Replace WordPress Smileys With Font-based Emoticons

by Sarah Gooding December 21^st, 2012 3 Responses

Emoticons are so commonly used in blogging that WordPress has support for smileys included in its core. However, the default WordPress Smileys are made with images. If you’re a regular user of emoticons you may have noticed that those smileys can really disrupt your line spacing when used within your blog, making your paragraphs look a little wonky.

Font Emoticons is a new plugin that replaces the default WordPress smileys with font-based emoticons. With this plugin installed, your emoticons will have the same size as the surrounding text. Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

Plugins

Portable phpMyAdmin – Unsafe For WordPress Consumption

by James Dunn December 19^th, 2012 19 Responses

In June of 2011, my colleague Sarah Gooding wrote about a phpMyAdmin plugin that posed a HUGE security risk. Because of the security risk, this plugin was removed from the WordPress repository and it was recommended that everyone stop using it and remove it.

Now, there’s another dangerous plugin in the WordPress repository – Portable phpMyAdmin.

How Dangerous Is This Plugin?

PortablephpMyAdmin - Unfit For Wordpress Usage

Plugins

Add Beautiful Instagram Image Galleries to WordPress

by Sarah Gooding December 14^th, 2012 1 Response

Instagram galleries and widgets are no longer just for individual bloggers who want to display their recent photo feeds. Companies and organizations are now utilizing the service as another way to connect with their fans and followers. As a web developer I am often asked to add Instagram feeds to company websites. Fortunately, there are a lot of great WordPress Instagram plugins out there that make this an easy task. Today I’d like to highlight one that stands head and shoulders above the others in terms of customizing the display.

Plugins

Make It Easy For Your Readers To Help You Proof Your Posts

by James Dunn December 13^th, 2012 10 Responses

I have always believed that you cannot proof your own work; I know that I can’t. We’ve all seen those memes that ask you to see if you can read them. Most people can read them without any issues. Give the following a quick read and see if it makes sense.
You can see the errors, but your mind “corrects” them for you and you can probably read it. But, if you wrote it, your mind usually corrects the errors and you don’t see them. That’s why I contend most people cannot proof their own work.

WordPress Error Reporting - Proofreading - Spelling - Grammar

Plugins

How To Easily Install All Your Favorite Plugins From WordPress.org

by Sarah Gooding December 12^th, 2012 3 Responses

This is a cool new feature of WordPress 3.5 that you may find to be incredibly useful. A new “Favorites” item has been added to the Plugins >> Add New sub-menu, which makes it possible for you to pull in favorited plugins from WordPress.org.

Add your username or anyone else’s and click “get favorites” to see a list of favorites. From here you can easily install all of them.

Plugins

7 WordPress Plugins that Will Improve Your Site’s Search

by Joe Foley December 12^th, 2012 7 Responses

It doesn’t take long for many to realize that WordPress’ default search isn’t the greatest. A large part of this is probably due to the fact that it ranks results based on date rather than relevancy. Another part is because it doesn’t search everything that could be searched (excerpts, tags, comments, etc.).

We’ve gone through the best WordPress search plugins we could find and pulled out seven that rise to the top. Not all of these plugins focus on improving the same aspects, and so that’s something to keep in mind when deciding which one is best for your site.

1. Relevanssi

Plugins

It’s A WordPress Christmas – Time To Decorate For The Holidays

by James Dunn December 11^th, 2012 1 Response

It’s Christmas and everywhere we turn people are decorating. Homes, stores, street lights, even cars are decorated in the seasonal splendor. Every house in our neighborhood is decorated differently based upon the taste of the homeowner. And just last night, I noticed they were decorating the huge Christmas tree in the town square getting ready for the Christmas parade and tree lighting ceremony tomorrow evening.

Wouldn’t you like to decorate your website for Christmas as well? Or maybe decorate your client’s websites?

Here’s a collection of WordPress plugins that can accomplish this task quite easily.

Christmas Countdown Clock

Plugins

Managing Images in WordPress with the Media Attacher

by Craig Grella December 8^th, 2012 2 Responses

There are 2 ways to upload images into your WordPress site – through the post/page image uploader or through the media library.

Both place images into your overall media library; and both give you the ability to drag and drop upload multiple images at once.

So what’s the difference and which one should you use? Good questions.

Most people add images into a post using the Add/Insert button located just above the post/page editor. This gives you the ability to upload files from your computer, a web url, or from inside your media library.

Plugins

ZillaDribbbler Plugin Displays Dribbble Shots in WordPress

by Sarah Gooding December 8^th, 2012 Leave a comment

I’m a pretty big fan of Orman Clark and his work with the team at ThemeZilla. Orman is an active member of the Dribbble community. You might even say that he’s quite the prolific Dribbbler. Since they are big time design junkies, the team at ThemeZilla has created a free plugin for showcasing your latest Dribbble shots on your WordPress site.

Plugins

Sell Media: A Free WordPress Plugin For Selling Digital Files

by Sarah Gooding December 6^th, 2012 2 Responses

If your website is driven by your creative media, be it photos, videos or audio files, the last thing you want to see is your hard work being used without your consent. The Sell Media plugin for WordPress gives you a way to sell, license and protect your precious media, with no fees. Absolutely free!

Sell Media is a neat and easy way for photographers, videographers, musicians and artists to organize their content in their WordPress sites and start turning a profit instead of turning out unlicensed content for digital ne’er-do-wells.