Wordpress on Shared Bits

Shared Bits 5-Year Anniversary

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-14

01 - Overview

Five years ago I began my blogging journey. The average life of a blog isn’t very long, so I’ve reached an admirable milestone. Blogging has kept me busy, given me something productive to do, and has been a very rewarding experience.

Unique visitor count was on a nice upward trajectory the first few months, but then fell over the summer. Hopefully the unique visitor count will pick back up again. Average unique visitor count for the year was 1,119.

How I Organize Blog Post Image Files

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-02

If you don’t organize your blog post image files correctly, managing them can become tedious and time consuming. When I began blogging, I had the foresight to name my image files in a manner that enables me to know to which post they belong. With a bit of fine tuning over time, following is the format I currently use to name my image files:

YYYY-###-##_post-title_image–title_###x###.ext

where:

YYYY-### is the calendar year and blog post number
-## is the post image number
###x### is the image resolution (e.g. 640x460)
ext is the image file format; jpg or png (usually jpg)

All of my post header image files (image at the top of a post) get a post image number of 00 and an image title of post-header:

WordPress Security and Spam Prevention Tips

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-20

1 - Introduction

As of the date of this post, I’ve been blogging for almost 4 years and I’ve compiled and use a collection of tips for securing WordPress and preventing spam. I thought it would be helpful to display the tips in one post so that others would not have to search for them like I did. Most of the tips I came across via Internet searches when trying to resolve a security or spam issue I encountered, but I encountered one tip just by reading aother blog.

Save Space When Storing Image Files on Your WordPress Hosting Service Account

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-11

1 - Introduction

When I began blogging back in 2018, I came up with the idea of storing my blog post images on the Postimages site in an effort to save space on my WordPress hosting account. Storing my blog post images on PostImage seemed to work for awhile.

However, on November 15, 2020 the Postimage site went down for at least 14 hours, meaning that the majority of my post images didn’t display since most of my post images were stored on that site. It’s quite possible that the site being down has happened before and I just didn’t know about it. Images are an important part of my posts, so it’s important that they always be available. Therefore, I decided to begin storing all of my images on my WordPress hosting account.

Starting a Blog: My First Experience

Sun, 18 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-16

01 - Introduction

Running a blog is a lot of work in itself; e.g. planning, writing, administration, comment moderation, etc. However, the considerations and research required before even starting a blog can take quite a bit of time as well. I spent a number of days researching and planning all of the details that should be considered prior to starting a blog.

02 - Subject Matter, Blog Name, Domain Name

The very first thing you should think about when considering starting a blog is what you are going to write about; i.e. the blog subject matter. In conjunction with considering what you will write about, you need to come up with a name for your blog and if possible, a domain name that is similar to the name of your blog. I briefly tried blogging in 2016 on the Ghost publishing platform, so I already knew what I wanted to write about, what the name of my blog would be, and I hoped I would be able to use a domain name that was similar to my blog name.

My Recent Experience With Switching WordPress Host Providers

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-09

01 - Introduction

Earlier this month, I began thinking about the need to renew my WordPress hosting plan with SiteGround . I first renewed my domain name registration for another year with Namecheap . I then logged into my SiteGround account and went to a page to renew my hosting plan. I received sticker shock when I saw the renewal rate. I had forgotten how much the renewal rate would increase since my initial year of hosting was at an introductory rate. There was no way I could afford to renew my hosting plan with SiteGround at the renewal rate, so I began looking into alternatives.

Short Bits 2019

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-14

1. Cleaner Method of Measuring Honey for Recipes (2019-04-11)

I recently tried a recipe that I’ve had for some time that called for the use of oil and honey among other ingredients. I didn’t plan it, but I measured the oil first and then used the same measuring cup to measure the honey. All but a very small amount of honey slid right out of the measuring cup.

Creating a WordPress Staging/Testing Site

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-08-28

Introduction

This is a lengthy tutorial, so grab your favorite beverage before commencing.

Initially, I was going to follow guidance from two different sources for setting up a staging/testing site under my SiteGround account, but then I looked around in cPanel and I noticed a site cloning feature and thought that might be easier, which turned out to be true.

What are some of the reasons for creating a staging/testing site? First, to test new features, plugins, or themes you may be considering for your live site. Second, to test plugin, theme, and WordPress updates to make sure nothing breaks your live site. Third, to experiment without interrupting or breaking your live site.

WordPress: Use Image URLs to Save Space on Your Hosting Account

Fri, 07 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 2026-09-20

01 - Introduction

I recently took an online introductory WordPress course in preparation for starting my blog. In a lecture on optimizing images, the instructor recommended storing images of a certain resolution and file size. Otherwise, you risk quickly fill up your hosting space.

The first thought that came to mind was, can you store images elsewhere and use links to point to those images? I learned about using the technique through my frequent use of Linux forums. I learned about a site called Postimages from a Linux forum I used to frequent. Postimages is what I have used to store images for forum posts, utilizing forum thumbnail links. Couldn’t you use a similar technique to show images in WordPress?