Entries Tagged 'Wordpress' ↓

So I jumped off the boat and upgraded this blog to the latest and greatest Wordpress version ever … version 2.5. The features were just too much for me to resist. So how does Wordpress 2.5 feel compared to the previous Wordpress releases ? Find out after the jump.

In case you are afraid to upgrade manually, try the Instant Upgrade plugin. It worked for me without any problem.

1. Incompatible plugins

Out of my 15 old plugins just one plugin was causing problems. It was Disable Wordpress Widgets. I had never liked the idea of Wordpress widgets. But no plugin update was available.

So I am now using widgets in the sidebar. A small sacrifice for using Worpress 2.5.

2. The new dashboard

Wordpress 2.5 includes a fully customizable dashboard with fresh new colors and a complete redesign to make things simpler. At first looks, the new dashboard looks great but there are some downsides. The layout is not fluid, so there is a lot of space wastage in widescreen monitors. Also the colors used are a bit difficult to read on laptop screens.

The one shot solution for these problems is a new admin theme. Download and install the Fluency Wordpress admin theme. Its a cool new admin theme which is compatible with Wordpress 2.5. You can check out screenshots here.

3. Multi-file uploading now easy

Uploading files is now much easier. Uploading files is somewhat like Flickr now. You can select multiple files at the same time and see the progress of each file while they are uploading. Cool !

4. Automatic plugin upgrades

Now you can automatically upgrade plugins from your dashboard itself. Open the Plugin page. If there is an update available Wordpress will show you. Check out the screenshot telling me there is an update available for the XML sitemaps plugin.

Click upgrade automatically and Wordpress will do everything for you.

5. Built-in gallery support

Upload a bunch of photos and embed galleries by just putting [ gallery] (without the space) in your post. It’ll display all your thumbnails and captions and each will link each to a page where people can comment on the individual photos.

Check out Paul Stamatiou’s post using Wordpress 2.5 Gallery support.

Thats it for now….. I am still checking out Wordpress 2.5.

Tired of using multiple SEO plugins in your Wordpress blog ?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an most important aspect for every blogger. It determines the way your blog posts are shown in search engine results. The better SEO you do for your blog the more traffic you get from search engines.

Wordpress is a simple yet powerful blogging platform. Unfortunately it does not have  good SEO built-in. Because of this many SEO plugins exist for Wordpress but all they will do is optimize only one aspect of your blog like Tile tag, or meta keywords. So if you want a more robust all-in-one solution for all the SEO needs of your blog, try WpSEO.

WpSEO : The ultimate SEO plugin for Wordpress

WpSEO Wordpress plugin is aimed at Wordpress bloggers who would like to optimize their blog for better SEO. Installation of this plugin is same as any other plugin. Just upload it to your plugins directory and activate the plugin from you Wordpress dashboard. Then you can go to Options —> WpSEO to configure how WpSEO optimizes your blog.

Though this plugin does not have an English documentation at present, everything available in the plugin options is pretty straight-forward. You can configure everything in your blog which is related to SEO by using this single plugin.

You can change the title, description, keywords tags and even export your settings in a XML file so that you can use them later. And if you want a live demo of this plugin, you can check out this blog itself. I have made changes to the title of the pages.

Try it and tell me whether you like it or not !!

Download WpSEO

Note : It is a German site.

Feedburner’s e-mail subscriptions are one of the most efficient ways to increase the number of RSS subscribers you have. All the subscribers need to do is enter their e-mail address on your blog and then verify their subscriptions by going to Feedburner site.

But sometimes these precious subscribers forget to verify their subscriptions. In these cases you can always send an e-mail asking them to verify their subscriptions. But searching through the huge e-mail subscribers list looking for unconfirmed subscribers is not an easy task. But as always a plugin is now available to do the same.

Keith has created a WordPress plugin that sends every unconfirmed e-mail subscriber of your RSS feed a customized reminder message.  Installation is the same as any other Wordpress plugin. Upload and activate it.  You can then find the plugin under the ‘Manage’ tab.  Just enter your FeedBurner username and password and you will be able to see which subscribers haven’t confirmed their e-mail address.

So what are you waiting for ? Go increase your RSS subscribers !

Download Notify Unconfirmed Subscribers Plugin for Wordpress

Ever since I upgraded to Wordpress 2.3, everytime I posted a new post or a new comment it was showing an error wp_post2cat table does not exist. At first I thought there was some error in upgrading but a simple Google search led me to the Wordpress forum where I found the solution.

The problem arises in Wordpress 2.3 mainly due to incompatible plugins and themes. Some of the plugins which cause this error in Wordpress 2.3 are :

• Google Sitemaps Generator older than 3.0 (Download new version here)
• Posts by Author plugin
• Ultimate Tag Warrior

So if you are getting the same error then try upgrading your plugins. It might solve the problem.

If the problem still exists then you can see this Wordpress support thread.

Yet another major release of Wordpress. And as usual this version too brings in a host of functional improvements.

The most major of the new features are :

• Inclusion of an in-built tagging system for posts
• Automatic notification if plugin upgrade is available
• Better SEO
• Advanced editing options in post editor

So many features ! How can one stay behind in upgrading to Wordpress 2.3. I have already upgraded to version 2.3 using the nifty Wordpress Instant Upgrade plugin.

So have you upgraded to Wordpress 2.3 ?

Wordpress 2.3 Release Notes || Download Wordpress 2.3