Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast

Today we’re covering the Configure SMTP (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/configure-smtp/) WordPress Plugin. This simple plugin allows you to customize the server your blog sends email for notifications, comments, etc... It is very useful if your ema

Today we’re covering the Sociable (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/) WordPress Plugin. Similar in function to the Share This (http://www.pluginspodcast.com/2009/02/26/sharethis-wordpress-plugin/) WordPress Plugin, Sociable adds link and sha

In this episode we're speaking with Max Sweet (TimeStampStudios.com (http://timestampstudios.com/)), a WordPress plugin developer and web designer for WebmasterRadio.FM (http://webmasterradio.fm/). Max discusses why his employer moved to WordPress and how

In this episode, Angelo goes into detail of the WordPress coverage at this year's PodCamp Pittsburgh (http://podcamppittsburgh.com/). Quick Announcement:  (http://www.blogworldexpo.com/)I will be speaking on Friday, October 16th at the 2009 Blog World a

Today we’re covering  TweetMeme Button (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/) WordPress plugin. The TweetMeme Button WordPress plugin adds a Tweet me icon to your blog posts and pages. The plugin displays the number of re-tweets referencing

Today we’re covering the RSSCloud WordPress Plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/rsscloud/). The RSSCloud WordPress Plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/rsscloud/) is written by Joseph Scott (http://josephscott.org/), a heavy WordPress de

In this episode, we speak with Beth Lynn Eicher, one of the organizers of the Ohio Linux Fest (http://www.ohiolinux.org) coming this September 25-27, 2009 in Columbus, OH. Talking with Beth Lynn, we discuss Linux User Groups (LUGs) in the region as well

In this episode we continue our conversation with Mitcho, the author of the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/) (YARPP) and HookPress (http://mitcho.com/code/hookpress/) plugin. Mitcho and I talk about jQuery, plugin developm

In this episode we speak with Mitcho, the author of the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/) (YARPP) and HookPress (http://mitcho.com/code/hookpress/) plugin. Mitcho goes into detail why he created YARPP (http://mitcho.com/cod

Today we’re covering the WPtouch mobile smart phone WordPress plugin. The WPtouch Mobile Theme plugin adds a mobile friendly interface to your blog’s web site. The plugin allows you to quickly add support to your blog web site for mobile phones such as the iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android G1/myTouch and the new Palm Pre. Installation is simple and configuration options are easy to configure. Features include: Clean navigation interface in an iPhone friendly format. Supports Blackberry, iPhone and iPod Touch Supports Google Android, Opera mini and Palm Pre with some hacking Settings for displaying categories, tags and author name in post listings Settings for adding Google AdWords and Analytics Customize the styling and colors and your logo (as an icon) Support for other plugins Here are some screen shots from an iPhone and from a Palm Pre: If you’re familiar with editing PHP code and would like to enable WPtouch for Android, Palm Pre and Opera mini, please edit the wptouch.php, replace the array on line 250 with the following: $useragents = array( “iPhone”,  “iPod”,  “aspen”,  “android”,  “dream”, “webos”, “incognito”,  “opera mini”, “webmate”,  “BlackBerry”); Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Any To learn more about the WPtouch plugin, please go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/. The design of the Plugins Podcast logo and site theme are by LogoBot2000.com. LogoBot2000 has very low prices on logo designs and images for your blog and podcast needs. If you visit the site, please let Brian know Angelo from the Plugins Podcast sent you. The post Plugins 022 – WPtouch Mobile Smartphone (iPhone, G1 Android, Palm Pre) WordPress plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

This episode we continue our interview with Lorelle, the host of Lorelle on WordPress. Lorelle on WordPress is a popular WordPress blog that covers WordPress, reporting on new and exciting happenings in the WordPress community including development, new features, plugins plus help, tips, advice, and blogging techniques. In this segment we go into detail with a plugin I’ve developed but yet to release that creates static files for your blog feeds. Lorelle goes on to suggest the WP Super Cache plugin as well. Lorelle goes into detail about how plugin developers can support their plugins. We both agree that the forum system currently in place at WordPress.org is lacking. I also mention that there are advantages when a business or company develops plugins vs. an individual. Lorelle hit a nail on the head with plugin support. It is important that plugin users first read the documentation before asking questions that have already been answered in the docs. Lorelle asks me what tip I have for WordPress plugin developers. I recommend learning how to use the Subversion system to allow WordPress.org to host your plugin. Lorelle will be touring other WordCamps scheduled throughout the world. If you’re hosting a WordPress event, please check out Lorelle’s WordPress event page. Thank you so much Lorelle for coming onto the show and discussing WordPress and WordPress plugins! The post Plugins 021 – Interview Lorelle on WordPress Part 3 appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

This episode we continue our interview with Lorelle, the host of Lorelle on WordPress. Lorelle on WordPress is a popular WordPress blog that covers WordPress, reporting on new and exciting happenings in the WordPress community including development, new features, plugins plus help, tips, advice, and blogging techniques. Lorelle continues our conversation listing some plugins she recommends. Archivist WordPress Plugin showcase older blog posts on the front page of your WordPress blog. Lorelle and I agree that plugin developers need to write and maintain better readme.txt files to their plugins so the plugins can be easily found on searches. We also talk about niche plugins for playing chess, tarot card reading, plugin to display playing cards, genealogy plugins (TNG) and more! Part three will be available next week, stay tuned. The post Plugins 020 – Interview Lorelle on WordPress Part 2 appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

This episode we interview Lorelle, host of Lorelle on WordPress blog. Lorelle on WordPress is a popular WordPress blog that covers WordPress, reporting on new and exciting happenings in the WordPress community including development, new features, plugins plus help, tips, advice, and blogging techniques. Lorelle has a lot of plugins to recommend. The Customizable Post Listings is one of her favorites. Created by Scott Reilly, the plugin allows you to display headings with links to related blog posts in many different formats to help promote other blog posts on your site. We also talk about plugins that can add a contact form and creative commons badge to your blog. Lorelle mentioned the WordPress Plugin Competition 2009. The competition encourages WordPress plugin developers to create and submit exciting and useful plugins and possibly win $3,000 too! We talk a little bit about plugin development, I go into detail about how I resolved a problem I was having printing a error message from my plugin in the edit post page of WordPress. Part two will be available next week, stay tuned. The post Plugins 019 – Interview Lorelle on WordPress Part 1 appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the WP Greet Box WordPress plugin. The WP Greet Box plugin adds a welcome box to the top of your blog post and/or pages based on where the visitor came from. The box can be extensively customized and special greetings can be added. The plugin is useful if you wish to help new users find additional content on your blog as well as encourage visitors to subscribe to your feed or tweet the blog post they are currently viewing. Features include: Extensive list of greetings for sites such as Google, Yahoo search, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc… Ability to add custom greetings and greeting icons Open links in greeting box in new browser windows option Display related posts within your welcome boxes to help visitor find additional relevant content Import/Export options Extensive documentation to add greetings to your WordPress theme Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Any To learn more about the WP Greet Box plugin, please go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-greet-box/. The post Plugins 018 – WP Greet Box WordPress Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

This episode we continue our interview with Paul Kehrer. Paul has written 4 plugins, 2 of which are publicly available called CDN Tools and Fidgetr plugins, both available at wordpress.org. Please click for part 1 of this 2 part interview. In part 2 of this 2 part interview we continue talking about tips for WordPress developers. Paul recommends WordPress plugin developers check out Adam Brown‘s web site for his extensive documentation of the actions and hooks  (Adam Brown’s wp_hooks) in WordPress. We go on to discuss the subversion repository provided by WordPress.org. We reflect on the old and new WordPress plugin search web site as well as discuss the problem when plugins haven’t been updated for the latest builds of WordPress. To learn more about Paul Kehrer and his plugins, please visit swearingscience.com. The post Plugins 017 – Interview Paul Kehrer Part 2 CDN Tools & Fidgetr appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

This episode we interview Paul Kehrer, a WordPress user and plugin developer. Paul has written 4 plugins, 2 of which are publicly available called CDN Tools and Fidgetr plugins, both available at wordpress.org. In part 1 of this 2 part interview we talk about developing plugins, web development, HTML5, as well as discussing open source software. Paul is an open source veteran and co-developed the popular MySQLTuner application written in Perl. We discuss other plugins such as WP Super Cache, WP-Syntax, Near the end of part 1, Paul discusses tips for other WordPress plugin developers. Part two will be available next week, stay tuned The post Plugins 016 – Interview Paul Kehrer Part 1 CDN Tools & Fidgetr appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the  Subscribe to Comments WordPress plugin. The Subscribe to Comments WP plugin allows comment contributors to receive email notifications when additional comments are left for the specified blog post. This is a great way to encourage both comment contribution and increase your returning visits to your web site. Features include: Customize From email address and name Users who do not leave comments can subscribe to comments Customize the messages shown to comment author, subscribers and unsubscribed users Customize styling for subscription manager pages Add your own custom header, footer and sidebar (for advanced users) Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Any (Creating customized header, footer and sidebar Plugins Skill Level: Advanced) To learn more about the Subscribe to Comments plugin, please go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/. The post Plugins 015 – Subscribe to Comments Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the  NextGEN Gallery WordPress plugin. The NextGEN Gallery plugin adds image gallery functionality to your WordPress blog. Click here for a demonstration. Features include: Flash Slideshow Flash Viewer (as an additional addon) Templates CSS styling Watermarks JavaScript Effect (Web 2.0 feel) Custom Media Gallery RSS feed Sidebar Widget Tag images Detailed descriptions Multi-language support Administration Copy/Move images Upload zip file of multiple pictures Integrates to Post/Page editor (TinyMCE) The NextGEN Gallery plugin makes it easy to add a modern gallery to your blog. Users knowledgeable in CSS and HTML can take further advantage of this plugin, though knowledge of CSS and HTML is not necessary to use this plugin. Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Any To learn more about the NextGEN Gallery plugin, please go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/. The post Plugins 014 – NextGEN Gallery Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin. Google Analytics is a free web site statistics service provided by Google. This plugin allows you to easily add the Google Analytics tracking code to your WordPress blog. Features include: Easily set your Analytic Account ID Disable tracking of outbound clicks and downloads Set the extensions of files to track as downloads Sub-domain tracking Track AdSense The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin makes it easy to add Google Analytics to your WordPress blog and to configure custom features in Google Analytics. If you do not need any of these custom features and you’re comfortable with editing your theme, you can simply add your Google Analytics to the footer of your theme rather than use this plugin. Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Any To learn more about Google Analytics for WordPress plugin, please go to yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics/. The post Plugins 013 – Google Analytics for WordPress Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the MailPress plugin to quickly add a newsletter mailing list to your blog. Features include: Newsletters for (users can subscribe to) Each post Daily (digest of posts each day) Weekly digest Monthly digest Comments Manually send newsletters Detailed logging of sent messages Themes for Email newsletters Add-ons (Sort of like plugins for this plugin) Bulk import tool (comma separated list of addresses) Import data (csv, XML sample, other WordPress plugins from database) Mailing lists manager Newsletter categories Synchronize WordPress accounts with MailPress Users Add roles and capabilities (Special User Roles to apply to WordPress accounts) Custom Fields The plugin is very powerful which makes it very complicated to setup and configure. It definitely helps to read all of the documentation and have previous knowledge of how to edit source code before attempting to use this plugin. Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Advanced To learn more about MailPress, please go to www.mailpress.org. The post Plugins 012a – MailPress Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the Search and Replace plugin to find and replace text in your blog. The plugin allows you to find and replace text found in many of the database fields including: Content Body Titles Excerpts Meta Data Comments Tags Categories Category Descriptions The plugin permanently changes text in the database. It is highly recommended that you first backup your database using the WP DB Backup plugin before proceeding with this plugin. Show Feedback Gene inquired about using the Google XML Sitemaps plugin (covered in episode 5) for multiple WordPress blogs located in sub folders on one web site domain. By default the Google XML Sitemaps plugin will create the sitemap within the root folder of the WordPress installation. Since Web Crawlers look for the sitemap.xml in the root folder of your web site, Gene was wondering if the plugin was intelligent enough to merge each blog’s sitemap into one in the root folder. Unfortuantely, the Google XML Sitemaps plugin isn’t designed for managing multipe blog installations. Luckily, there is another solution to this problem. Setup a sitemap index as your root sitemap.xml file that links to other sitemaps on your web server. Here is an example: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">    <sitemap>       <loc>http://www.example.com/blog1/sitemap1.xml.gz</loc>       <lastmod>2008-10-01T18:23:17+00:00</lastmod>    </sitemap>    <sitemap>       <loc>http://www.example.com/blog2/sitemap2.xml.gz</loc>       <lastmod>2009-01-01</lastmod>    </sitemap> </sitemapindex> More details on sitemaps is available at www.sitemaps.org. The post Plugins 011 – Search And Replace Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the Contact Form 7 plugin to add custom contact forms to WordPress. Key features include: Solid set of field types (radio, checkbox, dropdown, listbox, email,  etc…) Email admin(s) of form submission Ability to attach files Captcha image to prevent SPAM form submissions Easily customizable (as long as you know html/css) Translated to over 30 languages Works with WordPress 2.7 (latest version as of this writing) The plugin is developed by Takayuki Miyoshi. To learn more about Contact Form 7 plugin, please visit http://ideasilo.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/contact-form-7/. The post Plugins 010 – Contact Form 7 Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the ShareThis WordPress plugin. The ShareThis plugin adds the famous ShareThis widget to your blog posts and pages. The ShareThis widget makes it easy for your viewers to link your posts and pages on their preferred social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Facebook, Delicious and MySpace and also provides an share via email option. Features Include: Simple ShareThis link with icon Extensive list of social bookmarking and sharing sites Share via Email option Options to add to pages and posts Code snippet to add to your theme Widget you can add to other parts of your web site The plugin gives you the ability to customize the placement of the ShareThis widget in your theme. All you have to do is add the following line where you want the ShareThis link to appear. <?php if (function_exists('sharethis_button')) { sharethis_button(); } ?> To learn more about the ShareThis plugin, please visit the ShareThis WordPress plugin page, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/. To learn more about ShareThis, please visit the official ShareThis web site, www.sharethis.com. The post Plugins 009 – Share This Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the WP-DB-Backup plugin and touching on a few other backup tips. With just a few simple steps, you can keep backups of your blog so you can feel confident you’ll never loose data. Key features in the WP-DB-Backup Pack include: Complete database backups Exclude post revisions Exclude comment spam Backup to folder on server (not recommended) Email backup as attachment Save backup on your computer Schedule backups To learn more about the WP-DB-Backup plugin, please visit the WordPress plugins WP-DB-Backup page, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/. Some other backup tips include: Keep a backup copy of your wp-config.php and .htaccess file on your local computer Occasionally backup the entire wp-content/uploads folder and all of its contents Keep a list of your important plugins handy in case you need to re-install them If you modified your theme, backup the entire theme folder and its contents, typically found in the wp-content/themes/your_theme/ PodCamp Toronto This Weekend I will be attending PodCamp Toronto this weekend. On Saturday between 2-2:30pm I will be speaking in room 357 on “Setting up WordPress for Podcasting”. If you can make it out to PodCamp Toronto, please feel free to say hello. The post Plugins 008 – WP-DB-Backup plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

In this episode, we have a special guest Peter Keung, author of Peter’s Custom Anti-SPAM plugin. During the interview, Peter tells us a little about what he does, gives us the 411 on his plugin and explains why he was inspired to create the plugin. Peter also recommends another plugin for us to check out called SimplePress forum plugin and has some tips for other plugin developers. To learn more about Peter and his plugins, please visit www.theblog.ca. The post Plugins 007 – Special Guest Peter Keung author of Peter’s Custom Anti-SPAM plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering Search Engine Optimization and the All In One SEO Pack plugin. Remember, a well optimized web site for SEO will help your ranking in search engine results. Key features in the All In One SEO Pack include: Reorders page titles to optimize search engine coverage Detailed HTML Meta descriptions and keywords No follow options to prevent search engines from indexing pages that contain redundant content such as category and tag result pages The plugin is developed by Semper Fi Web Design. To learn more about the All In One SEO Pack plugin as well as other plugins developed by Semper Fi Web Design, please visit www.semperfiwebdesign.com. Instructions how to setup Permalinks are included in this episode. Permalinks, or permanent links, give your blog site friendly URLs for your pages and blog posts that search engines love to see. The post Plugins 006 – All In One SEO Pack Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the Google XML Sitemaps plugin to generate valid site maps for popular search engines such as Google, MSN Search, Yahoo and Ask.com to process. Key features include: Automated regeneration (New and edited posts and pages automatically regenerate sitemaps) Auto Notify Google, MSN Search, Yahoo and Ask.com when sitemaps are updated Optional compressed version of sitemap file Detailed selection of content to be included in Sitemaps (e.g. only posts and static pages) Customize priority weights based on page type (homepage, archives, static pages, etc..) Works with WordPress 2.7 (latest version as of this writing) The plugin is developed by Arne Brachhold. To learn more about the Google XML Sitemaps plugin as well as other plugins developed by Arne, please visit www.arnebrachhold.de. The post Plugins 005 – Google XML Sitemaps appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the CFormsII plugin to add contact forms, applications and other custom forms to WordPress. Key features include: Complete gamut of field types (radio, checkbox, dropdown, listbox, password, date, etc…) Auto confirmation Email message Email admin(s) of form submission Use forms for blog comments Integrates with the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) content editor Multi-page forms Ability to attach files Captcha image to prevent SPAM form submissions Data saved in database exportable (XML, CSV, TAB) Specify start and/or end dates when forms are available Works with WordPress 2.7 (latest version as of this writing) The plugin is developed by Delicious Days. To learn more about CFormsII plugin as well as other plugins developed by Delicious Days, please visit www.deliciousdays.com. The post Plugins 004 – CFormsII Custom Forms appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Today we’re covering the Peter’s Custom Anti-SPAM plugin to combat comment SPAM in WordPress. The plugin adds a Captcha image to confirm that the actual user leaving the comment is a human and not a scripted SPAM bot or comment spamming crawler. Key features include: Easy to read customizable Captcha words Random font styles Audio option for visually impaired users Does not require Javascript or web browser cookies Works with WordPress 2.7 (latest version as of this writing) The plugin is developed by Peter Keung. To learn more about Peter’s Custom Anti SPAM plugin as well as other plugins developed by Peter on his web site, www.theblog.ca. The post Plugins 003 – Peters Custom Anti Spam appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

This is a shortened version of episode 1 covering the Blubrry Powerpress podcasting plugin. We will try to keep all episodes under 15 minutes for now on, sorry all. Blubrry Powerpress is a lightweight WordPress plugin that adds only the essential features to your WordPress blog to turn it into a podcasting system. Below are some key features. Easily add podcast episodes to blog posts and pages Integrated audio/video media player iTunes RSS tags and album over art Podcast only RSS feed iTunes Ping Media size detection and duration in seconds detection for mp3s 3rd party statistics integration In addition to the core fetureas above, the plugin has the ability to easily import Podpress episodes and settings so users can easily migrate switch plugins. The post Plugins 002 – 7 Minutes on Blubrry Powerpress Podcasting Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Tonight’s episode I’m covering the Blubrry Powerpress podcasting plugin. Blubrry Powerpress is meant to be a very lightweight plugin to add only the essential features to your wordpress blog to turn it into a podcasting system. Below are some key features. Easily add podcast episodes to blog posts and pages Integrated audio/video media player iTunes RSS tags and album over art Podcast only RSS feed iTunes Ping Media size detection and duration in seconds detection for mp3s 3rd party statistics integration In addition to the core fetureas above, the plugin has the ability to easily allow Podpress (an older WordPress podcasting plugin) users to easily migrate to Blubrry Powerpress. In this episode Angelo will explain how this works and what steps to take in case you decide to revert back to Podpress. The post Plugins 001 – Blubrry Powerpress Podcasting Plugin appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.

Welcome to Plugins, The WordPress Plugins Podcast. The Plugins Podcast aims to cover one WordPress plugin each week with occasional interviews of plugin developers as well as with heavy plugin users. Normal episodes will aim to be between 10-15 minutes in mp3 format. This podcast is hosted by Angelo Mandato, a seasoned software programmer, web developer and network administrator. Angelo’s currently the CIO of RawVoice, the company behind the Blubrry Podcasting Community. He’s been working with PHP since the Winter of 2000 and started using WordPress for his personal blog since April of 2005. Angelo’s developed 4 WordPress plugins, 2 of which are publicly available: Subscribe Sidebar and Blubrry Powerpress. If you have plugin suggestions, comments or would like to be interviewed on the show, please E-mail pluginspodcast [at] gmail (dot) com. The post Welcome to Plugins: The WordPress Plugins Podcast appeared first on Plugins: WordPress Plugins Podcast.