Blogging Adventure

Posts Tagged ‘Wordpress’


Posted on October 14, 2008 - by Jonathan Davies

Featured Site: WPCandy

Featured Site: WPCandy

I’ve been talking about WordPress a lot lately, as you probably all know by now WordPress is what a lot of bloggers use on the back end to publish what they have to say. There are loads of plug-ins, services and themes out there for you to try, but how do you find the best ones?

WPCandy does that and a lot more.

About the Site:

WPCandy was created by Michael Castilla on October 2007, since then it has gone through three different themes. Currently it has two main bloggers, including Michael, and lots of contributing authors. WPCandy is split up into five main categories for you to enjoy:

  • Articles
  • Themes
  • Plug-ins
  • Site
  • Community

From all of these catergories you can whittle down what WordPress is all about and easily find out the key things that are going on in the vibrant community that makes WordPress what it is.

Why I Like It

I’m by no means a WordPress guru, however I do like to tinker and keep up with what is going on, I find WPCandy is a great source of not only primary information but also tertiary information through the community page so I can keep up with all of the latest developments.

Strangely enough I also go for the ads. WPCandy has some very interesting and relevent advertisers, mainly in the themes realm, who have some cool WordPress related service.

Why You’ll Like It

As I mentioned before, WPCandy offers a great collection of WordPress sites, tutorials and just cool stuff. If you want to find some awesome themes - they review them. If you want to learn how to make some design changes to your blog - they can help. If you want to find your way about WordPress -  they have some resources for that.

From WPCandy has spawned some other very cool services, such as WPCoder that will turn your PSD designs into WordPress themes if you’re looking for a individual look to your blog.

Finally, I would like to wish WPCandy a late 1st Birthday, keep up the great work guys!


Posted on September 22, 2008 - by Jonathan Davies

10 Wordpress Plugins Your Blog Needs!

10 Wordpress Plugins Your Blog Needs!

Wordpress is the premier publishing platform on the internet. It has a massive, loyal user-base which swear by it. One of the great things about this is that there are also a large group who like to make plugins for Wordpress to expand on it’s features.

I have comprised a list of ten Wordpress plugins that I feel every blogger should have in their arsenal. Feel free to add any that you think I’ve missed in the comments.

1. Adman

Adman allows you to place ads in your blog without having to go into the php and find the right spot. You have the choice in having the ad appear before the first post, after a post and within the post.

One of the super cool things about this plugin is that it can calculate the best spot to place the ad when you want it in the post. Though if you want it in a certain place you can specify with a tag.

2. Ajax Comments

Ajax Comments is a very simple, but very useful plugin. It adds some AJAX voodoo to your comments system so that they are published without having to refresh the page.

This plugin may be considered more of a luxury than a need, but it makes your site run that bit slicker.

3. All In One SEO Pack

If you’re not on Google, you don’t exist. Just about everyone uses Google and if you want to make your blog that much easier for people to find; then you’ll install this plug-in.

Basically, All In One SEO Pack gives you a form to fill in within Wordpress to make your site more attractive to Google’s bots. Such as keywords and page headers. In the first month of installing it on my personal blog I jumped a page in Google’s results.

4. Maintenance Mode

If you ever want to have a tinker around with your website for a bit without having the whole web being able to see the changes you are making, I highly recommend Maintenance Mode. This plug-in allows all the visitors who come to your site to be met with a page displaying that the site is not currently available.

You have a lot of options with what the page can look like, but you are given a template which you can fill in that documents the amount of time you expect the site to be inaccessible.

5. No Self Pings

I love this plug-in because it solves one of my pet hates which is when you link to a post within your blog and it pings it within the comments. This can be especially frustrating if you have linked to one post several times. It starts to look a lot like spam.

By using this plug-in you simply remove the clutter sent from other posts within your blog.

6. Related Posts

If you want to keep your readers attention then this plug-in is a must, most people place it in the sidebar or below the post. It will display some posts that relate to the topic that was just blogged about. If they were willing to read to the end then they probably want more.

I’ve found the plug-in to be accurate nine times out of ten, but sometimes a really random one is thrown in there. There is even the option if you don’t have any relevant posts to display random ones so there isn’t a blank space.

7. SRG Clean Archives

I’ve never really been a fan of the default Archives page that comes with Wordpress so I had a look around and SRG Clean Archives seems to be the best.

It elegantly displays the posts by month and allows each month to be collapsible. Very slick!

8. What Would Seth Godin Do?

If you’re very keen to increase your subscriber count. It basically uses cookies to recognise new users and if they are so display them a message of your choice. Normally suggesting that they subscribe to the blog. However, I have seen a few just saying “Hi” and hoping they enjoy the blog.

There are loads of options varying from the placement and the overall design of the message.

9. Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

I’m lazy, very lazy and I don’t like messing around with stuff I don’t understand. Wordpress is one of those things. So to solve this problem, I’ve enlisted the help of Wordpress automatic upgrade which takes you through the upgrade procedure and never makes you leave the Admin panel.

All you have to do is click through a couple of messages telling you what it’s doing, and if you want download a back-up file.

10. WP Contact Form III

If you want an easy way for people to contact you without having them use email then this would be a great plug-in for you.

WP Contact For inserts a form wherever you specify, whether it be on a post or a separate page. You can setup a special question to stop spammers getting to you as well. For instance; I ask people “What colour is snow?” and the contacter has to put “white” for it to get to me.

The Question For You:

What Wordpress plug-ins do you use on your blog?