RituSays(Ritu’s Corner) Gets Its Own Domain Name RituSays.Com

There comes a day in every blog’s life, when it has to be hosted on a domain of its own in stead of relying on free portals like WordPress, Blogger etc. The day has come for RitySays.WordPress as well. Yes, after enough deliberation and dilly-dallying for a while, we have finally (sigh….) migrated [Ritu’s Corner] to a new domain name RituSays.Com.

The website RituSays.Com is now hosting all the blog-posts, that were originally published on ritusays.wordpress.com. While we are still not done with the blog-migration and there are few things that are still being worked over, namely User Subscriptions (email based as well as RSS/XML Feeds), WordPress URL Redirects, Themes etc, we expect you to have a look at our new home i.e, RituSays.Com.

For a blog, its readers are of utmost importance and their constant encouragement has motivated us enough, so as to keep this blog going great guns. We hope to see the same kind of enthusiasm from all our readers on our new home RituSays.Com as well. Looking forward to see you all there 🙂

PS: (Sadly) This will be our last blog on RituSays.WordPress.Com 😦

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RituSays (Ritu’s Corner) Gets Its First Page Rank After Google Page Rank Update

Folks, it is time to celebrate. On June 27th, Google have issued an update to PageRank for the second time this year (First update happened in January 2011) and guess what ?? [Ritu’s Corner aka RituSays] has just got its first page-rank :-). Prior to this update, its PageRank was N/A (Not Available), but now its PageRank has increased to 1.

Last time, when we wrote about this blog’s popularity and hit-counts, calling for cheers and celebration, we had just crossed 500 hits mark, today we have clocked ~ 24000 Hits, with an average hit-count of 200-250 on a daily basis. Needless to say, we are happy and we are pretty sure, so are our readers.  This updated Google PageRank has definitely motivated us a lot. We hope to continue with our exploits in coming months and be more regular with our blog posts.  Thanks to everyone, who visited our site. We hope, you will continue doing so and find our blogs useful.

Migrating Blog From Blogger BlogSpot To WordPress

Are you one of those, who have been blogging for a while on Blogger aka BlogSpot and somehow felt that your blog lacks something, may be that Killer Punch, may be a Dashing Design, which can catch its visitors’ attention. Yes, there comes a time, when you make that decision to switch to WordPress. You were possibly attracted by a plethora of easily Customizable WordPress Themes or the cool widgets, which let you do almost everything you want to do.  If you are planning to migrate your blog from Blogger to WordPress, but worried about the whole process of importing blogger posts with comments into WordPress, just take a deep breathe and calm down. It is ridiculously simple to migrate. In fact, its so easy that you won’t stop laughing at the end of it !!

Here are the simple steps to easily “Migrate Your Blog from Blogger to WordPress“

Step 1. Go to Dashboard -> Tools (You will find that on the left right at the bottom) and click on Import

Step 2. You will taken to an Import page, wherein WordPress will show up a host of Blogging Platforms, from which you can migrate your blog to WordPress. Click on Blogger

Step 3. You will be taken to a page where WordPress will ask you for your permission to login to Blogger and have the authority to access all your blog-posts and comments. Click on Authorize

Step 4. Next you will see a confirmation window from Blogger/Google about allowing WordPress to access your Blogger Account. Click on Grant Access

Step 5. Now you will be shown your Blogger Blog with the number of your blog-posts and comments, along with an Import option, the so-called The Magic Button. Click on Import Button and the Migration Process will start

Step 6. The Progress-Bar will tell you about the Completion of your migration. When it finishes, you will see a message like the following

That’s it !! Yes, you are done 🙂 All your Blog-Posts, Comments, Categories (Blogger Labels) and Users will be visible in WordPress in few minutes depending on the size of your Blogger Blog. You will also be glad to know that all your Blogger Blog-Posts’ Date and TimeStamp are preserved and don’t require any action from your front.

Now is not that as easy as a walk in the park ?? Yes, it indeed is !! Now you know, you have been unnecessarily developing cold-feet about migrating your blog from Blogger to WordPress, right 🙂

How To Link Connect Facebook Account With WordPress Blog To Automatically Update Facebook Wall About Any New Blog Posts

In one of my earlier blog posts, I had described “How To Connect Your Twitter Account With WordPress Blog To Automatically Update Twitter About Any New Blog Posts“.  Today I am going to talk about the same thing i.e, How to Connect Social Media to Your WordPress Blog so as to ensure Real-Time Updates, as and when you update your blog with any new post. After Twitter, its the turn of Facebook.

Generally, if you have to post something on your Facebook Wall with regards to any new blog-post, that you recently wrote, you will have to manually copy some relevant content out of the blog, copy the URL (or take help  of any URL Shortener) and paste it across in your Facebook Wall. Now in stead of doing all that yourself, how about WordPress doing all that work for you for free ??

Yes, you heard this right, WordPress allows its users to connect/link their Facebook Account to their WordPress Blogs, so that their Facebook Wall gets updated automatically on their behalf, every time they post a new entry to their blog. Here are the steps on “How to link or connect your Facebook Account with yout WordPress Blog” and “Automatically update your Facebook wall with any newly created Blog Posts”.

Step 1. Go to My Account -> Global Dashboard, you end up with a page like the following

Step 2. Select “My Blogs” from the left side menu, which will lead you to a listing of all the blogs you are a member of

Step 3. Under the Publicize drop-down, you check the Facebook Box. It will open a Pop-up confirming your action and asking for your permission to authorize your WordPress account to connect with your Facebook account. You press the Authorize OK button

Step 4. It will go to Facebook URL and now Facebook will ask for your confirmation with regards to allowing your WordPress Account access to your Facebook account. You click on Allow

Step 5. After you have allowed your WordPress account to access your Facebook profile, next in line is a permission to post to your Facebook wall. You click on Allow

Step 6. It takes some time to complete and when it finally returns, you will again be back to the Global Dashboard page with a congratulatory message at at the top confirming the same that you have successfully connected your WordPress Blog with your Facebook account.

So next time you write a new blog-post, you don’t need to go to Facebook manually for updates regarding your new blog-post. The moment you click “Publish” button, WordPress goes ahead and automatically updates your Facebook wall with relevant details regarding your blog-post, as follows

So, enjoy the feeling of not posting anything on Facebook wall about your new blog-posts any more 🙂

How To Enable Guest Blogging in WordPress Blogs

In one of my earlier blog posts, I had talked about the Various Benefits of Guest Blogging and also explained How To Enable Guest Blogging in BlogSpot/Blogger Blogs. If your blog is hosted on WordPress, you will be glad to know that WordPress also allows Guest Blogging on your blog. In fact, you can have as many as co-authors for your WordPress blog, as you want. BlogSpot/Blogger limits this number to 100, but WordPress doesn’t set any upper limit for the same. Here are the steps on “How To Enable Guest Blogging in WordPress Blogs”

Step 1. Login to your WordPress blog and go to Dashboard. On the left side menu towards the end, you will find a Users button.  Click on Users


Step 2. It will take you to Users page, where you will see a list of all Current Authors for your blog, along with a form-field to Add More Users. Enter the email addresses for people, you want to invite as Guest Bloggers for your blog. Unlike Blogger/BlogSpot, which allows you to specify a Comma Separated List of Email Addresses, WordPress allows only one email address at a time. You also have to select the privileges your Guest Blogger is going to have. Unlike Blogger/BlogSpot which only has two levels of privileges : Authors and Administrator,  WordPress has as many as four of them

• Administrator – Access to all the administration features
• Editor – Publish and manage posts and pages as well as manage other users’ posts.
• Author – Publish and manage their own posts and not others’
• Contributor – Write and manage their posts but not publish them

Step 3. If the user whose email address you have provided already has a WordPress account linked to that email address, he or she will be immediately be added as Guest Author to your blog.

But if your invitee doesn’t have any WordPress account linked to that email address, he or she will have to create one and after you have clicked on “Add User“, you will see a page like the following

Once you click on “Invite Your Friend“, there will be an invite-form, which will be sent to the email address given in “Add User” page.

Once you “Send the Invite“, your invitee will be receiving an email asking them to join WordPress as per your invitation

Once your invitee clicks on WordPress link provided in the email, he or she is taken to WordPress Sign-Up Page. WordPress allows you to register just for a username and is not necessary that you have to have a blog registered in order to sign-in to WordPress.

Once they sign-up on WordPress, they will be automatically be added to your blog as Guest Authors and on their Dashboard they will be able to see your blog. So have fun with your blogging and enjoy Guest-Posts being written by your Guest-Bloggers

How To Password Protect A WordPress Blog Post

Recently I published a blog-post on one of my Professional ToastMaster Club WordPress Blog. It was related to minutes of an officers meeting, that was held to discuss the charter of the club and future course of action for coming 6 months. After it got published, some members (rightly) raised flame about its availability in public view. Even I realized that this should not have been made public. Now, I wanted to retain my blog-post as I wanted to keep a record of meeting-minutes, but at the same time, I didn’t want it to be in public view. I didn’t know how to achieve that, except for taking off my blog-post. But, fortunately WordPress came to my rescue.

Did you know, you can have a blog-post on your WordPress Blog and still be private ?? Yes, WordPress makes it possible. Ever since inception, Blog has almost become synonymous with Public view. But WordPress gives you an opportunity to restrict its access to a selected few individuals, with whom you want to share this blog-post. Yes, you can Password Protect your WordPress Blog-Post and without knowing the password, nobody will be able to see its contents !!

Here are the steps on “How to Password Protect your WordPress Blog Post”

Step 1. On your WordPress Blog-Edit Page, You will see a Publish box on the right hand side at the top.

Step 2. Click on Visibility button, which is set to Public by default. It will open a drop-down menu with followings as visibility options

Step 3. Select Visibility as “Password Protected”, it will open a text box, asking for your password.

Step 4. Enter the password for your blog-post and press OK. Now complete your blog-editing and press Publish. When it gets published, you will see  that this blog-post is showing up differently from others.

Now whoever has the password, only they can view this Post. So essentially, you have protected your precious blog-post from public eye and kept it restricted to a selected few, with whom you will be sharing your password. So keep blogging and have fun with Password Protection, every-time you want a restricted access to your post 🙂

How to Transfer A WordPress Blog to Another WordPress User or WordPress Account

Couple of days back, I wanted to register a WordPress Blog with name oratorsblr , so I went ahead to WordPress.com and signed up for a new blog. But little did I realize that I was already logged in as sumansays !! I came to know of this, only when I went to my Global Dashboard and saw this blog listed under my name. So ultimately I ended up creating a blog for myself, which I didn’t really need. On the other hand, the person, who wanted to get this Blog registered was a different WordPress User(sumankumarblr), will not be able to register this WordPress blog oratorsblr anymore and have to look for an alternate home. He or she badly needs something, which is(and will forever be) lying unused under someone else’s name.

Thankfully, WordPress allows Blog-Transfer across WordPress Users, so if you don’t need any blogname, you can pass it onto someone, who may need it. Here are the steps on “How to Transfer A WordPress Blog To Another WordPress User or WordPress Account“.

Step 1. Go to My Account -> Global Dashboard, you end up with a page like the following

Step 2. Select “My Blogs” from the left side menu, which will lead you to a listingof all the blogs you are a member of

Step 3. Move you mouse cursor over the blog, you want to transfer to other WordPress user, it will show two options : Change Blog Address and Transfer Blog

Step 4: Click on “Transfer Blog”, it will take you to the next page, where it would throw a Big Important Warning that Transferring Blog can’t be undone and you will lose access to your blog, unless the NEW USER allows you to do so

Step 5: Fill the username of email address of the new owner for the blog and click on “Transfer Blog“. If you wish to transfer a blog to a user who does NOT yet have an account, please have them register first at http://wordpress.com/signup/ and only when they become a WordPress user(You can register forWordPress without necessarily registering a Blog against your name), you can transfer your blog to them. It will go back to “Blogs You’re a Member Of” and display a confirmatory message about your blog-transfer.

Step 6: Go to your email account, which is linked to your WordPress user. There will be a email as follows

Click on the link provided in the email and you are done with your transfer. Next time, you login to your WordPress account, you will no longer see this Blog underneath your name.

Use Zemanta To Find Related Images Links Articles And Tags Automatically For WordPress Blogs

Ever wish you had a blogging assistant who helped you write posts that are full of great links, photos, and tags ?? Your wishes have already been granted, as WordPress Blogging Platform now supports Zemanta, the ultimate blogging assistant. Once you enable Zemanta, you’ll see several new widgets on your edit screen that lets you quickly add recommended links, photos, tags, and articles to your blog-post.

Followings are main features of Zemanta which you can use to make your job easier, while Blogging on WordPress.

1. Links Recommendations : Zemanta will try to link any of the words/set of words inside your Post to something on web. And it does in real time, so as and when you are writing, you can automatically link your content to other web-resources. From what I have seen, it mostly recommends Wikipedia articles, but I have also see it linking IMDB, MySpace, Twitter and Crunchbase Pages.

2. Tags Recommendations : It will analyze your post and will recommend you a set of Tags which are appropriate and may be applicable to your blog-post. You can selectively choose, which one to pick or you can just do a Select All.

3. Related Images : It will again look up on web and try to find out related images on Web based on your content and give you a list of images to choose. Clicking on any of the photos will automatically add them into your post, now is not that cool ??

4. Related Articles : It will look up on web and give you a list of all related articles. Clicking on any of them will automatically update your blog-post with a footer like the following
Related Articles

• No One Killed Jessica: of power & money
  (peddlerofdreams.wordpress.com) 

  

Note : All the screen-shots presented here are for a blog I wrote recently on “No One Killed Jessica Movie Review“.

In case you are not happy with the results, Zemanta is throwing for your blog-post, you can hit “refine” to see a new set of recommendations. And if you’ve changed the topic of your blog post, hitting “update” will give you new choices. You can use as many of the Zemanta recommendations as you like, or you can ignore all of them — totally up to you ! After all its yout blog, is not it 😉

How to Enable Zemanta For Your Blog : By default, Zemanta is turned OFF for your blog. To enable it, you have to do the following

Go to Dashboard -> Users -> Personal Setting.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will find a check box for Additional Post Content as shown below

Check the checkbox, Save changes and you are done. F rom your next post onwards, you will see all Zemanta recommendations on your Edit post page. So enjoy not having to write down Tags and Adding Hyperlinks and let Zemanta do it for you :-), that too for free 😉

How To Link Connect Twitter Account With WordPress Blog To Automatically Update Twitter About Any New Blog Posts

Many of us have a WordPress Blog and a Twitter Account, where we frequently put updates for our blogs with regards to new blog posts. Every time you write a new post in your blog, in order to update your Twitter with the same, normally you have to do the following steps

• Open your WordPress blog homepage
• Copy the newlycreated blog’s URL
• Open a URL Shortener like bit.ly or goo.gl
• Enter the URL for your newly created blog
• Get the shortened URL
• Shorten the Title Of your new blog-entry, if its too long
• Open your Twitter account
• Paste the Shortened blog-title along with shortened URL into “What’s happening?” text-box and   press the Tweet Button.

So, You have finally tweeted about your new blog entry. Sigh…
Now that is some work. How about WordPress doing all this hard-work for you for free ??

Yes, you heard this right, WordPress allows its users to connect/link their Twitter Account to their WordPress Blogs, so that a tweet is sent automatically on your behalf, everytime you post a new entry to your blog.

Here are the steps on “How to link or connect your Twitter Account with yout WordPress Blog” and automatically update your twitter with any newly created blog posts.

Step 1. Go to My Account -> Global Dashboard, you end up with a page like the following

Step 2. Select “My Blogs” from the left side menu, which will lead you to a listingof all the blogs you are a member of

Step 3. Under the Publicize drop-down, you check the Twitter Box. It will open a Pop-up confirming your action and asking for your permission to authorize your WordPress account to connect with your Twitter account. You press the Authorize OK button

Step 4. It will go to Twitter URL and now Twitter will ask for your confirmation with regards to allowing your WordPress Account access to your Twitter account. You click on Allow

Step 5. It takes some time to complete and when it finally returns, you will again be at the Global Dashboard with a congratulatory message at at the top confirming the same that you have successfully connected your WordPress Blog with your Twitter account.

So next time you write a new blog-post, you don’t need to go to twitter for updates regarding your new blog-post. The moment you click “Publish” button , WordPress goes ahead and updates your Twitter status, as follows

So, enjoy the feeling of not tweeting about your new blog-posts any more 🙂