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Posts tagged Wordpress
My WordPress plugins
Mar 18th
I wanted to share what plugins I use currently on this blog. I actually spent way more time browsing the plugin directory then I did setting up wordpress. By that I mean moving blogging providers, setting up the blog, and migrating all my posts. I can’t say that I looked at each plugin in the directory, but I did view a lot of them. Just as a warning the directory can be extremely frustrating to navigate and search sometimes, but it is worth the pain to find plugins that will enhance the behavior/look of your blog.
- Akismet - Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.
- All in One SEO Pack - Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog
- Broken Link Checker – Checks your posts for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found.
- FD Feedburner Plugin - Redirects all feeds to a Feedburner feed
- Google Analyticator – Adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google’s Analytics. After enabling this plugin visit the settings page and enter your Google Analytics’ UID and enable logging
- Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.
- Maintenance Mode – Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end.
- Socialite - Publishes your WordPress posts to Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace. I use WP to Twitter to post to Twitter (see below)
- SyntaxHighlighter Plus – An advanced upload-and-activate WordPress implementation of Alex Gorbatchev’s SyntaxHighlighter JavaScript code highlighting package.
- Theme Test Drive -Safely test drive any theme while visitors are using the default one. Includes instant theme preview via thumbnail.
- WordPress.com Stats - Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. The benefit of using this is that you can view the current day’s stats unlike google which you can only view the stats after the current day passes by.
- WordPress Database Backup – On-demand backup of your WordPress database as well as scheduled backups.
- WP-Optimize – This plugin helps you to keep your database clean by removing post revisions and spams in a blaze. allows you to rename your admin name also. Additionally it allows you to run optimize command on your wordpress core tables (use with caution).
- WP-Polls – Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can easily include a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page. WP-Polls is extremely customizable via templates and css styles and there are tons of options for you to choose to ensure that WP-Polls runs the way you wanted. It now supports multiple selection of answers.
- WP Security Scan - Perform security scan of WordPress installation.
- WP to Twitter – Updates Twitter when you create a new blog post or add to your blogroll using Cli.gs. I really liked the options on this plugin over Socialite and solely use this for posting to twitter.
- WPtouch iPhone Theme – A plugin which formats your site with a mobile theme for the Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones.
Why I switched to WordPress
Feb 8th
Deciding to switch from BlogEngine.Net was something I did struggled with. I felt some loyalty to it though, because primarily I am an .Net developer. So making this decision was not easy at first, but after careful consideration of what was important to me the decision was easy.
I switched to WordPress because BlogEngine.Net just wasn’t doing it for me. BlogEngine.Net is a great piece of software, but the overhead for me was just too high. I could customize it to my heart’s content such as adding my flickr badge, disclaimer, etc. via code. The problem is I just don’t want to take the time to make it work/look the way I want. I would rather actually write on my blog and not spend most of the time maintaining it (look, feel, versions).
I was able to install WordPress in a few minutes using the auto installer my blog host provides. Then Import my blog posts to WordPress. After that I was able to use WordPress’s great directory of plug-ins and themes to get my blog to work/look the way I wanted. The part that took the longest was actually looking through and searching these directories and finding the plug-ins I wanted (yes I will post which ones I am using later). Also WordPress has the ability to auto update, which is fantastic. Not only does the core WordPress auto update, but does the the plug-ins and themes. One click of the button and a few moment later you are done, fully updated, with out having to to anything yourself.
In conclusion WordPress gets out of my way and lets me just write, which is the point of having a blog right.
Importing BlogML to WordPress
Feb 1st
- I was using BlogEngine.NET, so I went to the main administrator page and exported my blog to a BlogML file on my computer.
- Make sure your exported xml file is in UTF-8 format.
- Install WordPress on you favorite hosting provider. On many hosting providers this is a few click process that runs an auto installer.
- WordPress does not have a built in way to import BlogML. Luckily Kavida Munasinghe as already written the import module for us. BlogML to WordPress import module. Once you have the zip file on your computer just unzip the file and upload the two files directly into the wp-admin/imports folder. If you have an issues setting it up check his post and the related post he has.
- Before you import, make sure you have setup your permalink structure to your liking. Once you import each post will get a new permalink, which will match the structure you setup. You will also get a cvs file with all the old permalinks and the corresponding new ones. You can use this file to create 301 permanent redirects as not to lose your link love.
- Create a backup of your database. If you import and thing didn’t import to your liking, you will want to restore from this back and try again.
- Now just log into your WordPress blog and in the Tool section will find Import Menu. Select BlogML, browse your saved BlogML and click the upload and import button.
- Now setup your redirects. Depending on the type of hosting you are using you will either have to setup .htaccess file or use something like the IIS 7 URL Rewrite module 1.1 or higher. You can check out the following WordPress Codex for more information.
