Tag Archive plugins

  • Home   /  
  • Posts tagged "plugins"
Byq292u
, ,

Essential WordPress Plugins (Updated)

Why Use Plugins?

WordPress is immensely powerful straight out of the box, but it’s possible to add pretty much ANY functionality you want, and it’s usually for free.

OUR Favourites

This is a list of the TOP Plugins we use at q292u.com. Others may not agree.
They are in no particular order.

Right Now..

This is an UPDATED version of an updated version of an earlier post. There are SIGNIFICANT changes, as WordPress is such a moving target.

Here’s The List:


AKISMET

ESSENTIAL anti-spam system. Free to non-commercial users.
Filters out unwanted (spam) comments automatically, and provides stats on what it’s doing. ESSENTIAL.

WORDPRESS SEO (YOAST)

We now use this in preference to All-In-One-SEO-PACK. Allows us to tailor in-post SEO far better. Also handles Sitemaps. ESSENTIAL

BETTER WP SECURITY

Plugs all the holes we could find. Also handles backups. Excellent! ESSENTIAL

ADROTATE

Handles advertising on your site. Very comprehensive. Individual ads are created and then made into groups. You can then position the groups as widgets, in posts and on pages. Ads have start and end dates, and tracking can be switched on or off. Better than maxbannerads. ** The latest version has had features removed due to a “premium” version. Avoid this version. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

WP AUTO TAGGER

Automatically adds relevant tags to your posts as you create them, based on post content. It’ll find tags you hadn’t thought of. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

AUTO POST THUMBNAIL

Automatically sets the “Featured Image” attribute of the post, based on the content. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

HYPERCACHE

Excellent caching plugin, creates static version of all your posts and pages as they are created. Far better than SUPERCACHE. ESSENTIAL if you use a lot of plugins, or have a lot of visitors.
Get the “Clear Cache” Button plugin as well.

EXCLUDE FROM NAVIGATION

Some themes automatically add all pages to navigation menus. This is how to stop it. Adds a checkbox in the editor. ESSENTIAL.

SMART 404

Attempts to redirect 404 errors to relevant pages based on search query, and URL requested. Reduces bounce-rates. ESSENTIAL

Google Analytics (YOAST)

This adds Google Analytics tracking code to all your pages and posts, so you can keep tabs on everything. You need an analytics account. ESSENTIAL.

YARRP (Yet Another Related POsts Plugin)

Thsi is the best of it’s kind- Adds related posts links to your posts. Essential for internal links. ESSENTIAL

STOP SPAMMERS REGISTRATION

Blocks spammers from ever registering. Uses blacklists, etc so they can’t post. Nice. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

COVERT SOCIAL CONTENT

We use this instead of FEEDWORDPRESS, due to performance issues. NOT FREE!
Strongly Recommended

COVERT SOCIAL BUZZ

Generates Likes/Tweets/etc. Not Free. Strongly Recommended.

WP SOCIAL POPUP

Pops up Social Links on accessing the site. Generates Likes/Tweets/etc. Strongly Recommended.

SOCIAL LOCKER (FREE Version)

Excellent! – Locks up content until the user tweets, likes, g+1 or whatever. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Byq292u
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Bookmarking Buttons

Have you noticed the social bookmarking buttons on this site?
Thought so!
Impressive, isn’t it..

You see, the problem with social bookmarking is that no-one wants to be the first to “like” something. It’s a “herd mentality” thing.

It’s a fact, that someone is more likely to “like” something if someone else already has.

So that means it’s a vicious circle – no-one will click unless someone has already clicked. Damn.

So how do we get around that? You’ve already seen the answer. This plugin displays either “REAL” or “Fake” likes, so you can set it to display “fake” like totals until the number of REAL likes hits a threshold.

(On this site, it generates a random number of likes until the REAL number hits 30, the it displays the REAL number)

The animated “share” counter also gets you past their “like button blindness” – this is like “banner ad blindness”, where visitors don’t actually notice the banners/buttons anymore.
If you hover over the share button, it shows the likes from the individual sites – again, impressive!

Want this on YOUR site?
Simple: BUY THE PLUGIN (We did)..


It’s a simple wordpress plugin installation job, and the configuration is just as easy.
If you buy the plugin from our link, we’ll even help you install it!

Byq292u
, , ,

WordPress 3.3 Upgrades Completed

Out of the final three (mission-critical) sites, two went through smoothly.
One did not, and had to be upgraded via FTP, then remove the .maintenance file.
Anyway, that’s it. All plugins updated, and all sites running on WordPress 3.3.

Give it a week, and there’ll be an urgent security fix, while everyone is off on their xm,as break..


Byq292u
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

WORDPRESS: How to disable all active plugins, without access to the dashboard..

See my earlier post as to why I needed to do this:

WP-Supercache Ate My Website

My site was down. Dead. No access to the admin functions. The problem was a plugin gone bad (when I tried to disable it).

So, I needed to disable plugins, but couldn’t get into the admin panel.

The excellent support guys at Unlimited Web Hosting came up with this ingenious solution:

Here’s what you do: use CPANEL or PLESK to access the WordPress database of your site directly. It’ll be something like phpmyadmin. Details vary with web hosting firms. If in doubt, ask yours.

Browse the WP_OPTIONS table. Look for a record called “active_plugins”.
Copy the contents of this field into notepad, and save it, just in case.
Now go back to the database, and EMPTY the contents of “active plugins”, and save it. (you can always restore it from the copy you made).

Now access your site. It should come back up, but with no plugins running, so it’ll be weird. Now go into admin as usual, and re-enable all plugins one-by-one, EXCEPT the one that caused the problem.
I’d DELETE that one..

** DISCLAIMER. If you try this solution, and it messes things up, that’s your problem. I take no responsibility for it. It worked for me. **

** If it all goes wrong, simply restore the database from your backup. You DO have a backup, right? **

Related External Links

Byq292u
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

WORDPRESS: How to disable all active plugins, without access to the dashboard..

See my earlier post as to why I needed to do this..

My site was down. Dead. No access to the admin functions. The problem was a plugin gone bad (when I tried to disable it).

So, I needed to disable plugins, but couldn’t get into the admin panel.

The excellent support guys at Unlimited Web Hosting came up with this ingenious solution:

Here’s what you do: use CPANEL or PLESK to access the WordPress database of your site directly. It’ll be something like phpmyadmin. Details vary with web hosting firms. If in doubt, ask yours.

Browse the WP_OPTIONS table. Look for a record called “active_plugins”.
Copy the contents of this field into notepad, and save it, just in case.
Now go back to the database, and EMPTY the contents of “active plugins”, and save it. (you can always restore it from the copy you made).

Now access your site. It should come back up, but with no plugins running, so it’ll be weird. Now go into admin as usual, and re-enable all plugins one-by-one, EXCEPT the one that caused the problem.
I’d DELETE that one..

** DISCLAIMER. If you try this solution, and it messes things up, that’s your problem. I take no responsibility for it. It worked for me. **

** If it all goes wrong, simply restore the database from your backup. You DO have a backup, right? **


Byq292u
, , , , , , ,

Social Media Integration | Facebook | Twitter/Tweetmeme

Had a bit of a successful day yesterday.
Flushed with the success of my attempts to properly integrate with twitter/tweetmeme, I thought I’d have a go at Facebook as well.

I now have facebook integration on three sites: “like” buttons, login with facebook id, etc, nice.

Getting the tweetmeme and “like” buttons to display nice was another story, however.
In the end, I had to disable automatic placement, remove formatting for tweetmeme, and manually place the buttons in the template code, inside a table.. Sorted.

Plugins used: tweetmeme button, “Simple facebook connect” + login, publish etc..


Byq292u
, , , , , ,

Wordbay problem.

Inexplicably, Wordbay stopped working across all my sites on unlimited last week.
Not only that, but it took out all sites with it installed.
Had to rename wordbay folder via FTP to get back in.
Quick e-mail to Mark Daniels (wordbay developer), and he’s as puzzled as me.
It does point to a change at Unlimited, but they say no..

Anyway, It works if I switch off geo-location. Mark’s changing the code for version 1.6, out soon.

10/10 for support, Mark!


Byq292u
, ,

Wordbay problem.

Inexplicably, Wordbay stopped working across all my sites on unlimited last week.
Not only that, but it took out all sites with it installed.
Had to rename wordbay folder via FTP to get back in.
Quick e-mail to Mark Daniels (wordbay developer), and he’s as puzzled as me.
It does point to a change at Unlimited, but they say no..

Anyway, It works if I switch off geo-location. Mark’s changing the code for version 1.6, out soon.

10/10 for support, Mark!


Byq292u
, , , , ,

WordPress 3.1.2 Upgrade

Upgraded all sites to wordpress 3.1.2 last week.
Tested all sites: OK.
Of course, on Saturday, I find that one of the sites has fallen over with a memory allocation error in wp-db.php, which is in the WordPress core directory..

Quick e-mail to unlimited support who confirm that nothing has changed at their end.

So that means it’s either a problem with 3.1.2, or one of the plugins. Only solution: disable all plugins, and re-enable one by one, testing site as we go.

Eventually traced to “efficient related posts” plugin.
Site back up and running in a few minutes. Sorted.


Byq292u
,

WordPress 3.1.2 Upgrade

Upgraded all sites to wordpress 3.1.2 last week.
Tested all sites: OK.
Of course, on Saturday, I find that one of the sites has fallen over with a memory allocation error in wp-db.php, which is in the WordPress core directory..

Quick e-mail to unlimited support who confirm that nothing has changed at their end.

So that means it’s either a problem with 3.1.2, or one of the plugins. Only solution: disable all plugins, and re-enable one by one, testing site as we go.

Eventually traced to “efficient related posts” plugin.
Site back up and running in a few minutes. Sorted.


Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Appointment by Webriti