I’ve joked that there a million different Google Analytics WordPress plugins available, but I’ve never been able to find one that’s just dead-simple, plug-n-play, and with clean code and markup, so I wrote my own that does just that: a no-frills way to add the new asynchronous tracking code to all pages on your WordPress-powered site. • Read more »
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WordPress Plugin: User Submitted Posts
User Submitted Posts lets your visitors submit posts and images from anywhere on your site and from anywhere on the page. User-submitted posts optionally include tags, categories, post title, and author name & URL. Submitted-post status can be set to draft, publish immediately, or publish after some number of approved posts. User Submitted Posts (USP) also handles multiple image uploads, custom URL redirects, and much more. And the easy USP Settings Page makes setting up and fine-tuning [...] • Read more »
Yoast WP SEO vs All in One SEO
While setting things up here at the new site (new WP install), I’m trying to keep the custom functions and plugins down to a minimum. Seriously, if I don’t absolutely need it – if there is just no other way to do something – then no, I’m not going to install it. So far, I am using only the following plugins for the new WP install: Akismet WP-phpMyAdmin All in One SEO Pack My theory is that [...] • Read more »
Importing WordPress Users via CSV Files
I recently did some time in Microsoft Excel, preparing large CSV files for import into WordPress. Each of these CSV files contained data for 1000 WordPress users. Here is a screenshot showing the structure of the file: Conceptually, the idea is simple: import the data to create actual users for a WordPress-powered site. The trick is to clean the data as much as possible to ensure valid username and password information. Once the data is good, importing [...] • Read more »
Protect WordPress Against Malicious URL Requests
A few months ago, many WordPress sites were attacked with some extremely malicious code. While searching for a good solution, I discovered the following gem of a plugin in the pastebin repository: < ?php /* Plugin Name: Block Bad Queries */ if (strlen($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) > 255 || strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], “eval(“) || strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], “base64″)) { @header(“HTTP/1.1 414 Request-URI Too Long”); @header(“Status: 414 Request-URI Too Long”); @header(“Connection: Close”); @exit; } ?> This script checks for excessively long request strings (i.e., greater [...] • Read more »
Display Random Posts from Specific Tags or Categories
When developing the colorful Quintessential Theme (opens in new tab), I initially planned on displaying five random posts from each of my most popular tags and categories in the super-slick sliding-panel sidebar. Because I am running an older version of WordPress, however, this task proved to be quite the educational experience. In newer versions (from 2.5 I think) of WordPress, the query_posts() function enables users to display posts in random order using the orderby=rand parameter. This would [...] • Read more »
Farewell to Alex King’s Popularity Contest Plugin
I finally broke down and uninstalled Alex King’s once-great “Popularity Contest” plugin for WordPress. The plugin had been installed here at Perishable Press for over two years, and had provided fairly consistent and apparently accurate statistics. Unfortunately, there were serious errors involved with the plugin way back during the WordPress-2.3 upgrade that were never addressed by the plugin author. There was an interim version of the plugin that had patched the error until an official update was [...] • Read more »
Critical Review of Dyasonhat’s Premium Smart Sort WordPress Plugin
After hearing about the recently released “premium” version of Dyasonhat’s Smart Sort Plugin for WordPress, I just had to give it a try. Occasionally working on projects requiring customized ordering of posts, I like to keep my utility belt well-equipped with any plugins or code techniques that will facilitate the process of man-handling post order. In this article, I discuss my experience with WP Smart Sort Premium. • Read more »
French Version of Contact Coldform Released
Several months after the release of the Arabic and Spanish versions of Contact Coldform, I am pleased to announce the release of a French translation of the plugin. The new French translation is graciously provided by Tony Tohme, who is also helping with the upcoming Russian translation of the Coldform. Thank you, Tony! :) To download the French version of Contact Coldform, check out the plugin’s home page, where you will find additional information, future updates, and much [...] • Read more »
Redirect WordPress Individual Category Feeds to Feedburner via HTAccess
Time for another Feedburner redirect tutorial! In our previous FeedBurner-redirect post, I provide an improved HTAccess method for redirecting your site’s main feed and comment feed to their respective Feedburner URLs. In this tutorial, we are redirecting individual WordPress category feeds to their respective FeedBurner URLs. We will also look at the complete code required to redirect all of the above: the main feed, comments feed, and of course any number of individual category feeds. Let’s jump [...] • Read more »
Perfect WordPress Title Tags Redux
In my previous article on WordPress title tags, How to Generate Perfect WordPress Title Tags without a Plugin, We explore everything needed to create perfect titles for your WordPress-powered site. After discussing the functionality and implementation of various code examples, the article concludes with a “perfect” title-tag script that covers all the bases. Or so I thought.. Some time after the article had been posted, Mat8iou chimed in with a couple of ways to improve thie script [...] • Read more »
WordPress Feedburner HTAccess Redirect for Default (Non-Permalink) Feed URLs
Recently, a client wanted to deliver her blog feed through Feedburner to take advantage of its excellent statistical features. Establishing a Feedburner-delivered feed requires three things: a valid feed URL, a Feedburner account, and a redirect method. For permalink-enabled WordPress feed URLs, configuring the required redirect is straightforward: either install the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin or use an optimized HTAccess technique. Unfortunately, for sites without permalinks enabled, the Feedsmith plugin is effectively useless, and virtually all of the [...] • Read more »
WordPress Plugin: Authenticate Lite
Authenticate Lite is a follow-up version of the original Authenticate custom-content plugin for WordPress. Just as with the full version of Authenticate, Authenticate Lite enables universal and/or targeted inclusion of custom content for both feeds and posts. Ideal for adding copyright information, distribution policy, thank-you messages, custom links, special offers, etc. Custom content may be added to any location within posts or feeds — before, after, or even within post content. This highly flexible content-addition plugin works [...] • Read more »
How to Generate Perfect WordPress Title Tags without a Plugin
Keeping an eye on all things WordPress, I have noticed an ongoing fascination with configuring the ultimate WordPress <title></title> tags. Many bloggers use various plugins to generate differently configured <title></title> tags depending on particular page views. A good example of this is seen in the All in One SEO Pack, which, among many other things, enables users to specify custom titles for several different types of pages. While there is nothing wrong with this approach, some of [...] • Read more »