Head First WordPress
A Brain-Friendly Guide to Creating Your Own Custom WordPress Blog
I absolutely love the Head First Series of books and, while they are not the most in-depth and complex books on a subject, I consider them the most user-friendly way to quickly and easily learn a challenging and difficult topic. So when I learned they were coming out with a book on WordPress I quickly preordered it and then waited, and waited, and waited until...now. At last, the book arrived and I'm not disappointed. For the average user (and let's face it, even the above-average user) this is everything you need to know about how to install and use WordPress for all but the most advanced website tasks.
While most people will choose to install WordPress using the "one-click" installation service offered by their hosting provider, the Headfirst book starts with a detailed description of how to download and install it the old-fashioned way...manually. Even if you were to choose not to use the "one-click" method (which I would advise against), reviewing this section gives you a good idea of the nuts and bolts of your WordPress installation.
Next, they cover the basics of posting and using images in your posts, including basic problems, troubleshooting and even covering file permissions. When it comes to changing your blog's appearance they do a very good job of describing templates, including third-party templates, and also provide a solid overview of HTML, PHP, and CSS and how you can use them to modify your sight. Widgets are covered in depth as well.
The aspect of WordPress I was most interested in learning more about was how to use it as a Content Management System (CMS) and the book covers the subject well, including a very good discussion on how to structure your website, how to modify your permalinks, set up the navigation bar and to use the visual editor.
There is an entire chapter devoted to embedding and handling video on the site which I felt was very important. Again, they covered not just how to embed video, but how to keep the video on your site organized and well structured, as well as various plugins that can be used to add extra functionality to the site. One part I didn't expect was the information on how to podcast, which I thought was interesting. This was covered in conjunction with advice on setting up syndication and using Feedburner. I personally have never done any podcasting, but it's nice to know that the information is there if I need it. I did appreciate the discussion on syndication however and thought it made getting set up on Feedburner easier and less confusing than I remember it being.
There is a chapter devoted to WordPress security which, having suffered from malware and virus attacks on my WordPress blogs in the past, I thought was a good idea. One can never be too secure when it comes to the Internet and the advice in this chapter is solid.
If you are new to WordPress this is an excellent book to get you started. I highly recommend it. I found this more user-friendly and readable than any other WordPress book I have read or reviewed. If you use WordPress but want to understand it and get more out of it I highly recommend this book as well, especially if you want to learn how to go into the code to modify the appearance of your site. If you want to use WordPress to its full functionality get this book.
Next, they cover the basics of posting and using images in your posts, including basic problems, troubleshooting and even covering file permissions. When it comes to changing your blog's appearance they do a very good job of describing templates, including third-party templates, and also provide a solid overview of HTML, PHP, and CSS and how you can use them to modify your sight. Widgets are covered in depth as well.
The aspect of WordPress I was most interested in learning more about was how to use it as a Content Management System (CMS) and the book covers the subject well, including a very good discussion on how to structure your website, how to modify your permalinks, set up the navigation bar and to use the visual editor.
There is an entire chapter devoted to embedding and handling video on the site which I felt was very important. Again, they covered not just how to embed video, but how to keep the video on your site organized and well structured, as well as various plugins that can be used to add extra functionality to the site. One part I didn't expect was the information on how to podcast, which I thought was interesting. This was covered in conjunction with advice on setting up syndication and using Feedburner. I personally have never done any podcasting, but it's nice to know that the information is there if I need it. I did appreciate the discussion on syndication however and thought it made getting set up on Feedburner easier and less confusing than I remember it being.
There is a chapter devoted to WordPress security which, having suffered from malware and virus attacks on my WordPress blogs in the past, I thought was a good idea. One can never be too secure when it comes to the Internet and the advice in this chapter is solid.
If you are new to WordPress this is an excellent book to get you started. I highly recommend it. I found this more user-friendly and readable than any other WordPress book I have read or reviewed. If you use WordPress but want to understand it and get more out of it I highly recommend this book as well, especially if you want to learn how to go into the code to modify the appearance of your site. If you want to use WordPress to its full functionality get this book.
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