There are many tools available to help people communicate.  An important thing to remember is that different people have different preferences as to how they send and receive messages.  For instance, some people prefer a phone call as opposed to a physical visit.  Some people remember things better when they are written down and some people would prefer an answering machine message that they can refer to.  These days, many people prefer an email as opposed to anything else to help them remember something.

When it comes to social interaction, the Internet and the web 2.0 has afforded us many different options for communication.  We have email, wikis, forums, IM, chat, Twitter and Facebook, plus many more.

In this article I would like to share another tool that I think can be beneficial in ways that other tools are not.  All you need is Wordpress, P2 (and a plugin called “Members Only” if you want it to be private).

P2 is a theme or template for a Wordpress site developed by Automattic (the folks who bring us Wordpress) that is dynamic and simple all at once!  P2 stands for Prologue 2.  The first Prologue was a theme developed a while back in 2008, and it was inspired by Twitter.  The idea was to make it easy to post quick updates to a blog making it more of a Wordpress microblog similar to Twitter (140 characters a post makes Twitter “micro”).

The Automattic folks actually began using such a Wordpress microblog as an internal communications tool.  They’d post updates on what they are doing, where they were going or what they were working on.

They basically put a short form for typing in posts right on the front page which means no messing with the back end at all.  There’s also a line for adding tags which helps organize the topics or categories.  The Wordpress microblog basically makes quicker, shorter messaging easier.

P2 takes all of this to the next level with some super cool features!

First of all, editing posts and comments are done right on the front page.

With the click of a link, you can show and hide the comment threads to make finding things a bit easier.

There is a whole list of keyboard shortcuts for those keyboard lovers in the crowd.

And my favorite, it has real-time updates!  As posts and comments are posted, they appear!  Obviously if you have comments set for moderation, they won’t post until approved, but you get the drift!

So that’s P2 (or Prologue 2), a Wordpress microblog theme.  The communication uses for such a tool are almost endless!  It can be used like Automattic uses it, keeping the rest of the team updated on projects, etc.  It can be used in Church groups.  For instance, leaders can post memos, updates, schedules, and discussion topics allowing the rest of the group to stay informed and have a say in the comments.  It could even be used as a micro-blogging tool much like Twitter, but self-hosted, and with threaded comments, like Facebook!

What’s your opinion?  How would you use a tool such as P2?  What other Wordpress theme or plugin can afford a unique method of communication?  Let us know!

Image credits: MorgueFile.com

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Go ahead and download the plug-in files and either upload them via FTP or use the automatic plug-in uploader via your Wordpress wp-admin console. You can see my experience below. I logged in to WP-admin, I hit the plug-ins menu option on the left hand side. Then I clicked Add. I choose the upload option and pushed the browse button. After navigating to my plugins directory where I downloaded the Wordpress exploit scanner plugin to, I was able to hit the Install now button.

While it is installing you can see it’s progress on your screen like so.

Hit the ‘Activate plugin’ button and you are ready to go. You can verify that the plugin is actually active by scrolling through the active plugin list. It should look like this:

Once it is successfully active, you will have a new menu item listed directly under your Dashboard menu item. Click on it to get down to business.

Once you click on the link for the Wordpress exploit scanner, it will start querying your database for all of your files. What it checks is as follows:

1. Modified Core Wordpress File – this is when a hacker modifies system files to have Wordpress do their bidding like injecting code into posts or even serving up malware. You need to be very cautious about this. Thankfully, this came up as Hooray! None of your core wordpress files have been modified! I am thankful for things like this as I will not have to reinstall Wordpress!
2. Suspicious strings. It searches for iFrames – unfortunately I use iFrames on my site for various reasons so I had to scrutinize the entries below. Hackers use iFrames to inject content or ads into your site.

I read through the 1500 entries or so with iFrames and thankfully they were all pointing right back at my site. The attack that I corrected before actually injected these iFrames into my site to show my users Viagra ads! Freaking hackers! It actually got me unlised briefly from Google Searches. But after going over my results with a fine-tooth comb, I am at ease.

Did your search result in any unexpected modified files or some nasty code injected? We would love to hear about it and I would love to lend my expertise in helping out hacked Wordpress owners.

Hit us up in the comments, bloggers – We are here for ya! The plugin author’s website can be found at here.

Wordpress Exploit Scanner

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This will work for most people, but then there are the determined thieves who target the prized works of well known photographers without giving the poor schmuck a dime.

You see, watermarks aren’t 100% fool-proof; there are programs that some unscrupulous characters use to digitally remove the watermarks or to minimize them so they’re barely visible. Thus defeating the purpose of trying to protect images by using what is now a primitive method – not to mention crude and unattractive.

In this article I’m going to show you three great ways to protect your web images without breaking the bank on complex encryption programs.

Splicing

One method to protect web images is to cut them up into several different images and put them all side by side to form one whole image. Then, anyone who tries to save the image will only get a small segment of it. The result is that they have to tediously click around the image, guessing where the cuts have been made and then paste them all together. Big images such as the ones found on photographers’ and artists’ blogs can be cut up into over 20 or 30 pieces.

This acts as a deterrent to most copies and they’ll look elsewhere.

Probably the best program for the novice user to automatically splice images before they go live on your site is Super Simple Image Tiles.

All you have to do to activate it on a particular image, once you have installed it on your web directory using the instructions included in the download, is to slightly alter the image’s HTML. Most blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Blogger offer HTML editors alongside the text editor. Simply enter ‘Protect’ in the image HTML as I did in the screenshot above.

J-Query Plug-in

The way most people steal an image is to simply right-click on it and select ‘Save As’.

The tried and tested method, if you will. However, you can nip the problem in the bud by taking away the ‘Save’ function when someone right-clicks on your image.

The plug in for this is available right here to download for free, along with the instructions. It will also disable any kind of image saving toolbar or add-on in a browser which a user may utilise instead of right clicking.

The plug-in is as lightweight as possible and as such shouldn’t effect the speed or functionality of your pages, all the while keeping your images safe.

Again, this program simply needs to be installed onto your web directory as a plug-in which the big names offer on their dashboards.

Embed as Flash

The final option to protect web images is to upload your images as a flash file instead of as an image. This will disable right clicking as well but it also gives you more options about what to do with your images in terms of web-design which would be hindered if you were using a plug-in which may conflict with Flash design. Basically, you can style your images using CSS properties.

SWF–IR (the SWF originating from Flash’s file extension and the IR standing for ‘Image Replacement’) is available here. Upload it to your web directory.

Then, to put it to work on your post, place this HTML in the <head> section of your post:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”swfir.js”></script>

So there you have it webmasters and photographers. Protect your images the best way you can for free by using the above methods. Remember, images are never 100% secure online but these methods will stop 99% of thieves from stealing your high-resolution originals.

BONUS: To see whether people have already copied your image(s) online, use Google’s ‘Similar Images’ app here.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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You – the house photographer – sits alone in front of your computer. All the images that you shot at the event have been edited and saved inside the hard disk. All you have to do now is share copies with your relatives. You still remember the horrible smiles that the uncles and aunts gave you while saying “send us copies…or else!” Your body trembles at the thought of failing to fulfil their request.

The Cool DIY Way Of Sharing Images

Considering the huge number of family members and the many parts of the world in which they live in, printing the photos and sending the copies to them is not the perfect answer. You don’t have the time, the energy or the funds. Burning the images onto CDs will still cost you your spare time, the blank disks and the postage.

You think about uploading the images to the web and then start looking for an online photo sharing service. But then it struck you. You remember that you have an idle Wordpress blog. Instead of leaving it untouched, why not build a photo gallery web site?

The whole process will not cost you a thing. It will still require your time, but spending the time to build a photo gallery web site is much better than licking envelopes and stamps.

Finding & Installing The Themes (& The Plugins)

Assuming that you already have your self-hosted Wordpress blog ready, you just need to add a few more ingredients: a photo-gallery theme and plugins.

In the past, you needed both the correct theme and plugins to build a photo gallery site. It’s a little bit different today. While you could still enhance the photo gallery functionality of your Wordpress blog by adding plugins, I found out that it’s not necessary anymore. With the advanced development of Wordpress themes today, you could build a cool photo gallery site just by using the right theme.

So our first objective is to find the theme. Stop by the Wordpress site and click on the “Extend” tab to find the Plugins and Themes directory.

Go to the Themes directory to find one that’s fit to be used in a photo gallery site. Use the search feature to help you. I found several nice candidates such as Monotone, Shoot It, Page Photo, Hope, Lunated, and AutoFocus.

But don’t limit yourself to my examples. Go out there into the wild wild web and search for more photo gallery Wordpress themes. You could install and experiment with all of them.

You can do the same with plugins. Different from themes, which can only be activated one at a time, many plugins can be turned on simultaneously. Nevertheless, I suggest that you don’t activate too many plugins at once with the same function to avoid conflicts.

Next, log in to your Wordpress dashboard (http://your.blog.address/wp-admin/) and click “Appearance” from the sidebar to manage your themes.

If you use the latest version of Wordpress (v 2.7 and above), you could do the “searching and installing themes” process directly from within your Wordpress admin area. Just choose the “Add New Themes” sub-menu under the “Appearance” tab (if you still use an older version of Wordpress, now is the perfect time for you to upgrade.)

You could search and limit the results to specific features – color, column, width, features, subject – using the Feature Filter. Tick the ones according to your preferences. Don’t forget to include the “photoblogging” option under the “Subject” filter.

There are several things you can do with the search results: Install, Preview and find out more Details about each theme.

If you like the theme, click “Install” and then “Install Now”

Then activate it.

If your theme supports widgets, you are advised to visit the Widget Setting page to activate them.

Just drag and drop the ones that you like to the sidebar.

Building The Blog

Now that everything is set, you could start writing your post, upload the pictures, and watch your private photo gallery takes its shape.

All that is left for you to do is email the address of your blog to those ‘meany’ aunts and uncles and let them know that they can download any pictures they like by right clicking on them. Add a little note at the end of the email that they could also add comments to the posts to share their thoughts and opinions – an extra bonus that won’t come with the hard copies.

If you’d like to see the results of this little experiment, you could visit Build A Blog. I finally decided to use only the AutoFocus theme without any additional plugins.

Have you built an online photo gallery using Wordpress? Do you know any tips, plugins, or alternative themes to make the photo gallery even more cool? Please share using the comments below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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On the good side, one of the best things about WordPress is its plugin system that allows anyone to install any plugins or create your own plugins to extend its functionality, including improving security.

Here, I have listed some wordpress security plugins (and a couple of tricks) that you can use to secure WordPress blog.

All the plugins and tricks listed below are meant for WP 2.7 and above. If you are still using an older version of WordPress, it’s time to upgrade your blog.

Protecting Your Login

1. CHAP Secure Login

This plugin uses the CHAP protocol to encrypt your password.  The password is first salted with a random number (nonce) generated by the session, followed by the md5 transformation algorithm. This result is then sent to the server where it is decrpyted and authenticated. This is a zero-configuration plugin, which means you can use it immediately after activating it.

2. Stealth Login

Stealth Login obfuscates your login page by allowing you to define a custom login page rather than the default wp-login.php. In the event that your password is leaked, the hacker will also have a hard time finding the correct login URL. A good use of this is to prevent any malicious bots from accessing your wp-login.php file and attempting to break in.

3. Login Lockdown

Login Lockdown is useful in preventing a brute force attack. What Login LockDown does is to record the IP address and timestamp of every failed login attempt. If more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP range, it will lockdown the login function and prevent any people from that IP range to log in.

4. AskApache Password Protect

This plugin adds an additional HTTP authentication to provide a second layer of defense for your blog. You can set up password protection for your blog using HTTP Basic Authentication, or you can choose to use the more secure HTTP Digest Authentication.

Note that this plugin might/might not work depending on your server capability. If your site does not pass the AskApache configuration tests (the tests run by the plugin to detect your server capabilities), contact your web host and see if they can make changes on the server side.

5. Semisecure Login Reimagined

This plugin provides a “semisecure” login environment by encrypting your password with the RSA cryptography

Protecting Your Database

6. WP-DB-Backup

Perhaps for some of you, backing up a database could mean a troublesome technical chore. With WP-DB-Backup, you just need to configure it once and get it to run automatically at regular intervals.

What this plugin does is to automate the backing up of your database and have it sent to your email inbox. Other than the default table created by WordPress, you can also backup custom tables created by plugins. In the event that your account crashes, you can easily import and restore the database with the backup.

7. WP-DBManager

Wp-DBManager is just like a phpmyadmin within your dashboard. You can easily manage your database directly within your dashboard. There are useful features such as optimizing/repairing/backing up/restoring your database and if you are technical enough, you can even run your own SQL query from the option page.

On the bad side, if any hackers manage to login to your site, this plugin is going to be a gateway for them to create havoc in your database.

8. Change database table prefix

The default prefix used by WordPress is “wp”. You can easily change the prefix to other terms that are difficult to guess using the WP-Security-Scan. More detail on this plugin below.

9. Protect your wp-config.php file

Your wp-config.php file contains all your database login credentials and it should be hidden from public view in all circumstances. In your htaccess file, put in this line:

<Files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

to prevent anyone from viewing the wp-config.php file.

Protecting Your Admin Page

10. Admin SSL

This plugin forces SSL on all pages where passwords can be entered so that all information transmitted are encrypted.

One thing though, you have to own a SSL certificate before you can do it. If you are not willing to shell out the extra money to buy a private SSL certificate, you can ask your Web host about Shared SSL. Most web hosts provide Shared SSL for all their clients and it is easy to configure.

11. Change login username

Using “admin” as your login username is the last thing you want to do. When you first installed WordPress, you should immediately create another administrator account with your own username and password and delete the “admin” account.

Prevent Others From Viewing Your Internal File Structure

12. Hiding the WP version

In most WordPress themes under the <head> section, there is always a line of code showing the WordPress version that you are using. Giving away your WordPress version number means telling the hacker what exploit to use to hack into your site.

Since WP2.6.5, WordPress has made it even harder to remove the wp version as it embeds that information within the wp_header tag. A plugin that you can use to remove that information is WP-Security-Scan.

13. Hiding the WP-content

The WP-content folder is where you stored all your plugins and theme files. This is the place where you want to prevent other people from looking into. You can either upload a blank index.html file to the wp-content folder, or create a .htaccess file in the wp-content folder and add this line:

Options All -Indexes

14. Block wp-folder from indexing by search engines

While you want the search engines to index your blog and bring in lots of traffic, the last thing that you want to see is to let the search engines expose your internal file structure to the public. What you can do is to block all your wp-folder from indexing by search engine by adding the following entries to the robot.txt:

Disallow: /wp-* 

Maintenance

15. WP Security Scan

I have mentioned this plugin several times, so it is time for me to explain what it does. WP-Security-Scan checks your WordPress for security vulnerabilities and suggests/provides corrective actions. The corrective actions include changing your database prefix, hiding the WordPress version number from the header and allows you to test out the strength of your password.

Once in a while, it is a good idea to run the inbuilt security scanner and check your blog for any security invulnerabilities.

16. Change password regularly

Not only should you change your password regularly, you must also make sure that it is a strong one. If you have difficulty in creating one, find one how you can create strong passwords that you can remember easily.

17. Update WordPress and all plugins to the latest version

Needless to say, upgrading to the latest version of WordPress and plugins is the best way to protect yourself.

Protecting Your Connection

18. SFTP

Transferring files to your online account is a common thing to do. However, instead of using the unsecured FTP, you should use SFTP (Secure FTP). This will create a SSH connection and sent all your files encrypted to the server. If you need help creating a SFTP connection, here’s the guide.

The above information should be sufficient for you to create a secure WordPress blog. If you have not implemented any of these, I would urge you to do so now.

What other methods do you use to secure your WordPress blog?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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However one utilizes their own blog, they almost always rely on two things, readers and reader’s comments. Without any type of feedback from the reader, you typically lose interest in writing and regular posting dies like it does with many blogs everyday.

The problem is, most readers almost always need some type of motivation to provide the type of feedback you are looking for. Many times a user comments on someone’s blog, asking a question or adding a simple thank you, only to forget about it by day’s end. Without any real way of turning the comment into a conversation, the reader will not likely comment on their next visit. Some blogs, including MakeUseOf, do offer the ability to subscribe to a thread of comments and send notifications by e-mail. These however, can become an annoyance to many readers, especially when that check box is selected by default. Why not allow the user to control their own comments in their own way?

This brings me to today’s post. Back in 2007 we wrote about a couple of different comment tracking systems, one of which has died, that give you the ability to track your daily comments with responses, stats and adding more capability to the typical blog conversation. Since that original post, many more options have arrived on the scene and I’m bringing you a few of the more popular ones today. I’ve separated each of the sections into their own respective category.

Track Comments (For Blog Readers)

CoComment

CoComment is a Firefox and/or blog add-on that not only follows all of the comments you’ve submitted on any compatible blog platform, but also opens you up to more conversations and may even garner you more traffic to your respective blog.

Compatible blog platforms include Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad and Movable Type.

Different platforms will display the CoComment toolbar in different ways, but once it’s working properly, you’ll have the ability to track any comment.

After that, CoComment.com can track all of your conversations.

Commentful

Commentful is not all that much different than CoComment, in that it also includes a Firefox add-on for conversation tracking.

Commentful also supports all of the major blogging platforms, can track up to 200 conversations, and can track items up to 365 days of the year.

If you’d prefer not to install the FF add-on, you may also use a simple ‘Add to Commentful’ bookmarklet. However, with the extension you have the added benefit of receiving notification on updated conversations.

Manually add a URL to your watchlist.

Monitor your comment tracking via the Commentful website, or through an RSS feed.

BackType

With Backtype you not only have the ability to track your current conversations in real-time, but you also have the ability to claim previously written comments. They do this with their unique search system. Their advanced search algorithm also offers the ability to search by keyword and setup alerts for indexed comments.

A look at BackType trends. A summary of the most popular keyword searches that relate to you.

Setting up keyword alerts is very similar to Google Alerts, but by indexing comments only.

Commenting Systems (For Blog Moderators)

Disqus

Disqus is a commenting system and an add-on that not only enhances your blog but essentially turns each post into its own forum for discussion at forumname.disqus.com. Once the code is implemented, Disqus takes over the currently implemented system for Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad and more.

One of the great things about Disqus that just recently came about is Facebook Connect integration. It’s not enabled by default, but does have the ability.

Jorge did an in-depth write-up of Disqus back in December here.

A look at the Disqus integration about page.

Once enabled on your site, a user may easily connect to Disqus and monitor their profile in real-time.

Intense Debate

IntenseDebate is another blog enhancement, compatible with all the major platforms that also takes over your present comment system. It not only converts your present system into threaded comments automatically, but also the ability to reply to comments by e-mail and through your RSS reader.

So essentially it not only takes over the commenting machine, but also your comment moderation machine. It also includes user profiles for worldwide tracking as well.

A look at the threaded comments on Intense Debate’s official blog.

A look at my empty dashboard on IntenseDebate

SezWho

SezWho, another competitor to the previously mentioned two, but with somewhat different abilities. It does include user profiles, for comment tracking, and a similar conversation aspect, but its main feature is its rating system.

After SezWho is put in place, it creates a rating scale for each comment on your blog. These rated comments may then be filtered and organized to your liking.

A look at a blog with SezWho implemented.

A summarized screenshot of a user profile and their reputation for each comment.

As you can see, whether you are looking to implement something to entice more discussion on your blog, or you’re just simply looking to track your own comments, you do have some options. Try each of the tools out and see if they fit what you might be looking for. All of the above sites are well established and very easy to use, so you shouldn’t be disappointed with your options.

Let us know what you think. Have you used any of these products? Do you find them useful or recommend them for anyone specific?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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After the installation however I found that there were so many controls and options, and I found myself googling for podpress tutorials. Unfortunately, there is very little material on how to podcast with Wordpress.

Assuming that you know how to install Wordpress plugins, and burn your feeds using Feedburner, I’m going to show you how to get your podcast file from your hard drive to the iTunes podcast directory. Don’t worry, it’s very simple really!

WP admin

After you’ve installed and activated the PodPress plugin, go to the settings page in your Wordpress admin.

Go to the ‘Feed/iTunes Settings’ under the PodPress plugin menu in your sidebar. In there, you will find PodPress has automatically filled in several details like your feed URL and such. You need to enter details like your Podcast title and other details. Your main job here is to provide thumbnail images for display in the iTunes Podcast directory.

You can browse through the General and Player settings to see what options you want to tweak, but you don’t need to worry about much as the settings are auto generated.

Burning your feed

I’d highly suggest you burn your podcast feed using Google Feedburner. This will let you analyse your traffic better than just feeding iTunes directly. To burn your feed, copy the feed URL from the ‘Feed/iTunes Settings’ window, and paste it into the Feedburner’s field. Check mark the “I’m a podcaster” option while you’re at it.

Writing your post

Write your post as you normally would. However, under your writing window you will notice the Podpress controls. Click ‘Add Media File’ and specify your podcast file from the drop down list. The podcast file itself needs to be uploaded (using an FTP client) to your wp-content/uploads/ folder to show up in the list.

Once you select your podcast file, you’ll need to specify the kind of file (whether it’s a mp3, movie, etc), while the size and length can be auto detected. You can also add specific settings for iTunes, like whether the episode is explicit or not. Failing to comply will result in your feed getting banned on the Podcast directory so be sure that you take care of these things.

Submit Your Podcast to iTunes Store

In the iTunes Store, navigate to Podcasts from the left sidebar. At the bottom left you will see a link to submit your podcast (direct link) to iTunes. In the following window you need to specify your feed URL. Paste in the feed that Feedburner provides you with. After this you will be asked to specify your category, whether it is explicit and a few other details.

The iTunes staff will then review your podcast and accept or reject it based on their criteria. This can take up to 2 days. They will send you an email when your podcast is accepted or rejected from the store so you don’t have to keep checking.

That’s it. The next time you post, all you need to do is upload your media file to your Uploads folder, and specify it while writing your post. Just hit publish, and watch those subscribers flutter in!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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PHP Speedy is a WordPress plugin that cleans up and compresses your code so that it can load faster. There are few technical configurations that you need to make, but it is definitely manageable, even when you don’t have any coding knowledge

The details…

There are many factors that can cause your WordPress blog to slow down. One of them is having too many javascript and CSS files in your site that choke up your bandwidth. This often happens when you installed too many plugins, or placed too many advertisements on your site. The more javascript/CSS files you have, the more HTTP requests that your site has to make and the longer it take for the page to load.

What PHP Speedy does is:

• Consolidates all the javascript and CSS and combines them all into two files, one for the javascript code and another for CSS (only applies for those files listed in the <head> tag). This includes all the javascript and CSS file introduced by any of the other plugins.
• Minifies and compresses the combined file and saves it to the cache.
• Removes all the javascript and CSS link in the <head> tag and serves the combined file from the cache to the readers.

With PHP Speedy, your site now makes less HTTP requests and serve a smaller compressed version of the file to your reader. I have used it on my site together with the SuperCache plugin. The result has been impressive. I am able to shave three seconds off the loading time, and that is a whopping 40% improvement.

Installing and configuring PHP Speedy

The PHP Speedy plugin is not found in the WordPress plugins repository, so you have to download it from the developer’s site.

Install the plugin just like any other plugins.

On the plugin setting page, there are several options that you can configure.

Javascript libraries

This is the part where it lists down all the Javascript libraries used by the WordPress software. Although it is unchecked by default, it is wise to check them all and let PHP Speedy handle them.

Ignore list

If you have javascript or CSS files that you don’t want PHP Speedy to handle, here is where you list them all down.

Minify Options

This is the part where you specify whether PHP Speedy should minify your file. As before, it is better to choose Yes for all.

Compression

I would strongly recommend you to use the htaccess or the WP-SuperCache plugin to activate the compression function for your server.

Expires header

The Expires header informs the server that the content is still fresh and the clients (browsers) should load the files directly from the cache. There is no need to retrieve the files again from the database.

Some limitations

While PHP Speedy is very useful, there are some issues that it cannot solve:

• If you are using external javascript of CSS files, there is no way that PHP Speedy can handle them.
• It does not support javascripts that use the document.write feature. In such cases, it is better to include that particular javascript in the ignore list.
• PHP Speedy only sets the expiration for your CSS and JS files. It doesn’t (yet) handle the images, which would further reduce the site’s loading time.
• If you are using @import syntax in your CSS file, PHP Speedy won’t be able to support it.

If you can live with the above limitations, then I am sure PHP Speedy will be very handy to you.

What other plugins do you use to improve the performance and speed up WordPress blog?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Of course I won’t say it goes as far as that, but it’s a good idea to keep both of them close together, so that either side does not miss out on anything.

If it’s just twittering you want, then be sure to check out this post on twitter services or these twitter tools that will get you into the twitter elite. If however you want your blog and twitter account to seamlessly merge into a single platform to get your word out, here are a bunch of twitter extenders that will effortlessly popularise your blog among all your twitter followers, and beyond.

TweetSuite

You may already be using some sort of Twitter plugin on your Wordpress blog, but the time has come to switch to something else. Developed by Dan Zarella, TweetSuite takes the concept of Tweetbacks to the next level.

TweetSuite adds server side tweetbacks to your posts, so if someone tweets about your post, it adds it to the list. Users get to retweet any of the tweetbacks, or can click on the ‘tweet this’ button to announce your post in their twitter feed. The “tweet this” button is completely automated, with title truncating and URL shortening so the user doesn’t have to do anything but click on the update button.

TweetSuite also includes a bunch of widgets for your sidebar, including ‘most tweeted’, ‘recently tweeted’, and others. You can of course automatically set TweetSuite to tweet any of your new posts to your own Twitter feed. I have yet to come across a more complete twitter plugin for Wordpress.

Twitter Avatars in Comments

Gravatars are a great addition to any blog, giving the blog a much better visual appeal. However, non-technology blogs find it hard to implement them as most of the users are not techie enough to create a gravatar of their own. This results in a lot of ‘blank’ avatars in the comments field.

Created by Ricardo Sousa, especially for Smashing Magazine, ’Twittar’ aims to increase the possibility of finding an avatar by linking the email address used with a Twitter account. The plugin will, in the first instance, look for a Twitter avatar but failing that it will look for a gravatar. Considering that Twitter already has millions of users, many of whom are not tech savvy, the likelihood of finding an avatar is greatly increased.

TwitterCounter

Sure you advertise your RSS feed readers, but what about the 1000’s of Twitter followers that you have? Prominently displaying them will surely increase the importance of your blog. TwitterCounter for Wordpress integrates the TwitterCounter badges in your Wordpress blog.

Of course, this plugin is basically the same as the HTML code generated by TwitterCounter, so if you are adept at editing your site’s code you can get this counter there itself.

Check out Jimmy’s story on TwitterCounter.

TwitterSplit

Anyone and everyone who uses Twitter periodically sends out interesting links to their followers. These links are not pointing to your site, so other than creating goodwill among your followers, they offer no ‘return’ for your blog.

How does one share interesting links, as well as making sure that your blog gets something out of it?

which leads to :

TweetSplit is an interesting concept, as it embeds the external page, inside of your URL. The user will see the intended page, but also see an unobtrusive bar at the top reminding the user who it is that brought them to the page. You could embed any graphic or even an ad at the top (don’t over-do it!) to make the best of Twitter.

The next time someone retweet’s your links, you can be sure that those new visitors will be seeing your branding on the landing page.

Twitip ID

The standard comment field in most Wordpress blogs shows the name, email and URL. Well now since most people have a Twitter account as well, shouldn’t that also be included in the feature set? A lot of coders have included a second URL feed for people to add their Twitter IDs, but it is not a very elegant way to do so.

Twitip ID takes away all of the pain and provides a simple way to add a Twitter ID to the comment posted. It will display the @username and link it up with the Twitter account. It requires minimal fiddling around in the comments.php file so anyone with a little skill should be able to implement it.

Twitter style links

The habit of Twitter has been carried to the blogs, and now when we reply to someone in our blog comments, we usually use @nickname to address the person. Twitter style links will search for @nickname’s URL in the comments list of the current post, and convert that @nickname to a clickable link. Of course, this has nothing to do with Twitter as such, but it does bring the two conceptually closer together.

Autolink to Username

A simple plugin that will automatically link any @username in your post to the Twitter account. For instance, all I would need to do is insert @makeuseof and it will link that to twitter.com/makeuseof without any user interaction.

That should definitely get your blog or Twitter feed the recognition it deserves. Of course, Twitter, Wordpress, and the community that surrounds it are always evolving. So if you find an interesting way to bridge the gap between blogs and Twitter, do let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Wordpress Exploit Scanner Helps Administrators Scan Their Database For Malicious Files (10)
• The First Wordpress Plugins You Must Install (29)
• Speed Up Your WordPress Blog With PHP Speedy (18)
• Make Your Wordpress Blog iPhone Compatible with WPtouch (12)
• Liven Up Your Wordpress Blog Comments With MyAvatars (6)

When you integrate Disqus (pronounced “discuss”) with your WordPress blog, you create a new Disqus community that mirrors the post/comment activity on the blog. The blog post becomes the start of a new discussion and the comments are the subsequent thread. Members can also post to the community that you create. This is a great way for readers of your blog to start discussions with you and all of your readers.

As a Disqus user, all the comments you post to other Disqus-enabled blogs will appear on your profile page (you don’t need a blog to have a Disqus account). This is a nice way for others to see all your words of wisdom that you have shared on other blogs. It is also a good method for finding other users and communities you may be interested in following.

Disqus also plays nice with the built-in WordPress commenting system. Existing comments will be imported into Disqus and when comments are posted onto Disqus they are kept in sync with your WordPress blog. If you change your mind later and you no longer want to use Disqus, you can simply uninstall it. You don’t have to worry about losing comments that were posted through Disqus.

To install Disqus on your Wordpress blog:

• Create an account on Disqus.
• Download the Disqus for Wordpress plugin.
• Place the contents of the archive in your WordPress plugins directory.
• Activate the plugin and navigate to Comments > DISQUS.



• Enter your Disqus login credentials and proceed with the installation process.

  

• If you would like to import your existing WordPress comments into Disqus, select Advanced Options and click Import.

For further installation details, you can visit the Disqus integration page and view the Disqus documentation for WordPress.

When a blog is converted to use Disqus, individuals that commented on the blog prior to the conversion can claim their imported comments. When users claim comments, verification links are sent to the email addresses used to post the comments. The Disqus users can click the verification links to associate comments on the converted blog with their profiles.

Disqus also automatically subscribes commenters to any responses to their comments. They will receive the responses at the email address they provided with the comment. The best part of this feature is that they can respond via email! There’s no need to revisit the blog post and respond there, as it can all be done by replying to the email.

Disqus also allows non-Disqus members to post comments just as they would normally on any WordPress blog. Users just provide their name, email address, and post the comment. Responses to their comments are sent to their email address and they can reply by email just the same as Disqus users.  Comments by non-Disqus comments are basically treated the same as imported comments.  If non-Disqus commenters do eventually sign up for Disqus accounts, they can also claim their comments to associate them with their new account.

Unfortunately, WordPress is the only well-documented platform for Disqus at this time. The Disqus help page states that MovableType, Tumblr, Blogger, and TypePad are also supported, but the help links just go to a “coming soon” page.  They also have a JavaScript interface in the works (which would allow you to integrate with any platform), but again there is no documentation for it yet.

Fortunately, there is a well-documented Disqus API. That means that developers can integrate Disqus on other platforms that are not officially supported, which is good news for users (and potential users) on the following platforms:

• Drupal
• b2evolution
• Graffiti
• Joomla
• RubyGem

If your blog does not use one of these platforms or uses one of the undocumented platforms that Disqus claims to support, then IntenseDebate might be a better option for you. IntenseDebate can use JavaScript to display comments, so it can be easily integrated into any blog.

However, IntenseDebate does not have the community features and profile pages are only limited to the last 5 comments posted. Disqus makes all comments you’ve made available from your profile, not just the last five. If you’d like to see Disqus comments in action, here are a few blogs that implement them:

• louisgray.com
• VentureBeat
• obscurely famous
• The Eagle-Tribune

You might want to also check out some Disqus profile pages:

• Louis Gray
• Duncan Riley
• Daniel Ha

What do you think of Disqus and other commenting systems?   Which one do you prefer?  Do you use Disqus on your blog?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• Kaltura Adds Video Management To Your WordPress Blog (11)
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Kaltura is the first open source video platform for online video management, creation, interaction and collaboration. Recently, they released the interactive video plugin for Wordpress blog that allows you to add interactive video capabilities to your blog. With the plugin, you can upload/ record/import videos directly to your post, edit and remix content with an online video editor, enable video responses, manage and track your video content.

After you have downloaded and activated the plugin, you will need to sign up with Kaltura for a Partner ID before you can start using it. This partner ID is a license key given by Kaltura to allow you to upload and import media from Kaltura’s partner (Youtube, Jamendo, Flickr etc) and stream media from Kaltura host.

At the Write section where you compose your blog post, you will now find a new video icon that allows you to insert interactive videos to your post.

On the pop up window, you will find plenty of tools that allow you to upload or import videos, audio or photos into your blog

When you are previewing your post on the browser, you will find a Remix button on the Kaltura video. This is where you can edit and create mashup for your video.

Even though it is Web-based, there is no short of video editing tools. You can easily edit, cut, insert content, create mashup and even add transition effects to your video.

Conclusion

The Kaltura’s Interactive Video plugin is the most comprehensive video management platform for WordPress blog. It has a full-feature video editing capability and a well-integrated infrastructure that make it very easy for anyone to use. Not to mention that it partners with some of the greatest sites in the Internet (such as Youtube and Flickr) to give you access to millions of multimedia instantly. If this is not the best, then I don’t know what else is.

Other than WordPress, Kaltura also supports wiki, drupal, most of the php-based and Ruby-based site. In addition, anyone are allowed to stream up to 3GB content from Kaltura at no additional cost at all.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The First Wordpress Plugins You Must Install (29)
• Liven Up Your Wordpress Blog Comments With MyAvatars (6)
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• Another 10 Must-have Plugins for Your Wordpress Blog (3)

Many content publishers will be interested in how they can serve their content on as many different internet platforms, designing layouts to work in all browsers and also allowing users to visit their sites on mobile devices.

Internet-capable mobile devices have been gaining in popularity over the last few years but with the release of Apple’s iPhone, websites can be served in their full glory via a 3G or Wi-Fi network. This, however, does not mean that developers aren’t keen to make iPhone compatible websites to keep their users happy. I am happy to report this can also be the case for website owners running the ever popular Wordpress platform.

Today I wish to share with you how easy it is to make any Wordpress installation iPhone compatible.

Step One

Firstly you need to check that you are at least running Wordpress 2.3. If you aren’t, upgrading of your Wordpress installation is highly recommended to patch known bugs and to enable you to use the plugin noted below. This tutorial is based on an installation of Wordpress 2.7 Beta 3, which has minor changes to the style of the admin area. Readers using a previous version of Wordpress will still be able to locate the same areas described in this post.

Next, we will need to download the plugin that makes it all happen. The plugin in question is called WPtouch and is developed by Dale Mugford & Duane Storey of BraveNewCode Inc. I have linked to the download hosted on the Wordpress Plugin Directory as many Wordpress website owners will be familiar with it.

Once downloaded, extract the archive and upload the resulting folder to the plugins folder inside your wp-content directory.

Step Two

Log into the Administration panel of your Wordpress installation. Inside your Plugins screen, activate the recently uploaded plugin.

Without doing so much as uploading and activating a plugin, you have made your Wordpress blog iPhone ready – but we’re aren’t finished just yet.

Step Three

The final step is changing some of the WPtouch preferences to work better for your blog. Clicking into Settings -> WPtouch will bring up a preferences page allowing to select how the plugin will serve your iPhone ready blog.

The first section you will encounter will be Optimization & Template Options. This section will allow you to enable or disable AJAX controls (allowing smoother comment submissions and page loading), decide whether you wish to enable Gravatars or even allow the submission of comments on your Pages (not to be confused with blog posts).

In the next section you can choose how your Wordpress iPhone pages will look. It’s simply nothing more than choosing a colour palette similar to the full version of your site and applying it inside this preference screen.

Wptouch allows you to configure many more options inside its interface.  These include:

• Post Listings Options – Select which post-meta items will be shown beneath titles on the index, search & archive pages.
• Available Icons – You can select which icons will be displayed beside corresponding pages enabled for your iPhone ready blog.
• Default Menu Items – Enable/disable items from appearing in the WPtouch dropdown menu.
• Plugin Support & Compatibility – This allows you to configure plugins that you use to work with WPtouch. Some currently supported plugins include FlickrRSS, Blip.tv and Tag Cloud.

When you have finished amending the sections inside the Administration panel, save your progress by clicking Save Options at the bottom of the page.

Your blog should now be ready to be viewed by all iPhone users. Development of this plugin is ongoing and the team are adding many new features with every release. There are already a few tools that exist to make your website iPhone compatible (MakeUseOf uses a service called Mofuse for example) but for ease of use and customization, WPtouch is a safe bet. You can check out MakeUseOf’s mobile version at http://m.makeuseof.com.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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If it’s just about downloading the latest version, then there wouldn’t be any problem. Unfortunately, the process also involves backing-up the database, deactivating the plugins, uploading the latest installation files (which could be a hellish experience, especially on an unstable and slow internet connection), upgrading the database, reactivating the plugins, and upgrading the plugins (if needed). Add to that the possibilities of crushing your blog entirely and you have the perfect combination of reasons not to try to upgrade.

So when the latest version – 2.6 – of Wordpress was released, my fingers started to tickle again. I was tempted. Still, I was not 100% sure if I was up to the task of upgrading. But then I came across a very useful plugin called: Wordpress Automatic Upgrade.

As the name suggest, this plugin:

-Backs up the files and makes available a link to download it.
-Backs up the database and makes available a link to download it.
-Downloads the latest files and unzips them.
-Puts the site in maintenance mode.
-De-activates all active plugins and remembers them.
-Upgrades Wordpress files.
-Gives you a link that will open in a new window to upgrade your installation.
-Re-activates the plugins.

The plugin can also can be run in the automatic mode where you only have to click on one button and let it do the rest. Sweet!

To be able to use this plugin, you’ll need to install it first. If you’ve read and followed the tips in my previous article about Wordpress, you can do the installation easily from within your Wordpress admin panel. All you need is the file download link.

Otherwise, you can:

- download the file,
- unzip it,
- then using an FTP application, throw everything inside that archive to folder “/wp-content/plugins/” of your Wordpress installation location.
- go to your “Plugin” tab within your Admin panel and click “activate”.

A quick note before you upgrade, you need to have permission to write the files and folders within your Wordpress installation. If you don’t have that permission, at least you must know the details for the FTP account. Please ask the admin of your server regarding this information.

If everything is set, you can begin the upgrading process. There are two options:

1. Using the step by step process will ensure a successful installation. Just follow the step by step “Click Here” instructions, and everything should be fine.

2. Using the automatic process will free you from the hassles as everything is only one click away, but this option doesn’t always work. It depends on your authority status and the Chmod setting of your Wordpress files and folders.

My suggestion is to go with the automatic mode first. Then if this has failed, you can switch to the manual step by step process.

Congratulations, now your Wordpress is up to date – and will always be, easily. Personally, I think the 2.6 version is more comfortable to use. But there is more to upgrading than just to feel more comfortable.

The main reason is security. You will know yourself that the world is full of people who have nothing better to do than to find the loopholes of any application and exploit those holes (or maybe they are paid to do so). Therefore, developers have to continuously provide patches while improving product features. So that’s exactly another reason to keep up with the latest version: more goodies to enjoy!

(By) Jeffry Thurana is a blogaholic who has just started his own self-improvement journal “Supersubconscious” and manages an Indonesian tech blog “InterNeTips“. He actually thinks there are 30 hours everyday.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The First Wordpress Plugins You Must Install (29)
• Liven Up Your Wordpress Blog Comments With MyAvatars (6)
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MyAvatars was designed by an Italian developer and works using Yahoo-owned MyBlogLog. It simply shows the blog commenter’s MyBlogLog (MBL) avatar next to their comment.

It is simple to install on your Wordpress blog and by displaying the person’s MBL avatar next to their comment, it instantly livens up the page and puts a face to the words. It kind of creates an intimate friendly community and takes away the anonymity that normally surrounds blog commenting.

If the commenter doesn’t have a MBL account then they show up as a shadow figure. But I have noticed that this is becoming rarer these days as most people who regularly visit blogs tend to have MBL accounts as they want to become part of the community and interact with the other visitors. But on the off-chance that you get someone not registered with MBL then they will show up as Shadowman (or ShadowWoman!).

But for those registered with MBL, leaving a comment brings up their MBL logo :

I have heard complaints that this plug-in slows down the loading of the blog but personally I have not seen any slowing down of my blog at all. The only time you are likely to see a slow-down is when MyBlogLog is down and since they are hosted on Yahoo servers, that isn’t very likely. When was the last time a Yahoo server went down? Right, I can’t remember either.

If you use this plug-in, you’ll quickly find that people love seeing their avatars featured on their comments. Some have actually told me by email that seeing their shadow avatars next to their comments have actually prompted them to go to MyBlogLog and sign up for an account! This just goes to show that people (despite what they may say to the contrary) love attention, they love seeing their face or their avatar associated with their words and their opinions – and this means repeat visits to your blog!

And if you don’t have a MyBlogLog account, then you need to get one today and upload an avatar. You can open MyBlogLog account and join MakeUseOf community here. It’s free and essential if you are a blogger or visit a lot of blogs. MyBlogLog is the social network for bloggers everywhere.

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The First Wordpress Plugins You Must Install (29)
• Kaltura Adds Video Management To Your WordPress Blog (11)
• How To Upgrade Your Wordpress Blog Automatically (16)
• Give Your Wordpress Comments A Makeover With Disqus (12)
• Another 10 Must-have Plugins for Your Wordpress Blog (3)

Then comes the second question; which plugins exactly? There are literally thousands of Wordpress plugins available out there. Too many options. Everybody has different preferences, different needs. Not to mention that Wordpress users tend to be happy-go-experimenty-want-to-try-them-all kinda people.

So, which one?

Well, there is one plugin that you must install first before you install any other plugins. It’s called Plugin Central (download it here).

The reason is simple; this plugin will enable you to install every other plugin easily via the web interface. No more meddling with FTP clients, no more memorizing logins and passwords to the FTP account.

This also means that anytime and anywhere you come across an interesting plugin, you can instantly install it from your blog’s web interface. All you need is the download link of the file, which can be easily obtained by right-clicking on the “download” button on the plugin’s page on the Wordpress site.

This plugin can also install multiple files which have already been downloaded and saved in your hard drive (or anywhere, as long as you know the address). This feature will enable the users to copy sets of plugins from one blog to another. A real time saver although I haven’t tried it yet though.

Another benefit of this plugin over the traditional FTP method is the installation speed. The process can be done in less than two seconds after you click the ‘install’ button (but the timing can vary case by case – it depends on many factors). This is significantly helpful for those who are not fortunate enough to have a lightning speed internet connection (believe it or not, some of us still use that antiquated 56.6 kBps dial up modem – or slower – phone line!)

What I don’t like about “Plugin Central” is that users have to go to the Dashboard to use it. So you have to go back and forth between Dashboard and the Plugin pages to install and activate any other plugins.

Another disadvantage is the installation failure that you will get if the plugin is inside the sub folder of the folder of the zipped file.

The second option of this kind of plugin is Pluginstaller (here’s the download link). It’s a bit old, but still compatible up to Wordpress 2.5.1. (I think. I’ve tried it but sometimes it gives me an installation failure). This plugin have some advantages over its younger and more powerful companion. Pluginstall can also uninstall plugins that you don’t need anymore. It goes further by telling you which plugins are broken and let you delete them. Anybody who has tried millions of plugins would appreciate this feature.

Moreover, Pluginstall will also simplify the default interface. This will surely make your plugins list interface less cluttered. Much less cluttered. You don’t have to scroll and re-scroll down the page to do the tedious activate-deactivate-reactivate process.

I use them both: Plugin Central to install, Pluginstaller to uninstall and simplify the plugin page. The combination works fine for me and has made my blogging life easier.

Do you have other must-install-first Wordpress plugins? Let us hear the list in the comments below.

Jeffry Thurana is an Indonesian writer who manages his own tech blog “InterNeTips“. He is a regular contributor for InfoKomputer monthly magazine, PCplus weekly tabloid, and Cool and Smart English teen magazine in Indonesia.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Liven Up Your Wordpress Blog Comments With MyAvatars (6)
• Kaltura Adds Video Management To Your WordPress Blog (11)
• How To Upgrade Your Wordpress Blog Automatically (16)
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• Another 10 Must-have Plugins for Your Wordpress Blog (3)

The past day or two has been a real eye-opener for me as I realised for the first time the full breadth and scope of the features available for Wordpress. Here was me thinking that Blogger was not that bad but now I am starting to realise what I’ve been missing out on in the 3 years that I have been writing various blogs.

Here are some more Wordpress plug-in gems that I picked up today. Again, I have tested some and others I have only looked at. Use them at your own risk.

Show Top Commentators: this is just like the Recent Comments plug-in I discussed in the last post. This is more of an ego-boost for people to come back, keep commenting and stay on the Top Commentators board. This displays a list of the top commentators on your post and it sits in the sidebar.

Trackbackers – allows you to show in your sidebar the blogs that trackback to you the most. This one would be particularly good if a lot of high-profile blogs link to you. This plug-in would allow you to show that off.

Subscribe-Remind – you may have a big orange RSS feed icon on your blog page but sometimes users need a gentle nudge to persuade them to sign up for your feed. This plug-in inserts a sentence at the end of each post inviting them to sign up for the feed – along with a clickable link of course.

Show Google PageRank – this shows the little green Google PageRank bar and the PR for your blog. It sits in the sidebar and is useful if you plan to attract advertisers to your site. Just one glance at the PageRank will show prospective advertisers how Google rates your site.

Alexa Rank – or if Alexa is more of your thing, here’s a plug-in that allows you to place your Alexa rank in your sidebar.

Random Redirect – another cool plug-in which allows the user to be randomly taken to one of your posts – a bit like StumbleUpon. Just install the plug-in and then make a link with the URL – http://www.yourblogname.com/?random. When a user clicks on the link, they are taken to a random post. A bit like Blog Roulette!

One Year Ago – if you have a blog that is more than one year old, this plug-in allows you to highlight posts from a year ago. Useful for recycling old material and getting fresh sets of eyes on it.

Link Love – This is a plugin which turns off “nofollow” for all commenters who have posted at least 10 comments. Allows you to build up more links.

About Me – every blog needs a human face and this feature allows you to put an About Me column on your page.

Webcam Video Comments – a rather interesting one which allows visitors to create audio and video comments to your posts.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 5 Must-have Plugins for Your Wordpress Blog (9)
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Last year it sounded all so easy and routine when I said to myself “let’s move my blog from Blogger to Wordpress. Should be a piece of cake”.

Famous last words.

One year on and three attempts later, my blog is now finally on the Wordpress platform. I now feel like I need a long holiday.

Moving over to Wordpress involves a very steep learning curve and it was only in the past week or so that I realised how little I actually knew. So I figured a few posts about Wordpress features, widgets and plug-ins would be a good idea for anyone else contemplating the “Big Move”. For anyone who is contemplating it, I would say it is worth the effort involved but it’s good to get someone knowledgable to help you. When it is all done, you’ll see how far superior Wordpress is to Blogger in terms of features and control.

The Top Five Tools You Should Have On Your Wordpress Blog

I’ve tested some of the following features and others I have only glanced at. So don’t blame me if you try any of these out and they don’t work! Try them at your own risk!

To activate them, you need to unzip them and then place them in your “wp-content/plugins” folder by firing up a FTP program and moving things from your PC to your blog (FileZilla is an excellent choice). Often, there are written instructions inside the folder you must follow for it to work. Like everything else, this is all trial and error. If it doesn’t work, keep fiddling around with it until it does work.

Recent Comments – one of the things I like most about Wordpress is the ability to highlight recent comments on the front page. It’s only natural for readers to get a kick out of seeing their name on the page and this encourages them to come back and comment again. It’s also good for the blog owner to get a brief overview of any new comments that have come in.

Subscribe to Comments – this is a really cool feature which I have just implemented on my site. It allows people to subscribe to the comments in a post by having them emailed to them. Plus someone can subscribe to the comments without having to leave a comment first. Again, this is a good way to encourage repeat visitors.

Show Related Entries – this is one I have always wanted for my blog. This scans the post you have just read and offers links to similar posts that you have written. This is good for getting visitors to read and comment on your older work that may not be so visible anymore. A good way of recycling something you wrote ages ago.

Askimet – anyone who uses the internet for any lengthy period of time knows full well the spam problem. Bloggers have an even rougher time of it as blogs attract regular visitors and that is fertile hunting ground for the spammers. Askimet is a robust effective spam filtering tool that nukes the spam before it has a chance to hit your blog.

Redirection – this one was recommended to me by Aibek but unfortunately I can’t use it. Basically this plug-in allows you to re-direct posts if the URL changes or if someone types in the website name without the “www” (redirection will add the “www”). But I can’t use it because it needs “.htaccess” and it seems that Yahoo (my hosting company) doesn’t allow it! Which is a pity because this looks like a really great plug-in.

I am currently looking for a good Wordpress backup tool. If anyone can recommend one, please do let me know in the comments.

So those are my top five plug-ins so far. I’ll be back again tomorrow with my next batch of tools that you should look at for a Wordpress blog. As usual, please leave your comments and recommendations!

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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The way I see it, an ideal backup procedure should be simple, heavily automated and provide quick recovery option for almost any problem. Whether you want to restore your blog to an earlier state (eg. undo wordpress update), transfer it to another hosting server, get it back online after it’s been hacked/deleted, or just restore couple of recent posts. So, let’s see what tools we use for MakeUseOf.com

(1) BackUp Posts and Comments

BlogBackUpOnline: Fully automated online service that offers an easy way to store and schedule article backups on a daily basis. Please note, BlogBackUpOnline backups only your blog posts and comments, it doesn’t and can’t back up all plugin-related database data (ex. article views, user ratings etc.). It comes in really handy when you need to quickly export your posts and comments from one blog to another or restore mistakenly deleted article. In a way it’s similar to wordpress export function, but runs automatically. It takes around a minute to set-up and can run without your intervention. More on Blog Backup Online

(2) Backup Blog Database (Wordpress Plugins)

There are two excellent wordpress plugins that can perform automatic daily backup of your wordpress database. Depending on your understanding of the database and administration skills you may choose one over the other. Although, I highly recommend using both. The reason behind this is that, if you use both you can have 2 backups for each version, one only with core database tables and one including all extra tables brought by installed plugins.

Wordpress Database Backup – simple no-brainer plugin to schedule daily, weekly or monthly database backups. Backups can be emailed to your email or stored on your server.

WP-DB Manager – provides complete database management right from the admin interface. Automatic backups, database restore, optimization, repair, table add/drop options, SQL command line and more. ‘WP-DB Manager’ is more complicated than ‘Wordpress Database Backup’ however it provides a much-needed ‘restore from backup’ feature. So if you need an easy restore functionality and have no idea about the tool called phpMyAdmin than definitely stick with WP-DB Manager.

(3) BackUp Blog Files

Next step would be to backup all of your blog files. Sometimes servers crash and data gets lost. Most of the hosting providers maintain an emergency copy but you never know. I already had an incident when couple of my sites were deleted due to a server crash and the hosting company had no backup copy to restore them. Additionally, the whole process of asking your hosting provider to restore data maybe annoying and take up to several days. So, it’s really important that you always keep a fresh copy of your website on a local drive.

I personally use Filezilla for that, it’s not an automated FTP backup tool, but there is no difficulty in copying files manually once per week.

(4) Auto-store copy of your backup files

Finally, as the last line of defense, you may consider keeping a complete copy of all your local backup files (blog files and database backups) on some secure third party servers. This is just in case something terrible happens to your PC. Good news, this can be automated as well, and takes about a couple of minutes. Simply sign-up with one of the remote backup services, i.e. Mozy and download provided “set-it-and-forget-it” desktop client. Install it on your system and point it to the folder with all your backups. Once that’s done, you can relax and forget about it. As long as it runs on the background, it will keep online version up-to-date. Btw, you can also use Mozy to backup your local files, it’s an excellent and highly automated backup tool.

Suggestions? Let us know in comments …

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Webmaster Tools:

As a Webmaster, maintaining and observing my pages, is fundamental. My core web sites that I use on a Daily and Weekly basis are as follows…

Google Analytics – The free and ultimate Webmaster tool for all types of site analytics, including: visitor information, traffic sources, pages and everything in between

Feedburner – This is the ultimate user tool for Bloggers to optimize and analyze the blog’s feed. Feedburner Medic included free (thanks to Google’s Purchase) maintains a daily report of your feed’s status. Note: Should use a Feedburner plugin (Like Feedburner FeedSmith) to make sure the Feedburner Feed is the main feed

Wordpress.com Stats – Using this plugin in conjunction with a Wordpress.com API Key (you’ll need a Wordpress.com account), you will be able to monitor visitors and site statistics from within your WordPress installation.

Google Webmaster Tools – Includes diagnostics, abilities to include your feed and sitemap, monitors Google Page Rank and lists all external links

Yahoo Site Explorer – Not the best, but monitors your sitemap, Pages, Links and Subdomains

So, nothing tricky or complicated above, just the basics. Why use anything else? Is there some ultimate tool I should be using?

This post was posted by our guest writer Adam Hirsch from TheFattyTalks

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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