So, here’s a list of the WordPress plugins I’ve installed since my previous list:

• Archives by Selected Categories^{^} – although I like my normal archives list, I also wanted to have a page that listed all of my entries by what category they’re in. This plugin does the job nicely and was very easy to set up. I’ve modified the code slightly by adding jQuery “Show All” links to each of the categories.
• Clean Archives Reloaded^{^} – I didn’t like the default way that WordPress shows archived entries, so I set about looking for a plugin that would display my archives in chronological order but in a nice and clean way.
• Different Posts Per Page^{^} – set how many entries are displayed on different views: 3 on the home page, 5 on a tag view, etc.
• flickrRSS^{^} – when I was using my own CMS, I used a Flickr parser to display my most recent Flickr photos. I liked the script but couldn’t get it to work nicely with WordPress, so I went in search for a plugin that was very similar to the previous script I used. I came across this one and I like it; it displays as many of your photographs as you want and doesn’t have any unnecessary code floating about.
• WordPress Database Backup^{^} – this plugin will automatically backup your WordPress database and send the resulting *.zip to an email address you specify. You won’t have to worry about backing up your database ever again!
• WordTwit^{^} – this will send a link and the title of all new blog entries to your Twitter account.
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin^{^} – this will add a list of similar posts at the bottom of the current entry on the single view.

A short one this time, as I’ve been finding it difficult to find plugins that I actually want to use and work with the current version of WordPress.

It’s made me realise that I should really go through all of my old entries (and work through to my newest entries) and re-tag everything; when I first started using tags, I didn’t really understand the point of them and totally didn’t use them well at all. A lot of my entries don’t have any tags at all and – even now – I really only use my most popular tags.

While I’m doing that, I’m going to go through my categories too because I know I don’t use them as well as I should – every other post I’ve just dumped into my “A Quickie” category because it didn’t really fit anywhere else. I didn’t want to use the “Uncategorized” category on my blog because I thought it was lazy. Really, I’ve just renamed it.

It actually couldn’t sleep last night for worrying about it. ‘Cause I’m cool like that.

Most of the posts you’ve seen over the last few days were all written in one day, about random topics I wanted to talk about but didn’t want to jumble into one long, rambly post.

I did actually have this option on my own, self-coded CMS (I spent many an hour writing it and then testing it out) but never bothered to use it because…I don’t know, actually. I guess I was against it?

Anyway, the whole “schedule posts” feature is awesome and I love it. And it means that I can blog a lot without having to be online a lot.

With those, I want to take off the spammy link and just keep the nice comment and display it in the comments sections.

I’ve never done it but I would really like to sometimes.

Blue, red, white and black. I think the last time I used red was when I was doing loads of “gothic” layouts for Yummyrae. So some time ago then.

I’m not really all that happy with it (I think it looks a bit unfinished. Probably because it kinda is…) but I am just so sick of seeing the other one.
So. It’ll do.

This is my list of the Plugins that I’m using on my site right now and why I use them. I’ve only listed the Plugins that actually add something to my site (improved functionality) or are useful (for example, by cutting down the amount of time I have to waste maintaining my site).

• Askimet^{^} and Bad Behavior^{^} – these work best together; Bad Behavior stops almost all spam from invading my blog. Anything that gets through is caught by Askimet and, while it’s waiting for me to decide whether or not the “spam” is actually a legit comment, it keeps it off my site.
• Broken Link Checker^{^} – I have a full time job and, I’ll admit, checking through every single page of my site, looking for broken links, is tiresome and just plain boring. That’s where this Plugin becomes very useful for me; I install this Plugin and it keeps an eye on links for me. When I open up my admin panel, I get a little message saying that “there are [x] broken links”. As well as that, it warns my visitors that a link isn’t working by putting a line through it until either I remove the link or update it.
• FeedWordPress^{^} – this Plugin works by grabbing the RSS Feeds of your chosing (Tumblr^{^}, Twitter^{^}, Flickr^{^}, Del.icio.us^{^}, etc) and displaying them as individual blog entries on your website.
  Sometimes I can’t blog from this site but I can post entries to my Tumblr account^{^} using the email function on my phone (don’t ask why I can’t just email it to my “WordPress only” email account…it’ll take too long).
• NoFollow Free^{^} – whereas most anti-nofollow Plugins will just strip nofollow from all of the links, this one can be set up so that only people who have commented on your site [x] times will have nofollow removed from their link. I don’t want to give out a free rankable link to just anyone – only my regs.
• Plugins Used Plugin^{^} – a nice, simple Plugin that lists all of the Plugins I’ve used. I don’t want or need a big nasty table taking up most of the page, telling everyone what each Plugin does; what version it is, etc.
• Search Excerpt^{^} – this improves the search function bundled with WordPress already, by showing the relevant part of the post as the excerpt.
  Without this, it would look like some of the results weren’t relevant, as you wouldn’t be able to see if I really did mention the search term within the post.
  Here’s an example for when you search for “Myke”.
• Theme Test Drive^{^} – this theme allows you – and only you – to view the new theme / layout you’re making for your site. It wasn’t until I got this Plugin that I realised just how long it was taking me to create new themes / layouts for my site.
• WordNote^{^} – this adds a little “notes” section in your Dashboard and you can use it for whatever you want. For example, right now, I have a list of posts that I would like to write out at some point and a list of things I need to do.

What are the most useful Plugins that you have installed right now?

Last Monday, I decided to install the Bad Behavior^{^} plugin after it had been recommended to me by @abledragon^{^}.

It’s worked a charm. It’s blocked over 1300 “access attempts” (spam attempts?) and only 4 have gotten past that (and they were caught by Askimet). Needless to say, I’m really impressed!

It took about four hours to get my old entries imported into WordPress; first I tried to import via RSS but that didn’t work, so I had to add every single entry manually. And I’ve lost all my comments.

After all that faffing about, I had to download & install some plugins just to get a decent archive page and my Flickr photos back in the sidebar.
Then I started looking for a theme but couldn’t find one I liked, so I decided to butcher the default theme…that little white duck (Whitey!!) on the layout took bloody AGES to draw.
I managed to “complete” everything and was about to move everything off the subdomain and back into my root directory, when I decided to show Myke all the work I did…and he laughed. Because Whitey – and the entire sidebar – had decided to move under everything else. Then I couldn’t get the sidebar and content to sit in the right places in both IE AND Firefox and – what a mess. AND I can’t have comments because the comment form isn’t showing up. Pfft. Fixed!

Anyway, I’m all done. And knackered. G’night.

• A new brush set – Sun Burst
• Display Last.fm Scrobbles on your site – script & tutorial
• Install MagpieRSS – tutorial
• Stylesheet Switcher – tutorial
• ClearDownloadsCounter is back up (very minor updates to it as well)
• RightNow is back up
• LittleWallO’Buttons is back up

LWOB got quite a big update.
In June 2007, LWOB had a security scare, where it would have been possible for someone to exploit your user accounts, using a hole in the script. Unfortunately, the problem wasn’t limited to my script; most button / image linking scripts (including topsite scripts and ad rotations) could also be a risk. It’s up to you to use the scripts but you really must know what you could be letting yourself in for. The type of attack is called a CSRF attack^{^}.

The good news is that I’ve removed the part of the script which automatically shows the user’s chosen image. Instead, they give you the URL to their page full of link buttons to choose and you choose one. You can also upload the button/s within the script, as you’re approving the request.

The upload script checks that the file type is an accepted type (jpg or gif – NO pngs!) and is less than 350kb. It also checks that the image is a valid image. If any or all of these are untrue, the image is deleted from the server.

Anyway, if anyone finds any errors, please let me know. My email address is mail @ lirae.net – I should be back online on Wednesday (although it’ll be brief).

You can grab it now. (The other scripts will also be coming back one by one.)

If you’ve already got EAA installed, just reupload the “files/” and “admin/” folders.

If you have any problems with the script, email me at mail[at]lirae[dot]net with “EasyAsk&Answer” as the subject / title.