How to Blog - 3/8 Plugins February 19, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Productivity, Technology, Blogging , 16 comments
The third step is to use appropriate and effective plugins on your blog. This is neither a top list nor a required list where you need to use them all. It serves more of as an introduction to plugins that show what kind of functionality and accessibility your blog may lack if not used. There’s a lot of variation to be found when you want a certain kind of key functionality to your blog - the differences are then found in the instalment, use and appearance. WordPress comes with a few plugins to start with and Akismet is a plugin that you should definitely use.
All links are to the plugin homepages and they all come with guides on how to install and use them, so there’s no point that I retype what’s already found documented elsewhere. The standard deal is to download and extract the files to the plugin directory. Then you just go to the plugins menu in your administration panel and activate the plugins. But it’s always recommended that you first read the instructions found on each plugin homepage or the install or read me file that comes with the plugin. Some are more tricky to install than just to activate and some add their sub-menu to the options panel where you do the plugin tweaking.
Adsense-Deluxe
I like this plugin not only because it automates the insertion of Google AdSense ads, but also because you can use it to automate any code you want to add to a post with a simpler maneuver. It adds a sub-menu to the options menu where you name a new code block and enter the full code in a box. The plugin then generates a tag that you insert in the post.
Brian’s Threaded Comments
This plugin adds the option of replying to a single comment so that it’s clear to whom you’re responding as it boxes in the previous comment in yours. I didn’t get this plugin to work, but there’s another plugin for the job as well, called the Quoter that is presented later on.
Category Replacement Widget
The Category replacement widget lets you change the category view in the sidebar into a drop down bar as presented in the sidebar of my blog. You need the sidebar widget plugin to use this.
Clean Archives Reloaded
This plugin is found in action on the Archives page and includes the dates and comment counts automatically. Since the latest WordPress upgrade, it also includes the pages you create, but this should be fixed in the next plugin update.
Comment Karma
If you want to add the option of voting a + or a - to other people’s comments, this plugin comes in handy. It’s a bit tricky to install, but works fine when you get the hang of it.
Contact Form ][
This plugin displays the contact form found in the page and may need some fine tuning to get it to show up as you want it to. This way you’re less prone to get spam mail since your e-mail address remains hidden.
Count_posts
Count_posts is a really simple plugin. It displays the total amount of posts you’ve published, as shown at the bottom of the Archives page. It just displays the number, so you’re free to add any text you want just by typing it out on the page.
Digg This
Digg This displays a similar button on your post that can be found on the Digg website to the left of the link headlines. It won’t show up until at least two people have dugg your entry and the plugin generates an e-mail to you notifying that this has happened. The downside is that you can’t really test if the plugin works or how it shows up until you’ve got dugg. Here’s what it looks like. You can also enter the code in the index.php file instead of the suggested post.php.
Drop-down Archive Widget
This plugin shows up the same way as the category replacement widget as found on the sidebar, but it doesn’t require you to have the sidebar widget plugin to use it.
Feedburner Feed Replacement
You need to have a Feedburner feed to use this plugin. It’s a simple install and it boosts your feed count number because it taps into many sources that feedburner statistics doesn’t automatically count in, like Firefox Live Bookmarks.
Google Sitemaps
This plugin is part of the Google utilities entry I’ll post next week. It generates an XML sitemap of your blog so that Google can index it for better targeting.
MyAvatars
A simple plugin that checks if a comment poster is registered to MyBlogLog and then places their picture/avatar in the comment box.
Quoter
Quoter functions like the quote button in forum posts. A blog reader can also highlight a text from your entry and by the click of a link, quote the text and reply to it in the comments. It’s a bit tougher to install than most plugins, but I got it to function properly. I might install it on this blog.
Related Entries
This plugin is found in action at the bottom of this post, below the ad banner. It’s a great plugin since it gives the reader some place to go after reading a blog entry. You can’t keep all new readers, but this plugin helps a bit.
Sidebar Widgets
This is a pretty basic plugin as it enables the widgetizing of your sidebar. It comes with its own menu where you drag, drop and order your widgets as you want to them to be displayed.
Subscribe To Comments
Subscribe to comments simply adds the check box way down where a reader enters a comment. It adds a stickiness to the blog as it sends an e-mail whenever someone else has replied to a user’s comment.
Ultimate Tag Warrior
I personally don’t use this plugin, but it’s great to add tags to your posts. There are a few other plugins that go hand in hand with it too.
WP-PostRatings
This is the rating plugin I use for people to vote on my posts and also to display them on each of the four pages in an descending order. It’s a nifty plugin, but don’t rely on people using it actively because only a very small fraction will. It took me over two months to get my first rating, and now I’m at 68.
WP-PostViews
The WP-PostViews plugin is only visible to the blog admin. It shows how many times a post has been viewed when you go in to edit/manage a post. It comes in handy if you want to see which posts fare well on your blog.
WP Category Posts
I’m using this plugin in the Categories page, but it requires you to manually enter each category to the page to make it display as it does there. The post count is automatic though.
I’m happy to include more plugins that anyone suggests, and although I’m not an expert at using them, I’ll do my best in helping out how to get them to work if the plugin homepages don’t provide sufficient info. There’s no checklist for this step. Just try installing any plugins in your offline blog that seem interesting and delete the ones that you don’t end up using to avoid clutter. There are lots of plugins to be found at the WordPress plugin database link directory.
In the fourth step of this “tutorial” (Friday, February the 23rd), we’ll be changing permalinks for better search engine optimization, looking into css and html tweaking and how to add more media rich content to spice up the blog appearance.
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How to Blog - 2/8 Go Online February 16, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Productivity, Technology, Blogging , 3 comments
Step 2 is a short and easy step and serves the purpose of providing the basics for those of you who still haven’t had a blog online. That being said, here’s today’s agenda. We’ll look into what you need to be able to run WordPress, what kind of a host you might choose, how to upload your files and how to go from there. Yes, it’s quite a beginner’s tutorial today. But let’s get on with it so we can get to the more advanced details later on.
The first part is easy. Your web host provider must have PHP and MySQL support, or else your WordPress installation won’t work because it uses the MySQL database to function. Remember to check this when you choose your web host provider and service package. If you’re aiming really high and intend to drive lots of traffic to your blog, remember that a cheap alternative on a shared server might not stand up to it. Storage space shouldn’t be an issue unless you’ll be using lots of pictures, audio and video files to spice up your blog.
I have provided a list of web host candidates that you may choose from. I can’t really vouch for any of these except the last one, since it’s the only one I’ve personally used and still using.
- Dream Host
- Blue Fur - Even the cheapest solution is said to stand Digg front page traffic.
- Go Daddy
- A Small Orange - Reader recommendation.
- midPhase
- AN Hosting - Specifically for blogs.
- bluehost
- Laughing Squid
- Planeetta internet - Just in case you live in Finland.
Once you’ve signed up, you should get the necessary login details to be able to start uploading WordPress to your web host. Make the decision if you want your home page to be your blog (insert WordPress files to the root directory) or if you want the url to be yourpage.com/blog for instance instead (upload the wordpress folder to the root and rename it to “blog” or your word of choice.
To do this, you first need an FTP application. My choice is FileZilla, which you can download from SourceForge. Run the installation and place it where you want. Run the program, choose File > Site Manager and enter the following details:
- Press the “New Site” button and give the connection any name.
- Enter your domain url in the “Host” field.
- Choose “SFTP using SSH2″ in the “Servertype” dropdown field.
- “Logontype” should be “Normal”.
- Enter your username and password in the following fields.
- Click “Connect” and you should land on the web host directory.
This is where different web host providers have different category listings. Find out which is your root directory and upload your WordPress files or your wordpress directory there by dragging them from the left window to the right. I suggest clicking on the “Advanced” button and inserting the wordpress folder directory in the “Default remote directory” to save you some time by always landing where the action is when you connect to your web host. Remember now that your wp-config.php file must have the information that works with your web host database. Run the install.php file to install your online WordPress version and pick up the login details.
Here’s a tip. I recommend having a duplicate of both your online and offline wp-config.php files in separate directories. This way you’ve got an easy copy paste solution whenever you’ve done something wrong on either your offline or online WordPress directory and choose to upload or download it all from one host to the other to get it all working back as normal again.
Whenever you upgrade WordPress to a newer version, just copy all the files to your existing wordpress folder. Refresh your admin panel and the few steps are easy to just click through.
Checklist for step 2 - starting offline
- Web host - Choose a blogger friendly solution that fits your needs.
- FileZilla - Download, install and configure to have a file upload tool.
- WP Config - Keep duplicates of your wp-config.php files for easy copying.
- Upgrade WordPress - Keep an eye out for upgrades and always install them.
Pretty basic, huh? In the third step of this workshop (Monday, February the 19th), I’m listing the most essential WordPress plugins that you should know about, how to install them, how to use them and why. They may not all suite the context of your specific blog, but there’s bound to be something new to everyone who is following along with this tutorial. I hope I haven’t bored you too much, the rest of the steps provide more value to established bloggers.
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