About WordPress and Help
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL, which runs on a web hosting service. Features include a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by more than 18.9% of the top 10 million websites as of August 2013. WordPress is the most popular blogging system in use on the Web, at more than 60 million websites.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordpress)
There are literally thousands of tutorials online about using and managing WordPress. Some are obviously better than others. Here are a few I have found useful over the years.
Easy WP Guide
http://easywpguide.com/
This is a website that provides a very detailed, but easy to use, guide to using WordPress. It does require an account and you get an email now and then, but mostly only when there has been an update to WordPress. I have many users who have found the guides very useful.
WordPress.org Support
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons
This is info directly from WordPress. Always good to learn directly from the source.
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wordpress+tutorial&sm=3
If you’re more visual, try some of these. This is simply a search on YouTube, so your mileage may vary.
Of course! We have created a page with some links to helpful resources. If this isn’t enough help, contact us with your specific questions.
Getting a blog on the Lane Blog Network
Currently only faculty and staff of Lane Community College are being offered blogs on the Lane Blog Network. If you are faculty or staff of Lane and would like your own website, please use this form to request one. When going to this form you will be asked to log in using your L# and password (just like ExpressLane or MyLane).
Keeping a blog on the Lane Blog Network
Blogs that have not been updated in over 6 months as of June 1st of each year will be subject to deletion from the Lane Blog Network.
For those blogs that make the list, an email will be sent the first week of June followed up by another email the first week of July warning that your site has not been updated in over 6 months and it is subject to deletion. If there is a valid reason for keeping a site active that is no longer updated, please let us know.
Come August 1st, sites that are still on the list will go away forever. Unfortunately there will be no way to recover a deleted site or the content that was on it.
Support
If you need general help getting your blog functioning, please use this form.
If your blog suddenly started acting odd, or doing something unexpected, please check the Update Log to see if an update may have caused the problem. If there haven’t been any updates that would cause your problem, the next step is to disable plugins on your site one after the other until, hopefully, the problem disappears. If this works, there may be an update necessary for the offending plugin. If so, use the trouble form to let us know.
There are two reasons a blog would be removed from the Lane Blog Network. Either it didn’t conform to the terms of use, or it wasn’t updated for more than 6 months. Either way you would have received emails from us about the problem. If you need to talk to us about it, please feel free to contact us here.
Please also see “Blog Deletion Policy” above.
Of course! We have created a page with some links to helpful resources. If this isn’t enough help, contact us with your specific questions.
Themes and Plugins
We have pre-installed a number of themes and plugins for you.
Themes
Themes are all responsive (they shrink to fit a phone, or look great on a desktop and everything in between) and have Theme Options menus that let you do some customizations to the way your blog looks and works. If there is a specific theme you would like for your blog, please use the theme request form and we will let you know if it’s possible to add.
Plugins
There are a number of plugins installed and kept up to date for you. If there is a specific plugin you would like for your blog, please use the plugin request form and we will let you know if it’s possible to add.
Well, the short answer is, you don’t. Themes and plugins are only able to be installed and updated by the blog admin. While we do our best to keep the themes and plugins up to date, every update may not be applied to the live server. All updates are installed on the test server and only moved to the live server if they don’t cause any issues.
If you notice an issue with your blog or a plugin, please check the Update Log, then, if there are no answers there, let us know what the problem is here.