Tagged: plugin

Plugins that can spike CPU

CPU times for the past hourI learned tonight that three plugins that I was running caused so much CPU usage that my hosting provider shut me down. So if you are using this, watch your CPU usage or the same might happen to you.

  1. Broken Link Checker – This makes sure that you don’t have any broken links. I had it running all the time. It was only 50% in accuracy. So if anyone has anything that works better I would love to know it.
  2. SEO auto links and related posts. This provided many links automatically from my past post history. It has the side effect of finding the same content, so it’s not the best in my opinion.
  3. SEO Friendly images. This automatically provides alt and title descriptions. This was the third most cpu intensive plugin.

So it looks like dynamic plug-ins can cause some serious issues.

Also I had been having a small increase in traffic lately and so reinstalled WP-Supercache plugin. I used the mod-rewrite feature which I haven’t used before, so perhaps this will make a difference.

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Top WordPress Plugins – Rising Stars | Prelovac.com

Stained glass window showing the official Seal...
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Top WordPress Plugins – Rising Stars | Prelovac.com. I tried out some of the suggestions on this blog and they worked great. If you feel something is missing on your site, you may want to look this list over. Now I need to update my list of what plugins I do use!

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Need a simple Banner plugin for WordPress?

WUMB-FM
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You might want to take a look at a plugin called BannerMan. I have been using it since yesterday and it works great. I wanted to share why I am using this now, and what it means for WordPress plugin creators.

I had been using a plugin for Banners in the past called WordPress FrontPage Banner. It worked great, and I was glad to have it. The problem happened yesterday when WordPress had an update, and that also triggered an update for the WordPress FPB plugin. That new plugin created a notice at the top of the WordPress Interface, that is rarely used and only used for emergency messages. It was invasive, and unnecessary. A one time message would have been fine. I logged out and back in thinking perhaps it was a one-time trigger, but it stayed advertising its new services. Listen I don’t mind an author making a one-time plea for their services, but if they attempt to hijack my interface, that isn’t cool or acceptable. So I started looking for alternatives, and found BannerMan.

BannerMan has features that the WFPB did not. I am thrilled with it. Officially it is not supported on my version, but it is simple and seems to work great. I think WordPress authors would do well to have a free version of their software, and then a premium version to entice people who need additional functionality. Especially those of us like me who are paying for our own hosting, and using free software, having a forced commercial message does not sit well with us. We know you have to pay the bills, just stop being so pushy about it.

Another option is called Add to Header. It works on many themes in which Bannerman failed to work on. I think it is more straightforward but it requires that you understand more technical things. If you understand URLS, and how to get the URL of your banner (photo) you wish to use, you can use it.

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May WordPress Roundup

WordPress.com
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I have been focused on WordPress stories lately since I moved to a self-hosted blog. I must say that except for the backup, it works pretty well. Since my database is larger than typical, it seems to overload the hosts capacity to process it. I am working with them to identify and solve these issues. This morning I worked on modifying my php.ini file to increase the script timeout from the default 30 seconds. I didn’t have that file visible in my root folder, so it may be that the host had made it inaccessible to me. We will see how prompt their service is.

I could of course make my own php.ini file, but if the host provider already has one, doing so might create unexpected results. So I would prefer to research and find out for certain rather than risk data loss or misbehavior.

Akismet

WPCandy Pros is a ‘reverse job board’ for WordPress professionals – TNW Design

Why did I change my banner and why am I advertising?

Fun trying WordPress plugins

Useful WordPress plugins

Introduction to CommentLuv

Want to find related posts and perhaps make some money too?

7 Must Have WordPress Plugins For Every Blog

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Fun trying WordPress plugins

MythBusters
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For those new to self-hosted WordPress sites, plugins are a fun opportunity  to extend the functionality of WordPress. I have really enjoyed the past week trying new plugins. It gives you some insight into many popular blogs and how they achieve the look they do.

I think the most bang for the back is modifying the CSS. With an extension called Firebug you don’t even have to be a CSS expert to get a very interesting look. I did this on the WordPress.com the first revision of this site. It was fun. I used to make things as a kid, and so that’s part of the reason that Myth-busters is so interesting to me. You get an idea of how to make big toys. Perhaps having your own Mythbusters team is the next wealth patronage that will happen.

There are people who seem to want to make, and creatively make things that have never been. I don’t always keep the things that I made, (normally I eat them). I never understood people who didn’t want to make anything. To me, making things is part of living. We make our lives, our relationships or choices. To have something give us something back seems to be a very rewarding goal.

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Useful WordPress Plugins

The plugin’s below are the ones that I use at this blog. I try to focus on plugins that don’t require modification of the theme and that are compatible with my web-host GoDaddy.

123Linkit Affiliate Marketing Tool

Generate money easily from your blog by transforming brand names and product keywords into affiliate links. There’s no need to apply to affiliate networks or programs – we do it all for you. Just install the plugin, sync your posts and we’ll automatically add relevant, money-making affiliate links to your blog. This has been the most effective in terms of money generating plugin I have used.

AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Buttons

Help people share, bookmark, and email your posts & pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, StumbleUpon, Digg and many more.

Add to Header (Great banner software!)

Add stuff to your theme header, such as CSS, Javascript, metadata, Google Analytics etc.

Antispam Bee (Better than Akismet)

Easy and extremely productive spam-fighting plugin with many sophisticated solutions. Includes protection again trackback spam.

Flickr Feed Gallery

Enables easy integration of Flickr photo feed to a WordPress blog. Configure feed parameters from settings page. Use php show_flickr_feed_gallery();?> in your theme or add plugin as a Widget.

Google Analytics

Enables Google Analytics on all pages.

Google Analytics Dashboard

Google Analytics graph integration.

Google Site Verification Plugin

One-click Google verification for your website!

Grunion Contact Form

Add a contact form to any post, page or text widget. Emails will be sent to the post’s author by default, or any email address you choose. As seen on WordPress.com.

Image Widget

Simple image widget that uses native WordPress upload thickbox to add image widgets to your site.

IntenseDebate

IntenseDebate Comments enhance and encourage conversation on your blog or website. Full comment and account data sync between IntenseDebate and WordPress ensures that you will always have your comments. Custom integration with your WordPress admin panel makes moderation a piece of cake. Comment threading, reply-by-email, user accounts and reputations, comment voting, along with Twitter and friendfeed integrations enrich your readers’ experience and make more of the internet aware of your blog and comments which drives traffic to you!

Jetpack by WordPress.com

Bring the power of the WordPress.com cloud to your self-hosted WordPress. Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress.com users.

myEASYwebally

More than a simple plugin, myEASYwebally lets you save quite a good amount of time when doing your WordPress blog maintenance! You need a free API key to use it.

post-views

Record how many times the post have been views and show it.

Search Meter

Keeps track of what your visitors are searching for. After you have activated this plugin, you can check the Search Meter section in the Dashboard to see what your visitors are searching for on your blog.

SEO Friendly Images

Automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search results and makes them W3C/xHTML valid as well.

Twitter Fans

Displays your twitter followers just like facebook fan widget.

WordPress.com Custom CSS

Allows CSS editing with strict filtering for malicious code

WordPress Popular Posts

Showcases your most popular posts to your visitors on your blog’s sidebar. Use WordPress Popular Posts as a widget or place it anywhere on your theme using php wpp_get_mostpopular(); ?>

WP-Cleanup

Cleanup your WordPress database in one click!

wp-Typography

Improve your web typography with: (1) hyphenation — over 40 languages supported, (2) Space control, includes: widow protection, gluing values to units, and forced internal wrapping of long URLs & email addresses, (3) Intelligent character replacement, including smart handling of: quote marks, dashes, ellipses, trademarks, math symbols, fractions, and ordinal suffixes, and (4) CSS hooks for styling: ampersands, uppercase words, numbers, initial quotes & guillemets.

WPtouch

A plugin which formats your site with a mobile theme for visitors on Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Blackberry Storm and Torch, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. A templating feature allows customization of the display.

Zemanta

Contextual suggestions of links, pictures, related content and SEO tags that makes your blogging fun and efficient.

 

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