About the BLOG

The Technology I use to support this blog….

And an excuse to put up a pic of my kids
I figured I would put up a post about the tools I use for this blog

HOSTING

I host my web site on 1&1.com. I find it cheap and easy to use. I know some people have complained about slow customer support, but if you have a minimal technical capability (as I do) then you will rarely need it.

 

BLOGGING

I use Wordpress for my blogging software. You can host your blog at wordpress.com or install it yourself at your host. I installed it at my own host as I just like to have control over my own software and information. It is extremely configurable or you can use it “out of the box” The main thing I like about Wordpress are its plugins (I will list the ones I use below). These pretty much allow you to do anything you want to do.

 

PLUGINs

Plugins for Wordpress extend the basic functionality. I use a good number of them and categorize them as

  • If you use no other plugin for WordPress
  • Essential Plugins
  • Useful Plugins
  • Plugins I want
  • Plugins I tried and don’t use

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    IF YOU USE NO OTHER PLUG IN FOR WORDPRESS

    Use OneClick For Wordpress. You can get it at Wordpress.org or Directly from the Developer.  This Plug-In Rocks. Instead of downloading the plug in files or theme sets (that change the look of your blog), unzipping them and then sending them by FTP back up to your wordpress installation, one click install allows you to copy the download location and click a button, just like the description. If you are using multiple plug ins and work often on your blog, this will save a huge amount of time and make things much more manageable.

     

    ESSENTIAL PLUGINS

    • Akismet – this comes as part of your base WordPress install. But it is inactive. Activate it and it filters spam comments from your blog. And – it WORKs.
    • All in One SEO Pack – there are other SEO (Search Engine Optimization) packs out there, but this one is easy and it works (otherwise no one would have found this blog).
    • BackUpWordPress – again there are other backup plug ins out there, but this one is easy and it works. Does Incremental Dailies and Full Backups and you can even have it email you the files for offsite storage.
    • WP-Cache – speeds your page loading.

    USEFUL PLUGINS

    • CyStats – A great statistics plug in. A lot of information about the hits your blog receives. Sometimes a little hard to sort the information into useable data, but a great tool nonetheless. Perhaps if I read the manual…
    • Flexible Upload – Adds some decent image handling capabilities that I use for the pics I include in my posts.
    • Google Sitemaps - Creates a GoogleSiteMap - enough said?
    • Lightbox 2 – A nice image viewing utility. When you link, rather than embed an image, clicking on the image will expand the image with a nice viewing layout. To see what I’m talking about, click the image of my kids to the right…. l_bcd3bd7448c34d21a6afd47bef399148.jpg
    • Local Analytics – If you’ve signed up for Google Local Analytics, this plug in does the work for you in configuring your Wordpress site to send information to Google.
    • MaxBlogPress Favicon - This widget adds a favicon ou created to your blog pages. The good - if you use Cystats, this removes the 404 code when you are tracking visitors to your sites that is created automatically b/c you don’t have a favicon. The bad - You need to register to use this plugin. The ugly - you get several ad pitches during registration for other Maxpress products. BUT it works (unlike some other favicon plugins)
    • Share This – A nice one button approach to social bookmarking. A user clicks this button and then can link the blog post to any major social bookmarking site (digg,  technorati) or allows the reader to send the blog post (via email, myspace, IM, etc.). I just added this recently, so hopefully it will get used.
    • Subscribe to Comments – Allows a commentor to select a checkbox when making a comment. Once they do that, they are notified via email of any new comments on that post. Pretty cool and a super simple interface, the way things should be.….I just added this recently so the first 20 or so commentors didn’t have this option.
    • TagThis – Another plugin I just added that allows users to assign tags to each post. Hopefully this will get used as well. Written by the same person that wrote oneclick, so it should be awesome.
    • Technorati Rank - Ok I asked for a technorati plug in  - I got this one and my rank sucks…help me….use the Share this button and add to your technorati acct!
    • WordPress Reports – This plugin IMPORTS the Google Analytics data and Feedburner data.

    PLUGINS I WANT

  • A LinkedIN Plug in.

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    PLUGINS I TRIED AND DON’T USE

    • Add To Any: Subscribe Button. I’ve seen it work on some pages and seen a lot of questions on it not working. It didn’t work for me. Just sent everyone to a configuration/advert page. Looking for something else. But in the mean time, Share This works so well with a similar concept.
    • Admin Favicon - didnt seem to work for me, while MAXBLOGPRESS did.
    • WP-Image Fit – I find Flexible Upload and Lightbox a more elegant solution.

     

    Comments and Or Other Nominations welcome, of course. This page will be updated as I add plugins.