I’m used to having spell as you type provided by Firefox. It’s had it since Firefox 2.0- and because of that, I’ve never used the Spell Check built into WordPress.

Well, I’ve noticed that while Firefox’s spell check works fine in Gmail and on other websites, it’s not working in WordPress 2.5.1. I’m going to check it out on a few other machines, but on my MacBook running 10.5.3, I have to manually check spelling with the WordPress spell check when I’m posting.

This will take some getting used to.

If you are also having the same problem with Firefox 3 not spellchecking in WordPress- please leave a comment with your version of WordPress and your operating system. It will help me gather info for a bug report.

Due to the fact that Worpress decided to get rid of the “Press It” function until 2.6, I have recently had the need to post the code that will allow you to use the “Press It” feature on your own.

As it turns out, it is supposedly very hard to post code in WordPress. If you just copy and paste your code in, WordPress will turn your quote marks into “Smart Quotes”. They look pretty, but do not work with code. So I set about finding a plugin or some other method to correct this.

Everywhere I looked people were recommending different methods. From using plugins and custom fields, to manually editing, and to online converters. I tried them all, but they either didn’t display the code correctly, or messed up my formatting site wide.

So here is my solution, it may have been suggested before, but I sure couldn’t find it with hours of searching and testing. Simply insert this code into your style sheet:

pre {
width: 95%;
overflow: auto;
padding: 10px;
margin: 1em auto;
font-family: "Courier New", Courier, mono;
background-color: #ddd;
color: #555;
border: 1px dotted #999;
}

Now, when you paste your code into the WordPress editor, highlight it, and select the preformatted option from the “Format” drop down menu.

The pre tag will preserve your quote marks, spacing, indenting, and other elements.

And thats all you have to do. Your code will work when copied and pasted from the browser. If you have a long line of code, instead of running over everything, this will make a horizontal scroll bar to contain it.

Note: WordPress may apply separate <pre> tags to each line when you select it from the drop-down menu. (I have no idea why, it defeats the whole purpose of <pre> tags) To get around this, either manually add <pre> and </pre> before and after the text under the HTML tab in the edit screen, or apply the formatting with the code all as one line, and add the line breaks in afterward.

Once you have a big audience, the question becomes how do you make it make you money?

The answer is to sell out- or at least sell space on your site. There are multiple options for where to get your ads from, and the preferred plugin to manage it is “ad sense manager” which is a bit of a misnomer since it supports a whole bunch of other sites:

WordPress › AdSense Manager « WordPress Plugins
Version 3.1.x now supports AdSense, AdBrite, AdGridWork, Adpinion, Adroll, Commission Junction, CrispAds, ShoppingAds, Yahoo!PN and WidgetBucks.

Automatic Ad Code Importer for all supported networks. Widgets & Sidebar Modules compatible (as used in the popular K2 theme). Automatic limiting of Ads to meet network T&Cs (Google 3 units/page)

Can’t tell you which ad network to go with- since much of that depends on the kind of audience you attract- but, it’s one way to make a living by blogging.