Here are the two links that might be helpful:

1. http://nettuts.com/site-builds/how-to-create-a-wordpress-theme-from-scratch/
2. http://nettuts.com/working-with-cmss/how-to-create-a-wordpress-theme-from-scratch-part-2/

As we all know Cookies are essential for web browsing. But some cookies are not so friendly and can hijack your secret data such as your personal details. To prevent this to happen follow the steps below.

Log in to WordPress.com using your login details. Click on Edit Profile in the My Account menu of your dashboard and you’ll see a new field called Browser Connection. There, you can opt to “Always use HTTPS when visiting administration pages.” Click Update Profile to save the change, and you’ll be logged out. Sign back in, and you’re rolling with SSL, which encrypts your connection and helps prevent data scavengers from stealing your password and other info.

Today I've found an interesting link which perhaps will help a lot of bloggers who are planning to migrate their blogs from Blogger to WordPress. Here are the steps.

There’s been a new drop of WordPress which addresses some security issues and a couple of bugs. Here the write up from the development blog:

Stefan Esser recently warned developers of the dangers of SQL Column Truncation and the weakness of mt_rand(). With his help we worked around these problems and are now releasing WordPress 2.6.2. If you allow open registration on your blog, you should definitely upgrade. With open registration enabled, it is possible in WordPress versions 2.6.1 and earlier to craft a username such that it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password. The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, so this problem by itself is annoying but not a security exploit. However, this attack coupled with a weakness in the random number seeding in mt_rand() could be used to predict the randomly generated password. Stefan Esser will release details of the complete attack shortly. The attack is difficult to accomplish, but its mere possibility means we recommend upgrading to 2.6.2.

Other PHP apps are susceptible to this class of attack. To protect all of your apps, grab the latest version of Suhosin. If you’ve already updated Suhosin, your existing WordPress install is already protected from the full exploit. You should still upgrade to 2.6.2 if you allow open user registration so as to prevent the possibility of passwords being randomized.

2.6.2 also contains a handful of bug fixes. Check out the full changeset and list of changed files.
It’s not a big upgrade, so pretty easy to deploy to your blog. Wordpress 2.7 shouldn’t be too far away though, so you might want to hold out for that one.

There are reports of a few people who are running the latest trunk of WordPress on a live blog and that is a really bad idea. The merge of Crazyhorse is still being stabilized and there are quite a few areas that I’ve tested, on a dev site, that are currently broken.

I believe that the level of stability of the Crazyhorse merge is increasing and I expect I’ll be able to SVN Up to the latest revision. I’ve been keeping a watch on the trouble areas, but haven’t been reporting issues until it is stable.

I think one of the issues is that the new “Inbox” includes test data, that I really don’t want to have on my blog. Yeah, I can delete it, but I don’t know what it is for currently, and I don’t want test data on my live blog. Hopefully, for those who have updated, it will be removed, but I suspect that including that in the upgrade process might not make much sense.

That said, from what I’ve seen, it is looking better. I’m impressed with the features and increased usability of the new version. When everything works and it should before WordPress 2.7 is released, I think many people will be happy. If not a little bit upset with yet another major interface change, since WordPress 2.5. People will eventually find that the new interface is a lot easier and better.

You can already change the Administration Panels, if you don’t like the changes.

Who am I to suggest this? Well, you can do what you want. Just be sure you don’t get mad when it hits the fan and I strongly suggest you test WordPress locally. When I say, “Test” I don’t mean you just write a single post and see if that works. I mean you go through every page, hit every button, input every field (that you want to know working), everything! to see that it works. If it does, then let me know.

Source

Coollittlethings Studio has added its own software to the mix of blogging applications for the iPhone in the shape of Blog Press (iTunes Store link).
Unlike some other general blogging tools for the iPhone which have missed out one or more key blog platforms, the developers claim it works happily with all the major players — that’s Blogger, Windows Live Spaces, WordPress, Movable Type, and TypePad.
It supports photo uploading from a Picasa Web Album or Blog Press Public Album (both of which would need to be set up first, naturally). It’s not clear whether you can also grab photos from the iPhone’s albums, as you would with most other applications.
Blog Press supports WYSIWYG editing of text and photos, and automatically saves drafts in case of an incoming phone call. It can also manage multiple blog accounts.
It launched today in the App Store, and is at version 1.0.0, but at least you can be fairly confident of updates coming as and when bugs are found. It costs £5.99 (probably around $9.99?) so it requires a little financial investment, and if you’re only interested in blogging for one platform, you might try the free WordPress or TypePad blogging applications instead.

Source

The WordPress 2.7 is scheduled to be released in November 2008. Some exciting features on the next version includes:

• The long awaited Threaded Comments feature has been added to the trunk of WordPress 2.7. They should still work with comment threading WordPress Plugin though testing is still ongoing.
  
• Inline Editing has been added to WordPress 2.7 which will allow posts and Pages to be edited with a “Quick Edit” link.
  
• Ability for the Administrator to reply directly from the Comments Panel has been added to the WordPress 2.7 trunk.
  
• Comment moderation and management now has keyboard shortcuts.
  
• Weblog Tools Collection offers a first look at WordPress 2.7 with a warning that while there are some very exciting new features in the Administration Panels, this is all subject to change.
  
• Live on the Bleeding Edge of WordPress with SVN by Techtites reminds you that using the latest build of WordPress means risking your blog’s life. These versions are for testing purposes only. Not for the uninitiated.
  
• Ryan Boren announced that the Ryan Boren Warns WordPress 2.7 is Experimental so take care running the test version.

After doing a few round of blogging in Wordpress.com the obvious questions that hover around are: “Is it possible to upload our own plugins?”, "Is it possible to upload the theme of our choice?", "Why can't we edit files?", "Why can't we have the menus?" etc. Some people say, yes these are possible but, why can’t we do things the way the documentation (Codex) says? The irony is the more we try to understand and implement the more we get confused, and the confusion comes from the misunderstanding the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Let’s clear it up.

WordPress.org is open source blogging software that is freely available to anyone to download. The software must be downloaded and installed onto a computer. WordPress, being internet software, must be installed on a web server–that’s a computer that is set up to serve web pages over the internet–and your personal computer probably isn’t a web server. So, to make the free WordPress software work, you have to own a web server or rent some space on one. That’s called hosting and it’s not usually free. There are plenty of good hosts out there who will let you install WordPress on their web servers for a reasonable fee. You can then do anything you like with your own copy of WordPress: install plugins and themes, etc.

WordPress.com is different. It’s a web site that provides blogs hosted free of charge. The software on WordPress.com is very similar but not exactly the same software you can download from WordPress.org. It is a multi-user version of WordPress that allows many thousands of blogs to be hosted on a single web server. The free blog hosting does not come with the ability to upload plugins or themes. Because any change in the software affects every blog on the system, some of the things you can do on your own hosted WordPress blog are disabled here. Some of these features may become available in the future as paid upgrades, comparable with traditional hosting fees.

WordPress.org Pros

• Ability to upload themes
• Ability to upload plugins
• Great community
• Complete control to change code if you’re technically minded

WordPress.org Cons

• You need a good web host, which generally costs $7-12 a month
• Requires more technical knowledge to set up and run
• You’re responsible for stopping spam
• You have to handle backups
• You must upgrade the software manually when a new version comes out
• If you get a huge spike in traffic (like Digg or Slashdot) you site will probably go down

WordPress.com Pros

• It’s free and much easier
• Everything is taken care of: setup, upgrades, backups, security, etc
• Your blog is on dozens of servers, so it’s highly unlikely it will go down due to traffic
• Your posts are backed up hourly
• You get extra traffic from blogs of the day and tags
• You can find like-minded bloggers using tag and friend surfer
• Your login is secure (SSL) so no one can get into your account if you use wifi

WordPress.com Cons

• Limited customization of themes (though we’re adding more every day)
• You can’t hack the code behind your blog

How to install WordPress:

How to activate a new Theme:

How to upgrade WordPress:

WordPress Theme Viewer …
http://themes.wordpress.net/
Mashable’s roundup of 2-column themes …
http://mashable.com/2007/08/10/wordpress-2-column/
Mashable’s roundup of 3-column themes …
http://mashable.com/2007/08/03/wordpress-3-column
Themes by Steve Arun …
http://www.va4business.com/business/category/wordpress-themes/
45 Excellent Blog Designs post, at Smashing Magazine …
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/28/45-excellent-blog-designs/
Free WordPress themes by NodeThirtyThree …
http://www.freewpthemes.net/