Top 12 Wordpress Plugins For Wordpress 2.7.x

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Source: affiliate-minder.com

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On July 6th 2008, these were my top 10 Wordpress plugins:
1. Google XML Sitemaps.Automatically build a sitemap and submit it to the search engines.
2. TinyMCE Advanced.
3. Lighter Menus.
4. All in One Adsense and YPN.
5. Akismet.
6. AddThis - Social Bookmarking plugin.
7. Ultimate Google Analytics
8. Wordpress automatic upgrade.
9. WP-DBManager.
10. HeadSpace2.

As Wordpress has evolved, so has my choice of plugins. Some in the list above no longer work in the current version of Wordpress, and a few others have become redundant or simply don’t work as well as they use to. I can’t actually reduce it to my top 10 anymore, so here is my top 12 Wordpress plugins that I install on every site I build:

1. Google XML Sitemaps

This is still the plugin of choice for automatically building a sitemap and submitting it to the search engines. The sitemap is highly configurable and I can easily exclude certain pages or posts (or even categories) from the sitemap. This plugin will rebuild and resubmit the sitemap after every post - it is a huge time-saver.

2. All In One SEO

I use to use the Headspace plugin but switched to this one because Headspace was causing a few conflicts with some of the plugins I was using. All In One SEO does everything I want and more. I can control meta tags plus lots more.

3. Include It

This plugin is very cool. When I use to build static HTML sites I used server side includes very heavily. This plugin replicates that functionality. I wrote an article on using this plugin called Using SSI with Wordpress.

4. All in One Adsense and YPN

A quick and easy way to add Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network ads to your site. I must admit that this plugin is slipping down my list and may not be here next time I update my top Wordpress plugins. The reason is that I now prefer to use Include It for better placement of ads, or hard code the ads into the templates.

5. Akismet

Comes pre-installed with Wordpress. You need a Wordpress API key to get this working, but that is easy enough to obtain, and it’s free.

6. Similar Posts

This is a fantastic plugin that allows me to include a list of related posts at the end of my articles. I created this Similar Posts Tutorial for those who want to see how to use it.

7. Ultimate Google Analytics

This is a very easy way to integrate Google Analytics code into your web pages. Google Analytics is a free service that gives you detailed website stats for any type of site. You just have to include tracking code in the pages of your site, and this plugin handles that for you. Google analytics has a great feature called Site Overlay - you can read more about that in an article I wrote called Google Analytics - Find out what your visitors are clicking on.

8. Wordpress automatic upgrade

Although Wordpress 2.7 has an automatic upgrade feature built into it, I have never been able to get it to work on any of my sites, so I still rely on this plugin which the authors have graciously updated for 2.7. I guess there was a lot of other people who had problems with the built in upgrade feature ;) For those who prefer to upgrade Wordpress manually, here is a Manual Upgrade of Wordpress tutorial

9. WP-DBManager

This plugin helps maintain the health of the database that drives your Wordpress site. One of the coolest features is automatic backup of your Wordpress database. The plugin actually emails you a backup every week (or at the interval you define). Automatic backups of your Wordpress databases is a tutorial I created showing how to set this automatic backups up.

10. Sociable

A plugin that adds links to your favourite social network site at the end of posts. You can see what this plugin adds if you scroll to the bottom of this article. You can of course edit which sites show up, and the list to choose from is very large. I am not totally convinced how many people actually bookmark pages from this type of widget, but I don’t think it can hurt :)

11. WP-Sticky

Again, Wordpress 2.7 has a similar feature built into it, but it is not as powerful as the old WP-Sticky plugin, so this is a firm favourite. This plugin allows you to stick posts to the top of the pile. Why is this useful? Well it means that on category pages, you can make one post always appear at the top. You can see this working on my Diabetic site: Diabetes Diet. This page is a category page showing one post at the top, and then listing all other posts in the category. If I add more posts to this category, my chosen post remains at the top, and new posts are added to the list of related articles at the bottom.

12. wp-gbcf

also called Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form v.2.0 – This is one of many contact form plugins, but its the one I currently use on a lot of my sites.

If you have any plugins that you see as a must use, please post a comment at the end of this article and let others know about it.

Zune HD = iPod touch? Uh, no....

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Source: Macworld

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Blame it on the rain, the resulting muck and mire, or the redwood curtain that separates Cupertino from Redmond, but it appears that news travels very slowly between Apple and Microsoft. How else can you explain this statement from Chris Stephenson—general manager of global marketing for Microsoft Zune regarding the just-announced Zune HD (as quoted by CNET’s Ina Fried)?"

“This device is created to go head to head with the iPod Touch.”

Okay, maybe it is. With that in mind let’s look at what the two have in common:

* Touchscreen display.
* Ability to play music and movies.
* Web browser and media acquisition via Wi-Fi.
* Photo viewing.

And now, what the Zune HD offers that the iPod touch doesn’t:

* HD Radio.
* HD Video Out (via optional Dock).
* The Social.

And, what the iPod touch has that—as far as we know—is foreign to the Zune HD:

* The App Store.

In a strict bullet-point comparison, the Zune HD is clearly the champion—3 points to 1. Might as well pack it up, Apple. It’s a Zune world after all.

Of course if you were to subdivide that single App Store bullet point into its component 35,000 + applications you might understand why I suggest that Microsoft is a little slow on the uptake.

Because while the touch may have the iPod name attached to it, it’s far more than just a media player. Touchscreen, media playback, slideshows, and web browsing do not an iPod touch make. And Apple’s made this pretty clear.

Recall the last several iPod touch commercials you’ve seen. Do they emphasize playing movies, as you can with every other iPod save the shuffle? Does Safari play a major role in these 30-second dramas? Of course not, Apple routinely lumps in the iPod touch with the iPhone, not other iPods. And it does so because it’s about the apps—games, utilities, social networking, news, media streaming.

Yet Microsoft, from all appearances, is jamming its fingers in its ears and sing-songing “iPod! iPod! iPod! We have radio, iPod doesn’t!” as if radio, of all things, is the killer app (which, if you really want it on your iPod touch, can be had via one of a handful of apps).

The Zune HD isn’t slated to arrive until this Fall and the details we currently have are sparse, so perhaps there’s a Zapp store in the works. (Just as there's likely an update to the iPod touch in the works.)

Until then, welcome to the denial.