Wordpress plugins and the rest

sanyuja said:

So I heard all the ga-ga over wordpress plugins and thought let me sport one too. I read the faq for adding a plugin and read the faq for uploading files and what not. All the answers say I need to enable file uploading under 'Options/Misc' and enable the plugin in 'Administration/Plugin'. My biggest problem is (which I haven't found an answer for) is I don't see the plugin menu or the options/misc menu at all! What am I missing?

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Are you logging into the WP Admin panel first? It should be available via http://<your.wp.url>/wp-login.php where <your.wp.url> would actually be replaced with the real URL.

sanyuja said:

I gave my username and password and it took me to the same menu which I was talking about earlier. There is no mention of plugin menu anywhere.

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OK, are you logged in as the admin user created at the time WordPress was installed or are you using a different login? If you are using a different login, then you might not have all the access rights that the admin account has. However, you should be able to login as admin and bump your own account up to admin level

Only other thing I can think of is your WordPress version. Which version are you running? WordPress 2.0 or something earlier?

Aha.

you're on wordpress.com, their free hosting.

from their FAQ .

How do I add my favorite WordPress plug in or theme?

Currently no additions can be made to your blog as FTP access is not allowed.

If you were to get an offsite hosting of wordpress, you can add themes/plugins. I don't know why they don't support it in the free.

here's a thread that you can use to make suggestions to them..

Link

sanyuja said:

Oh! Ok, I get it now. If I download the wordpress kit and self host it, then I get to use all the features, right? Well, I guess I should have read the faq properly. Thanks for the help, Towerkel.

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Yep, if you have your own WordPress installation, then you can install plugins and themes and the whole works

sanyuja said:

Thanks for clarifying that, Fahim. For me, blogging is more like a hobby. I am not intending to make any money out of this or attract customers or anything like that. So I really don't want to invest anything in this other than my time. I guess I will stick with the free blog that I have and may be think of getting a web host if I need it later.

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You're welcome To me, blogging is mostly a hobby as well - I just prefer to have the freedom to install what I want, when I want it after years of sticking with free hosts and being limited in what I could install/use However, there might be a few free hosts around who offer PHP and mySQL support now - I haven't looked around recently but there probably are. That would be all you'd need since the software itself is free. Something to think about

I played with Wordpress on one of my own websites. To find a suitable host, you need one which will give you at least one MySQL database. Most basic hosting packages allow this. Pay more, and you can have more databases - e.g. for blogs, forums, CMS, etc etc.

It's a good job most guys here don't want to make money from their blogs. It's a tricky thing to do. Lulu did something recently with published books created from blogs - they called it the Blooker Prize. Maybe that's the way to do it. This is one of my favourites: http://russelldavies.typepad.com/eggbaconchipsandbeans/ - I can't get over a guy writing about what is the most unhealthy breakfast I've ever seen. But it makes fascinating reading.

RobCurtis said:

It's a good job most guys here don't want to make money from their blogs. It's a tricky thing to do

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Actually, I would LOVE to make money with my blog. I had adsense for a while but I "made" about $10. My husband said I might have more luck with adsense if I had a website.

Yes, you might make more with AdSense if you had your own domain.

As much as I'd like to make money blogging, I've made the decision to stay ad-free. I couldn't endorse many of the ads that would show up. If I blog about a scam agent or publisher, what do you think AdSense is going to pop up? I've seen it happen on other blogs, and it's a very confusing message for those who don't know how this all works.

There's a message board that I help moderate that uses AdSense (these ads are pushed by the board software owner) and once in a while an ad pops up that's not exactly fit for our teenage visitors, if you get my drift.

I'm thinking about offering some items for sale to help defray expenses, but I'm under no illusion that even those will sell well. Both of my blog readers might buy 'em, and that'd be it! (LOL)

Yeah, while I'm sure all of us would like to make money with our blogs, it's a bit of a tricky thing. I don't like cluttering up my blog with ads either - probably a hangover from having been hosted with Tripod for so long So without Ads, the only other way I can think of is to get paid for blogging itself and while I do know that it happens to some people, I don't think I'll fall into that category So I might as well just enjoy my blog and not think about making money - but that's just me.

When I had adsense I found that it cluttered up my blog, that's part of the reason why I took them off. I think it just distracted from the content in that the ads were probably the first thing that people noticed. I couldn't find any way to put the ads on the sidebar without pushing all of the content way down the page, so I had to put them right under my bio.

I love what I write about, but there are times when I would like to combine what I love with earning a living. Call it a pipe dream but it's true. The only idea I could think of was adsense and since that doesn't seem to be working I'm kind of stumped.