Tag Archives: Dashboard

Tweetbacks : Steal your comments from Twitter !

Tweetbacks

Tweetbacks

Ready for some action ? Okay, we are going to steal some comments for your blog posts from twitter. Don’t worry, they took our comments first, now we are stealing them back, so you will not be punished ( if you get caught, I don’t know you, ok ? )

Check out some blogs, with loads of twitter love. They get hundreds of RTs about theirs posts, and we envy their Tweetme counts. But most of these blog posts with 100+ tweets about them, do not get many comments. People tweet about them but ignore the comment form. But, they still love your those blog posts.

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Two Google Wave Plugins for WordPress

Google Wave Plugin WordPress

Google Wave Plugin WordPress

I don’t mind being over excited about Google wave, because I saw the google wave preview video. It’s worth being little over excited about.

Being over excited includes trying to know how it will be useful for me, and my friends, so, for those who love google wave and wordpress, let me introduce you to two wave plugins for WordPress.

update : Wanna try 8 more useful Google Wave Plugins ?

1. wp-wave-shortcodes

The first Google wave plugin for WordPress that I noticed is WordPress Wave ShortCodes.  As far as I could see, it was the only plugin that has active development going  on.

What it Does

Adds a shortcode to WordPress that makes it easy to embed Wave(s) in a post or page. It also adds a media button so one is not required to remember how a shortcode is structured.

That was from the plugin’s page on Google Code. So, it will help you add waves to your wordpress posts, with the use of short codes. To make it more simple, there will be a media button for this.

How to use

You will have a media button just like you have one for adding image or video, on the wordpress dashboard, where you write new posts and pages. When you click on that, you will get a menu where you can enter wave ID for your wave that you want to insert, and then specify font and background color etc.

  • id(Required)
  • width
  • height
  • bgcolor
  • color
  • font
  • fontsize

Is there a Demo ? Can I try it ?

Yes, and No. There is a demo available here. But, you need a Google Wave Sandbox account to access the demo. If you are planning to develop a wave plugin, you can request it here.  Others, wait until the end of this month, if you are lucky, you will get an account

Update : I found another one here

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Windows Live Writer, my new blogging buddy

 

windows writer

So friends, this is a post from Windows Live Writer. I have always wanted to test windows live writer, and this was one of the first things that I downloaded after installing windows 7.

As you can see, windows live writer can detect the theme of your blog, and when you start writing, it will show you the page just as it will be when published. I took a screenshot of the screen and then posted it to the draft, very easily, and resizing and placing the image was really easy.

The theme of the blog is detected using a temporary post, which will be deleted as soon as theme is detected on windows writer. You can add tags and set your categories from windows live writer dashboard. Your categories are already imported when you set up the blog.

There are plugins that you can add to your live writer installation, like blog this for firefox, polaroid picture plugin ( which makes your picture look like poladoid ) and flickr plugin etc.

Something that I miss is, the auto tagging plugin, and all in one seo pack plugin which lets me set title tags etc for search engines. There should be some workaround here also, if you know how it is done, please drop me a comment.

So far windows Live writer looks good and works really well. I will be posting more if I find anything interesting ….  You can also try this once, its easy and useful. Let me know your thoughts after installing it. Installation and set up is really easy, in case you need help, please drop comments.

Better Sidebar Widget Management with WordPress 2.8

Is the current wordpress dashboard design perfect ? Except the widget management page, it’s awesome, that’s what I think …do you agree with me ?

The problem with the current widget management page is this : Suppose your theme has two sidebars/widget areas, and you want to move your text widget from first to the second sidebar. You will remove it from the first sidebar, save changes, select second sidebar from the drop down menu, click “show”, then add the widget to the second sidebar … but wait, already spent a lot of time “clicking” and now, do you have the content of the text widget ? NO !! You should copy the content somewhere before you remove it from the first sidebar ….. you are lost ..

…. Not any more .. here is the new widgets panel, that’s going to be ready with WordPress 2.8, the next release. Have a look, and you will understand how it solves all these issues. For those who are curious if wordpress.com users will get this feature, the answer is a BIG YES ! You may get this even before self hosted wordpress blog users, just wait n watch!! ( Click on the image to enlarge. )

Wordpress 2.8 new widgets panel

Wordpress 2.8 new widgets panel

PS: Please note that this version of wordpress, 2.8 that is, under development, and there may be changes to this feature when it’s released.

Add more “Style” to Categories, Make your blog look better

Adding more styles to your wordpress theme, and why is that “style” highlighted ? Simple : because, this post is about making your blog look more stylish, by adding few more stylesheets ie, style sheets for categories.

I was reading this post from http://tarskitheme.com about a brilliant plugin : Category Style Sheets. by Benedict  Eastaugh.  It is a simple but awesome plugin that allows you to add style sheets for each category of your blog. That means, you can have different background colors, images, link colors etc for individual category archives, and each post in that category.

What I have done, ( So Far )

I have created two style sheets for two of my categories. WordPress & Blogging. I have changed background colors for category archive pages, and individual pots in these two categories. Now, go to any blog post in that category and you will see the plugin in action. I have changed only the background color. Should I try more ? Do you have any suggestion ?

How To Do This

All you need to do is,

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Installing new themes using WordPress 2.8

WordPress 2.8 is is the next major release of wordpress. The new feature that I am looking forward to, and playing around with now is the new way of installing and upgrading themes.

Please note that wordpress 2.8 is in the development stage and these features may or may not change when it’s released.

With wordpress 2.8, installing a new wordpress theme, and upgrading it, ( when the author updates the theme), is easy. It is done using the same method used for wordpress plugins. One condition : The theme should be hosted on the wordpress.org website, and for that, it should be GPL compatible.

Step 1. Browse and Find a Theme.

From “Appearance” tab, select ” Add New Themes” You will get a screen like this.

Installing Themes in WordPress 2.8

Step 2. Search

Search for your theme using keywords, or browse using tags. I searched for the theme “Hybrid”

Installing WordPress themes, 2.8

Step 3. Preview


Preview the theme that you selected. Click on the link “preview” and you will get a preview generated from wordpress.org page.

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Waiting for WordPress 2.7

Guys !! I am super excited !! I just got to test wordpress 2.7 admin page, on a test blog, here. What should I say, Its just amazing !!!

If you have any complaint / confusion about wordpress admin dashboard, as it is now, this new version is going to make you happy, I swear !!

Its simple, elegant, organized, easy to use, voww what more you can ask for ?  Look at this image ( click to enlarge ) hmm lifted from here

See, I know you will ask this … is this going to be available on wordpress.com too ? yes, of course !! Now, if you are thinking that, wordpress.com users are poor souls with less options, think again …. you guys get latest features even before wordpress.org ( or self hosted ) wordpress blog users !! Continue reading →

Self Hosted WordPress How to : Plugins

Plugins are something new that you are going to find on your dashboard while moving to self hosted wordpress blog. Plugins, as the name suggests, adds more features and addons to your blog.

Most Popular Plugins:

WordPress.com stats – so that you won’t miss your stats as you used ton wordpress.com blogs. This plugin needs a wordpress.com API code, which you fill find on your wordpress dashboard ( link )

All in One SEO – For SEO crazy bloggers. I have installed it, but not sure how to make the best out of it. Yep, I am not a SEO guy.

Auto Tager : Suggests and adds tags automatically when you write, edit and publish your blog posts. Very useful.

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