts, figures, examples, illustrations, and other details) to prove both the main point and all subpoints.

   Most likely you are writing for the internet, so while some people will take everything at face value, most will have learned that the internet is full of worthless and incorrect information.

7. Is the supporting material appropriate and have I named all of my sources?

   Never, never, never use photos, videos or quotes without attribution. It is just rude. Even if you just get pointed to something through another website is is nice to give them a little hat tip (literally just say “hat tip” and then link to the website) to show that you appreciate what they did.

   Also, make sure that the websites, photos and videos you link to are actually relevant to the topic and don’t “betray” any true feelings: if you are making a political post where you are taking a centrist point of view, make sure you link to both conservative and liberal sources.

8. Write for a realistic goal.

   This only applies to writings that deal with larger widespread issues. Unless your post is meant to be satirical, hyperbole will just make you sound unintelligent.

1. Open GMail, go to compose mail, select the “Rich Formatting” if it isn’t your default.
2. Open your WordPress Admin Panel, go to a new post, select the Visual Editor (you may have to turn it on under your user preferences)
3. Write your email in the WordPress Visual Editor, and embed the image into the new post (or just embed the image).
4. Copy and paste the “email” from your WordPress Visual Editor to your GMail “Rich Formatting” textbox.
5. Send your email, don’t save your post.

Easy as π, I would probably figured this out sooner if I didn’t have a hate-fest with visual editors related to the web. (Oh and this works perfectly in Firefox on Linux, so it isn’t a Windows/IE only trick.)

Include pages with posts in your stats.

1. Open stattraq.php
2. Find:
   global $doing_rss, $p
   Replace With:
   global $doing_rss, $p, $page_id, $pagename,
3. Find:
   

   if (($p != '')){
   	$p = intval($p);
   	$article_id = $p;
   }

   
   Replace with:
   

   if (($p != '')){
   	$p = intval($p);
   	$article_id = $p;
   }elseif (($page_id != '')){
   	$page_id = intval($page_id);
   	$article_id = $page_id;
   }elseif (($pagename != '')){
    $reqpage = get_page_by_path($pagename);
   	if ( !empty($reqpage) )
   		$article_id = $reqpage->ID;
   }

To add a list of all Pages that link to your site grouped by Website (excluding Google):
Open “wp-stattraq/reporter/summary.php”

Find:

<?php echo PrintTimestamp();?>
			</div>
			<div id="queryTerms">

<table id="referrersTable">
					<thead>
						<tr>
							<th>#</th>
							<th>Referrer</th>
							<th>Pages</th>
						</tr>
					</thead>
					<tfoot>
						<tr>
							<th>#</th>
							<th>Referrer</th>
							<th>Pages</th>
						</tr>
					</tfoot>		
					<tbody>
<?php
if($results){
	$i=0;
	foreach($results as $row){
		preg_match('/(http.*?\:\/\/.*?)(\/.*)/', htmlentities($row->ref), $matches);
		$ref_array[$matches[1]][] = $matches[2];
	}

				
	while( list($site, $pages) = @each($ref_array) ){
		if(strpos($site,'google') ==false && $site != ''){?>

			<tr class="<?php echo ($i % 2 == 0 ? 'even' : 'odd' );?>"><td><?php echo ++$i;?></td>
			<td>
			<a href="<?php echo $site;?>"><?php echo substr($site,0,50);?></a></td>
			<td class="right">

		<?php foreach($pages as $page){?>

			<a href="<?php echo $site.$page;?>"><?php echo substr($page,0,50);?></a><br/>

		<?php}?>


		</td>
		</tr>
<?php 	}
	}
}?>
					</tbody>
				</table>

If you don’t want the titles of posts to have the » character before them for SEO purposes just use:
< ?php echo trim(wp_title('&amp;raquo;',false), '&amp;raquo; ');?>

I was sick of my index.php being used to display pages, so I added the following to the top of my index.php to force WordPress to use single.php for all pages:

< ?php
if(is_page()){
include('single.php');
exit;
}
?>

I wanted to be able to use javascript in some of my pages so I added the following to my header.php:

<?php
if(is_page()){
$j = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'header', true);
	if($j != ''){
		echo $j;
	}

}
?>

Have you ever tried to validate your WordPress site to use with Google Webmaster Tools? It can be a pain depending on the way your permalinks are, and even if those don’t cause a problem when Google tries to go to a random URL if the header isn’t 404 then it fails. Normally I just picked an off-time and renamed the htaccess file to the same as the validation file, validated and then changed it back. Well not anymore. Just add the following to your theme’s 404.php page and you should be all set. This will allow it to work even if Google doesn’t check it for an hour or ten.
Obviously you are going to change the whole google23423423423423.html part to the filename Google gives you.

<?php if(strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'],'google234234234234.html') == false){
		header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found");
	}else{
		header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
	}
?>

< ?php
//Kinda obvious
$rf = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$rf = explode('/',$rf);
$last = count($rf);

//Filter out regular 404 that arn't old urls
if(is_numeric($rf[$last-1])){
	$post_id = $rf[$last-1];
}elseif(is_numeric($rf[$last-2])){
	$post_id = $rf[$last-2];
}

// No sense loading WP if there isn't an id
if ( $post_id ) {
	// Oh fine we will load wordpress
	define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);
	require('http://localhost/wordpress/wp-blog-header.php');
		$post = get_post($post_id);
	//Well hope it is the right post. If not, ohwell. We tried.
	if($post){
		//Lets get the new URL
		$new_link = get_permalink($post_id);
		//We don't want google to get angry with us.
		header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
		header("Location: $new_link");
	}
}
?>