I’ve been using the Mystique theme by Digitalnature for my personal blog for a few months now and after many updates, it’s really becoming quite the all inclusive design. The one thing it’s missing is a great login that’s themed along with it. So I’ve taken it upon myself to create it. You will need to make  a small customization to the functions.php file for the theme but I’ll walk you through it.

Click to preview the full image

First you need to download the custom-login.zip file, unpack it, then upload the custom-login folder to your mystique folder. The directory is ‘/wp-content/themes/mystique/’.

Download custom-login.zip

Step two is modify the /wp-content/themes/mystique/functions.php’. You only need to add about 4 lines of code to the file so it’s nothing to major. Open the file you in your favorite text editor and look at the end of the file for:

[php]endif;
endif;
>[/php]

Paste the following code between the endif; statements.

[php]function custom_login() {
echo ‘ ‘;
}
add_action(‘login_head’, ‘custom_login’);[/php]

And there you have it, a custom login screen for people using the ‘Mystique’ theme. Thanks to Pro Blog Design for the great post about ‘Custom WordPress Login Screens‘

Updated: I have modified the Code Plugin I’m using so this code should work without error now. Let me know in the comments if you have any other issues. Thanks everyone for the help!

It took me a few days but I finally have my notes edited and formatted from the early morning speakers at WordCamp 2009. Due to the fact that I was working the ‘Smart Bar’ for the afternoon I did not get notes from the speakers that came after lunch but I did get Lorelle VanFossen’s Keynote address, Dave Moyer’s talk on using WordPress for media, and Jim Christian’s talk on SEO. I hope these help you out.

Overall I thought the conference went great! I hope that we can get this to be an annual event here in Phoenix. There were some great speakers, some big names in attendance, and it was a fantastic networking event for anyone that blogs, develops, or is just interested in the WordPress scene. My only regret is not being able to make PodCampAZ the following two days. I’ll save that one for next year.

Download my Phoenix WordCamp 2009 notes on Google Docs

8:37AM: Just waiting for the event to start. Look at @ChurckReynolds

8:45AM: Were just given the 15 minute warning!

9:05AM: Phoenix Wordcamp has a Google Wave going! Just search for ‘with:public wordcamp’

9:07AM: Alon takes the state and announces a Sold Out event! wOOt!

9:25AM: Lorelle VanVossen is about to take the stage to give the Keynote – All About WP. (http://lorelle.wordpress.com)

Lorelle is talking about how to make “Your blog work for you” using the future post features.

Showing people how to use the ‘Press This’ option in WordPress to post articles you find in order to help you add original content based off your reactions to other articles you find online.

Will post the details, properly formatted so Lorelle doesn’t get angry, later.

9:55AM: Lorelle just finished up a great keynote giving her tips on blogging with WordPress.

10:05AM: Dave Moyer takes the stage talking about WordPress as a Multimedia Platform

Don’t worry, my notes will be in one big downloadable section after I get home to format them tonight. It’s all moving so QUICK!

10:20AM: Dave just finished up a drive by of multimedia information that was almost hard to grasp so quickly but got some good information from him. We’re about to hear from Jim Christian on Search Engine Optimization and WordPress.

10:37AM: Are you on the White Hate, Grey Hat, or Black Hat list of SEO?

I have to sign off for a bit. I am going to be taking my turn at the ‘SmartBar’ here at WordCamp Phoenix. If you are here at the event, and are looking for help with WordPress or just want to get some insight on a topic, stop on by from 11am – 12pm and 1pm – 2pm and I will be there!

]]> http://www.chriskdesigns.com/live-from-phoenix-wordcamp-2009/feed/ 1 http://www.chriskdesigns.com/3-things-to-do-with-a-new-wordpress-site/ http://www.chriskdesigns.com/3-things-to-do-with-a-new-wordpress-site/#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:26:01 +0000 Chris K http://www.chriskdesigns.com/?p=338

So you’ve got an idea and you are going to start a blog. You’ve dug through the different blog platforms and landed upon Wordpress. Once you either get your Wordpress.com blog running, or you have installed Wordpress on your server, you will no doubt be ready to start typing away. That’s great! Before you start publishing your award winning content there may be a few things you will want to take a look at to get your Wordpress site looking like it’s a step above the rest.

Setup your user profile
By default a Wordpress installation uses the name ‘admin’ and that crazy password that get’s emailed to the address you provided. If you don’t change this, all of our future posts will be attributed to ‘admin’. Once you get logged in with that password, you will want to go to the ‘Users’ menu from the left bar in your Dashboard and select ‘Your Profile’. Here you can change your username to start.

Using ‘admin’ can be a security danger as well since it’s the default username and will no doubt be what people attempting to gain access to your site will try. The next section that I recommend you customize is the ‘Nickname’ field. Yeah I know it’s required, but what you type here can be used in the next section of ‘Display name publicly as’ can use your nickname. This is what will show when you publish a post.

Past this change, I only recommend 2 more alterations on this settings page. The ‘Biographical info’ and update the password so you don’t have to remember that crazy one. The Biographical info will be used on some themes that include this at the bottom of a blog post written by you. A note on the password, keep it secure. A combination of case sensitive letters, numbers, and at least one special character (the ones above the numbers) should be sufficient as long as it’s no shorter than 8 characters long.

Define your categories
Your categories are what is used to help a visitor filter out what they would like to read about. Using descriptive and relevant categories will help not only your visitor but you as well. In my opinion it’s best to keep posts attributed to only a single category.

To help you keep your categories list minimal and clean, before you even write your first post, create a list of 3-5 categories that you will likely be writing about. Remember, you aren’t limiting yourself because you can add categories later. By adding some categories now, you won’t get caught making a huge list of categories without realizing it. It’s easy to do this if you add new categories with every new post. If you want to somehow relate posts, use ‘Tags’ instead. Categories are defined within the ‘Posts’ menu in the Dashboard.

Determine your Permalink Structure
We have all been to a blog that, when visiting a page, the address bar looked something like http://somedomain.com/?p=34. Not only is this not descriptive, but it’s not user friendly, and not SEO friendly.

I prefer to use Wordpress’ built in ‘Day and Name’ or ‘Month and Name’ however some people will use the ‘Custom Structure’ and only use the post name as the structure. This is all fine and well, but my reason for including the date in the permalink structure is for usability. If someone finds my posts via search, I would prefer they know when the post was published before visiting and since the search will show this URL, the will know if this content may possibly not be relevant anymore. You can update this by going to the ‘Settings’ menu and choosing ‘Permalinks’.

So these tips should help you get your site configured the way you want it from the start. These are not only important to help your viewers but it’s important to do this before the search engines start crawling your site. I hope these help and good luck with your new Wordpress site!

After a lot of work, legal paperwork and tons of emails, I’m very proud to say we have confirmed a date and officially have a venue and information for Wordcamp Phoenix 2009!

Venue: Arizona Grand Resort, 8000 S. Arizona Grand Parkway Phoenix, Az 85044 (venue info)

Date: Friday November 13th – Time: 8am – 5pm

The venue is beautiful with easy to access, being right off the I-10, within a few miles of Sky Harbor Airport, and is conveniently located down the road from where PodCampAz and the Az Entrepreneurship Conference are being held.  A continental breakfast, full lunch provided by GoDaddy, event t-shirt and door prizes will be provided to those who Register for Wordcamp Phoenix.

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