WordPress Plugin: Favorites Menu Manager
Favorites Menu Manager lets you customize the drop-down menu located at the top right of the WordPress admin screen.
Favorites Menu Manager allows you unfettered customization of that dropdown menu. You can easily add your own links, remove existing ones, and put them in the order you desire. Customizations are stored on a per-user basis, so each user can have their own collection of frequently used links.
You can also customize the Favorites Menu with code depending on which page is loaded in the admin panel, but doing so using a plugin is of course more convenient.
Download Favorites Menu Manager
WordPress Plugin: BuddyPress Template Pack
BuddyPress Template Pack transforms WordPress themes into BuddyPress-ready ones. This makes getting into BuddyPress a whole lot easier.
Now you can use BuddyPress with your single site installation of WordPress, and you can keep your existing theme. Seriously, could BuddyPress have made it any easier for you to add social networking to your site? I know I can’t wait to try it out this weekend, how about you?
Just follow the steps once the plugin is installed, and if you want to go back, rest assured that none of your theme files are modified. The plugin requires the BuddyPress add-on, which also comes as a plugin. Your WP install should be at least version 2.9.1 too.
Download BuddyPress Template Pack
Plugin Readme files now support video
A new feature that will benefit WordPress plugin authors and plugin users alike: you can now add video in the readme.txt file of a plugin. This information will be displayed in the WordPress Just like WordPress posts & pages support shortcodes and oEmbed, so do plugin readme files now. There are two ways of doing this: oEmbed, by entering the URL of the video in its own line, and shortcodes, by entering the type of video and the URL in between square brackets, e.g.:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EiKx_WSesk][vimeo http://vimeo.com/173714][wpvideo OO4thna8]
The feature currently supports three video providers: YouTube, Vimeo, and VideoPress. It must also be noted that object embed codes (the usual way of embedding videos on websites) is not supported, just the two methods above. View the test example here.
WordPress Plugin: Zen: Distraction-Free Writing
Zen is a WordPress plugin that lets you focus on writing by eliminating all the unnecessary elements in the WordPress admin.
If you’re a fan of WriteRoom, OmmWriter, or similar tools that help you focus on your words instead of the tools you’re using, this plugin will soon make your wildest dreams come true (and give you a simple clean environment within WordPress to write to your heart’s content)! While Zen does not replace the existing Edit Post/Page screen, it provides a layer on top that will help you focus more on the quality of your words and less on the distracting fine-tuning of minuscule details.
The plugin comes with different themes from light to dark, and can be toggled with shortcut keys. Compose blog posts as you normally would in the text editor, with or without HTML. Autosaving also works with Zen.
WordPress Plugin: Zopim Live Chat
Zopim Live Chat lets you add a live chat box to better interact with one’s website visitors. Get live statistics, secure chat, the ability to reply via your IM client, and more.
The service is free for 2 concurrent chats and 1 IM chat bot, but the paid plains give you more access. This also means you’ll need to create an account with Zopim, but you can do that from within the plugin options page.
Complete features are listed here. Download Zopim Live Chat
WordPress Plugin: WordPress Loop widget
The WordPress Loop is a special widget that lets you create custom loops using over 35 different options, from post types and categories to custom fields and taxonomies.
The widget has over 35 options to choose from. Customize your WordPress loop by one or more post types, categories, tags, custom taxonomies, authors, dates, custom fields, and a whole lot more!
In addition, it has support for post thumbnails, sticky posts, pagination, offsetting, customizable content length (by word count), and you can change the ordering from a variety of options.
While this widget was created with non-PHP users in mind, it also comes with 4 action hooks using the WP_Query class. More details here.
The widget requires version WordPress 2.9 and higher. Once installed, you can configure the settings in the Widgets area. Download WordPress Loop
3 backup plugins reviewed
Blogging Tips reviews three WordPress backup plugins, DBC Backup, WP-DBManager, and WP-DB-Backup. According to them DBC comes out on top, but go check out the review to see which one meets your specific needs. There’s always the WordPress plugins directory, too.
I prefer to do my backups from within my host’s cPanel so that all of my site gets backed up, not just my WordPress install, but using plugins makes things easier.
In any case, having a backup plan is better than none at all. If you haven’t started or need to brush up on your blog backup habit, there’s no time like the present. And it’s peanuts to install a WordPress plugin these days, so no excuses!
TypeKit for WordPress.com, WordPress.org, and WordPress MU
Good news for WordPress users looking to unleash the typography aficionado within: custom font embedding service TypeKit has released support for all flavors of WordPress.
For WordPress.com, it’s already built in:
Log into your WordPress dashboard and click on Appearance in the left-hand navbar. There, you’ll find “Typekit Fonts” with a place to add your Kit ID (available under “Embed Code” in the Typekit Editor). That’s it — you’re ready to go. You can choose fonts from our rapidly growing library to add them to any of the WordPress themes to give your blog a distinct look.
For WordPress.org, there are a couple of plugins you can use from the official directory.
For WordPress MU, there’s a special plugin you can use as well.
This is great news for both the web design and blogging communities: through plugins and integration with TypeKit it’s now a lot easier to incorporate the next big thing in creating more beautiful websites.
WordPress Plugin: My Snippets
My Snippets lets you add custom widgets depending on the post displayed. It adds a custom meta box where you can add text or code, which shows up in your widget areas.
What I wanted was something that allowed me to control widget content from the post editor, so I wouldn’t have to worry about setting my widgets. This gave me the idea for the My Snippets plugin.
What this plugin does is add an extra meta box on the post editor that allows you to input custom content. This content is then displayed using the Snippet widget in any widget area you choose.
This is a really neat idea for making your website more dynamic. Combined with a theme that has lots of widgetized areas, this could very well change the way people compose and add extra information like videos, graphs, or quotes to their blog posts.
Question is, would it be possible to add the meta content to your feed? Because RSS readers certainly shouldn’t be exempt from them. Or perhaps create shortcodes for inserting them into the post editor, but only make them appear in-text if it’s in the feed, and in the widget areas otherwise. Just a suggestion though! There are probably many other uses for this plugin that people can come up with.
Plugin problems? Try these steps
Don’t panic! Daily Blog Tips has a list of things to do when a WordPress plugin you installed suddenly stops working or breaks your site.
- Try to de-activate the plugin
- Rename the plugin via FTP
- Delete the plugin via FTP
- De-activate all the plugins via PHPMyAdmin
There are several ways to disable your plugin and it will depend on how “broken” the situation is. The higher the number the more drastic the measure. The concept should apply to themes as well—try deactivating using the WordPress admin first, then try it through your FTP client, and so on.
Good luck!
WordPress Plugins Directory adds user-voted compatibility checker
WordPress plugins listed at WordPress.org’s official plugin directory now have a new feature for compatibility checking. It uses the naturally-helpful WordPress community to gather statistics on how compatible a plugin is for a certain WordPress version. Weblog Tools Collection reports:
Normally, the plugin information within the FYI box tells you which version of WordPress is required and which version the plugin is compatible up to. Unfortunately, the version the plugin is compatible up to is not updated that often which is why some plugins which state that they only work up to WordPress 2.5 end up working with the latest release.
[...] The beauty of this system is that it leverages the community in order to figure out what works with what. However, just because it works for the majority of users is no guarantee it will work on your particular setup. But using these statistics, it should make it easier to figure out whether the issue is with the plugin and WordPress or with your setup.
One of the biggest fears users have when it comes time to upgrade WordPress is whether their plugins will work on the newest version or not. There are a large handful of people who upgrade to the latest version of WordPress as soon as it’s released and the hope is, these folks will visit the plugin page and report their findings for others to take advantage of. If more users see that their plugins work on the newest version, they are more likely to upgrade.
It’s not yet on all plugins, and it doesn’t appear yet inside details screen when you install from within your WP admin, but expect that to change soon. After all, this feature is still in beta.
But the biggest advantage, as WLTC notes in the last paragraph above, is key here. WordPress-powered sites often stay outdated and unable to fight off security attacks because their owners fear for incompatible plugins breaking their site. This checker should help quell those fears. And of course, this is a great incentive to make sure you’re grabbing plugins from the most legitimate source out there.
WordPress Plugin Competition 2009 winners announced
The results of the WordPress Plugin Comeptition 2009 are out, and here are the clever plugins that got the thumbs-ups:
Winner: Section Widget
Godfrey’s plugin provides a way to display section specific content on your WordPress sidebar with an easy to use interface.
First Runner-up: Advanced Export for WP and WPMU
Ron’s plugin provides WordPress users (both WordPress and WordPress Mu) the ability to break up their exports into multiple files with each file containing different sections of their blog. Ron wins $500 in cash.
Second Runner-up: Live Blogging
Chris’ plugin provides live micro blogging functionality to WordPress blogs using Meteor technology. Both comments and posts are automatically updated on viewers’ blogs with the plugin. Chris wins $500 in cash.
Congratulations to all those who participated and organized this contest!
WordPress Plugin: Search Meter
Search Meter keeps a list of the keywords your blog visitors are searching for. You can access the stats in a page from your admin panel.
If you have a Search box on your blog, Search Meter automatically records what people are searching for — and whether they are finding what they are looking for. Search Meter’s admin interface shows you what people have been searching for in the last couple of days, and in the last week or month. It also shows you which searches have been unsuccessful. If people search your blog and get no results, they’ll probably go elsewhere. With Search Meter, you’ll be able to find out what people are searching for, and give them what they want by creating new posts on those topics.
The plugin also lets you display popular and recent searches on your blog. It’s a nice little idea that benefits you and your readers at the same time.
Automattic gets spelling and grammar checker After the Deadline
Automattic has acquired After the Deadline, a next-generation tool that does spelling, grammar, and style checking all in one. It’s now a default feature of WordPress.com, and it’s also available as a plugin for self-hosted WordPress.org sites.
At its core WordPress has always been about writing — that’s why we put so much effort into things like the visual editor, revisions, and auto-save, so you never lose your work. Now you have another arrow in your quiver to help you present the best possible face to your readers and the world.
After the Deadline is an acquisition you probably didn’t see coming, but makes total sense! Kudos to the makers of ATD and Automattic for making the world a better place, at least when it comes to writing.
WordPress Plugin: Upgrade Notification by Email
Upgrade Notification by Email does exactly what it is called: anytime WordPress sends out a new update, your blog administrator’s email inbox will receive a notice that you should upgrade. Now you have no excuse to install the latest, most secure version of WordPress on your website as soon as possible.
This plugin is for you if you don’t look inside of your Admin Panel every day (for example you have tens of wordpress installations) but still want to have wordpress up to date. After installation plugin will check every day if newer version of wordpress is available and if yes, will send email to blog’s admin with notification.
Download Upgrade Notification by Email
Most downloaded WordPress plugins ever
Best Design Options has compiled a list of the 10 most downloaded WordPress plugins of all time. The data is readily available at the WordPress plugin repository, but this post prioritizes download history instead of rating, which the WP site does.
- All in One SEO Pack
- Akismet
- Google XML Sitemaps
- NextGEN Gallery
- Contact Form 7
- WordPress.com Stats
- WP Super Cache
- Sociable
- Google Analyticator
- Google Analytics for Wordpress
Three Google-related plugins, two of which are for the same purpose—site analytics, but both were beaten by WordPress.com’s own stats service and plugin. Contact Form 7 and NextGEN Gallery are the most popular contact form and gallery plugins, respectively.
Plugins from the WordPress Plugin Competition 2009
The WordPress Plugin Competition 2009 has closed its submissions and Weblog Tools Collection has now announced the complete list of participating plugins. You can download all of them in one ZIP file, too.
There are lots of Twitter/microblogging-related plugins on there, as well as other interesting tools to streamline your blogging and WordPress usage. Don’t forget to participate in the contest by rating the different plugins!
WordPress Plugin: Absolute Privacy
Blogs are usually public publishing platforms, but what if you wanted to keep yours away from prying eyes? Enter Absolute Privacy, a WordPress plugin designed to lockdown your WP blog with all custom user access features. You have to option to hide your blog from viewers who are not logged in and force new registrants to enter their first and last name.
After having a few odd registrations and comments on our family blog, my wife asked me to create a plugin that would give the blog security from strangers but still be easily accessible to family and friends. Absolute Privacy does just that! Absolute Privacy turns your WordPress blog into a fully private site where you control who has access. It’s perfect for family blogs, private communities, and personal websites.
WordPress Plugin: Injection Attack Protector
There are a lot of types of security breaches that threaten your WordPress blog, and spam/malware injection seems to be the most popular of the lot. Fortunately there’s a plugin that helps prevent that called the Injection Attack Protector. This script allows to you to scan your site for possible injection attacks and even a heal tool for the compromised files.
Make sure to follow the given instructions for the plugin to work properly. You’ll need to know how to create a password-protected folder on your site and edit certain files thru a text editor.
Download Injection Attack Protector
Protect your WordPress blog with these plugins
With WordPress 2.8 out, that means it’s upgrade season for us. That also means older, unupdated versions of WP more vulnerable to attacks. Keith Dsouza of Weblog Tools Collection has a list of recommended anti-spam and antivirus plugins to help improve security on your blog:
Anti-spam WordPress Plugins
- Akismet
- WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam
- WP-Hashcash
- WP reCAPTCHA
- Math Comment Spam Protection
Security WordPress Plugins
- WP Security Scan
- WordPress Exploit Scanner
- AskApache Password Protect
- TTC WordPress Security Tool
- Secure WordPress
- WordPress Firewall
Check out the blog post for details and download links to each of the plugins listed above. Got any more plugins you can recommend? You can never have enough!
WordPress plugin developers still need good business model
There’s been a lot of talk about how to earn money from WordPress themes, including whether or not such methods comply with the GPL it possesses. Now it’s the plugins that need addressing. Kevin Eklund of ToMuse discusses this issue in depth.
Many developers reach a point at which they are simply unable to continue long-term support their plugins. This is largely due to the maintenance and support costs incurred for their plugins which far exceed the revenue generated by the donation based business model which most plugin developers utilize.
He then lists alternative business models for developers: premium, freemium, paid support, and ad-supported.
WordPress is a flourishing community and a potentially good source of income, so we have high hopes for the hard working folks who have made the publishing platform as beautiful and flexible as it is today.
How to create Widgets in WordPress 2.8
Justin Tadlock has a nice tutorial on the new way to create WordPress Widgets in WP 2.8. You might remember that in the upcoming version of WordPress the admin interface for Widgets has been revamped, but the method of developing Widgets has been updated as well.
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through the steps of setting up a widget, its settings form, and displaying it on your site. At the end of the tutorial, you can download an example plugin to build from. Of course, you can apply this to your themes as well.
According to him, coding a widget is much easier this time because you just have to extend the WP_Widget class. The tutorial also gets into advanced widget controls and display settings.
dotMobi WordPress Pack
The dotMobi WordPress back is a jampacked suite containing themes, widgets, and plugins that you can use to make your WP-powered site fully compatible with mobile devices. All courtesy of the dotMobi network.
The pack contains the following functionality:
- Mobile switcher to detect mobile visitors and provide an appropriate experience
- Base mobile theme for quick-and-easy XHTML-MP compliance
- Extended mobile themes so you can unleash your mobile creativity
- Transcoding and device adaptation to optimise the mobile experience
- DeviceAtlas integration for world-class adaptation
- Mobile admin panel for when posts can’t wait
- Mobile ad widget to make you some money
- Barcode widget to help users bookmark your blog
Wow, they really thought of everything, from site appearance to administration to monetization. The Web is going mobile, so why not add these extra features since dotMobi makes it very easy for you to do?
Download dotMobi WordPress Pack
WordPress Plugin Competition 2009
Weblog Tools Collection is back with its annual WordPress Plugin Competition, the breeding ground for some of the most useful plugins in the community, e.g.:
- 2008 grand prize winner: WP Comment Remix
- 2007 grand prize winner: OneClick
- 2005 grand prize winner: Vhosts and Secure Login
The rules are pretty much the same as the previous years, so check out these steps for participating this year. Join here.
WordPress Plugin: A Year Before
A Year Before is WordPress plugin that displays titles of blog posts that were published a specified time ago. For example, display posts exactly a year ago, or something more recent like a month ago.
You can insert the code for this plugin into your theme files or use the sidebar widget provided.
WordPress Plugin: p2pConverter
p2pConverter converts posts to static pages and vice versa. Once installed, this functionality is available in both the Edit Post/Page and the Posts/Pages screens. Additionally, you can set which user roles can use this converter.
If you want to convert a Page or a Post to the either, click that button. Or you can click the Convert button while editing a Post or Page right next to the Delete and Publish buttons.
WordPress Plugin: Ads For Old Posts
Ads for Old Posts lets you assign special advertisements for posts that have been around for a specified amount of time. Just enter the ad code and the minimum number of days a post has to be in the plugin settings panel and you’re all set!
A good idea if you want to reduce the amount of advertising on your blog.
WordPress Plugin: Earth Hour for WordPress
Brave New Code has a special WordPress plugin just for the upcoming Earth Hour event this March 28. What it does is temporarily shut down your blog for the duration of Earth Hour.
Once the plugin is installed your site will display a banner (shown here on our website) that will not only show others that you support the Earth Hour initiative, but will also show a count of how many other WordPress sites in the world are also supporting Earth Hour.
Download Earth Hour for WordPress
WordPress Plugin: Related Ways to Take Action
Related Ways to Take Action is a WordPress plugin that analyzes your blog posts and displays related links that encourages readers to take social action.
The WordPress plugin works by scanning each of your posts for the top three keywords and then searches for related actions from Change.org, GlobalGiving.com, Idealist.org, DonorsChoose.org, Kiva, Care2 and over twenty other Social Action Platforms. It then automatically loads the top three campaigns for those keywords at the bottom of each of your posts.
It’s part of the Change the Web challenge, which invites people to promote social change using web-based tools. Aside from WordPress, web companies like PayPal, Mozilla, and Mashable are participating.
Download Related Ways to Take Action
Plugins for specifying canonical URLs for SEO
The almighty Google has come out with guidelines for dealing with duplicate content by specifying a canonical URLs (preferred URLs) in the <head> of a webpage, like so:
Now, you can simply add this tag to specify your preferred version:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish" />inside the
<head>section of the duplicate content URLs:http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish&category=gummy-candy
http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish&trackingid=1234&sessionid=5678
Since WordPress generates webpages dynamically, it’s best to comply with this SEO practice with plugins. WordPress Garage lists two you can try out, and I’ve added one more from the Plugin Directory:
- Canonical URL’s for WordPress by Joost de Valk
- SEO No duplicate by OMNINOGGIN
- No Duplicate Content by Blog Highlight
See also Matt Cutts’s post and presentation and the Google Webmasters Help page on Canonical URLs.
Improved search for WordPress Plugins Directory
In WordPress 2.7 we’re now able to install plugins effortlessly either by uploading a ZIP files from a local drive or by searching the Plugins Directory from the admin panel (see Plugins > Add New). The problem, however, with the 2nd solution is that it was a pain since search results were not helpful at all!
The good news is, the Automattic team has improved its plugins directory search with the help of Sphinx, which is an SQL full-text search engine.
Currently, the search only indexes the plugin’s title and description/installation/FAQ/etc. (from the plugin’s readme.txt file), but we’ll be adding things like authors and tags soon.
Good to hear they’re actually working on one of the most useful aspects integrated into the admin panel.
Plugins for a client-friendly WordPress CMS
StylizedWeb lists 10 steps to making a client-friendly website that’s powered by WordPress with the help of plugins. To customize the admin, for example, check these out:
The Custom Admin Branding plugin will let you swap out logos in the administration panels for your own, or your clients (depending on how you want to brand Wordpress).
WP Admin Theme Extended will let you easily adjust and tweak the color scheme of the administration panel. Again this will let you either pick your branded colors, or your clients for the administration panel.
WordPress Plugin: Visual Recent Posts
Visual Recent Posts automatically extracts images from within your posts and turns them into thumbnails representations of them, magazine-style. See how they can look like in the VRP Screenshots page.
It extracts the images from your recent posts and makes them pretty. You can include your post title and excerpt along with the image, all of which link to the original post. If you want, you can also specify a featured post to stand out among the rest.
No need to enter extra custom fields for each post (which you might forget to do sometimes) and upload extra images just to have post thumbnails. Just pick your preferences in the plugin’s options page and you’re all set.
WordPress Plugin: PowerPress
Are you a podcaster or interested to get into podcasting? Try PowerPress, a shiny new podcasting plugin that provides high compatibility and easy integration with your blog, RSS feeds, and podcast directories (including iTunes and Zune Marketplace). Compatible with WP version 2.5 and higher.
Features include:
- Easily add/modify/remove podcast episodes from blog posts and pages
- Integrated audio/video media player
- iTunes RSS tags
- iTunes album/cover art
- Standard RSS Feed album/cover art
- Podcast only RSS feed
- Ability to upload new cover art
- Ping iTunes
- Media size detection
- Duration length detection (mp3 only)
- 3rd party statistics integration
Top 10 WordPress plugin developers
Here’s a nice twist to the usual top 10 plugin list you can find on WordPress.org: the Top 10 WordPress Plugin Developers. Automattic chief (Chief BBQ Taste Tester, that is!) Matt Mullenweg is at number 2.
- Michael Torbert
- Matt Mullenweg
- Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
- Arne Brachhold
- Andy Skelton
- Alex Rabe
- Oliver Seidel
- Joost de Valk
- Donncha O Caoimh
- Vladimir Prelovac
I think it’s a great way to check out new plugins aside from the ones we already know and love. And how about leaving them a tip or at least some kind words for all the hard work they’ve done (especially now during the holidays).
Check out the bonus special mentions too—makes for interesting WordPress trivia!
Pinoy WordPress Plugin: Strip!
Strip! is a WordPress plugin by Markku Seguerra that “strips” away links inside comments. (Don’t worry, you can put them back.)
I developed Strip! because of an interesting trend in the behavior of my commenters: some would respond to my share their thoughts on a given post, but unfortunately link to some off-topic pages at the bottom of their comment. Typically, I can just mark the comment as spam or disapprove it, or just delete it. But there are times when the on–topic part of their comment is admittedly necessary and helpful to the discussion — this is where I use my Strip! plugin.
Interesting note: if you attended WordCamp Philippines and attended his talk, this is the plugin he was demonstrating then.
Download Strip! | Plugins by Markku Seguerra
IntenseDebate reopens after Automattic acquisition, new WordPress plugin available
IntenseDebate reopens after going invite-only since its acquisition by Automattic. So for those who haven’t signed up for an account, now you can.
And of course, they’ve made it especially easy to use for WordPress users with a new beta plugin, with the following features:
- Two-Way Comment Sync (comments are saved both in your WordPress database and the IntenseDebate server)
- Admin Panel Integration
- Search Engine Optimization
- Trackbacks
- Profile Sync
- Post Settings
And more:
Can’t wait to get hold of all the great commenting features included in WordPress 2.7? Get IntenseDebate now!
WordPress Plugin: Akismet 2.2.1 with Stats
Our favorite spam-fighting plugin Akismet has a new version, now with statistics:
Spam most people know as the unwanted commercial comments on their blog, its counterpart we call ham to indicate legitimate comments. On the Akismet mistakes side, missed spam is pretty self-explanitory, but a false positive is what it’s called when we incorrectly identify a legitimate comment as spam. (Which hopefully happens exceedingly rarely.) Also, we’re sorry about the vegetarian thing.
All that spam and ham getting you hungry yet? To top it all off, there’s a “Yummy Pie” chart that summarizes your blog’s commenting history. You can find your Akismet Stats beside the link to your Dashboard.
Winners of the WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5 announced
Download some highly useful WordPress plugins from the winners of the recently-concluded WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5 by Weblog Tools Collection:
Vote2Publish
Best WPMU compatible plugin, First Prize
WPWall
Best WPMU compatible plugin, Consolation Prize
Prelovac
Consolation Prize
WP Easy Uploader
Third Prize
Manageable
Second Prize
WP Comment Remix
Grand Prize
Congratulations to all the participants (who each received $10 for their efforts)!
WordPress Plugin: Manageable
Manageable is an excellent plugin that lets you edit attributes of WordPress posts and pages without having to load them one by one. People who need to mass edit entries will find this a godsend.
Simply double-click anywhere in the post or page row and when you’re done, press enter. Alternately, you can click the link in the new “Edit” column.
WordPress Plugin: WordPress Exploit Scanner
With all the talk about WordPress security vulnerabilities, every bit of protection helps. The WordPress Exploit Scanner plugin does just what it says: it looks for any suspicious behavior in your WordPress files and database tables.
This WordPress plugin searches the files on your site for a few known strings sometimes used by hackers, and lists them with code fragments taken from the files. It also makes a few checks of the database, looking at the active_plugins blog option, the comments table, and the posts table.
It also allows the blog owner to search for whatever string they like which could come in handy when new exploit code is used in a hack.
Download WordPress Exploit Scanner
WordPress Plugins: TypePad AntiSpam for WordPress and WordPress.com Stats for Movable Type
WordPress and WordPress.com are Automattic products, while Movable Type and TypePad are SixApart products. These two companies are fierce competitors for the blogging platform crown, but here’s a surprise: you can actually use two of their plugins for the “opposing camp”.
TypePad AntiSpam
TypePad AntiSpam is SixApart’s answer to Automattic’s Akismet. It’s completely compatible with the latter, and like it you’ll need to register for an API key, also for free. Get started here.
WordPress.com Stats
WordPress.com Stats is an analytics program for self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com users alike. Movable Type users can run this plugin as well, but they’ll also need a corresponding API key. Complete details found here.
It’s clear that these two companies are looking to expand their userbase not just with their blog software but with other projects in tow.
Share your ideas to the WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5
The WPCandy team is asking for your ideas for their entries to the WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5.
If your plugin gets chosen, we’ll give you credit inside the code and with a post here linking back to your blog. Remember though, your idea can’t be something that already exist! It has to be totally new and of course, it’s going to be GPL.
Even better is that should they win the contest, they’ll give away the prize to one of their readers! Great way for everybody in the WordPress community to participate in this plugin competition.
Join the WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5
Weblog Tools Collection announced an all-new WordPress plugin development contest. It will run from May 10 to July 10. Standard rules apply, such as the code must be licensed with GPL. No word yet on the prizes, but that should come along soon.
I think this is a great way for Filipinos to get recognized for their coding efforts, and knowing how big WordPress is in this country, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince fellow Pinoy bloggers to join!
WordPress Plugin: Seesmic Video Comments
Seesmic is a service for video-based conversations. But it takes a step further and can integrate with your WordPress blog. It lets you record video blog posts as well as video comments with the help of a WordPress plugin.
The Seesmic-wp-plugin allows you to:
- Record one or more Seesmic video’s to a post.
- Accept authenticated or anonymous video comments.
- Moderate video comments exactly like text comments.
You can watch how it works with this video.
Download Seesmic Video Comments
Coffee2Code’s 14 Days of WordPress Plugins + 7 Bonus Ones
Scott Reilly of Coffee2Code has finished his plugin coding spree, 14 Days of WordPress Plugins, and creates 7 more! How’s that for a very prolific WordPress developer?
Here are some of the plugins I found interesting:
Display upcoming (today + future) or past (before today) posts in an easily customizable manner.
Extract a listing of all commenter emails.
Easily create a link to another post using a simple shortcut that references the post’s id or slug; the link text is the post’s title, unless overridden.
Hide (so no one, or only users above a certain userlevel, can see) or cut (so only viewable on post’s permalink page) portion(s) of post text. Link text for cuts can be defined per-cut or omitted, and if used, cut links are uniquely anchored.
HTML Special Characters Helper
Adds a tool to the Write Post page for inserting HTML encodings of special characters into the post or page.
There are a whole lot of plugins you might find extremely handy if you’re one of the more finicky WordPress patrons.
WordPress Plugin: Zemanta
Zemanta is a “content suggestion engine for blogging”. Just write a blog post as you normally would and eventually Zemanta suggests relevant links, articles, images, and tags. Needless to say, this is a really convenient and innovative way to help bloggers with their posts.
It currently works with WordPress and Firefox, as well as other blog platforms like Blogger and TypePad. Here’s a video demo of Zemanta for a WordPress blog:
Zemanta Wordpress Plugin Teaser from zemanta on Vimeo.
You can also check out a demo at their website. Why not download and install Zemanta and try it out for yourself?
Pinoy WordPress Plugin: Technorati Tags for WordPress 2.3
Will Garcia has written a WordPress plugin that displays Technorati tags for a post in place of its local tags.
After a few minutes of tinkering with the core files, I decided to try making a plugin that would mimic Ultimate Tag Warrior’s ability to display Technorati tags, a feature that I sorely miss, having to let go of the plugin I have come to know and love. I definitely know I have to do something about it. It’s the OCD-ridden kid in me that just has to scratch this itch.
I created this plugin so that anyone who wants their posts listed as Technorati tagged posts. That way, you get more traffic (hopefully) from Technorati. This is also something I want my blog to have, and I think I’m not alone on this one. In case I am, well, I still did it for me. What are personal blogs for but your own person, right?
Also check out related plugins Technorati Tag Cloud for WordPress 2.3 and Technorati Tag Cloud Widget for WordPress 2.3.
Download Technorati Tags for WordPress 2.3
WordPress Plugin: WordPress Automatic Upgrade
WordPress is pretty easy to install, but I’ve always hesitated to upgrade to the latest version, no matter how many times I’ve done so in the past. So imagine my sigh of relief when I discovered the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin.
Once activated, just head over to the plugin page (Manage > Automatic Upgrade) to begin the update. Here’s an idea of what the plugin does:
- 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 from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip and unzips it.
- Puts the site in maintenance mode.
- De-activates all active plugins and remembers it.
- Upgrades wordpress files.
- Gives you a link that will open in a new window to upgrade installation.
- Re-activates the plugins.
The plugin can also can be run in a automated mode where in you do not have to click on any links to go to the next step.
Download WordPress Automatic Upgrade
Pinoy WordPress Plugin: Sideblog
Want to write about miscellaneous topics, but they don’t quite fit into the main purpose of your blog? Sideblog, created by Ilonggo developer Kates Gasis, is a great solution to that.
Choose at least one category to use in your sideblog, then configure how it will be displayed (typically as a list) and how many will be displayed. Finally, you can also set whether these sideblog posts will appear in your feeds.
