I want to use the wordpress search function but I want it to only search my blog posts and exclude my static pages from the query. How to do this? I am not opposed to using a plugin.
This wp forum page has a bunch of different examples of how to do this depending on where you want to edit your site (index.php or wp-includes/query.php are your options I believe):
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-search-only-posts-exclude-pages