Here are the steps I took to fix the problem with the unresponsive script in the Write panel (requires CPanel/PHPMyAdmin access):

1. Please make a backup of your database in case you run into any problems.  These are the steps that worked for me to fix the problem, but I can’t guarantee they will work for everyone. 
2. Login in to your CPanel.   This is usually found at http://yourdomain.com/cpanel/ and usually uses your FTP password.
3. Access your PHPMyAdmin (in CPanel this is usually found at the bottom of the MySQL Databases page).
4. Click on the MySQL database you created for your new WordPress installation in the menu on the left.
5. Click on wp_postmeta in the list of tables on the left.
6. Click the Browse icon.
7. Click on the post_id tab once to sort the list from 0 to higher.
8. Now you’ll need to delete anything with a post_id of 0.  Depending on how many posts were imported, there may be a lot of zeroes.  I had about 600 of them to delete.

The best way to do this is to locate the boxes with “row(s) starting from record #” between them.  In the front box put 100 (or whatever number of your choice) and always put 1 in the right box.   Click Show.  You can use the select all button and verify all of them are zero.   Uncheck any that aren’t zero and click Delete.  Repeat until all zeroes are gone.

Now open your Write panel in your new blog’s dashboard and everything should be good!

Here are the initial steps you’ll want to take when moving to a new domain name.

Existing Domain:

• Export Your WordPress Posts – You can find the Export option under the Manage tab in your WordPress dashboard.  You’ll want to save the file somewhere on your hard drive where you can find it a little later.
• Download Your wp-content Folder – This step requires FTP access.  You’ll want to copy over your wp-content folder on to your hard drive or place it somewhere you can find it later so that you can upload it to your new domain.  This should grab all of your existing plugins, themes, uploads (pictures), etc.   You’ll also want to download your favicon and Robots.txt file (if you have either).
• Sub Domains and Sub Directories – This won’t apply to everyone, but if you’ve set up any sub domains or sub directories for your blog, you’ll want to grab the same files from them as well.

New Domain:

• Install WordPress on the New Domain – This can be done manually or via Fantastico if you have CPanel.
• Upload Your wp-content Folder – This requires FTP access to complete.  Just override the existing wp-content folder from your fresh WordPress install.
• Import All WordPress Posts – You can find the Import option under the Manage tab in your WordPress dashboard.  When it asks for the import file, use the one that was exported and saved on your hard drive earlier.
• Activate Your Theme & Plugins – Head into the Design and Plugins tabs and make sure you have the same theme and same plugins activated as the old domain name.
• Update Your Settings to Match the Old Domain – Update all of your settings to match the old domain, including all of your plugin settings you just activated.
• Inspect Your Theme – View your theme with your plugins activated and settings in place to ensure that everything looks like it matches the old site on the new domain.  Test some of the functionality as well to ensure everything is working properly.
• Upload and Run the Update URL’s Plugin – The Update URL’s WordPress plugin is brand new (just came out this month) WordPress plugin and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for me!  Once activated, simply enter your old domain URL and the new one.  It will go through all of your old posts and update the domain part of the URL with the new one, and it only takes a matter of seconds.  Note:  I won’t update anchor text, only the domain in the URL.
• Repeat Steps for Sub Domains and Sub Directories – Upload and setup your sub domains and sub directories using the same steps above.

Domain Move Troubleshooting:

• For some reason, since WordPress 2.5, the export/import feature of WordPress works great but sometimes causes problems with an unresponsive script error whenever you access the Write panel.  I will be publishing a post tomorrow that explains how to fix this error, so make sure you are subscribed to our feed.

Once the move is completed and everything seems to be working well, here is a mini checklist of extra things to do before making the move official:

• Update Your Feedburner Feed – You need to edit your feed details in your Feedburner account with the new domain’s source feed (example: http://yourdomain.com/feed/)
• Update Your Email Address – This one is optional.  Setup an email account on your new domain name (for example, I setup Kyle AT WPHacks DOT com for the new site).  I recommend using Google Apps which makes it really easy and lets you take advantage of the Gmail spam guards that Google has in place (plus all of the other Gmail features).
• Update Your Gravatar – This one is optional as well.  Log in to your Gravatar account and add the new email address you just setup.
• Update Your PPC Campaigns – If you purchase PPC advertising with AdWords, Yahoo, or whoever, you’ll want to update the destination URLs.

Once you’re done, all that is left is to go to your domain registrar and forward the old domain to the new domain (also known as a 301 redirect).   Depending on your registrar, this is usually really easy and self-explanatory.  I would also wait 6-12 hours to make an announcement on the new domain name so that the DNS can resolve at the new domain name (it can sometimes take up to 48 hours).   Depending on your web hosting, you may also be able to do the forward there to avoid this problem.

Doing this will cause all links to your old domain name to be redirected to the equivalent URL on the new domain name (assuming you use the same URL structure on the new site).   It will also let Google and the other search engines know you have moved.  Usually within a week, depending on the search engine, they will have gone through and updated their index with the new domain URL’s.

This of course means that you shouldn’t use any human traffic, but you will take a hit when it comes to your search engine rankings.   This is because the links are pointed towards the old domain name, so when Google determines your rankings, they will see the new URL has zero backlinks.  This is why it is beneficial if you can get people to update the links in their sidebars or posts to the new domain URL.

Any questions?  Need clarification on anything?  Please let me know in the comments below!

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One great area to start is learning how the WordPress loop works.  This is a basic function of blogging used to display the most recent X number of posts on your blog’s homepage (for traditional blogs).   Rather than go into to much detail here, I’d like to point you towards a new post by Themelab which is designed to be the Utlimate Guide to the WordPress loop. 

This post definitely lives up to its name and goes beyond just showing you how to do something.  It actually explains how and why it works, and includes screenshots with many of the examples.   If you have any interest in learning about the WordPress loop you may want to read through this post and/or bookmark it for future reference. 

Once you’ve upgraded, the good news is that you have options.  If you prefer to customize your own colors, Ozh has a nice tutorial up explaining how to make a custom stylesheet in WordPress 2.5.

As previously mentioned, you also have the option of using a plugin such as Fluency Admin to adjust the look of your dashboard (WordPress 2.5+).   I’m sure other plugins will be released as well, giving you a wide variety of looks to choose from.

Ever wanted that ability to show your bio information within your WordPress profile at the bottom of every post? For single user blogs, this might not be practical. But for multi-authored blogs, adding the bio info of each author at the bottom of their respective posts is a good way to give props to the author as well as providing information to the readers as to who that person is without having to refer to an about me page. The good news is that, you don’t need to install a plugin to have this functionality.

Inside of a user profile is this nifty little box where you can place information about yourself. As you can see, I have already placed some info into the box for reference later on in the tutorial. We are going to take the information in this box and display it at the bottom of every post that is under my name.

The template tag we are going to focus on is <?php the_author_description(); ?> This tag doesn’t accept any parameters, so don’t bother trying to do anything funky with this tag. Now, head to your templates Style sheet and add this to it:

.postauthor { }

This will give us the opportunity to style the postauthor bit when it’s published in the post. Now that we have the template tag in order, we will need to place it within the loop.

I’m not going to delve into the specifics of the loop, but in general, it deals with the information related to posts. Browse to your themes index.php file and look for something like this:

< ?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry »'); ?>

That is what it looks like in my theme, it may look different in yours, but this is the function that displays the content of the post. Underneath of this content function is where you would want to place the following code:

< div class="postauthor ">< ?php the_author_description(); ? >< /div>

Please keep in mind that if the code does not work, it is most likely due to the spaces which I had to add in order for the code to properly appear within this post. Simply remove the spaces, and the code should be just fine.

Now that you have the author description function in place, this is what it might look like on your blog:

If you ask me, this looks bland and boring. We need to fix that by editing the div class called Postauthor within the CSS file and give that Div class a nice look. You can style it to match your blog design, but for the sake of this tutorial, I’ll display the CSS code which makes it appear like the TAG div container shown below the Post Author.

.postauthor {
color: #222222;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: normal;
background: #EAEAEA;
border-top: 2px solid #000000;
border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;
width: 640px;
padding: 3px;
margin-bottom:5px;
}

This CSS style code turns that small black text into something like this:

If you’d like to add an “Edit” button on your individual posts or pages, here is the code you will want to place somewhere in your post and/or page template (usually called single.php and page.php) where you want it to display:

<?php edit_post_link(__("**Edit**"), ''); ?>

If you’d like to add an “Edit” button to your individual comments, here is the code you need to place somewhere in your comments loop (usually called comments.php) where you want it to display:

<?php edit_comment_link(__("**Edit**"), ''); ?>

A couple of quick notes about adding edit buttons to your theme:

• These edit links will only appear if you are logged in with the appropriate priviledges (administrator, editor, etc.).  Your traffic will not see them.
• You can wrap them in a div or whatever you would like to and then set its position in your stylesheet to appear where you want it to.