10 WordPress Plugins that will Actually Increase Your Productivity

by Siobhan McKeown October 27^th, 2011 20 Responses

I’ve been on a bit of a productivity kick recently, trying to get my life organized. I’ve been reading books like “Getting Things Done” and trying to sort myself out with Remember the Milk. Not got anywhere so far….. To celebrate my almost-productive-life I thought I’d take a look for some WordPress plugins that increase your productivity. I started where I always do with a showcase and looked to Google. I searched for “WordPress productivity plugins” and came up with lists that included Google Analytics and SEO Plugins. Wtf? How do they increase your productivity?

Tutorials

Migrating WordPress to a New Server

by Siobhan McKeown October 26^th, 2011 25 Responses

Somehow, I have ended up with my WordPress installations scattered over three different hosting accounts. This has been bothering me for a while, as I’m paying for three separate hosting accounts and I only need to be paying for one. To start the process, and as a form of catharsis, I thought I’d write a tutorial about how to migrate from one host to another. That way I feel like I’m doing something useful while actually I’m doing something boring.

News, Themes

Themecredible Enters into the Commercial Theme Market

by Siobhan McKeown October 24^th, 2011 2 Responses

It wouldn’t feel like a week in the WordPress community without the launch of a theme club – this week’s launch is Themecredible. Themecredible is a theme shop offering commerical WordPress themes to the world. It was launched by the guys running Padd Solutions, who have been producing free WordPress themes for four years. You’ve probably seen some of their themes about the place – they’ve been featured on places like Smashing Magazine and Specky Boy.

In such a competitive marketplace I wondered what makes Themecredible stand out. Here’s what Dulce Rose Lada, head of the development team, had to say:

MS Plugins, MS Tutorials, Tutorials, WPMU DEV

Monetize your WordPress Multisite Network with the WPMU DEV Pro Sites Plugin

by Siobhan McKeown October 21^st, 2011 21 Responses

The WPMU DEV Supporter plugin has now become the WPMU DEV Pro Sites plugin. It’s got loads of new built in features making it the number one plugin for monetizing your WordPress network.

Ever wanted to create a monetized network like WordPress.com? It’s a great model – create a network, give a away a free blog and then charge for extras.

WPMU DEV

Massive Changes As WPMU DEV Supporter Plugin Becomes Pro Sites

by Siobhan McKeown October 21^st, 2011 6 Responses

The WPMU DEV Supporter plugin has long been one of our most popular plugins. It lets you easily monetize your Multisite network so that you can create your very own Freemium network like Edublogs or WordPress.com.

We’re really excited to announce a major update to Supporter, and are relaunching it as the WPMU DEV Pro Sites Plugin. With Pro Sites you can set up your network and charge for Premium services like:

Ad-free blogs
Bulk upgrades
BuddyPress Features
Limit publishing to paid members
Pay to blog
Set Post &/or Page quotas
Premium Plugins
Premium Themes
Premium Support
Set upload quotas
Restrict XML-RPC and Atom Publishing
Set unfiltered HTML permissions

Freebies, Themes

8 Free Twenty Eleven Child Themes

by Siobhan McKeown October 20^th, 2011 19 Responses

It’s been a few months now since Twenty Eleven launched with the release of WordPress 3.2. As child themes are all the rage these days, I thought I’d take a look around the net and see what free Twenty Eleven Child Themes are on offer. There’s surprisingly few! I had planned to write about 20 Twenty Eleven Child Themes, then dropped to 10 Twenty Eleven Child Themes, but I’ve only managed to find eight to share with you. Methinks I sense a gap in the market.
Paper
Demo | Download
Silver

Demo | Download
Hum

Demo | Download
NomNom

Download
Colors

Download
Blue Splatter

Download
Twenty Eleven with Sidebar in Posts

Demo | Download

News

Automattic Strikes a Deal with Federated Media to Bring Adverts to WordPress.com

by Siobhan McKeown October 20^th, 2011 2 Responses

WordPress.com users will soon be able to monetize their blogs after a deal was struck between Automattic and Federated Media. Of course, us WordPress self-hosted folks have long be knowledgeable on the dark arts of blog monetization but this announcement clears the way for WordPress.com bloggers to start making some hard cash out of their efforts.

WPMU DEV

Provide Integrated Video Tutorials with this New WPMU DEV Plugin

by Siobhan McKeown October 19^th, 2011 1 Response

We’re really excited to launch a new WPMU DEV plugin which lets you integrate white label video tutorials right in your WordPress website. Video tutorials are a great way to learn and to provide support to your client and network users. The Integrated Video Tutorial Plugin from WPMU DEV lets you embed our white label videos in your site. This includes your dashboard, your Help menu, just about anywhere you want. You can check out all of the videos that are available right here.

Features

Over 40 unbranded support videos that are automatically updated with each new version of WordPress

Tutorials

Getting a 404 Error with Vimeo on WordPress? Get the Solution Here

by Siobhan McKeown October 17^th, 2011 1 Response

WordPress users who embed Vimeo videos with oEmbed came across a frustrating problem last week when their videos stopped working. It turns out that it’s a simple problem, with a simple solution, but no doubt it has been causing Vimeo users hours of frustration.
The Problem
WordPress Core registers Vimeo as this:

‘#http://(www.)?vimeo.com/.*#i’ => array( ‘http://www.vimeo.com/api/oembed.{format}’, true ),

However, the Vimeo API for oEmbed has the URL without the www. So this works:

http://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?maxwidth=584&maxheight=600&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F30230507&format=json

but the former doesn’t.

The Solution
There are two solutions to this problem with Vimeo which should get you back on track.
Code

Miscellaneous

A Look Inside WordPress 3.3

by Siobhan McKeown October 12^th, 2011 38 Responses

WordPress 3.3 beta has just been released. This means that we can now get a good look at what’s inside. I’ve downloaded it and installed it on my local server so that you can see what to expect when it finally launches. The changes in WordPress 3.3 are more subtle than those that appeared in WordPress 3.2, but my own feeling is that they are mostly great improvements. Rather than ladeling in new features, the current ones have been tweaked and finessed. Let’s take a look at them:
Swoosh-Swoosh Flyout Menus