• Post Revisions: Wiki-like tracking of edits
• Press This!: Post from wherever you are on the web
• Shift Gears: Turbo-speed your blogging
• Theme Previews: See it before your audience does
• Word count! Never guess how many words are in your post anymore.
• Image captions, so you can add sweet captions like Political Ticker does under your images.
• Bulk management of plugins.
• A completely revamped image control to allow for easier inserting, floating, and resizing. It’s now fully integrated with the WYSIWYG.
• Drag-and-drop reordering of Galleries.
• Plugin update notification bubble.
• Customizable default avatars.
• You can now upload media when in full-screen mode.
• Remote publishing via XML-RPC and APP is now secure (off) by default, but you can turn it on easily through the options screen.
• Full SSL support in the core, and the ability to force SSL for security.
• You can now have many thousands of pages or categories with no interface issues.
• Ability to move your wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location, for “clean” SVN checkouts.
• Select a range of checkboxes with “shift-click.”
• You can toggle between the Flash uploader and the classic one.
• A number of proactive security enhancements, including cookies and database interactions.
• Stronger better faster versions of TinyMCE, jQuery, and jQuery UI.
• Version 2.6 fixes approximately 194 bugs.

For more information here is a handy video:

For even more information visit:
http://wordpress.org/development/2008/07/wordpress-26-tyner/

Is this solution 100%? I doubt it. Nothing beats a good team of Forum Moderators, but it most certainly can help! Another Mod I highly recommend is a Delete User and Posts mod, but i can’t for the life of me remember where I found it for certain. This MAY be it:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=29821

The Humanizer is another good one, but didn’t quite get the job done like Anti-Spam ACP appears to be. Hopefully I’ll be able to ditch phpBB2 soon so that I can move on to phpBB3’s new anti-spam measures.

Hi Bradford, Please can you take a look at my gallery and suggest ways of improving it,do i need to register a name for it? host it seperatly? anything from design to turning it into a membership site.I haven’t been able to get back to you bcos i have been packing up for our relocation soon.Here is the gallery link. http://blogbytyna.com/Gallery/index.php

First off…

i have been packing up for our relocation soon

I hope everything goes well! Travel is fun and exciting, but it can also become a headache. Lets hope for the former!

Well Tyna, I most certainly have some suggestions and take them or leave them, I hope they help! Especially since I feel you are a gifted photographer, I hope that my recommendations help! Lets start with…

do i need to register a name for it?

The short answer: No. The long answer: Depends on what you want to do with it. How do you feel about the photo gallery? Do you feel it is an important part of your website? Do you feel that it has a “life of its own”? More importantly, do you WANT it to have a life of its own completely seperate from your Blog? If so, then definately!

host it seperatly?

Well, that highly depends on your webhost. It looks like you have it hosted on a CPanel server, so if your host allows you an Add-on Domain or not. If so, then you can quickly and easily setup the new domain with very few changes to your gallery or hosting account!

turning it into a membership site

Well, this depends on what you would like to do with the photos and what kind of membership you mean. If you mean to turn it into a “paid membership site” where people pay to see your photography, I wouldn’t recommend that route unless the gallery is already exceedingly popular, though I would even be careful with membership then. I would most definately do advertising, however I could see adding a paid membership feature to the site allowing people to utilize your photos on their websites or in print. Sort of a “royalty-free stock photo” gallery where people pay you to remove watermarks from your images and use the photos.

If the type of membership you are looking to do is to allow people to register on your site and post their own photos, that can most certianly work, however you’ll want to be careful with it. Spam is one thing, but image Spam can get pretty…well…not very pretty at all. It would probably be best if you moderated all of the photos that get posted if you go with a membership of this type. A few things to consider though:

• What types of photos do you want others to post?
• Will the gallery have a primary focus?
• What types of visitors are you looking to attract?

These questions are very important when deciding on membership and membership rules. They are also very important in choosing your domain name, should you decide to host the gallery on its own domain.

Lastly…

suggest ways of improving it

and

anything from design

• First and foremost I would change the template/theme. It is too…”gray”. It gives off a very somber mood.
• Use a lightbox! Lightboxes are GREAT ways to make a photo gallery more…”flashy”. See: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/ I manage a Vet website and chose to use Gallery2 for their gallery. I utilized a lightbox for displaying the large versions of the photos. Check it out when you click on a photo in the gallery at: http://kernroadvet.com/gallery/v/august_openhouse/
• Link your sites together in a more “prominent” fashion. While your Blog links to your photography website and photo gallery, it is almost difficult to find the links. Even on a large monitor (I am running in 1680×1050), after one full page scroll the links are at the bottom of that scroll. I really like your navigation for http://www.tynaezenma.com/ and think that you should use similar navigation to navigate between all three sites/subsites. Now, I wouldn’t use the image example I have included below, but I threw together a very quick photoshopped idea. Maybe include three options…”Tyna Ezenma Photography”, “Blog By Tyna” and “Tyna’s Photo Gallery”.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer a few quick suggestions regarding your blog as well.

• Your right side ads are bugged in Firefox. See:

• Your RSS feed is only slightly “noticable” and I think it would be good to emphasize it more. Maybe something along the lines of…

I hope these suggestions helped!! Now…do YOU also have a question for The Edge? Just drop me a line through the comments and I’ll see what I can do!

Can you do a post about trackbacks? I really don’t understand it.

Sounds like a great idea to me!

Trackbacks

Lets start with Trackbacks. Trackbacks were originally created for the MovableType blog software by SixApart. SixApart defines Trackbacks as:

In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, “This is something you may be interested in.” To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.

Trackbacks can be used in a few ways, but probably the most common use over the past year has been for contests. When a Blog holds a contest in which you Blog about the post in order to get entries, you do a Trackback in your post so that an except of your post and a link to it is automagically inserted into the contest holder’s Blog comments.

Another primary use is when you Blog about a similar subject or even expand upon a subject that another Blogger wrote a post on. You can trackback to their post so that both they and their users see that your post might be an interesting related read.

So how does one Trackback in Wordpress? First you need the Trackback URL from the site you wish to Trackback to. This will typically be listed right after the post and right before the comments, while sometimes it is after all of the comments. Look for a “Trackback URL for this entry” or a Trackback link of some sort. This entry’s Trackback URL is http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/defining-trackbacks-and-pingbacks/trackback/ . Take that URL and paste it into the Trackbacks section in your post’s Advanced Options as shown here:

That’s it! You are now using Trackbacks, but what about Pingbacks?

Pingbacks

Pingbacks are similar to Trackbacks, with a few primary differences. Pingbacks are designed to let the author know that you linked to their Blog in one of your entries, but doing so WITHOUT posting a comment. Pingbacks are pretty much automatic, so long as you have “Allow Pings” checked in your entry. To turn Pingbacks on and off, you use this box under Advanced Options when you write your post:

Once you’ve sent a Trackback or Pingback, you are now ready to verify that you’ve sent it.

Verifying The *Backs

To verify that a Trackback or Pingback was sent, you can edit your post after publishing it and take a look at your Trackbacks section. Look for the “Already pinged” sites:

Sometimes if your Trackback doesn’t show up in their comments it is because they have Trackbacks moderated or comments turned off. This usually isn’t any cause for alarm.

Be Careful

It is common courtesy that Trackbacks only be used if you mention or link to the site you are tracking back to. Sometimes it can make sense tracking back to a site when you didn’t link to them, however don’t be surprised if the owner of the site considers it to be Spam and removes it from the comments.

Testing Trackbacks

Feel free to test your Trackbacks by tracking back to this post. If your site contains ANY inappropriate content, the trackback will not be posted. If you spam this post with multiple trackbacks, expect none of them to appear. If you found this post helpful, when you test your trackback please mention this post to help your readers learn more about using Trackbacks and Pingbacks.

Outside of that I am also finishing up preparations for a format of my main PC, which will likely occur tomorrow, depending on when my new parts show up in the mail.

While UBD’s Block Ad Plugin has a “cleaner” interface and allows you to easily select 1-column or 2-column mode as well as the number of ads to display.

UBD Block Ad Pros And Cons

• Pro: Easy selection of column layout.
• Pro: Easy selection of number of ads to run.
• Pro: You can enter more ads than the number selected to run.
• Pro: You can use a widget or manually enter code into your template.
• Con: Stylesheet is built into php file instead of a separate stylesheet file.
• Con: The auto-preview of ads causes you to be unable to enter a google ad in FireFox 3.

impNERD Random Ads Pros And Cons

• Pro: Stylesheet is built into a separate stylesheet file.
• Pro: You can use a widget or manually enter code into your template.
• Pro: Plugin’s settings page tells how to add the code to your template manually.
• Con: You cannot enter more ads than the number selected to run, nor can you select the number to run except by only entering a certain number of ads.
• Con: HUGE donation link at the top of the settings page.
• Con: So-So interface and no ad preview.

Conclusion: UBD Preferred, impNERD For Now

In the end, I feel that UBD’s Block Ad is a better overall plugin, but plan to stick to Random Ads for now. A few features I’d like to suggest to UBD:

• Separate the stylesheet from the php file.
• Allow editing of the stylesheet from within the plugin settings page.
• Add instructions for adding the plugin to your template on the plugin settings page.
• Take a look at and resolve the immediate preview issue when using the plugin with Google and Firefox.

Get UBD Block Ad

Get impNERD Random Ads

Plugin Description

The plugin is simply written, powerful, and relevant. Just click on any post on this blog to see an example at the very bottom of the post. You will see a “Related Posts” heading and following it are several posts that are related to the current post based on keyword matching. Not only can this be helpful to the readers of your Blog, but it can help to keep readers on your Blog for longer periods of time.

Installation

To install this plugin:

• First download it from:
  http://wasabi.pbwiki.com/Related%20Entries
  Make certain that you download the latest version!
• Next, unzip the archive and upload the related-posts.php file to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
• Now you are ready to activate the plugin!
  • To do this, login to your Dashboard and click on the Plugins option on the top right.
  • Scroll down until you see the Related Posts plugin and click on Activate.
• Once the plugin is activated, you now need to setup the SQL tables and plugin options.
• On the Plugins page you will now see a Related Posts Options heading on the second row of selection options at the top. Click on this option.
• At the bottom of this window it says:
  

  If this is your first time installing this plugin you will have to run this script (opens a new window) in order to create the index table required by the plugin. If this fails, please refer to the readme on how to create it manually.

  Click on the “this script” link to setup the SQL tables.

• If the script does not work, you will need to setup the tables manually. To do so in phpMyAdmin:
  • Choose your Wordpress Database.
  • Click the SQL tab at the top.
  • Enter the following bit of code, but PLEASE NOTE that if you are using a table prefix other than wp_, then you will need to change wp_posts to whatever the correct prefix is (example: wordpress_posts, if your prefix is wordpress_):
  ALTER TABLE `wp_posts` ADD FULLTEXT `post_related` (
  `post_name` , `post_content`
  )
  then click “Go”
  • Once your SQL table is setup, head back over to the Related Posts Options page and choose the options you would like to use (excerpts, # of posts to show, etc) and click Save.
  • Your Blog is now setup and ready to use Related Posts, but you still have to add the call to the Related Posts function in your Blog’s template.
  • Click on the Design option at the top, then the Theme Editor option.
  • If you want to add the call only on your Single Posts pages (as an example), first click Single Post (single.php) on the right.
  • Find where you would like to have the posts displayed in your HTML code. Once you have found the “perfect spot” plug in this code:
  <h3>Related Posts</h3>
  <ul><?php related_posts(); ?></ul>
  • While you do not have to use the h3 tags or the Related Posts heading, it might be a good idea to use some sort of heading to signify what the links pertain to. Note that the ul tags are assuming that you are encapsulating the posts in li tags via the Related Posts Options.

  It is worth noting that you can add the call in any of your template files. Just make certain that if the file uses “The Loop” that you add the call somewhere inside “The Loop“.

   

  Final Words

  While this isn’t the easiest plugin to install it is functional, powerful, and a highly recommended addon to any Wordpress install! If you have any questions, comments, or need further assistance with this plugin, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be glad to help.

  A big thank you to Tyna over at http://www.blogbytyna.com/ for bringing to my attention that there are several Related Posts plugins out there and that many of the instructions for them aren’t very clear. Thanks Tyna and I hope this guide helped!

  ]]> http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/wordpress-plugin-related-posts-v204/feed/ 0 http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/cube-ad-rotation/ http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/cube-ad-rotation/#comments Thu, 15 May 2008 22:04:31 +0000 Bradford http://webmastersedge.net/home/?p=26 Today I installed an ad rotation plugin and got it working in my other script as well. Using similar methods I will be adding other widgets to the other portions of the website. Tomorrow I will be working on setting up “the big list” of ad agencies and then inputting more agencies into the database. This is, of course, assuming that I have not made any progress on converting my phpbb2 install to phpbb3. I’m having an issue with the conversion process which is causing all PMs to be lost. It’s a big (250MB+) database, so it isn’t exactly a quick conversion. My hope is to have PHP5 and MySQL5 installed next week and begin work on the Wiki’s.

  The time line which I am currently working to follow is:

  • 19th-23rd: Finish script upgrades/conversions.
  • 19th-23rd: Install MediaWiki’s
  • 19th-23rd: Skin MediaWIki’s
  • 19th-23rd: Finish Ad Agency Listings
  • 26th-30th: Begin work on Wiki Content
  • 26th-30th: Finishing Touches
  • 26th-30th: Public Release of The Webmaster’s Edge
  ]]> http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/cube-ad-rotation/feed/ 2 http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/kontera-wordpress-plugin/ http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/kontera-wordpress-plugin/#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 13:54:27 +0000 Bradford http://webmastersedge.net/home/?p=25 Yesterday I had made an “honorable mention” of a Kontera Wordpress Plugin by Karol Krizka. While this is a great plugin, it appears that the folks over at Kontera have made their own Official Kontera Plugin!

  Plugin features:

  • Add the ContentLink tag to all your pages in one click
  • Block ContentLink ads from appearing on particular posts or categories
  • Determine when ContentLink ads will begin appearing on new posts- you can choose to block ads for a particular number of days
  • Display ContentLinks only on posts
  • Display ContentLinks only on comments
  • Change ContentLinks color

  Installation and setup is pretty basic and not only is there a plugin to download for Wordpress 2.5.x, but there is also a plugin to download for Wordpress 2.0+ in case you haven’t upgraded yet.

  This plugin will make it easier than ever to monetize your blog with Kontera’s ContentLink™!

  If you haven’t signed up for Kontera, you can do so here.

  ]]> http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/kontera-wordpress-plugin/feed/ 1 http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/the-first-batch-of-wordpress-plugins/ http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/the-first-batch-of-wordpress-plugins/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 20:10:04 +0000 Bradford http://webmastersedge.net/home/?p=23 It is plugin installation day here at The Edge! I have a huge list of Wordpress Plugins that I want to use and have installed several of them today. I have listed the plugins below. Maybe you’ll notice a few plugins that you may find useful on your own blog!

  I will be revisiting this list at a later date in order to review these plugins in greater detail.

  The Plugins

  • WordPress Automatic Upgrade
  • Akismet
  • Random Posts
  • Close Old Posts
  • Bad Behavior
  • Login Lockdown
  • Brian’s Threaded Comments
  • Better Comments Manager
  • ShareThis
  • Social Buttons

  Honorable Mentions

  Honorable mentions that I may use in the future, but have decided not to install just yet for various reasons:

  • Random Ads
  • WP-United
  ]]> http://webmastersedge.net/home/2008/the-first-batch-of-wordpress-plugins/feed/ 0