WordPress Online

I was somewhat hesitant to buy a tutorial book that had not been reviewed yet (this book is copyright 2010 and came out Dec. 09), but I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised. This book offers from-the-ground-up instruction with all the basics from how to install WordPress to customizing a template.

The author, George Plumley, has a pleasant style that is neither condescending to the newbie or goofy like I have found some of the “yellow books” to be. I haven’t found any fluff here, just solid step-by-step advice and lessons.

I really was just following along and not thinking about whether the book is “good” or “bad”, just going through it. Then, in Lesson 7: Working with the Text Editor, I found myself recognizing one of the many gems in this book. As someone who has struggled with more than one text editor until I found out that if you copy/paste from someplace else you need to get rid of the formatting first, I know that this author had the non-geek in mind when he wrote this. His advice is to open a text program such as Notepad and paste the text in there, then copy/paste from Notepad into the editor in WordPress and the excess coding will be stripped away. Now, this is basic information for a lot of people, but remember the first time you tried to figure out why that Word formatting kept showing up in your WordPress text editor? Yes, this author had that person in mind and gently drops in a paragraph with a couple of sentences in it addressing the problem and suggesting a solution.

I have hired a designer to do websites in WordPress for a couple of clients and I wanted to learn to do it myself. I am confident that I’ll be able to do it myself next time, thanks to the information provided in this book. The author spends some time going over some of the basics of site planning and organization, basic design, SEO, and backups. If you are a budding website builder, you’ll get a lot of time-tested information here. Yes, many books go deeper into each of these subjects, but for the person wanting to put their first site together or get a refresher on the basics, why buy another book if you don’t have to? There’s plenty of meat to digest here.

The CD is a great bonus, too.

If you have dabbled with WordPress but knew you were only scratching the surface, do yourself a favor and invest in this book. Certainly, there are those that will say that all of this information is available for free on the web. Yeah, but not in step-by-step form and not in a format you can carry along with you when you’re waiting somewhere or need to find the information quickly.

I don’t know this author, but I do know that if he writes any other books about a subject that I’m interested in, I’m quite likely to buy it based on my experience with this book/CD combo. I buy and read a lot of techy type books and if I ever owned a book that deserves “6 stars”, this is it. This is the gold standard by which all tech-related books should be measured for common sense writing style.
Rating: 5 / 5

I am just amazed at how thorough this book is, yet how easy it is to use and understand. Everything is in layman’s terms and shown, as well as having written explanations.

I was initially bummed at the price of the book but now that I’m using it I realize what an absolute STEAL it is at this price. I am SO thankful I found this guide.
Rating: 5 / 5

This “24-hour trainer” guide in how to optimize your WordPress page is not only incredibly helpful, but it’s easy to understand and follow along. I have been managing a WordPress site for about a year now, and while experience is always the best way to learn, this book will be a huge help for beginners. Those who have been maintaining a WordPress site might not be willing to splurge on this book, but I think even the most experienced WordPress bloggers can find value in what it has to offer.

For one, EVERYthing is covered in this book, even things you wouldn’t think of. The troubleshooting in this book is intuitive, and doesn’t necessarily reflect trying to fix technical problems. The author imagines a problem arising, and he addresses it.

Additionally, it’s not a complete bore to read as most of these technical books can be. It’s easy on the eyes, and you’ll want to try things out, even if you had no plans to do so.

It also comes with a DVD where you literally sit down and watch how these techniques are applied. It couldn’t be any more thorough.

Highly recommended!
Rating: 5 / 5

I should probably start off by saying that I’ve been using WordPress for a few years now, on four different personal sites, and countless others for friends. I’ve built a LAMP / WP server from scratch, and I’ve clicked “Install” in Fantastico, with everything in between.

I picked this up hoping for some quick reference guides for what goes where (e.g., what should be in wp-content, tinkering with the config files, etc.). However, that’s not even remotely who this book is for. Incidentally, that is NOT why I’m giving this a relatively low rating. The “24-Hour Trainer” wasn’t missed on me, and I knew this wasn’t WordPress Unleashed.

The first 27 (yes, twenty seven) chapters are aimed at people who have never used a CMS before, and would be baffled by one that’s well known for being intuitive and easy to use. There’s a chapter dedicated to embedding video, for instance. When there’s some talk of design and layout, the author recommends you hire a designer or ask the person who installed WordPress for you. This book is an exercise in taking simple “hand holding” instructions and turning them in to simpler “I’ll just carry you instead” chapters.

Once you cross that chapter, though, it’s apparently assumed that you’re more than comfortable with CSS, and magically know what to edit and where it lives in the hierarchy. Seriously, it’s the strangest and most useless transition I’ve ever seen in a book like this. It wouldn’t be that unusual if there was at least some foundation for this in preceding chapters, but there really isn’t anything between “You should hire someone to center your banner” and “Okay, now you know how to embed a YouTube video by clicking on the Embed Media icon. It’s CSS time!”

This book is fine if you have little to no confidence in yourself to read and understand the simple, plain English instructions on the WordPress site and that are built in to WordPress. Otherwise, you’re better off skimming over the documentation from WordPress and poking your head in to some forums if you run in to trouble.
Rating: 2 / 5

Wow! And Wow!

I’ve gone through the gambit of lots of beginner guides. I’m a fanatic about finding out how to do things.

I really had not expect to be so impressed and actually learn even more about [...] in such a simple matter.

Not only do they have instructions, a video to show you exactly what to do, but they also have these gray boxes throughout the book to highlight even more pointers that are cautions, tips, and more!

I would recommend this instructional guide. Now I won’t guarantee that you’ll learn EVERYTHING in 24 hours, but this book provides detail coverage of [...] with great resources inside to help you figure out the massive open platform.

Highly recommended for beginners
Rating: 5 / 5