While developing for Wordpress you sometimes need to create a “non-widgetized” custom sidebar. You would also like to have a list of your most recent posts in that custom sidebar. Unfortunately, Wordpress doesn’t have a “recent posts” template tag.

Here is a simple, easy to implement PHP file you can use to generate a list of recent posts in your custom “non-widgetized” sidebar. Download this file: recent_posts.php. Now, upload it to the wp-content/themes/yourtheme directory, and insert the following code in your sidebar.php file where you want your recent posts list to appear:

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . "/recent_posts.php"); ?>

If you open up recent_posts.php in your favorite text editor you have the ability to change how many posts you want to display. You can also be more specific in what posts you want to display by passing different arguments to query_posts.

After opening our doors only four short months ago we have re-designed our website here at Jestro to reflect all the exciting changes our business has gone through during that time.

This new website is more dynamic, we will keep it updated with our latest work, which you will always be able to find in the portfolio. We will also be posting regular entries here on this Wordpress powered blog. These entries will discuss a variety of topics including:

• The latest news here at Jestro.
• Marketing articles.
• Web design, graphic design, and Wordpress tutorials.
• Anything else we think might be helpful.

If you want to subscribe to the web feed for these entries you will find a link to the RSS format of our feed in the main menu to the right. If you would like to receive an email every time a new entry is posted please follow the “Email Subscription” link in the sidebar and you will be added to our email list.

I recently found this quick and easy tutorial on installing XAMPP Lite locally on Windows XP. This provides a great environment for testing and developing Wordpress websites from your PC. The next logical step is converting this nice local installation into a live site as quickly and easily as possible. I found some excellent instructions from The Tamba2 Wordpress Guides. These guides contain almost all the information used in this tutorial. I really just combined a bunch of the provided information to accomplish this specific task. I put all the instructions together here in a quick, and (hopefully) easy to follow tutorial. Let’s get started.

Export Your Database

First, we need to export your local XAMPP MySQL database. While XAMPP is running, navigate to http://localhost/phpMyAdmin/. Next, click on the database name you want to export in the menu on the left. Your database tables should be displayed and you should see some tabs running across the top. Click the export tab at the top.

Make sure you check the “save as file” box and then click the go button in the lower right. This will create an .sql file for us to import later. Remember where it is saved.

The Import

Log on to your hosting account or your webserver and create a new MySQL database for Wordpress, call it whatever you want.

Once you have created your new database, find PHPMyAdmin, and open it.

Click the name of the database you just created from the dropdown menu.

At the top of the screen it should say “Server: your_server(probably localhost) Database: your_database_name”

Click the Import Tab.

Now click the Browse Button and browse to the location where you saved your *.sql file in the first part of the tutorial.

Click Go at the bottom.

You should get a message at the top stating: “Import has been successfully finished, XXX queries executed.”

Important: If you are importing an extremely large database, over 5MB, you may suffer from a timeout and failed import. If this is the case you need to manually upload your data in parts. See Podz detailed instructions for restoring if you are having this problem

A couple quick changes

Now we need to make a couple quick changes to the database. Click on the Structure tab at the top and then click the little picture in the wp-options row as seen below.

You should now see a list with a column showing all of the option_name values: siteurl, blogname, blogdescription, etc. You need to change two of them. The first is the very first option, siteurl. Click the little pen button on the left side of the siteurl table row. It is directly to the left of the big red X. You should now see something similar to this:

Type your new blog URL in the big text box. Important: Make sure you do not add a forward slash / at the end of the URL.

Click Go.

Your siteurl row should now display your new blog URL instead of localhost or whatever IP address it was showing before.

Now you must repeat this same exact operation on a different option row with the option_name of home. You may have to use the pagination to view the second page of option rows to find it. It is option_id #39 on a normal Wordpress install.

Your new database is now ready to go, exit PHPMyAdmin.

Edit, Upload, and Go!

Browse to your local Wordpress installation.

Open up your wp-config.php file and input the MySQL details (username, password, etc.) of the new database you created in the previous step.

Save and close wp-config.php.

Upload the ENTIRE contents of your local Wordpress folder to the new location on your webserver. This new location should must be the same one you used in the first part of this tutorial when changing the siteurl and home values in phpMyAdmin. This is important. If the locations are different, it will not work.

Your done, navigate to your new “live” Wordpress powered website and enjoy.

Note: If you want to continue using your local installation you can keep your updated wp_config.php file and add the following lines of code to your local version of the file(this will override the two option values we changed earlier in phpMyAdmin):

//*Set Path
define('WP_HOME', 'http://localhost' );
define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://localhost');