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WordPress is one of the most popular open source blogging and content management systems. It’s free, and it lets you create a website to promote yourself or your business quickly and easily.

WordPress is a flexible, user-friendly system, and it can be extended with a variety of themes and plugins. Beginning WordPress 3 introduces these for the beginning developer who wants to start using WordPress.

What you’ll learn

Book Recommendation: Beginning WordPress 3 1

  • How to get started with WordPress, create new content, and import existing content
  • How to change what appears on a home page, blog post, and more
  • How to handle media uploads, audio/video players, and podcasting
  • How to create themes, widgets, and plugins
  • How to publish, move, maintain, and secure your WordPress sites

Who this book is for

This book is for first-time users, designers, and developers of online content, blogs, and content management systems.

Parts of the book started out as articles on this site, so I’ve linked the headings to the original posts. The versions in the book are generally more detailed.

While the book is intended for developers, Chapter 4, Working with Content, would be useful to anyone using a WordPress site.

Letter from the Author

Dear Reader,
For five years, I’ve used WordPress to build a hundred websites of all kinds: university departments, promotional sites for authors, podcasts, intranets for clubs and committees, small business storefronts, and of course personal blogs. WordPress has become my CMS of choice because it’s so easy for end users to learn how to manage their own sites.

When I began looking for WordPress books, I found plenty of guides for bloggers on using the software and a few advanced guides for developers. This book falls between those extremes. It’s a beginning developer guide that treats WordPress like the powerful content management system it has become. If you’re a web developer who already understands HTML, CSS, and maybe a little PHP, but you’ve never used WordPress before, this book is for you.

Inside, you’ll learn how to install, configure, and customize WordPress to make it the perfect CMS for your next project. I’ll walk you through the complete development of a WordPress site, starting with importing content from another CMS or creating your own. You’ll then learn how to create custom themes that give you complete control over your site’s appearance (and search engine optimization). You’ll see how to extend WordPress with widgets and plugins when your needs outstrip the built-in features. Finally, you’ll learn how to secure your WordPress installation and optimize its performance.

This book also covers two of the big new features in version 3.0: custom content types, which let you take your content beyond basic blog posts and pages, and the network (the integration of WordPress MU into the core software), which lets you build numerous connected WordPress sites from a single software installation.

The code samples include several complete plugins and two themes. Every example in this book was taken from a real-world project. I hope they help you learn to use and adapt WordPress in your own work.

Click here, or the book image above, to order directly from Amazon. At $26.39 this is a fantastic value.

For more about the author, Stephanie Leary, check out her very cool website at SillyBean.net and follower her on Twitter @sleary

Book Recommendation: Beginning WordPress 3 2

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of HicksNewMedia, a Digital Publishing and Technology Consulting team providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to more effective utilize the social interweb. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

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James Hicks

James is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of HicksNewMedia, a Digital Publishing and Technology Consulting team providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to more effective utilize the social interweb. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

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