Earlier this year, I realized I hadn’t been getting any trackbacks, though I’d seen other sites link back to my posts during that time. After a bit of poking around on the Web, I found it might be a problem with the theme I picked when I did my redesign.

I asked Tom Johnson if he could confirm this, and he pointed me to a post on Pro Blog Design about separating comments from trackbacks.

I followed the tutorial, and lo and behold, trackbacks started working again. I don’t know if my theme didn’t support trackbacks, but putting the code from Pro Blog Design in comments.php got them working. So if you find that trackbacks stop working on your WordPress blog, particularly after a theme change—or if you want to accomplish the purpose of the article—give this a try.

A nice bonus is that the trackbacks are still counted in the comments total when viewing your posts list inside WordPress.

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When I started my Tales series, I wanted it to have a distinct category and RSS feed so that those posts wouldn’t get mixed in with the tech comm–related posts. I also wanted to have a header image for any posts in the Tales category that was different than the standard one.

Here’s the code that I put together to make the header image conditional based on the category, with some substitutes put in so you can change things based on your needs). Add this code to header.php:

<div id="header">
<?php if (in_category('1')) { ?>
<img src="http://www.mysite.com/images/header1.jpg">
<?php } elseif (is_category('Category Name')) { ?>
<img src="http://www.mysite.com/images/header1.jpg">
<?php } else { ?>
<img src="http://www.mysite.com/images/header2.jpg">
<?php } ?>
</div>

Notice two things:

• This code is set up for two conditions to show header1.jpg. You can swap out the category number or name for yours. (To see a category’s number, in your WordPress console’s Categories screen, mouse over the name and look for the tag ID in the URL that appears in your status bar.) You could also add as many different conditions as you like.
• This works with an image placed directly in the div. I don’t know enough PHP to know if I can have it change a background image in the CSS.

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I’ve expressed dissatisfaction in the past with the traditional tri-pane help format. I think it’s outdated and has gotten such a bad reputation with computer users that it’s too late to change that. So I think it’s time to find other ways to provide user assistance.

A few weeks ago, I got an email stating I was now being followed on Twitter by @helpburner. I thought this could be another technical writer, and I usually check the tweets of people who follow me anyway. Imagine my interest when Mike Stokes, the owner of this account, had tweets mentioning the beta test of a product called HelpBurner.

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The following is a guest post by Norman Mann, a writer for Web Host Gear, a Web hosting guide site. He writes on the topics of blogging tips and online marketing.

WordPress is a powerful blogging tool with many customizable options. From the moment you log into the dashboard, you have many choices of how to configure your blog. How you configure these settings will affect how you experience WordPress and how readers experience your blog.

Themes

One of the first things you should consider doing is visiting the Appearances menu to choose a theme. Theme variations on WordPress include sidebars on the right or left, fixed or flexible width layouts, customizable menus, customizable headers, and multiple columns. The first impression visitors get of your blog is the layout, so it’s important to pick something appropriate to your content and the audience you expect to draw.

Settings

Once you have a theme in place that is to your liking, click through the Settings menu. Here you can set your blog title, time zone, the time and date format for posts, and comment moderation preferences. These are all basic settings that should be configured before you begin using your blog.

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I finally updated to WordPress 2.8 today. It looks a lot like the previous version, and I haven’t taken time to explore the new aspects yet.

However, I realized why it can be good to wait a little while to upgrade something like WordPress. After I installed the new version, I got an error similar to the one displayed at menoob.com in a post about the issue.

I followed the suggestion there, though I used FileZilla to change the plugin file name. (Fortunately, of all the plugins that could have failed, this one isn’t critical.) Bam! I could sign in to my admin site. My thanks to the menoob guy.

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Currently, two main things bother me with my approach to help, and I’m looking for a way to solve these problems.

Problem 1: I Can’t Update Help on the Fly

Like the application code that I document, my materials are checked by the testing team. I don’t have any problem at all with that; in fact, I think it’s a benefit to my deliverables. Some sharp-eyed testers have caught errors, and because they’re also testing the system, they can verify that my descriptions of the system are accurate.

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