After a shocking discovery that my site’s feed was still live, I resolved to put an end to it by installing the “Disabler“. I decided to go with a plugin because I experienced some difficulty modifying the Atahualpa’s functions.php file. I hope Restricted Site Access will consider putting in an option for restricting access, if not, disabling feeds, since I think it would be an appropriate function.
I also implemented Print Friendly and PDF, to make it easier to print out posts and pages. It’s quite handy when I want to print out a wishlist or recipe, and I’ve been looking for an easy way to add a print button to my WordPress sites.
There is a growing number of hits on the sites that I manage by mobile handsets. I am considering “mobile-izing” my sites to become more accessible to the huge market of smartphone users. I have two options to modify existing WordPress sites: via theme and via plugin. Of course, creating a mobile theme for each site will be time-consuming, while using a plugin means certain restrictions on format and creativity. I plan on researching this more, but for now, I need to experience the various browser-agents on the 3 hottest smartphone platforms: Blackberry, iPhone and Android.
Strangely, my last Postie attempt posted as a comment and not a regular post. I fiddled with the cron-less options several times to see if this was just an error or something that Postie is reading in the subject line. In any case I will try regular posting to see if it works. Currently Postie is set to retrieve emails every 10 minutes.
It’s been a long time since I went on the search for a plugin that allowed inline post creation. Eventually, my search parameter changed to front page posting, then front-end posting, and thus I arrived at a couple of plugins that promised to do just that!
Currently I am testing Post-From-Site. Once I inserted the php code in sidebar widget, the widget simply brings up a pop-up window that allows me to type in my content, from my site’s front page…without shuttling down the rabbit hole to get to the back end of WordPress. Extremely convenient! One downside to this plugin however is the very simple posting panel that it pops up when you plan to add a post. Which is okay…because once the post is created, you have access to another plugin that allows you to edit the newly created post…all from the comfort and convenience of the front page.
The second plugin is the Front-end Editor, which allows inline–or should I say–edit in place functionality for existing posts. While it doesn’t appear to allow you to create posts on the front end, it has a much more feature-rich post editor than Post-From-Site. It is another amazingly convenient plugin to have, that makes editing your content a breeze! The downside to this editor is that it doesn’t appear to have an option for html coding…I’ll keep reading up on this excellent plugin and hope to learn more about what it’s capable of.
You would think that with the popularity of blogging and social networking, there would be a neat and easy solution to unify the two. There are dozens of social networking sites…but not every one of them will be open to cross-posting and feed sharing. MySpace and Facebook appear to be quite popular but their APIs prove to be proprietary or too hardened to allow open sharing across the web. I suppose for security and privacy’s sake, this is a great thing…but does it have to be so hard to look up the info you want when it’s already shared out anyway? Facebook–one site I’ve been pulling hair over–appears to be the biggest high-profile offender after shutting down their RSS feeds.
I keep wrestling with the idea of shutting down my other profiles on the net and resist the urge to open up new networks. I’m not here to saturate the internet with my inane ramblings…I just want to share and occasionally jot down my thoughts (or rants) when the writer’s bug strikes.
Anyway, welcome to WordPress 2.8…more happy blogging to come!
The latest version of WordPress hit the streets yesterday. I’ve already begun the process of converting my sites over to 2.8. Check out the beta for ChopperJim.com…which is currently running new versions of WP and NextGEN Gallery.