The Webmaster's Edge » Blog

Making The Most Of SezWho: Entrecard Credits For YOU!

Bradford — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:13:51 +0000

So in theory SezWho is a GREAT idea! The only problem being that the smaller blogs with SezWho will likely not get nearly as many comments as the bigger blogs using SezWho.

So what can a smaller blog do to increase their comment traffic through the use of SezWho?

Rate, Rate, Rate!

Rate your comments! Make a pledge to your readers that you will rate their comments whether they are good or bad. Don’t promise good ratings, just promise ratings based on how insightful or engaged their comment might be.

The Webmaster’s Edge Promises To Rate Your Commnets

I hereby pledge to read the comments posted on this blog and make certain to rate them. This means that if you make valuable and engaged comments on The Edge, you can earn EXTRA Entrecard credits if you are using SezWho! While I will not be going back and rating old comments, from this moment forward, I will do my best to rate all of the comments on the blog. This is my chance to engage my users in conversation and this is your chance to earn Entrecard credits for becoming involved in these discussions!

Wordpress 2.6 Now Available!

Bradford — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:04:50 +0000

Wordpress 2.6, Codename: Tyner, is now available for download! Among the new features:

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/

A Correction On: Three Way Link Exchanging VS Double Link Exchanging

Bradford — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:18:50 +0000

Yesterday I posted about Three Way Link Exchanging VS Double Link Exchanging and made an error in the article as pointed out here by The Quantum Mechanic. I have made the proper corrections and I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

If you own a quality website that is PR1 or greater and would like to get a PR5 link from a high quality technology website in exchange for a link from your site to here, please let me know.

bradford {place an at sign here for the address to work} webmastersedge.net

In addition to making the corrections, I have added illustrations to the post as well.

Kontera On The Edge

Bradford — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:12:49 +0000

You may have already noticed, but I might mention that Kontera has been added to The Edge. I had mentioned in a previous post that Kontera released a Wordpress plugin. I am now using the plugin and have to say that it makes managing your ContentLink™s very easy. I have had a long standing relationship with Kontera for my other sites, and if you aren’t using Kontera to monetize your Blog, I highly recommend them!

My only suggestion for the plugin is that they integrate it into the “Write Post” and “Write Page” pages so that you can choose to not run ContentLink™ on pages in an easier fashion than going to the plugin page every time your write something you do not wish to include ContentLink™ ads on.

The Edge Is Now NoFollow Free!

Bradford — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:50:34 +0000

You may have recently noticed that there is now a band at the top of the page which says “NOFOLLOW FREE”. This is placed by the NoFollow Free Plugin. It doesn’t mean that your author link will immediately have the “nofollow” tag removed from them, but it does mean that it will be removed from frequent visitors. If you post 3 or more comments on The Webmaster’s Edge, you will have the rel=nofollow attribute removed.

Please note that this Blog IS moderated and that it DOES have anti-spam software, and any spam posts WILL be removed, if not immediately blocked. This plugin is my way of rewarding frequent commentators for their patronage.

For those who consider using this plugin: I highly recommend against it unless you moderate your Blog and have really good anti-spam plugins. A nofollow-free Blog can be a target for spammers. Hopefully this doesn’t make my Blog too large a target or the plugin will have to be removed. THough I highly doubt that it will be an issue.

Keep on commenting and thank you for visiting The Edge!

A Short To Do List For Release

Bradford — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:05:58 +0000

I have just a few things left to work on before the full launch of the site, which I should be able to take care of today. The items I have left to knock off are:

Create Page: Advertise on the Edge
Create Page: About the Edge
Fix Search Bars
Post Privacy Policy
Create Page: The Big List (of Ad Networks)
Update “Friends” and “Misc Favorites” links.
Change integer sign in page titles to a bullet.
Sign up for ReviewMe and post ReviewMe information
Add Chitika Ads to page
Take a look at TTZ Media and possibly add TTZ Media Ads to the page
See what I can do about the “Recent Posts” on the right to distinguish them from each other (the ones that wrap blend with the ones that don’t).
While I will be fine with the forums not being fully skinned upon release, I will begin work on skinning them once I have all of the other list items knocked off.

Cube Ad Rotation, Wiki’s, Timelines, And Finalizations Oh My!

Bradford — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:04:31 +0000

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

Wordpress Plugins Day Two And A Favicon

Bradford — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:51:33 +0000

I added a Favicon today and made some changes to the way the page titles display. I didn’t intend on it, but the icon ended up looking reminiscent of the Wordpress icon. After realizing this I thought about changing it, but decided that I liked the “inadvertent subliminal”.

It is also plugin installation day number two at The Edge! I have a huge list of Wordpress Plugins that I want to use and have installed several more of them today. I have listed the plugins below. Maybe you’ll find a few plugins that you may find useful on your own blog!

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

The Plugins

Honorable Mentions

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

MyAvatars for MyBlogLog

While many people have used this plugin in the past, is it really needed as Wordpress now supports gravatars by default?

Spam Karma
WP-PostViews Plus
Random Redirect

Neat plugin I read about once on John Chow’s website. I’ll probably implement this at some point in the future.

DoFollow
WP FollowMe
RSS Feed Footer

Not currently working with Wordpress 2.5.1

IMM Plugins
phpBB3 RSS Feed

(to plug into Wordpress)

Kontera
MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad
TTZ Media Product Showcase
Deal Dot Com
Got Banners Rotator
WP Bankroll
WP TextAds
OIOPublisher

I setup the feedburner RSS feeds, did some minor tweaking, and the majority of the plugins I planned on installing are now installed and the blog portion of the website is nearly 100% finalized.

The First Batch Of Wordpress Plugins

Bradford — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:10:04 +0000

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

Honorable Mentions

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

Scripts / Software For The Edge

Bradford — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:25:49 +0000

In building The Webmaster’s Edge, I have chosen several scripts that will help me build the site. I have setup Wordpress for the Blog, WSNLinks for the Ad Network Directory, and phpBB3 for the forums. I plan to set up two copies of MediaWiki for the Server Admin/Hosting Help and the Web Design Help sections. I have not set this up yet though due to some integration issues with WSNLinks and phpBB3.

I need to upgrade php4 to php5 (necessary) as well as MySQL4 to MySQL5 (might as well) in order to install MediaWiki, however if I do that I need to upgrade the copy of phpBB2 on another one of my sites to phpBB3. This normally wouldn’t be an issue, however the copy of WSNLinks on that site is setup for user integration with phpBB2. phpBB3 drastically changed the password hashing mechanism and this is causing some headaches in upgrading. Once I have that sorted out, I should be able to get the Wiki’s started, properly themed, and finish the site for a “final release”.

I hope to have the site “live” and begin promotion in May. This shouldn’t be an issue as long as there aren’t too many hiccups. I’m very excited to get this off the ground.