WordPress is one of the simplest self-hosted blogging platforms around, but working with multisite is a different beast altogether. Sure, there are a few online guides and tutorials, but this is just one of those things you should really read up on before diving in. Mika Epstein, one of the top volunteers in the WordPress Support Forums, has just published WordPress Multisite 101, a pay-what-you-want eBook available in EPUB and PDF formats. The suggested donation for the book is $5, but depending on how useful you find it, there’s nothing stopping you from sending $10, $20, maybe even $100, or the inevitable nothing if that’s how you roll. The book covers everything from getting started to running your own network, and you will always have the forums if you need further assistance.

New plugins Latest News Ticker lets you have a news ticker across your entire website. P2 Resolved Posts is a lightweight GTD plugin for WordPress and the P2 theme which allows you to mark a thread as “unresolved” when there’s something needing to be finished, and mark it as “resolved” when it’s been finished. Updated plugins Tallyopia Analytics provides analytics that you can embed into your site using shortcodes or view in your admin dashboard.

Atheros is modern, customizable, clean, and readable with nice smooth shadow effects. Daylight uses soft, subtle daylight sky blue in the background, white post content areas and a minimalist, simple setup.

If you’re a WordPress plugin developer, you may have received an email from an address other than WordPress.org notifying you that your plugin had been removed. These emails are fake and designed to gather your login information for unknown nefarious reasons. Emails from the WordPress.org Plugin Repository are always sent from a WordPress.org email address, so if you receive an email from elsewhere claiming official WordPress.org Plugin Repository business, delete it immediately. If you have already fallen victim to this phishing attack, you should change your passwords as soon as possible.

New plugins Rich Text Editor For Comments replaces the regular comment textarea with a lightweight fully customizable WYSIWYG rich text editor. Ultimate Nofollow is a suite of tools that gives you complete control over the rel=nofollow tag on an individual link basis. Updated plugins Contextual Related Posts helps you increase reader retention and reduce bounce rates by displaying a set of related posts on your website or in your feed. Share Buttons by Lockerz / AddToAny helps people share, bookmark, and email your posts & pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, StumbleUpon, Digg and many more.

Believe is a dark two column theme. Buttercream is a cute cupcake theme in three different color styles. Esplanade is a stylish, modern and flexible theme with responsive layout. Natural is a clean, soft, and attractive theme.

Twenty Twelve, the next great WordPress default theme, has unfortunately been removed from the 3.4 development cycle and pushed back to 3.5. There is no specific reason given for the change, but it seems likely that the team would rather focus on the core functions as WordPress 3.4 draws closer to its inevitable April release. If you already have Twenty Twelve activated and are using trunk, make sure that you activate another theme before upgrading to the latest, as Twenty Twelve will be removed. If you want to continue to use Twenty Twelve, you can grab it from GitHub for now.

New plugins Keyring provides a very hookable, completely customizable framework for connecting your WordPress site to an external service. SuperSlider-Perpost-Code allows you to write css and javascript code directly on your post edit screen on a per post basis. ToolBar Removal allows you to completely disable the WordPress toolbar without loosing logout functionality. Updated plugins CloudFlare ensures your WordPress blog is running optimally on the CloudFlare platform. Fast Secure Contact Form lets your visitors send you a quick e-mail message and blocks all common spammer tactics. Additionally, the plugin has a multi-form feature, optional extra fields, and an option to redirect visitors to any URL after the message is sent. Image Widget uses a native WordPress upload thickbox to add image widgets to your site. JewishDate shows the current date in the sidebar, in phonetic Hebrew. Store Locator allows you to efficiently display and manage your important stores, locations, or […]