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Join Our Censorship Protest!

by Paul Joseph January 18, 2012 Featured

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!

Tagged as: design, facebook, features, fresher, internet, senate, widgets

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New Theme: Fresh & Clean

by Paul Joseph January 12, 2012 Featured

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 .

Tagged as: domains, facebook, fresher, howto, images, news, widgets

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Splinder Importer Now Available

by Paul Joseph January 9, 2012 Featured

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!

Tagged as: design, fresher, howto, import, linkedin, splinder, tutorial

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Even more Space in 2012

by Paul Joseph January 6, 2012 Featured

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!

Tagged as: christmas, facebook, fresher, news, space, stumbleupon, upgrade

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Kick Off 2012 with Project 365

by Paul Joseph December 27, 2011 Featured

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 !

Tagged as: chicago, domains, facebook, fresher, widgets

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New Theme: Nuntius

by Paul Joseph December 21, 2011 Featured

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.

Tagged as: facebook, fresher, howto, news, stumbleupon

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WordPress for Android 2.0 Now Available

by Paul Joseph December 19, 2011 Featured

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?

Tagged as: design, facebook, fresher, mobile, news

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Get Instant Feedback When You Publish

by Paul Joseph December 12, 2011 Featured

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.

Tagged as: design, facebook, fresher, news, posting

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New Themes: AutoFocus, Imbalance 2, and Reddle

by Paul Joseph December 6, 2011 Featured

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 .

Tagged as: creativity, fresher, linkedin, news, stumbleupon, widgets

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It’s getting cold in here

by Paul Joseph December 1, 2011 Featured

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but this blog is sooo delightful Until the internet gets slow, Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! That’s right, it’s that special time of year where you can show off your holiday cheer with a little special blog flair — falling snow. To get it started: Go to your dashboard. Navigate to Settings » General. Check the box next to “Show falling snow on this blog.” Roast some chestnuts. Even Texas boys like me who only saw snow a handful of times growing up can enjoy it all month long, until we turn it off on January 4 th . If you are a terrible Grinch or if the snow just slows down your computer or confuses your cat, you can go to your personal settings page and hide the snow everywhere you go.

Tagged as: features, fresher, howto, support, texas boys, widgets

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