DazzlinDonna » widgets

Ultimate Time-Saving WordPress Plugin

Donna — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:05:52 +0000

I know I’ve listed both my favorite and essential WordPress plugins before, but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you about an incredible new(ish) WordPress plugin that everyone absolutely must have! Want to save time and frustration? Download the OneClick Installer Plugin. Never ever download, unzip, open your ftp program, and upload a plugin – ever again!

I don’t know about you, but that seems to take forever. OneClick is an installer that does all of that for you, and it even comes with a Firefox extension to make things even easier. Right click on a link that points to a plugin, tell it to upload, and bam! Uploaded and ready to go in about 2 seconds flat. It’s just about the coolest plugin ever. I love it. Get it.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: essential, favorites, OneClick, plugins, widgets, WordPress
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Using Humorous Widgets to Make a Point

Donna — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:04:51 +0000

Are you looking for a way to spice up your site or blog while using cool technology? A widget is probably the answer. There are thousands of widgets available out there, and I plan to point a few out that are particularly noteworthy in future posts. Today’s noteworthy widget is a really funny gizmo that lets you create a JibJab-style talking head out of any photo you have (person or animal). It’s really funny, and a lot of fun. Here’s what I just whipped up in a couple of minutes. (I can do these kinds of goofy things because I work from home in pajamas). Click the arrow to run it.

If you need to make a point, it can sometimes be best to use humor to really get the point across. Combining your sense of humor with a widget like the above could really make your website stand out from the crowd. Think about it and then give it a try. Or, do it just for kicks. Go make your own over at Blabberize.com.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blabberize, cool technology, funny, humor, JibJab-style talking head, making a point, widgets
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

My favorite WordPress Widgets and Plugins

Donna — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:14:44 +0000

After using WordPress for a while now on different sites, I’ve come to the conclusion that WordPress simply rocks. I’m not sure I would ever use anything else for a new site, even a non-blog site. In any case, over time, I’ve used the following WordPress plugins and widgets on some or all of my WordPress sites. Of course, there’s the old standards like Akismet, that no one should ever be without, but I’m not including those in the list. Some of these might be ones you’ve never heard of before, while some are pretty popular.

First things first, if you are starting a new blog, choose a theme that is widget-compatible. Whether or not you intend to use sidebar widgets, you’ll eventually discover that you want to. So be prepared in advance. Now, on to the list.

Sidebar Widgets

Adds Sidebar Widgets panel under Presentation menu

Category Cloud Widget

Adds a sidebar widget to display the categories as a tag cloud.

Widgetize Anything

Provides a widget interface for any php code.

Enforce www. Preference

Provides 301 redirects to queries with /index.php and enforces your use or non-use of www.

Link Indication
Adds CSS class attributes to external links and optionally to any other link types such as flickr, wikipedia, imdb, etc.

MyAvatars

This plugin allows you to add MyBlogLog.com avatars to WordPress comments.

Sociable

Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites.

WPVideo

Allows you to insert online videos in your post by providing the video url between the tags.

Link To Me Textbox

This plugin will set up a “link to me textbox” with HTML code in your blog posts and increase your search engine rankings.

Compact Monthly Archive

Displays a compact montlhly archive instead of the default long list. Either display it as a block suitable for the body of a page or in a form compact enough for a sidebar.

Head Meta Description

Insert HTML META description tag: excerpt/content brief for post/Page, description for category, and blog tagline for everything else.

Random Redirect

Allows you to create a link to yourblog.example.com/?random which will redirect someone to a random post on your blog, in a StumbleUpon-like fashion.

Simple Tags

Allows you to create a list of Technorati tags at the bottom of your post by providing a comma separated list of tags between the [tags] tags. You can use it with any blogging tool/method, not just when posting from WordPress itself (doesn’t use custom fields). Supports multiple words within tags. Also allows in-post tagging of words by enclosing them in [tag] tags.

Subscribe To Comments

Allows readers to recieve notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.

WordPress Mobile Edition

Show a mobile view of the post/page if the visitor is on a known mobile device.

What Would Seth Godin Do

Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors

wp-cache

Cache module for those times you experience the Digg effect

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: favorites, HTML, non-blog site, online videos, php, plugins, search engine, search engine rankings, Seth Godin Do, widgets, WordPress
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.