I’m happy to announce: After about a year as an overnight producer at the Post (with a recent stint on the night desk), I’ll soon be making the move to a Web producer position with PostLocal.

I could not be more grateful for all that I’ve learned working in the wee hours of the night: how to push out breaking news on at least four platforms and two social media outlets; when a breaking story warrants alerting (read: waking up) a boss; how to prepare our content for the morning surge in traffic; and how to make friends with our CMS.

Our night team and early-morning homepage crew have been fabulous to work with during the bookends of my day, and the foreign editors and correspondents who were the recipients of many an e-mail or phone call have been a treat as well.

I’m excited to tackle some new challenges when I make the transition over to the Local section, once a new night/overnight producer is trained and ready to go.

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I know you’re probably up to your eyeballs in internship applications, but add this to you to-do list: Apply for an ACES scholarship worth up to $2,500.

Each year, ACES gives out five scholarships: four $1,000 awards and one $2,500 Merv Aubespin Award named for the “godfather” of ACES.

The deadline to apply is Nov. 15, but don’t procrastinate. The application process is fairly comprehensive, but well within your reach if you start soon.

What you’ll need to send in

Complete info is available on the actual application form, but here’s the rundown:

Please send FIVE copies of this form and FIVE copies of each of the following items. Use 8.5 x 11-inch paper.

• A list of course work relevant to copy editing. You may include courses outside journalism.
• A list of your copy editing experience, including work on student and professional publications.
• An essay on what you think makes a good editor and why you want to be a copy editor. Write no more than 750 words, double-spaced.
• Two recommendation letters: one from a faculty member or adviser at your college and one from someone on a college or professional publication. Letters should include information about your commitment to professional copy editing.
• Copies of five to 10 headlines you have written. (Photocopies on 8.5 x 11-inch paper, please.)
• A copy of a story you’ve edited that demonstrates your ability. Include an explanation of the changes you made in the story, along with the circumstances under which it was edited (tight deadline, etc.). If possible, include an unedited version of the story.
• Material that appeared online may be downloaded to a CD; send five CDs with your entry.

I was lucky enough to get one of the ACES scholarships last year, so I know how much an extra $1,000 can help.

Apply now.

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The Online News Association’s 2009 conference is about to kick off. … And it’s already taken over my Twitter feed.

Not going to this year’s conference?

No worries. You can catch free livestreams of the conference’s keynote speakers:

• Twitter CEO Evan Williams – Friday, 9 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. Central
• Technology journalist Leo Laporte – Friday, 1 p.m. PDT/3 p.m. Central
• BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone – Saturday, 9 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. Central

This will be my second time seeing Evan Williams speak. About a hundred folks were lucky enough to hear his thoughts when he spoke at UNL’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications last April.

Want even more ONA09 goodness?

Also free for ONA members: [Livestreams of] 16 of the 18 sessions from The Front End and The Back End tracks on Friday and Saturday on Journalists.org.

Access to both tracks will be available for non-members to purchase for $25 each day. (Not a member? Join now.)

All in all, I have high hopes for this conference. (Just take a peek at the schedule.) I’ll be tweeting throughout, and you can follow the #ONA09 hashtag for thoughts from the rest of the crowd.

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It’s Week 5 of the blog series, and now that you’ve done some groundwork, it’s time to put up your clips. Luckily for you, the entire WordPress community is going to be there to help you: They won’t write your articles or take your photos, but they will provide you with lots of plugins to make things easier.

So, gather up those articles, photos, audio slideshows, headlines, page designs, videos, podcasts and interactive graphics, and let’s get rolling.

How to upload your clips

You can do this one of two ways: Individually uploading them using the Upload/Insert tool on your WP Admin or by dragging and dropping them onto your server using your FTP program. (That’s the same one you used to install your theme.)

If you use the latter, just make sure you aren’t uploading files into your theme’s folder. That should be reserved for items that actually make up your site’s design.

For videos, I recommend Vimeo for hosting. There are some limits on how much you can upload per week for free accounts (paid “Plus” accounts with much higher limits are $60/year), but the quality is better than YouTube by leaps and bounds, as evidenced by this screen grab. (Watch the amazing video it’s from while you’re at it.)

For text stories, link to the online version on a news outlet’s site or post the text on your own site and provide a link to the original. What I’m trying to say: Don’t post loads and loads of PDFs of print stories if you can help it. They’re just not as reader-friendly online as they could be.

Granted for copy editing clips, there’s not really a way around the PDF issue when posting print clips, at least that I’ve found. Sorry.

For photographs and page designs, my guess is you’ll want to post a handful of your best photos and make them into a gallery of some sort. I’ll get back to how to do that in a second when we cover plugins.

(A general warning: Don’t rely on your former employer’s site to be the only source for your clips – especially if it’s a college outlet. If you’re simple going to link on a story on the DailyGazette.com’s Web site, I’d save a copy of the story on your server, too. When content management systems are updated, these can be lost or unpublished. I speak from first-hand experience.)

Give us a reason to click on ‘em

I also think it matters how you present those clips, and Vadim Lavrusik does a fabulous job of telling users why each of his clips are special. Here’s what he does:

After each clip’s link, he includes tidbits that highlight why it stands out, such as “in-depth and computer assisted reporting” or “includes self-produced slideshow.”

Not a bad idea, and one worth considering as you are designing your portfolio section.

So, what goes where, then?

Everyone’s portfolio page (or, likely, pages) will be a bit different. I think a good rule of thumb is to keep things simple and try to eliminate any extra clicks for users. In other words: If you can put a good amount of your clips all on one page and still make it look simple, do it.

Know how annoying it is to go to a newspaper’s Web site and have to load an entirely new page for each photo in a 50-photo slideshow? It’s the same concept.

For me, I have a main portfolio page and a few sub-pages within it. Those sub-pages don’t show up in my navigation bar, though because I want to keep that simple, too. I’ll show you how to do that in a moment.

(Your page structure controls things like drop-down menus, so if your theme has those kinds of menus, this is important. When you’re editing a page, look over to the right under the “Attributes” heading. You’ll see a pull-down menu where you can set the page’s Parent, or the existing page that you want your new one to fall under. It will default to having that parent be your site as a whole, so for most pages, you won’t need to change it.)

The basics about WordPress plugins

To really customize your site, you’re going to want to use plugins, which are add-ons, written in code, that expand what WordPress can do.

I realize that’s an incredibly vague description, but it’s tough to put all plugins under one umbrella. Some post your latest Tweets in your sidebar, others create a simple contact form so users can get in touch with you, and still others block spammers. That’s what three do. There are 5,000+ more.

In short, plugins make it easy for you to do more on your site and do it more easily.

Ways to find good plugins

• Browse through the WordPress plugin directory.
• Click on “Add New” under Plugins in your left sidebar of your WP Admin. There you’ll see a tagcloud that’ll guide you to relevant plugins, plus options at the top to see featured or most popular plugins.
• When in doubt, Google “WordPress plugin [insert whatever you want here].”

How to install them

On the left sidebar of your WP Admin, there’s a section for Plugins. Click “Add New.” From there you can do one of two things:

• Search for a term, such as Flickr or Twitter, to find relevant plugins. Click “Install” over to the right of whichever one looks like the best bet.
• Or upload a .zip file from your desktop. You’ll download those zipped files from a listing in the WordPress Plugin Directory, such as this one.

Once it’s installed, you’ll have to activate it. (Plugins can be saved on your server without actually being in use.) For some plugins, you’ll also have to tweak some settings. Settings for plugins are listed under the “Settings” section on your WP Admin’s left sidebar.

Plugins that might help you out

Some of these have obvious applications to your actual portfolio materials, others are handy to have for your site in general.

(Ed’s note: This is in no way a complete list of plugins you’ll want or need. Some of these may not be applicable to your site, others will. But I can guarantee you there are probably at least a handful not on this list that you’d love. Also, I’ve starred ones I use, in case you’ve ever wondered how I got such-and-such to show up on my site.)

*All in One SEO Pack – Does all sorts of things to make your site more SEO-friendly

*Akismet – Blocks spammy spammers who like to hit your site with their spamification

This is a must-have. Check the settings on your Discussion page and make sure you’re allowing comments. Despite the bad rep comments get on many sites, I’ve found that’s not the case on my site. My guess is it’d be similar on yours. Of course, by being open to comments, you’re at risk for spam. Akismet is across-the-board the standard for spam blockers on WordPress.

Contact Form 7 or *Contact Form ][ - Adds a form to your site to make it easy for users to send you a question and have it delivered to you via e-mail

I think every portfolio site should make it stupidly simple to contact its author. This does that. I've used these forms on other bloggers' sites, and I've gotten e-mails from readers via mine.

*My Page Order - Easily reorder pages by dragging and dropping them in a list

If you want your resume page to be the third link in your nav bar rather than the second, or something like that, this is a great pick.

*Yet Another Related Posts Plugin - Adds auto-generated list of related posts you have at bottom of your blog entry

If you're even a decent amount of blogging, I'd highly recommend this. You want to make it easy for a user to find content that they're interested in. If they read a whole post, bets are that they might read another on the same topic.

*Fancy Box - Add the ability to click on image and get larger version to pop up within the same window

Tons of plugins for popup image galleries are discussed in Plugins for Portfolio Sites and Ultimate Guide to Using WordPress for a Portfolio. (Scroll post the theme suggestions to get to the plugin section.)

Exclude Pages - If you want to keep your top navigation bar uncluttered, this is for you. It allows you to leave certain pages off your nav bar.

My theme works best with just a few tabs up top, but I have a handful more pages. This helps me keep by navigation bar simple, but allows me the freedom to create pages galore.

*WPtouch - Detects when someone is viewing your site on an iPhone or iPod Touch and displays a mobile-friendly version of your site, which it also generates.

*Video Widget - Adds ability to easily embed videos to your sidebar.

You could easily use this as a way to get more clicks on your videography clips.

Audio Player - Allows you to embed an audio player.

If you've got clips of radio newscasts or online audio stories, this may be a good fit.

Author Exposed - When you click on an author's name, this makes a little popup that displays bio info and an avatar. (This is a great pick for multi-author blogs, but it certainly could be used for single-author ones, too.)

*Easy Twitter Links - Automatically creates links to person's Twitter profile if you put in @username on your site. (This won't show up on your back-end editor, but it will on your actual site once you publish a post.)

If you reference lots of people on Twitter, this is a huge time-saver.

*Sociable - Adds links to bottom of your posts so users can easily share or bookmark them

*WP Greet Box - Adds box at top of posts that you can customize depending on if someone finds your site through Google Reader, Twitter, Delicious, etc. The boxes look something like this:

Sideposts Widget - Shows excerpts from a certain category of posts in your sidebar

Featured Content Gallery - Makes rotating image gallery that you can use to select and promote certain pages or posts

A few last thoughts

The process of trying out new plugins is never-ending. I'm still fiddling with things, and because of the huge volume of plugins out there, it may take you months to stumble upon some gems that you never even knew you needed.

Two final questions

If you already have a site, what plugins do you swear by?

For everyone, what topics should I cover in the next couple weeks? (CSS tweaks were mentioned a while back, and they're one of the only things still left on my to-do list. If you want something else, let me know.)

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Apologies for the delay, folks, but after a bit of a holiday break, I’m back. This post is the fourth in a weekly series that will take journalists through how to set up a professional-looking portfolio Web site. Find out more about the series and read the first, second and third posts if you missed them. Check back next week for more.

For this week’s task, we’re going for focus on resumes – both in HTML and PDF forms.

We’re doing this for a couple reasons. We want to make it easy for a recruiter to do two things:

• Scan your resume on your actual site
• Download a copy of it and print it out

And since we’re going to take the time to do this, it’s a good idea to give that resume a bit of a facelift if it needs one. (I’ve found it’s convenient to do this now, rather than in the fall when you’re under a deadline crunch for internship applications.)

Part 1: Give your resume a facelift

So, here are some tips via Twitter.

1. Ditch the Word template, go into InDesign

Lauren Rabaino (@laurenrabaino) said:

Don’t use a word template. Show you know a liitle Photoshop/indesign … http://is.gd/18A5w

Andrew Spittle (@andrewspittle) had a similar message:

Do: create something personal, something yours. Dont: just use an out of the box look that hundreds of others are using.

I totally agree. If you have access to InDesign, it can really add a visual punch to the design of your resume. (If you’re stuck with Word, at least do some minor tweaks.)

It can also help you fit more information on without making your resume look cluttered.

Lauren’s blog post has some great examples of resumes with a bit of flair, but not so much that it gets out of hand.

This blog post also has examples of some tastefully designed resumes. (Straying too far into Crazytown can land your … um, “artistic”? … resume in a recruiter’s trash can, so don’t get too wild.)

2. Emphasize your Web and multimedia skills

Lauren also advised students on this point:

Always include a URL to blog/e-folio

Christopher Wink (@christopherwink) went even further, saying:

Don’t lead with big print creds, but even small Web cause that’s what’s unique about young journalist http://tinyurl.com/ncvftc

I like the gist that Christopher is getting at: Play up any and all Web skills.

I’ll admit, though, that I don’t take things quite as far as Christopher advises. I list my internships, which have all been in print, first on my resume. However, I do play up Web jobs that I’ve had and skills that I’ve accumulated. (On my PDF version, those sit at the very top of my right hand column.)

Sue Burzynski Bullard, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and former recruiter for the Detroit News, summed it up well:

I think students should play up both their traditional skills – i.e. writing or editing for the student newspaper but also need to highlight the online skills that might set them apart from more experienced candidates. …

All J students should graduate knowing how to do [the following] things. And if they aren’t getting it from their programs, they should learn on their own.

• how to create a blog and post text, links, photos, audio and video
• how to edit audio and create a podcast
• how to create and edit an audio slideshow
• how to shoot video stories and edit and upload them
• how to create a Google Reader account, Twitter account and Del.icio.us account

3. Take a long, hard look at how you describe past jobs

You should have more than just job titles under the “Experience” heading. Why? Job titles alone tell recruiters little.

Joe Grimm, who writes the Ask the Recruiter column on Poynter, gives this advice:

Describe your jobs. Don’t say you were a reporter. Say you were a reporter who covered a school district, two police departments and the local court and that you wrote a Sunday column.

The description is where you can set yourself apart from the other 400 applicants who were also a “metro desk intern” or “features design intern.”

Of course, don’t let fancy schmancy descriptions make it impossible to tell what you really did. Sandra Tyler, copy desk chief at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, offered this advice:

Don’t try to BS me — I hate that. List your qualifications, in plain English. Newspapers deal in facts. Give me facts about yourself.

4. Make your resume flawless.

Heidi White, assistant state editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was blunt on this point:

Errors. That will make me want to throw away your resume, no matter what.

Enough said.

So, now that you’ve given that resume a bit of a refresher, it’s time to post it.

Part 2: Post the PDF version

If you’ve never had to save a PDF before, here’s how:

• In InDesign: Go to File, then Export. Somewhere along the line, you’ll see a drop down button for Save as Type where you can select Adobe PDF. Name the file and save it.
• In Word: Go to file, then Print. Up top where you normally select a printer to send your file to, select Adobe PDF 8.0 or something close to that and click print. That will prompt you to save your file to your desktop.
  • A helpful tip: When people download your resume, it will maintain its original file name, so it’s a good idea to name it “JohnDoeResume.pdf” or something else professional.

To upload your resume from within WordPress, click the little square icon at that you use to upload an image. Select the file and click upload.

That will bring up this screen. Normally, we click “Insert into Post,” but it doesn’t make sense to embed a giant PDF file onto your page directly, does it? That would mean anyone checking out your resume would have to wait for the darn thing to load. Not fun.

Instead, you want to copy the URL listed as the link URL.

Then you can click “Save All Changes” and close that screen.

Now that you’re back in the main WordPress editor, you can type “Download resume as PDF” or something like that. Highlight that text and click the link icon and paste in the URL we copied from the previous pop-up screen.

That will link that text to the PDF you uploaded. Make sense?

Now we need to post your resume in HTML format. This doesn’t mean you’re going to have to go code crazy, it just means you’ll be copying and pasting a lot and adding links throughout.

Part 3: Post the HTML version

When you copy and paste your resume sections into WordPress, you’re likely going to be carrying over some crazy text styles and whatnot from InDesign or Word. You don’t want that. It makes your page’s fonts look all sorts of funky.

To get around that, you can past the text into WordPress using the HTML view, instead of the Visual view you’ve been working in. Just click the HTML tab there at the top.

(You can also paste your information into TextEdit or Notebook and then re-copy it and paste it into the normal Visual view, but that’s just too much work in my opinion. Don’t be afraid to switch into HTML view when needed.)

Now to make your text look pretty, you can use a mix of bold and italics (use those sparingly, though, please) and set your section headings in Heading 3. (Usually that’s a good choice, play around with those to see what looks good to you.)

Not all of these are made on WordPress, but here are a few other student journalists’ resumes to check out:

Greg Linch | Alina Selyukh | Andrew Spittle | David Ubben

While you’re at it, you might want to go ahead and paste all this info into your LinkedIn profile, too. (See Greg Linch’s profile to see how this is done right.)

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This week you’re going to get comfortable with the basics of creating content on your blog.

You can create two basic types of entries on WordPress: blog posts and pages.

Blog posts are just what they sound like. You’re reading one right now.

Pages are used for things like your resume, portfolio or blogroll. The tabs across the top of my Web site all link to individual pages.

So, now that we know what each is meant for, let’s create some content.

Write your first blog post

You might want to use your fist blog post to introduce yourself, give readers a little insight into why you are making your site and foreshadow what you plan to blog about.

Go to www.YourDomain.com/wp-admin and log in.

On the upper left hand side, you’ll see a button that says “Add new” underneath the “Posts” tab. Click it.

Now you’ll want to give your blog entry a title.

In the body field, you’ll obviously put the body of your post.

Some basic buttons you'll use

To style your text, pay attention to the blog and italics buttons, as well as the drop-down menu that says “Paragraph.” “Heading 3″ tends to be the one you’ll want to use for subheads.

You also may want to use the bulleted list and numbered list buttons, plus the quoted material button and indent buttons.

Speaking of all this stuff, allow me to go on a very important tangent for a moment.

Writing for the Web: Just the basics

Some things to keep in mind about writing for the Web:

1. Link. Link. Link.

• If you refer to an article online, link to it.
• If you mention someone who has a personal Web site, link to it.
• If you mention your favorite movie, link to its IMDB page.

I cannot underscore the importance of links. They help your Google search rankings, and more importantly, they make you look like you actually understand the Web. Get friendly with this button.

2. Make your posts easy to scan.

• Keep your paragraphs short, much like you do in news articles.
• Use bulleted lists when applicable.
• Use subheads to break up large chunks of text and make your organization stand out.

3. Use visuals when you can. Flickr often has good Creative Commons-licensed photos that you can use if you don’t have your own photos. Just make sure to credit them appropriately.

4. Especially when writing headlines, think about SEO, or search engine optimization.

This means that you should write your blog titles with Google search in mind. A months-old entry of mine titled “Getting Google to recognize my blog” still gets a decent amount of hits thanks to people searching that phrase in Google.

• Kill the cute stuff. Keep titles literal. Plays on words or puns don’t tend to work well.
• Be specific and use keywords. Nouns are especially important in Web headlines, while verbs tend to get more of an emphasis in print headlines.
• Be clear and concise.

OK, done with that tangent. Back to writing your first blog post.

You’ll want to type in whatever and hopefully add a photo, which you can do by clicking the icon that has a square on it. (It’s at the top of the bar with all those buttons.) There, you can upload a photo from your desktop or place one that’s already online.

You can also scale the photo down in side and add a caption to it if you want. Remember to credit photos appropriately if you’re not using your own. Once you have all that done, just click “insert into post” and it should appear.

When you’re done with your post, you can click the “Save draft” button on the upper right hand side to save it so you can come back to it later. You can also click “Preview” to double check that everything looks OK without actually making the post go live.

And once you’re ready, you want to click “Publish.”

Once you do that, you should see your first post when you go to www.YourDomain.com.

So, now that you have that wrapped up. It’s time to add another page to your site. For our purpose this week, we’ll start simple.

Create your about page

Most every blog should have an about page. It’s an easy way for someone who stumbles onto your site to find out who you are and what your schtick is.

So, to create a new page, go to your left hand sidebar in your Admin and click “Add new” under “Pages.”

You’ll notice that the controls for creating a page look very similar to those used to create a blog post. I’d recommend fiddling around a bit just to get comfortable with them. Remember, you can always click “Preview” to see what it looks like without saving it and making it go live.

So, what should you include in your About page?

Here are my suggestions. Take ‘em or leave ‘em.

• Where do you go to school, and what is your year and major?
• Where have you worked or interned? (Remember to link to the Web sites of those news organizations, too.)
• What jobs titles have you had in journalism? (I might want to know if you’ve been a photographer at XYZ newspaper or a features columnists or editor-in-chief.)
• Are you active on social media? If so, link to your page on Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Wired Journalists, Publish2, etc.
• What do you look like? (I think including a photo makes it a bit more personal. You are now a face rather than just a name.)
• Is there something that makes you memorable? Including a fact that sticks out in people’s minds is never a bad idea.
• Are you looking for internships or freelance opportunities? It probably wouldn’t hurt to mention that, just in case.

Here are some examples of about pages by other student journalists or recent graduates:

• Josh Halliday, student at University of Sunderland in the U.K.
• Greg Linch, recent graduate from the University of Miami
• Vadim Lavrusik, student at Columbia University Graduate School
• UNL’s very own Alina Selyukh
• Albert Sun, student at University of Pennsylvania

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So, now that you’ve done everything that’s covered in Week 1, you should be ready for your next step: find a design for your site and install it.

Now I know what you might be thinking: “Wait, find a site design? You mean you didn’t make yours from scratch?”

Well, no. I’m not that talented.

WordPress has a fabulous community of designers who pride themselves in creating designs that you can download (often for free) and use on your own site.

In WordPress terminology these ready-made designs are called themes.

So, this week we are going to learn how to find free, professional themes and install them.

What do you need out of your theme?

Before you go pick a theme, consider what you will be using your site for.

• Is it going to house your photography portfolio?
• How about video packages?
• Maybe text stories with some multimedia?
• A mix of all of the above?
• Will you blog frequently?
• Do you want a classic color scheme or a bright one?

Some themes work better for certain tasks than others. Keep that in mind when you’re looking. (For instance, if you’re a visual journalist, do you want to have a big header image in your theme so you can play your photos big?)

Check out some themes

The best way I know to find a good theme is to look at oodles and oodles of them, download quite a few and try them out.

(Sidenote: Many many many WordPress themes are free. Some cost a bit – usually starting at around $20 and up. I’ve paid for a theme before, but the one I use now was free. Lesson learned: You very likely can find a free theme that you’ll love. If you want to pay up, you can, but you certainly don’t have to.)

Most themes will have a “live demo” or “preview” link somewhere. Meta-Morphosis here on the right is a good example of what you’ll often find.

If you like it, click the “Download” link that is most likely very near the “live demo” link. That will get you the zipped file for the theme.

So, where do you start looking? Here are some places to check out.

For everyone: 100 Amazing Free WordPress Themes for 2009

For photogs and designers, specifically: 21 Premium-like Free Photoblog Themes for WordPress

For everyone: Google search

Other options

• You can go to Delicious and do a search for WordPress themes to see what users have bookmarked. (I have a few under my account.)
• You can also use WordPress’s own search to find themes, but there are literally thousands to choose from. I like it when someone else has done some of the filtering for me. Nevertheless, the search is there if you want to use it.

Now that you’ve downloaded a few themes, it’s time to put them on your Web server space that you bought last week. To do that, we’ll use an FTP client.

Download an FTP client

Don’t know what FTP even means? Don’t worry.

Basically an FTP client is a program will take files from your computer and put them on your hosting space.

It gets things from here to there. (It’s much like when you copy and paste something from one folder on your hard drive into another.)

In our case, what we’re going to be transferring is a folder containing your WordPress theme.

Sidenote: Your hosting company probably has an FTP program built into its site somewhere. (Godaddy does, but quite frankly it’s not the easiest way to do things in the long run.) In my opinion at least, it’s much easier to download a handy dandy program on your computer that allows you to do the same thing but with fewer clicks.

So, what program should you get? (I’m sticking with free options for now. You can pay for higher-end FTP programs, but I’m trying to give you a bare-bones how-to on setting up a site for cheap.)

If you’re a Mac user, I’ll talk you through Cyberduck, the FTP program I use and love.

If you’re a PC user, I’ll give you some resources for how to use Filezilla.

(Ed’s Note Part A: I’ll apologize now to my PC-using friends. Because I’m a Mac user with no access to a PC right now, your instructions may be less detailed than those for your Mac-using counterparts. Sorry. I’ll always try to find online documentation to help you along wherever I can’t.)

(Ed’s Note Part B: You can use whatever FTP program you want. I’ll talk you through one that you can use on whichever operating system you’re on, but by no means are these the only two options. Thanks! -Emily)

For Mac users:

Download Cyberduck.

Once you download it and install it on your computer. You’re going to want to start the program and then select File->Open Connection.

This will ask for your server number, username and password. All of this can be found by logging into GoDaddy with your username and account there at the top of the homepage. Then go under Hosting->My Hosting Account and then clicking “Manage Account” next to the domain you bought.

Your server IP address should be listed in that first screen that will pop open. It will be something like 123.456.789.01. Copy that and paste it into Cyberduck’s Open Connection window where it says Server. Then put your GoDaddy username and password in where it asks for them.

This, hopefully, should get you logged in.

Sweet. Now you’re ready to install a theme.

Hopefully you’ve downloaded a ZIP file of some theme you like (really any will do for the purpose of just learning how to install one). If so, unzip it.

Now, that Cyberduck screen is much like a Finder window on your Mac. It shows you what files are on your server space. So, we want to find the right folder to drag and drop that theme folder. It’s going to be in one of two places. If you installed WordPress directly into your root folder (the base level of your server), you’ll find it by going here:

wp-content/themes/

If, however, you installed wordpress within a folder itself, you’ll need to go to:

wordpress/wp-content/themes/

Either way is fine and dandy. Once you get to that folder, you’ll likely see two other folders inside it: classic and default. Those themes come already installed with WordPress.

All you need to do is drag and drop that theme folder you unzipped over on top of that Cyberduck window. It’ll bring up a screen that shows the status of the upload and you’ll see when it’s reached 100%.

For PC users:

Download Filezilla and install it.

Go here for more instructions on how to use it. (I’m suggesting you use Filezilla mostly because these instructions are about as detailed as I try to make mine for Mac users.)

Some of the instructions on that page are probably more advanced than you’ll need. Going on a pure educated guess here, I’d bet that the portions that will be most useful will be under the following headings:

• • Using the Quick Connect bar
  • Navigating on the server
  • Navigating on your machine
  • Transferring files

Just like your Mac-using friends, you’ll be putting your theme folders under one of two places depending on where you installed WordPress. You’ll either be putting them in:

wp-content/themes/

or

wordpress/wp-content/themes/

Either is perfectly fine. Once you get to that folder, you’ll see two folders already inside it: classic and default. Those themes come packaged with WordPress when it’s installed.

That’s how you get your theme from your desktop to your server. Now you need to activate it. (This takes just a couple clicks, I promise.)

Activate your theme

Open Firefox or whatever browser you’re using and go to www.YourDomainHere.com/wp-admin/

Log in using your username and password that you picked when you installed WordPress.

Now, off to the left hand side, you should see a light blue bar that says Appearance. Under it should say Themes, Widgets and Editor. (If it doesn’t, just click “Appearance” and those options will slide down.)

So, click “Themes.” That will bring up a window that should show you a preview of every theme you have installed, which will most likely be 3 for you (classic, default and your new one.)

Click on the new one, let the popup window open and then click in the upper right hand corner where it says “Activate ThemeX.”

If you go to www.YourDomainName.com now, you should see your new theme in action.

You can install as many themes as you want, provided that you don’t exceed your hosting space limit, but you shouldn’t need to worry about that for a while. (I have probably a dozen themes installed for my site. I tried out quite a few before I settled on the one I have now. I’d recommend you try out a few, too.)

Customize your settings

Right now, the subtitle of your blog probably says, “Just another WordPress blog.” Not very original, huh? To change that, you need to go into your Settings menu.

In your WordPress Admin, look on the left hand side. You should see a blue bar that says “Settings,” and under it should be a list of sub-categories. (If these don’t show up, just click “Settings” and those options will slide down.)

You can change the “Just another WordPress blog” chatter under “General.” You can also change various settings including what page will appear as your homepage at www.YourDomainName.com.

The best thing you can do at this point is to click through those settings pages and just get a feel for what you can change.

Play around with things. I promise you won’t break anything so badly that it can’t be fixed with just a few clicks.

So, are you finding these tips useful? I’m curious to see who is following along with the series. If you would, post the URL to your site in the comments. I’d love to see what everyone has so far.

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This post is the first in a weekly series that will take journalists through how to set up a professional-looking portfolio Web site. Check back next week for more.

First things first: If you know anything about me and how-to guides, you know that I’m a bit of a screen cap nut. I’m a big believer in showing you what you should click, so apologies if this post looks a bit gargantuan. Also, some of the screen caps were too wide to fit on my blog at their full size. If you’re having problem seeing what they say, click them and they should pop up in full size so you can read what they say.

Also, I promise this isn’t too hard. This is a huge post, but only because I’m just trying to make sure I don’t leave any steps out.

Step 1: Choose a domain

You need to get a domain. You can register a domain through tons of Web sites. (I use GoDaddy and have few complaints, so that’s what I will use to walk you through things. If you want to use another host, go right ahead.)

(Update: Check the comment section for some suggestions for alternative hosts.)

One you think of a domain you like, go ahead and do a search on GoDaddy’s home page to see if it’s available.

I’d recommend you a .com domain that is derived from your name. EmilyIngram.com wasn’t taken when I set mine up. If your FirstnameLastname.com domain is taken, just stick to something professional sounding that you’ll be happy to keep for many years to come.

Some alternatives for you to consider:

• www.byJohnDoe.com – Joey Baker’s www.byjoeybaker.com is one example of this.
• www.DoeReporter.com or www.DoeDesign.com or www.DoePhotography.com – Andrew Dunn’s www.dunnreporter.com is one that comes to mind.
• www.JohnADoe.com – See Andy Boyle’s www.andymboyle.com.

Find one you like that no one else has laid claim to? Awesome.

Step 2: Buy it before someone else does

(I already have a GoDaddy account, so I hope that my instructions here are the same if you don’t have one. That said, if GoDaddy is trying to get you to add on anything I don’t mention here, you probably don’t need it.)

So you’ve found a domain you want and it’s available. Now, it’s time to buy it. GoDaddy will try to get you to buy all sorts of additional domains, such as the .net and .biz alternatives of what you picked. You don’t need them.

(Update: Adam made a good point in the comments below. Though you certainly don’t need to buy the .net or .info or .biz versions of your domain, you can buy them if you want to block other people from doing so. It’s definitely not a bad idea, but it’s up to you.)

Click the orange “Proceed to Checkout” button.

This next screen will likely be another attempt by GoDaddy to get you to buy more domains that you don’t need. Just click “No thanks.”

Now you’ll need to put in your personal information to create an account with GoDaddy. Then click “Continue.”

On this next screen, you’ll want to choose how long you want to register your domain for. (I go on a year-to-year basis, and GoDaddy will call you when you’re near the end of that year so you know you need to renew.)

You’ll also want to check the button that says “Economy Hosting.” (It’s in that first yellow column. One year of hosting will run you about $55.)

Now scroll to the bottom of the screen and you’ll see two lines of text. One of them will say something about customizing your order. The other says “No, proceed to checkout.” (Or something to that effect.) Click that one and go to the next screen.

This, I think, will get you to your actually checkout. (GoDaddy may give you more options to buy stuff. Like I said, you probably don’t need it.)

Your domain plus one year of hosting will run a hair less than $60.

Because I’m a big fan of coupon codes when shopping online, here’s a way to save about $11: Enter “BTPS7″ (without the quote marks) to save 20% on any order of $50 or more.

(I don’t know when that one expires, so as a backup you can try “Rev6″ (again, no quote marks), which should get you 20% off your hosting plan. That’s basically the same deal, and that code will likely not expire for a while.)

You’ll have to select how you want to pay. (Again, because I already have an account, you may need to enter extra information that I already have stored in their system.)

Agree to their terms of service by checking the two checkboxes.

Click “Checkout Now” and you should be all done.

Do a little happy dance.

Step 3: Install WordPress

On the green navigation bar, scroll over Hosting and select the last option on the list, “GoDaddy Hosting Connection.”

Because GoDaddy’s site design is a little screwy sometimes, it may treat you like you’re not logged in even if you are. Just click the “Log in to your account to get started” line, and you’ll be good to go.

This screen should show your newly purchased domain. Click “Manage Account” next to it.

This will bring up a new screen. You want to click on the gray horizontal bar that says “Content.” Now you want to click on the last button that says “GoDaddy Hosting Connection.”

(Yes, GoDaddy makes it difficult to get to this page. I know. I wish they didn’t.)

On this screen, you’ll see along the left hand side a bunch of options. Click “Blogs.” That will present you with a bunch of other options. Click “WordPress.”

A new screen will open and you should see a gold “Install Now” button. Click it.

You might need to select which domain you want to install WordPress on. (That’s easy as you only bought one.) And you’ll need to choose a username and password.

That should be all you need to do. (I’m not 100% sure as I don’t want to click the button now and risk overwriting any of my installs already on my domains.)

The installation process takes a little while. (Something like up to 24 hours, if I remember right. You can see the status of the installation in the upper right hand part of that page. It’ll say WordPress and then undernearth it something like “Installation Pending.”)

When it is done, you should be able to go to www.YourDomain.com/wp-admin/ and see a login screen like this:

Enter your username and password that you chose earlier, and you should be golden. That means WordPress is installed and you’ll be ready for next week’s task.

Did you run into a problem? Did I leave out something by accident? Leave a comment and I’ll look into it.

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For a while now, I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a series of blog posts that takes my blog readers, who are mostly journalists, step by step through the process of setting up a personal Web site with WordPress on their own server space.

But I didn’t know if it’d be of any use, so I posed the question to my friends on Facebook. The overwhelming response was that it would be, so here I go.

What you can expect

This will be a weekly blog series. In each post, I’ll take you through the details of getting one step closer to having a personal portfolio Web site much like mine. If you have questions, leave a comment and I’ll find you an answer or at least start you in the right direction to finding one on your own.

What you’ll need

• A little cash: A domain and server space will run you about $60/year based on the rates from GoDaddy, the host that I’ll be talking about in my blog posts and the host I use for my site. (You can use another host if you want, too. No big deal.)
• A little time: I built my site in my free time last summer, so this is absolutely something you can accomplish on your own. No need to hire a Web designer or quit your day job.

One caveat: The free option

I’m going to talk you through setting up a site on your own server space because I honestly think it’s the best option if you’re OK with investing a few bucks into the project.

That said … you can go the free route and go straight to WordPress.com and set up a site that way. WordPress takes you through the pros and cons of either option.

Personally, I look at my site as an investment well worth the $5/month I pay in hosting, and I think the extra skills I’ve learned through having to host it on my own come in handy. (I can go into interview now and say that I know what it means to transfer a file via FTP. I couldn’t do that before.)

Plus, as an journalism and advertising double major, I think it’s important to be able to market yourself in a professional manner when you’re applying for jobs and internships. Having a short and simple URL for my site allows me to do that.

So that’s my two cents. If you or someone you know might get some use out of this series, feel free to send them a link here.

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I just wrapped up a great chat with the folks over at Poynter. (If you’re not already devouring all the news and tidbits Poynter has to offer, I’d recommend starting now.)

Poynter faculty member Sara Quinn, along with a handful of Poynter College Fellows, joined in for a lively discussion centering on one question: How can students use the summer to set themselves apart?

If you didn’t get a chance to participate in the chat, Poynter has your back. All chats are archived so you can read them at your leisure. (The full chat archive page is a great resource.)

Sidenote: The opportunity to host this chat came about from a tweet I sent Ellyn Angelotti, Poynter’s interactivity editor and adjunct faculty member. Consider that my Reason No. 428 to use Twitter.

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