WordPress Plugins Site For Users and Developers

I’ve been a fan of Mass Automation’s WordPress plugins and tools for some time. These are high quality blog administration tools, for the most part, that save me a tremendous amount of time keeping my many blogs updated. If you’re just running one or two blogs, these are not for you, but if you’re like me and have a number of blogs, I highly recommend them.

The Mass Automation folks have recently opened a new site featuring free open source plugins for WordPress called PluginEdge. PluginEdge is a repository for WordPress users to get some very handy utility plugins. It is also a place for WordPress plugin developers to upload plugins for distribution and additional exposure.

I’ve installed several of the free plugins from PluginEdge and found them to be very useful. There are still others I’ve got on my list to check out when I have a chance to do so.

The PluginEdge home page lists the 10 most popular plugins in terms of downloads. Because the site is only a couple weeks old as of this writing, the list changes pretty frequently. As of today, the top 10 plugins are:

1. GAFMonitor – monitors the Get A Freelancer site for project requests
2. ScuttlePlus – create your own social bookmarking site
3. WP Bazaar – turn your blog into an online store
4. Plugin Remover – removes unwanted WP plugins without FTP
5. Robots.txt – creates a robots.txt file for your WP installation
6. WP Database Reverter – restores a WP database to its previous state
7. Trackback Search – search for and find trackback URLs to add to your posts
8. Comments Pinger – pings comments instead of posts
9. Set Permalinks – makes .htaccess file writable via FTP
10. WP Checkup – pings a list of your blogs and warns if any are unavailable

Since this site is so new, you’ll want to check it on a regular basis to see what new goodies are uploaded. Enjoy!

John The Geek

Using WordPress? Update Now!

If you’re a blogger using WordPress, be sure you’re at the latest version 2.7.1. Earlier versions of WordPress are vulnerable to a security loophole that allows the bad guys access to your server via a “back door”. Needless to say, you don’t want this to happen!

I was recently hacked through an old version of Joomla I’d left laying around on my web host. Fortunately, no real damage was done, but it brought home the folly of running old versions of popular software. The fact is: the more popular the software, the larger target it is for those who get their jollies finding ways to exploit it.

WordPress is the most popular blogging software on the Web, so it stands to reason that vulnerabilities will be found and exploited. For that reason alone it is important to keep it updated to the latest version.

If you need help updating your WordPress installation, get my free guide to upgrading WordPress quickly, easily and safely:

http://JohnTheGeek.com/wpupgrade

John The Geek

Best Blog Site To Create A Community?

Davine asked:

Can you refer me to the best Blog site where I can set up a good & responsive community to share my telecommunications product offering online?

You can set up a free blog on WordPress.com or Blogger.com, however, you have a limited amount of control over what you can do to those blogs to customize them. Either one will have good search engine traffic after your blog has been established for a while and you’ve added lots of good quality content.

If you wish to set up your own WordPress blog and have complete control over themes, plugins, etc., you can do so on any web host that runs PHP. Most Linux-based hosts have CPanel for administering your hosting account and Fantastico, a utility that will let you install a WordPress blog in a few mouse clicks.

No matter which way you go, the key to blogging effectively is to provide your readers with content that is good enough that they want to keep coming back. If you can accomplish that, you’ll be able to use the site as a platform for your telecommunications offering.

John The Geek

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Upgrade WordPress Quickly and Easily

Upgrading WordPress blogs just got a whole lot easier. The normal upgrade process is a manual effort prone to errors and omissions and needed to be automated. There is now a plugin called the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin that streamlines WordPress upgrades considerably.

As with most scripts, however, there are a couple of areas that can be confusing if you’ve not run it before, so I’ve put together an e-book that steps you through the process and points out the gotchas. Follow the steps in the e-book and you’ll have your WordPress upgraded in a few mouse clicks and be ready to rock and roll with the latest and greatest.

Get your copy of this free guide to upgrading WordPress here:

How To Upgrade Your WordPress Blog To The Latest Version

Enjoy!

John The Geek