Sharing some tips on good Wordpress plugins over at the Dabbled|Studios (my web design site) blog today….

Check it out!

For a site I’m finishing up right now, I went through my list of Wordpress Plugins that are really nice “must haves” for a new website. Since I was documenting what I was recommending for the client, I figured I’d share it with you guys as well. There are tons of great plugins out there, but these are a few that provide some great value…

Simple Trackback Validation Eliminates spam trackbacks by (1) checking if the IP address of the trackback sender is equal…

Previously, I’d shared with you how I’d built a portfolio website (a website designed to show off a artist or photographer’s body of work) using two blogging platforms, Blogger and Tumblr.

The idea behind these efforts was to take up the challenge of building on a free platform something that was as easy to maintain as a blog, but didn’t look like a ‘blog’.

Well, the power of Wordpress compels me to build a fabulous portfolio site using that platform.  Now, this is really not in the same spirit as the prior challenges, as a self hosted Wordpress site is not a free…

Still a tad discombobulated here at Dabbled, but I’m making progress on getting the basic stuff set up. You can now go peruse the Craft tab, the Art tab, and the Food tab. I created a new Archive page… too, and made my 404 page more lovely, since I have a feeling people will run across it! I still have some work to do cleaning up the sidebars, and I’m going to be adding more stuff too. Like a Shop, and Free Downloads, and other Goodies!! Let me know if there is anything you’d like to see…

And yes, things are…

As promised here’s a little info about making an art or photography portfolio using the free Tumblr blogging platform, like nancydorsner.com.

If you haven’t been following along, I set out on a quest to figure out how to use a blogging platform to create a portfolio site. (My first attempts were in Blogger, and you can view the write up here and see an example here.)

The idea was that “blogging” is easy, website design is not. Many creative types do not want to worry about keeping a portfolio site updated, and it’s easy for their sites to become out of date.…

Version 3.0! NancyDorsner.com
.. check it out and let me know what needs fixing!

Some background:
A while back I wrote about my quest to create an Art Portfolio website using Blogger (or any blog based engine). The idea was that didn’t look like a blog, but would be as easy to update as a blog, since most creative types don’t want to spend a lot of time keeping a website up to date.
Here are a couple of the sites I created using Blogger
-My old art portfolio site: http://dorsner.blogspot.com/
-A friend’s photography portfolio site: Grieg Wehr Photography

Several people wrote to me that they really…

If you remember, I embarked on an adventure to attempt to build a portfolio site using Blogger, that didn’t look like a blog, but would be as easy to update as a blog. Well, I did a photography site for a friend using the same method, and that inspired me to go back and finish up (read: re-do) mine. So check out version 2 of my experiment – a lot cleaner i think: Nancy Dorsner Art and Illustration.

-My friend’s photography portfolio site: Grieg Wehr Photography

In other news, a photo I took at Dragon*con has been Boing Boing’ed!. So if…

–Don’t forget! The Summer Doldrums contest – It’s fun to share your stuff!–

Coming tomorrow, the second installment of the Dabbled Interview Series: Diana Evans, an artist and illustrator and prolific blog proprietress from Ontario, Canada. Be sure to check it out!

And a big thank you for the feedback on my the Art Portfolio made out of Blogger blog — I’ve made some changes based on your feedback, check it out!! dorsner.blogspot.com (if you still want to see the original flash component that was on the front page, click on the link under the current one. Several people found the first one confusing.) Feedback…

If you’re looking to create an art or photography portfolio using Blogger, or other free blog software, you’ve come to the right place!
This is the first post about what I did.
You’ll also find these useful:

• 7/08: Steps to create a portfolio in Blogger If you already know how to blog in Blogger, this is a pretty easy option. It’s not quite as easy to keep updated as Tumblr though. HTML skills help.
• 3/09: Steps to create a portfolio in Tumblr (and some advantages over Blogger) Tumblr platform is not as mature as Blogger’s, but adding new portfolio items is easy.
• A Site done…