The first new tool is Performancing, a Firefox plug-in that allows me to write from within my browser and post directly to this blog. (I’m using it now!) I find it much more forgiving than the WordPress built in editor.

Second, I have changed the theme (with a big shout out to Jim Howard for sending me the Contempt theme files) and modified it to include Sidebar Widgets. It took me far too long to figure out how to do this. To save others the trouble, here are my notes:

Using FTP:

copy widgets folder to ../wp-content/plugins
copy contempt folder to ../wp-content/themes
copy ../wp-content/plugins/widgets/default/functions.php
and ../wp-content/plugins/widgets/default/sidebar.php
to ../wp-content/themes/contempt/

Go into WP Plugins, activate Widgets, and you are good to go!

I have also added a Contact Me page to the site. The Contempt theme did not come with a template, so I stole the contact template from Blix by copying contact.php to my contempt theme folder and selecting that as a template when creating my new page. There are other ways of doing this, such as the PXS Mail Form plug-in, but I am very happy with these results.