Jamie Lynn Spears Fan Site » News From Other Sites

Post Videos from Your iPhone or iPad

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:57:24 +0000

Would you like to post videos to your blog while you’re on the go? Are you interested in a photography theme that’s also video-friendly? Well, look no further, because we have some news for you.

The VideoPress upgrade, which allows you to upload and embed your own videos on your blog, now comfortably handles videos from iPhones and iPads. You can shoot vertically or horizontally, and we’ll take care of rotating it for you so that your video looks great when it’s published on your site.

If you don’t already have VideoPress on your WordPress.com account, head on over to VideoPress.com, we’ll get you up and running in no time. And don’t forget to install the free WordPress App on your iPhone or iPad!

Duotone: Now Video-Friendly

If you’re a photoblogger, you’re probably familiar with the cool Duotone theme, which changes color to match the first image in every post and page. The big news is that Duotone now seamlessly supports VideoPress videos, so now you can engage visitors with photographs and videos!

Learn More about VideoPress

If you use VideoPress on your self-hosted WordPress site, keep an eye on the VideoPress Blog – we have some exciting annoucements coming out soon, just for you!

You can find more details about VideoPress by checking out the following resources:

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Import from Tumblr in 3 Easy Steps

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:57:16 +0000

We’ve recently noticed that a fair number of you have been bringing your tumblelogs over from Tumblr to WordPress.com using one of the variety of Tumblr to WXR conversion tools which exist on the web. We thought you would appreciate an easier way to import your content, so we bring you 3 easy steps to import your content.

Authenticate with Tumblr

To bring your tumblelog’s content to WordPress.com, head to Tools ? Import in your WordPress.com dashboard and look for the Tumblr importer. If you don’t already have an account here on WordPress.com then head over and sign up first.

Click the link to get started and then enter the email address you used to sign up to Tumblr, your Tumblr password and click Connect to Tumblr.

Start the Import

The importer will then fetch a list of your blogs and let you pick which one to import. Click Import this blog to get going.

Once you have started, the import progress will be shown on the import page and you will be sent an email when the import is finished. We try super hard to make sure that all your Tumblr content, including your Videos, are imported into your WordPress.com blog. Videos you had uploaded to Tumblr are imported into VideoPress and other embeds are converted to use shortcodes. Sometimes the importer finds an embed it can’t convert and a list of these is included in the import completion email for you to check.

If your Tumblr site has a custom domain (like you.com instead of you.tumblr.com), then you’ll need to disable the custom domain temporarily while the import is processed. You can do this by going to your Tumblr Dashboard, clicking on the Settings button and then un-ticking the “Use a Custom Domain” checkbox:

Then you’ll want to set up Domain Mapping on your WordPress.com blog so that your readers can use the same domain to reach your site as before.

Style Your New Site

WordPress.com supports Post Formats which allow you to distinguish between the different types of content you post on your site. While you wait for your content to be imported why not customize the design of your site by picking one of our post-format-enabled, Tumblelog-ready themes.

If you have any trouble importing your blog you’re welcome to contact support where one of our Happiness Engineers will be glad to help out. To learn all about WordPress.com’s features, we encourage you to check out our handy tutorial. We also provide comprehensive feature documentation at our support site.

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New Themes: Currents and Debut

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:57:16 +0000

Today, I’m excited to introduce the latest additions to our collection of premium themes.

Currents is perfect for news driven sites. The phrase, “less is more” couldn’t be more true. This clean and minimal design maximises your reader’s focus on the content. Having said that, the theme is packed with many customization options — a wide featured post slider, custom news areas, six alternative color styles, and more. Together, all of these features help you to control how to present current events you want to share with your readers.

Think your readers might check your site on a mobile device? No problem! Currents makes your site look great on an iPad, iPhone or any other mobile device.

This is not all about this great theme, Currents — so be sure to read about it on the Theme Showcase.

Next up is Debut – a beautifully designed theme by Luke McDonald of Press75.

Debut is a mobile-ready theme custom tailored to present your content in a professional and eye-catching manner. Five beautifully designed post formats provide you the flexibility needed to display media of all types. Musicians may be specially interested in the audio post format which expands into a multi-track playlist. Highlighting specific content couldn’t be easier with Debut’s Home page template which includes an innovative, customizable content slider as well as a featured area that can display in both grid and list styles.

Read about its features in detail in the Theme Showcase!

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Chrome Users: Try the WordPress.com Extension

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:41:53 +0000

Want to receive WordPress.com notifications instantly, even when you’re not on WordPress.com?

Add the new WordPress.com extension for Chrome and as soon as you get a new follower or a new like on one of your posts, a notification will appear in your browser:

Simply click the icon to view your latest WordPress.com notifications:

Start following new blogs without visiting WordPress.com

The Chrome extension also makes it easy to follow sites from your WordPress.com account by displaying a Follow button whenever you’re browsing a site that has an RSS feed.

Clicking the Follow button will add new posts from the website to your reader, and send you an email each time an update is published. (You can change your default email settings if you like.)

When you visit a WordPress.com site, you’ll notice that the extension icon will turn blue, but keep in mind that you can follow blogs on Blogger, Tumblr, and other services, too.

Quickly post cool stuff you find while browsing the web

Press This is a lightning-fast way to publish content on your blog without ever visiting WordPress.com. Click the WordPress.com extension, then select Press This whenever you find something on the web that you’d like to share on your blog, and a pop-up editor will appear:

Select the blog you’d like to post to, then hit publish to share a link to the site. Your blog will be updated, and you can continue browsing the web from wherever you left off.

If you’d like to publish an excerpt of text along with the link to the site, simply highlight the material with your cursor before clicking Press This:

And it will appear in the editor for you to publish along with the link:

We hope this makes it easier for you to share cool stuff on your blog quickly! If there’s anything you’d like to see in future versions of the extension, be sure to let us know.

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Your Stats Have a New Home

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:38:13 +0000

Are you addicted to checking your site stats? You are not alone. The stats dashboard has always been one of the most popular admin screens. It’s gratifying to know that people are visiting your place online.

With the WordPress.com front page evolving into a one-stop shop for posting, exploring, following and reading blogs, it seemed natural to put your blog stats there, too.

You’ll still find your stats in the dashboard for a while, but the My Stats tab on the WordPress.com home page will soon be their permanent home. We hope this makes it easier for you to keep tabs on your traffic!

If you’d like to attract more visitors to your site, check out these great resources on boosting your blog readership:

(Note to Jetpack users: Your stats will still be available in your wp-admin dashboard. However, you may still enjoy viewing your stats on WordPress.com.)

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Reblogging is Back!

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:34:48 +0000

As we mentioned last week, you can like and reblog posts directly from your reader, which displays a stream of all the updates published on all the blogs you follow from your WordPress.com account.

We’ve also brought the reblog button back to the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen when you’re logged into WordPress.com. Note that you’ll only see the like and reblog options while you’re looking at individual posts.

For example, you’ll see this on the left side of your toolbar while viewing http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/read-blogs:

And your toolbar will look like this while you’re browsing the home page of en.blog.wordpress.com:

How does reblogging work?

Reblogging is a quick way to share posts published by other WordPress.com users on your own blog. People have been reblogging others’ posts since blogging started, but our new reblogging system enables authors to retain greater control over their content.

When a post is reblogged, it shows up with a link back to the blog it came from, the first image in the post, an excerpt of the post’s introduction (if it contains text), and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains. It also shows any comments left by the person who reblogged the post:

Reblogs published on blogs you follow will also appear in your reader:

What happens when my posts get reblogged?

An excerpt of your post will be published on the reblogger’s site (with a link back to your original post), and you’ll receive a reblog notification in the post comments (you might need to approve it first):

You’ll also receive an email notification of the reblog.

Do I get credit when someone else reblogs one of my posts?

Absolutely! All reblogs contain a link back to your original post, so the more people reblog your posts, the more likely it is that you’ll attract new visitors (and perhaps new followers, too!).

What happens if I reblog a reblog?

If, for example, Stephane reblogs a WordPress.com announcement on his site and Lori reblogs Stephane’s reblog, Lori only re-publishes any comments Stephane made about the announcement. If Lori wants to share the original announcement, she should reblog the post from en.blog.wordpress.com, not from Stephane’s reblog. But if Stephane leaves a really clever comment, Lori might want to share it by reblogging his reblog on her site.

Can I edit a post I’ve reblogged?

You can go back and edit the comments you left when you reblogged a post, but you cannot edit any parts of the original post excerpt (including the post title). If you like, you can add categories or tags to the post. Reblogs show up under Posts ? All Posts in your dashboard, and they can be edited the same way you edit your own posts.

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New Theme: Newsy

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:29:39 +0000

It’s been an extra big week in the news ’round these parts, so much so that the launch announcement of our latest premium theme seems like an extra extra good way to headline our Friday.

Newsy is a versatile business and news-friendly theme that offers up to ten different layouts, four footer columns, custom link and accent colors, and a custom site header. Brand and content-focused editorial teams will love publishing with this theme.

Newsy: Home Page

Designed by Themify, Newsy comes with an impressive set of Theme Options that afford you a great deal of flexibility with how you choose to display your website. Easily control your site’s sidebar positions, home page and archive page post layouts, and navigation bar search box visibility.

You also have the ability to change your site-wide link and accent colors. A few quick adjustments via the options panel will truly have the effect of individualizing your site and making it stand out from the crowd.

Newsy: Accent and Link Color Examples

Up to ten different layouts in Newsy can be achieved by simply altering your widgets and Theme Options. A wide sidebar, narrow sidebar, and two mini sidebars come rolled into Newsy, as well as additional post display and sidebar alignment options.

Newsy: Wide Sidebar Left, Narrow Sidebar Right Option

All of this is controlled either from within Appearance ? Widgets or Appearance ? Theme Options. The goal with Newsy is maximum flexibility without the headache of manually configuring a thousand theme options. In this case we really can say that less—well, fewer (options)—is more.

Newsy is a premium upgrade for your blog at $85 for a lifetime subscription. Read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance ? Themes.

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Read All Your Favorite Blogs in One Place

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:28:11 +0000

If you feel like it’s a chore to keep up with all your favorite blogs, you can now read posts from all the blogs you follow (even the ones that aren’t on WordPress.com!) in one convenient place on the WordPress.com home page:

Your reader displays all the posts across all the blogs you follow in the order they were published, with the most recent content appearing at the top. You’ll see an excerpt of the introduction to each post, the first image in the post, and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains.

You can even like and reblog WordPress.com content directly from the reader (we’re working on bringing reblogs back to the toolbar!) using the icons in the top right corner of each post:

Whether you’re at the computer or using the WordPress app on an Android or iOS mobile device, having all the posts from the blogs you follow in one place makes it easy to find the updates that are important to you, and skip over the ones that aren’t.

Click in the toolbar at the top of any WordPress.com site (you must be logged in to see it) to add new blogs to your reader. For directions on adding blogs from Tumblr, Blogger, and other services to your reader, check out the support document on managing the blogs you follow.

Discover New Blogs, Too

To find some awesome new WordPress.com blogs you might like, check out the Recommended Blogs section of the reader:

Right now you can browse blogs in twelve different categories, and we’ll be adding more very soon.

Use WordPress.com as a Real-Time Information Network

If you want to see what people are saying about your hometown, favorite sports team, or a concert you attended last night, add any topic to your reader to create a stream of all posts published with that tag.

You can add as many topic streams to your reader as you like. You’ll notice frequent updates being published under general topics like “art” and “books,” but you can also add more specific topics like “Picasso” or “J. K. Rowling.”

Want less email?

Each time you follow a blog, new posts from that site will appear instantly in your reader, and you’ll also receive them by email. If you prefer to receive email notifications on a daily or weekly basis, or not at all, you can change your default email settings from the bottom left corner of your reader. You can also change your email notification preferences on a per-blog basis.

Find Friends on WordPress.com

Want to see if any of your Facebook and Twitter friends are on WordPress.com? Give the Friend Finder a try:

So, how will you use the reader, and what can we do to improve it?

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Join Our Censorship Protest!

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:21:17 +0000

Have you been paying attention to all the hubbub online about the proposed U.S. legislation (SOPA/PIPA) that threatens internet freedom? I wrote about it last week over on WordPress.org, but the gist is this: there’s a bill in the U.S. Senate that if passed would put publishing freedom severely at risk, and could shut down entire sites at the whim of media companies. Fight for the Future created this nifty video to sum it up better than I can.

On January 18, 2012, sites all over the internet will be blacking out to protest and try to mobilize more people to speak out against this bill coming up in the Senate next week — S. 968: the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — in an attempt to let U.S. lawmakers know how much opposition there is. WordPress.org, Wikipedia, and even WordPress.com VIP I Can Has Cheezburger? will be participating in the blackout to raise awareness and spur you to action.

Here on WordPress.com, we want to participate as well. Freshly Pressed will be blacked out during the strike. Sorry to take away your daily fix of yummy web content, but this bill threatens to do that on a much wider scale. You don’t want that, do you?

More importantly, we are making it possible for you to participate in the protest. There are two options: a “Stop Censorship” ribbon and a full blackout. The blackout portion will be in effect January 18 from 8am to 8pm EST, while the ribbon will be displayed until January 24. Here’s how to join in:

Go to Settings ? Protest SOPA/PIPA in your dashboard.
Select if you want to join the blackout or show a ribbon.
If you choose to join the blackout, you can edit the message that will be shown on your site during the blackout.
Preview what your protest will look like.
Click “Save Changes” button to activate your protest.

That’s it! Easy-peasy activism right at your fingertips.

The “Stop Censorship” ribbon will display in the upper corner of your site and links to americancensorship.org. It will display until January 24, 2012 (the Senate vote date).

If you choose to do the blackout in addition to the ribbon, then we will black out your site from 8am to 8pm EST along with the official strike. You can customize the message that will appear on your blacked-out site to tell people why this issue is important to you. Your site will return to just displaying the ribbon after the strike is over.

I hope that a significant number of you on WordPress.com will join in this protest. Publishing freedom is a right we must protect.

And one last pitch: whatever you decide to do about your site, please take a few minutes to head over to americancensorship.org and take action. It only takes a few moments of your time to be an agent of change!

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New Theme: Fresh & Clean

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:04:22 +0000

Today we’ve got a new theme for you that is so fresh and clean that it’s called…Fresh & Clean. Designed by AJ Clarke, Fresh & Clean is a responsive, spick-and-span theme that lets you put your best content forward with minimal frills.

Fresh & Clean utilizes Featured Images to help you to easily transform your blog into a stylish online portfolio. There’s a featured slider on the front page that highlights Sticky Posts that have large Featured Images. All other Featured Images appear as prominent thumbnails next to their respective posts.

Not looking to build an online portfolio at this time? No problem, Fresh & Clean is great as an all-purpose blogging theme! Take a moment to read more about Fresh & Clean and its features on the Theme Showcase.

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Get Married With WordPress

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:02:44 +0000

One of the most important events of your life might just be your wedding. It also might be one of the craziest, disorganized, mixed-up times of your life too. We’d like to help with that a bit with a free wedding theme we call Forever. Along with a handful of cool features we’ll get to below, Forever makes it easy to wrap your wedding up in a neat little blog on WordPress.com. You can show off every one of your best photos and highlight every important detail leading up to the big day and beyond.

Forever makes it easy to welcome your family and friends to your blog with a dramatic personalized home page. The design is bold and clean with lots of room for large, colorful photos of the happy couple (that’s you!) in an optional featured post slider and home page excerpts.

You can also easily customize the color scheme and get Forever to match your wedding colors with only a few clicks. You can update the background color (or add your own pattern) from the custom background page in your blog dashboard and even change the color of the all the links from the Forever Theme Options page.

We also built in a special Guestbook Template that lets your guests take over a page of your choice with their best wishes for you … and maybe a few embarrassing stories … as comments.

And, of course, Forever works seamlessly with all the other WordPress.com features you love; emails sent to your blog followers every time you post, contact forms (perfect for RSVPs), custom domain names (like robandlaura.com instead of robandlaura.wordpress.com), customized fonts and CSS with the Custom Design upgrade (great for changing your blog title to a handwriting font), and everything else.

And it works especially well with our new Milestone Widget.

Save The Date!

Forever also sports a custom design for a new widget we call Milestone. You can find it in your blog dashboard at Appearance → Widgets and it’s pretty easy to use. Just pick a title for your event, a date and time, and a special message for the big day, and you’re ready to go. Now you have a special save the date widget for your Wedding on every page of your blog.

The Milestone Widget in Forever

If that sounds pretty awesome and you want the Milestone widget available for your non-Wedding blog too, you’re in luck. We’re also making the milestone widget available to every theme on WordPress.com right now.

Enjoy Forever

To find out more about our new Wedding Theme, Forever, check out the demo site and visit the Forever theme showcase page. Or just go ahead and activate it on your brand new Wedding blog.

Here’s to your wedding and your wedding blog on WordPress.com. Cheers! (That means you have to kiss now.)

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Splinder Importer Now Available

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:56:14 +0000

Italian blogging service Splinder.com is closing down at the end of this month, and we’d like to extend a hearty “Benvenuto” to any Splinder users who’re looking for a new blogging home. To help make migration easier, we’ve added a Splinder importer to WordPress.com. If you’d like to make the move, please go ahead and get started now so that there’s time before the January 31^st deadline to work out any issues.

Exporting your Splinder Blog

To import a Splinder blog, you’ll first need to save your export file to your computer by following these steps:

First, log in to Splinder and click the “Blog” link available at the top of the home page.

Next, click the “configura” link available at the top of the blog page.

Now click “Esporta blog e attiva redirect” in the right-hand sidebar.

Next, download the content of your blog by clicking the link “Clicca qui per scaricare il file con i contenuti del tuo blog.”

Now you’re ready to import the downloaded file into your WordPress.com blog.

Importing to WordPress.com

Create a WordPress.com account and blog if you haven’t already, and then visit Tools -> Import in the admin sidebar. You should find the Splinder importer among the list of importers.

Click the link to get started. Next, you’ll upload the export file you’ve downloaded to your computer from Splinder.

Once the importer has validated your import file, you’ll be prompted to map users from the old blog to the new.

If you’d like to have your post images downloaded as well, be sure to tick the “Download and import file attachments” checkbox.

Once you’ve submitted the import request, it can take a few minutes to perform the import, and you’ll receive an email letting you know that the import finished.

After you have imported your content into WordPress.com, you can return to your Splinder settings to create a redirect that will forward your old Splinder blog to your new WordPress.com blog. Provide your new WordPress.com blog URL in the field and click the “Attiva redirect” button.

If you have any trouble importing your blog, of course you’re welcome to contact support, and one of our Happiness Engineers will be glad to help out. To learn your way around WordPress.com, we encourage you to check out our handy tutorial. We also provide comprehensive feature documentation at our support site. Welcome to WordPress.com!

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Even more Space in 2012

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:37:26 +0000

To celebrate the New Year we decided to offer you more space for your precious media.

Our previous space upgrade levels have been increased without any additional cost for you as follows:

5GB ? 10GB
15GB ? 25GB
25GB ? 50GB
50GB ? 100GB
100GB ? 200GB

If you already subscribed to one or more of these upgrades ( yes, they are cumulative ), your total available space has been automatically updated as you can see in your Media Library.

If you don’t have a Space Upgrade yet, or need to add more, the new levels have been implemented in the Store section of your dashboard.

The Space Upgrade of course gives you more space to store your photos, and docs, but it also enables you to upload audio files, which makes it perfect for podcasts, MP3s, or any audio format.

We don’t even limit your bandwidth, and we’ll keep your files as long as your blog exists.

If you want to learn more about these upgrades, feel free to visit our space upgrades support page.

But wait, there’s more…

For those of you with a private blog, we lifted the previous limit of 35 users allowed to access it. From now on, you can add as many authorized users as you wish, from the Settings ? Privacy section of the dashboard.

We hope you’ll enjoy these new features, and we wish you and your WordPress.com site all the best for 2012!

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New Themes: Duet and ThemeMin

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:36:49 +0000

I’m excited to announce we’ve added two great new premium themes to our ever-growing collection of themes today.

First up is Duet – a responsive, minimal, and sophisticated design from The Theme Foundry.

Duet is tailored for writers, journalists, and business bloggers. Meticulously crafted and refined options provide you with the power to effortlessly customize your theme. Choose and mix from ten accent fonts, and five body fonts to discover the perfect typographic style for your website. You can also upload a custom logo image to put your own personal stamp on your blog.

With a flexible featured slider, your readers have no chance to miss your important posts. Duet comes with more great features, so be sure to read about it on the showcase page.

Next up is ThemeMin, designed by Themify.

ThemeMin is a minimal, light-weight, and fast-loading theme that focuses on typography. Together, all of these elements help to provide a comfortable reading experience. ThemeMin comes with a featured posts carousel on the front page. Plus, you can mix and match between five color schemes, three site layout options, and two post layout options until you find a combination that hits the spot for your blog. Go find more about the theme on its showcase page.

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Kick Off 2012 with Project 365

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:15:52 +0000

If you were going to blog about one thing for an entire year, what would you choose?

Would you post photographs of your favorite place? Interview different people from your hometown? Create a new piece of art each day?

Here are eight unique blog projects (some are updated every single day) to inspire you to kick off 2012 with your own Project 365:

Blog Radstone

RichardRadstoneBlog.com

The goal, every day for the next year, approach one stranger, photograph them and promptly blog the experience. Rain or shine, hot or cold, healthy or ill, no days missed. I’ll do my best to create interesting photos, and for the sake of entertainment, work to get myself into a sticky situation from time to time. It’s a huge commitment. I’m sure there will be some hero photographs and some not so magnificent ones. Let’s see what happens!

The Creative Panic

TheCreativePanic.com

The project right at this moment is to illustrate something (anything!) as quickly as possible every day.

36ixty5

36ixty5.WordPress.com

Each day a new image will be uploaded with a small caption, phrase, quote, poem or whatever.

Everything Burger

EverythingBurger.WordPress.com

I created 365 pieces of burger artwork for a year from May 17, 2010 until May 16, 2011.

An Afternoon With

AnAfternoonWith.com

This is a project about people. It is a project about our space and the things we keep and the things we don’t throw away. It is a project about looking for and finding connections we all have. It is about seeing yourself in these spaces. Every picture is a portrait of the owner – be it a room, an object or a view. Every portrait in the end becomes a self-portrait. So in the end this is a project about me.

Footballists

Footballists.WordPress.com

I often walk around the city in my beloved Liverpool FC jersey. I never miss to notice every other person wearing a soccer shirt, no matter how big the crowd. I’ve decided to approach and meet them, and photograph. Here are my brief encounters, far away from the pitch.

A Drink with Chicago

ADrinkWithChicago.com

Since making Chicago our home, we have found that all it takes is one great conversation over one drink to create a long lasting friendship, change your outlook or learn something new. We have had so many of these experiences that we thought we’d start to share them as we continue getting to know the many fascinating people around our city. Join us as we sit down and have a drink with local entrepreneurs, chefs, celebrities, socialites, artists and athletes who all love Chicago as much as we do.

{365} Breakfasts

OneBreakfastADay.WordPress.com

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A blog to celebrate this is worth it.

So, do you have any ideas for your own Project 365?

For tips on choosing a topic, check out the Learn WordPress.com tutorial on Getting Focused. You can also find writing ideas, blogging tips, and photo challenges at The Daily Post.

Happy New Year from all of us at Automattic!

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New Theme: Nuntius

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:56:08 +0000

If you’ve been itching to turn your blog into an online newspaper or magazine, Nuntius could be your perfect companion. Based on the highly-popular News theme designed by Justin Tadlock, Nuntius contains many smart features that help your readers to stay on top of all your latest scoop.

Upon activation, Nuntius displays your posts in a traditional blog format on the front page. If you’re happy with this, you can use it as is. If you’d like to showcase your content newspaper-style, then you can use the special News Page template. The News Page template includes a slider for your sticky posts, a featured widget area, and featured categories that display posts in nifty blocks.

That’s not all — Nuntius lets you customize the link color and the background color of the header and main menu from the Theme Options page, in addition to the Custom Background and Custom Header features.

I’ll stop raving long enough so that you can head on over to the Theme Showcase to get all of the details on Nuntius and its features. We look forward to seeing what you do with this one.

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Holiday Desktop Backgrounds from WordPress.com

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:55:28 +0000

Illustration by Caroline Hadilaksono

We’ve got a little year-end tradition here at WordPress.com. Every year, we commission an artist to spread some WordPress-themed holiday cheer. For 2011, Caroline Hadilaksono has created a warm and joyful scene that’s sure to get you in the mood for the holidays (and some blogging). We’ve made some desktop backgrounds from her illustration that we’d like to share with you. Here’s to a safe and happy holiday season for all of you, from all of us at Automattic.

Large (2560×1830 · 6.4 MB)
Small (1280×915 · 1.8 MB)
For tablets (1024×1024 · 1.6 MB)
For smartphones (640×960 · 971 KB)

Need help changing your wallpaper? Here’s instructions for iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu. A tip: Choose an image larger than your screen size, and set the position to “center” or “fill screen” (not “stretch”).

If you missed them last time around, be sure to check out our illustrations from 2010 and 2009.

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WordPress for Android 2.0 Now Available

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:55:00 +0000

It’s Android blogging, re-imagined. Today we’re announcing the release of WordPress for Android 2.0, a major update that focuses on a new UI and enhanced post editor features. Check the video:

So what’s new?

Brand New Look

The Dashboard

We’ve completely redesigned the look and feel of the app, now placing the actions you want to make with your blog all in one place: The Dashboard. You have one-tap access to create new posts and pages, upload media, view your stats, read blogs and more! There’s also now a beautiful comment count ribbon to show you how many comments you have in your moderation queue.

The Action Bar up top allows you to quickly get to other areas of the app as fast as possible. You can tap the blog name to switch blogs, refresh your content, and call up the dashboard from wherever you are in the app at the time.

New Editor

The post editor has been enhanced with many great new features. A formatting toolbar has been added that displays above the keyboard as you type, allowing you to easily format text and add links and media. The post editor also goes full screen, giving you as much room as possible to create your posts while on the go.

Media attachments have received an awesome boost as well. You can now insert images among the post text wherever you’d like. Tapping on an image will bring up many new options you can set per image, including Title, Caption, Placement and Size.

Tablet Support

We paid special attention to tablets for this release, adding special layouts just for Android Tablets. From Galaxy Tab to Xoom, we’ve got you covered.

Download and More Info

You can get the app for free in the Android Market.

If you’re hungry for more details on WordPress for Android 2.0, check out the launch post over at the WordPress for Android blog and follow @WPAndroid on twitter.

What do you think of the update?

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Get Instant Feedback When You Publish

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:25:33 +0000

For months we’ve been studying how, when and why people publish their posts, and what the common tasks are people perform afterwards. We know many of you immediately want to see what your post looks like, check for typos, and then share your post to social networks.

Starting today you’ll see a much improved design for giving you feedback and supporting how you work.

The first thing you’ll see, after your browser finishes telling WordPress.com you have a new post, is positive feedback your post was successful. We now notify you as soon as possible that everything went smoothly. At the same time, we’re loading your actual post to show you.

Once the post loads, which can take a few seconds, you can confirm it looks as you expected. If you find a typo in your post (which can be easier to spot in the published post, than on the edit screen), you can quickly click Edit and switch back into edit mode to fix it.

If everything in your post looks good, you’ll notice some smart things we’ve done to both help improve your post, and to inspire you for the future.

The progress bar: we now show a simple progress indicator that helps direct your efforts at a specific target. The goal is automatically set to increments of 5 posts (yes, we are considering allowing this to be customized). An inspiring quotation appears under the bar, as a reward and as motivation for next time. When you reach the goal, you get a nice surprise, and the bar will be reset for next time. Of course posting quality matters as much, or more, than quantity, but research shows having clear goals helps both.

Sharing: if you have the Publicize feature turned on, we show how many people were notified through social networks like Twitter and Facebook, with some of their Gravatars so you can learn more about them. If you don’t have Publicize active, you’ll see easy to use buttons for manually sharing your post on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Tagging: we also know adding tags to your post can make it easier for people to find your work. Based on the content of your post, we use an algorithm to recommend a few tags to add, which you can do with a single click.

We’ll continue to study how you post and improve what we do to support how you work. Happy posting.

If you’d prefer the classic experience, you can turn Instant Post Feedback off from your Dashboard, at Settings, Users, Personal Settings.

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The Long and Short of It

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:18:34 +0000

Would you like some more Twitter in your WordPress? We got ya. As an update to our ever-popular Tweet embedding functionality we’re supporting Twitter’s new embed API to enable richer, better looking, and more functional Tweets inside your blog posts. To embed a Tweet just put a permalink to it on its own line or use our new shortcode that allows for extra formatting.

But wait, there’s more! Have you ever wished that when you’re on Twitter and come across a link to someone’s blog post, like this one, you could see a preview of the post without having to click on the link? Now you can, our friends at Twitter have made it so that all wp.me links can be previewed, including snippets of posts and photos, directly on Twitter.com. In addition to this being something I’ve personally wanted for a while, we think it’ll get a lot more people visiting your blog.

Finally, if you link your Twitter account on your Gravatar profile we’ve made it so it’s easy to follow you right from that page.

Now go forth and tweetify.

P.S. You can follow me on Twitter here, and WordPress.com here.

The Long and Short of It wp.me/pf2B5-2pL

—
WordPress.com (@wordpressdotcom) December 08, 2011

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New Themes: AutoFocus, Imbalance 2, and Reddle

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:06:07 +0000

Today we are absolutely thrilled to warm your creative hearts with the announcement of three new themes: AutoFocus, Imbalance 2, and Reddle.

AutoFocus is an elegant, minimal theme designed for artists, photographers, and other creatives seeking a simple but beautiful way to showcase their talents online. Designed by Allan Cole, this oft-requested theme simultaneously boasts impressive featured images throughout and a clean, unobtrusive design that gets out of the way of what truly matters—your creativity.

AutoFocus Home Page

If you publish single-serving images on a daily photoblog, AutoFocus will accommodate you with ease. If you insert large galleries into your blog posts with the intention of writing assignment recaps, AutoFocus will also elegantly serve up your photo sets and stories. Wordsmiths will also enjoy the sleek and readable aesthetic that AutoFocus delivers.

Point is, AutoFocus works on so many levels for so many different types of creators that it’s simply a perfect fit here. Read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

Imbalance 2, designed by WPShower, is yet another gorgeous theme that strikes a perfect balance between functionality and minimalism. Combine that with its modern style and your choices of use with this theme are quite varied.

Photo-heavy blogs, online portfolios, and online magazines are all intelligently handled by Imbalance 2. One of the first cool things you’ll notice about this theme is how everything on its home page automagically snaps into place regardless of whether you have a habit of publishing lengthy blog posts or tighter, short-form entries.

Imbalance 2 Home Page

Along with a full-width layout template Imbalance 2 comes with several theme options: a site-wide theme color selector, which affects links, background hovers, and borders; sticky post handling; and the option to make your image and post grid fluid or fixed.

Read more about Imbalance 2′s features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

Our final theme for you today is Reddle, a deceptively minimal, multi-purpose theme that impresses upon its user both versatility and simplicity.

The elements of Reddle’s layout were inspired by an older theme called Rubric but there’s really nothing basic about its minimal layout. Everything about the design adapts to how you want to use your blog and what you want to use it for.

Want to you use your blog for a simple one-column link blog? A two-column business site with a custom header and no posts? Reddle can do that. It even adapts its layout to visitors reading your blog from a device like an iPhone.

Reddle Home Page

Reddle also provides support for two additional Post Formats: Image Posts and Aside Posts. Aside Posts are ultra-minimal. They don’t have a title or tags. Image Posts will highlight the first image in your post along with a short excerpt.

You can see both post formats, as well as many other of the theme’s features, by visiting Reddle’s Theme Showcase page or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

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