Favorite Plugins cont. from Page 1

Google XML Sitemaps - This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.

I like this plugin too. It’s one you set up, let it run and forget about it. I registered with google sitemaps, also - but this plugin notifies google, msn and yahoo when you have a new post. The sitemap isn’t for human visitors for web-bots so they know what’s new and what’s important on your site.

Maintenance Mode - Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end.

This is handy-dandy when you know you are going to work on your site, whether it’s a theme redo, or an upgrade, or a full over-haul… this lets your visitors know you’ll be back up, and when.. otherwise, you may get a bazillion emails and comments letting you know your site is “broke”. Not necessary to keep it activated all the time - I just activate it when I know I need to use it.

NoFollow Free - Remove the nofollow tag from your blog’s comments with a lot of options customizable, per user type removal, per comments count removal etc…

Personally, I think all blogs should automatically be no follow free and if you want to be stingy with link-love, you should have to add a plugin to do so. I also think all outside links should automatically open new windows…

Ozh’ Absolute Comments - Reply instantly to comments, either from the email notification, or the usual Comments page, without loading the post first. For WordPress 2.5+

Just like the description says… easy peasy, handy dandy - works great.

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu - Replaces admin menus with a CSS dropdown menu bar. Saves lots of clicks and page loads! For WordPress 2.5+

Ozh baby… steamline my dashboard and make it preeet-tty… love it. Really.

Photo Dropper - Lets you add Creative commons licensed Photos to Your Posts from Flickr. By activating this plugin you agree to be fully responsible for adhering to Creative Commons licenses for all photos you post to your blog.

Oh.. there it is.. flickr again.. Well, first, let me say, on all my sites, I have been unable to get the 1.0.7 version to work. I have had to install version 1.0.5 and it has been fine.. but the one time I upgraded automatically through the plugin page, it broke again - so I had to reinstall the 1.0.5 version. Even with that hassle, I keep it… because I like it.

Post Templates by Category - Use custom single post templates for specified categories.

I don’t know if this plugin is even necessary any more, on my blog or otherwise with the newer versions of wordpress.. but it seems like the last time I deactivated it, I had a break somewhere. So, there it is. At one point in time, I was using this blog sort of like a content manager.. and this plugin was very handy. But, it made getting into the theme files and creating new files, etc more necessary.. so for someone not wanting to do that.. probably wouldn’t want this one.

Recent Love - A List of Recent Comments - Simple list of recent comments.

Just what it says. Works great.

ShareThis - Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites.

It’s simple to use, easy to customize and doesn’t take a lot of space.. plus it’s not real distracting. Also, if you register, it keep track of how many clicks you’ve received. Share me baby..

Show Top Commentators - Encourage more feedback and discussion from readers, by rewarding them every time they post a comment! Readers with the most comments are displayed on your Wordpress blog, with their names (linked to their website if they provided one).

I certainly haven’t received any more comments because of this plugin and probably I should be embarrassed to even use it. But, I do like the few comments (and commenters) I receive and so, I keep it… more link love, hunny…

Simple Tags - Simple Tags : Extended Tagging for WordPress 2.3 and 2.5 ! Autocompletion, Suggested Tags, Tag Cloud Widgets, Related Posts, Mass edit tags !

Wordpress has it’s own tagging system, sure.. but I really like this one.

Stray Random Quotes - Displays random quotes on your blog. Easy to custom and manage.

I don’t use this one on Momma Muse, yet. But I do on another blog and I like it there. It has simple, straight-forward usability.

Subscribe Remind - Give your readers a little remindet to subscribe to your blog’s feed at the end of each post.

Just a gentle nudge to join the feed - or edit it to add the email link in there too. Easy to use.

Subscribe To Comments - Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.

Because sometimes we post so many comments we can’t remember where all we’ve been and we need to stay up with certain threads… this is what you and all those commenters need. Now, don’t forget to comment, and subscribe!

WordPress.com Stats - Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key.

I’ve been using this stats program for a long time and really like it - though, now it has competition with cystats. It does require a wordpress api key, but that’s simple to set up and get. Fun stats - definitely check this one out.

WP Ajax Edit Comments - Allows users and admin to edit their comments inline. Admin and editors can edit all comments.

Nothing like leaving a comment with a half dozen typos and realizing you can’t edit the comment.. egads… that looks real smart. Give your commenters the ability to fix those goofs so they don’t look so dang stoopid.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade - Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions.

With most of my blogs, I’m able to go into my c-panel and just click “upgrade” to get the newest version of wordpress. However, a couple of them, I’ve installed manually, for one reason or another and doing a manual upgrade is always nerve-racking no matter how many times you’ve done, no matter how good you are at it… so, I finally broke down and gave this plugin a try.. talk about a breeze.. the stress is only a few minutes, rather than 30 - because, yes, I still get stressed. I just don’t want to deal with broken blogs. But, this works great!

One more I’ve added to one of my other blogs, but have yet to make use of, is the FD Footnotes - “This plugin provides an extremely easy way to add elegant looking footnotes to your posts.” I guess if I ever use it here, you’ll see it in action.

Do you have a favorite wordpress plugin I didn’t list, like maybe the SEO pack that so many seem to be unable to do without? Or maybe another one?

Don’t use wordpress? That’s ok.. while I am totally partial to wordpress, I realize it isn’t for everyone. What do you use and what are you favorite features for the blogging platform you do use? And… well.. you know… if you want to make the switch.. it isn’t too hard. ;)

See past Favorite Wordpress Plugins Posts

Every so often, I like to share my favorite wordpress plugins. With the outing of wordpress 2.5 (and the 2.6 upgrade) we had lots of new and improved plugins. So I think it’s time to do a new “Favorites” post.  Along with each plugin, I’ve given the basic description, underneath, my own thoughts.

Akismet - Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.”

Akismet is a plugin I install and “let it go”.  If it misses some spam, I see what it’s missing and plug in a few of the keywords into the spam catcher on the settings -> discussions link in the admin and have akismet recheck.  Works pretty good for me and I’ve not yet needed another spam catcher - currently, it’s caught well over 35,000 pieces of spam.. not too shabby.

Breadcrumb NavXT - Adminstration Interface - Adds a breadcrumb navigation showing the visitor’s path to their current location.

I like this one. It adds the little trail at the top of each page, showing how a visitor got to the page their own. I don’t know if others find it useful or not, but I like it on other sites, and actually have used it… so I think it lends to drawing visitors deeper into the blog.

Comment Email Responder - Emails commenter when an admin replies to the comment, if commenter is not subscribed to email updates via Subscribe-to-Comments.

This is a nice plugin… enable the admin to reply to the comment, as well as make sure the reply goes to the commenter.

Commentluv - Plugin to show a link to the last post from the commenters blog in their comment.

This is such a handy plugin. I see it all over and have used it many times to visit others blogs when I’m out blog-hopping

Contact Form 7 - Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

Just as the plugin descriptions says… simple, but flexible. It’s a nice, easy to use contact form. Set it up, let it run.

Cross-linker - A plug-in which allows you to set-up words which are automatically hyperlinked to desired URLs

Ok, I really like this plugin. Now, with wordpress 2.6.1 (and probably a few versions back) you don’t really *need* a plugin like this just to link within your own blog if you use tags (and we all do now, don’t we?), because your tags can link themselves… but what I like about this plugin is the ability to direct a word or phrase to a specific url. I use it to interlink some of my blogs.

CyStat - Statistik-Plugin

When I first started looking at my plugins page, in preparation for writing this favorite wordpress pluging update, I was going to say cystat was one I could do without… as a matter of fact, I almost deactivated it. But I took a look at it in the admin and decided I liked the stats it gives. In the past, it wasn’t one I paid much attention to. I use wordpress stats (see later) and have always liked the easy to read info from it.. but cystats were different, it shows things like what keywords are used for an internal search of my blog - Oh, love that!

Dashboard Editor - Allows you to customise the dashboard.

Not a big deal on this one.. but I like my pages clean and uncluttered. The in-the-box dashboard index has way more info on it than I need or want. And while most of it is at the end of the page.. I still like the ability to get rid of what I don’t want.

FeedBurner FeedSmith - Originally authored by Steve Smith, this plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

When I updated my feeds at feedburner.com, it suggested this plugin to download - this way all the feeds on each site (whether it is the standard site feed, or the one from feedburner) will point to one place, my feedburner feed. Very nice.

Flickr Gallery -Use easy shortcodes to insert Flickr galleries and photos (and videos) in your blog.

I love flickr, you know? I mean, I could have a gallery on my own site. Host my own pictures and all that - my site host, bluehost.com gives me more space than I could ever use, even with all the blogs I’m trying to manage.. but I Love my flickr. I don’t have pictures in interestingness, or get many comments, but I don’t care. So, this plugin gives me a little “gallery” here on the site, it’s easy to view quickly.. but all pics link back to my flickr page.

Flickr Manager - Handles uploading, modifying images on Flickr, and insertion into posts.

And I know I could just upload all my media through the wordpress admin.. but well, I love my flickr… so this makes it easy for me to view pictures while I’m in writing mode and choose which pictures I want to add to a post. It’s just as easy as adding media with wordpress.. but again.. it’s flickr… ok.. on to something else.. enough about my favorite photo sharing place….

Google Blog Search Preview - Displays Google Blog Search Preview in the activity tab of Dashboard. Similar to technorati incoming links.

Take it or leave it. I keep it, because I like a quick view of who’s been writing about something on my site. If I didn’t have it, I’d have something else.. this works great, it’s simple, unobtrusive, right there on the dashboard. I’ll take it.

Favorite Wordpress 2.6 Plugins continued on next post

See past Favorite Wordpress Plugins Posts

See the most recent Favorite Wordpress 2.6 Plugins

MommaMuse.com is happily wordpress powered.. And, I’ll admit, I’m a wordpress plugin addict. So.. it’s been almost 2 years since I totally updated my first favorite wordpress plugins list. Here you go. If I’ve left out one of your favorites, please feel free to comment it.

Akismet - I did not active akismet when I first started using wp… it took me quite some time to activate it actually.. but anyway, here’s what it says today “Akismet has caught 23,705 spam for you since you first installed it.” Woo hoo.. go akismet!

Breadcrumb Navigation XT - You can see this in action on each page - what can I say.. but I like it.

Commentluv - Just installed this recently - works great and I love the concept - basically when a visitor leaves a comment, commentluv looks for the last post they made on their blog, if there is one, it puts it under their comment, if not..no big deal.. have been seeing this on more and more sites… like it, like it.

Contact Form 7 - I like this form, but wish the form itself was a little easier to edit - size, etc.. works, and that’s good for me.. though at some point, I may look for something else.. maybe, maybe not.. whatever.

Dashboard Editor - This, for me, is just to clean up the dashboard. I don’t visit that tab very often, but when I do, I want to see exactly what I want and that’s it. This works just fine!

EmailShroud - Jumbles an email address on the site to make it harder for email harvesters.. works, but I probably don’t have email address on my site so I could probably do without.. but then.. maybe I do and I don’t want to take the chance.

Google Blog Search Preview - On the wp dashboard it shows backlinks in google.. it’s ok..

Google XML Sitemaps - I have this installed and on my google analytics site.. but I don’t pay much attention to it. If it helps alert the bots to what my new posts are great.. I don’t think it hurts anything and when it comes to SEO, I read a sitemap is good… hmmm.. now that I think about it, maybe this is why google visits me so much more than any other search engine? Anyone know?

In Series - I haven’t tried this one yet, though I see it, right down there in my write post tab… hmm.. since this is the second “favorite wordpress plugin” I’ve done, maybe I should give the in-series a try… (maybe I did.. ?)

MyAvatar - You’ll see this plugin in action on comments - see the avatar that links to the commenters mybloglog? There you go.. nifty, huh?

NoFollow Free - Hey.. your link is here, and I appreciate it! I will give all the link luv I can.. removing the nofollow sounds good to me!

Popularity Contest - Just for fun? You’ll see this at the bottom of each post. I like being able to view the stats in the dashboard.

Post Templates by Category - Each of my categories have their own page, post templates.. I use it so I can add category specific info.. like my soap pages all show soap pictures… my recipes show pictures of food, etc. Makes for a lot of files in my theme template, and sometimes I want to give it all up, lol.. but really, I like the post/category specifications.

Simple Tags - I’d been using one tag system - from Jerome.. then he quit updates and passed along to someone else… with the new wp upgrades, it became essential to find a new tag plugin…this one is aweome - I mean, really, I love this one.. improvement.. !!

SRG Clean Archives - I like my archive page.. a very quick and easy way to see what’s been posted and how many comments. This one also requires another template file.. but hey.. are the archives nice and clean? (at least something gets organized around here!)

StatPress - stat program.. sometimes I obsess on the stats..who’s been here.. how many.. etc, etc.. sometimes I ignore it..

Subscribe To Comments - Simple, works fine, as far as I know… :)

WordPress.com Stats - another stat program.. again.. sometimes I pay attention, sometimes I don’t. Has good info though.

WordPress Database Backup - Quick way to back things up. Like it.. use it.. keeper.

WP-Bookwormr - I love bookwormr.. though I’m starting to suspect it’s development is at a standstill. Anyway, it shows what books I am currently reading.. like that. :)

WP-EMail - I like knowing that people can send a post to themselves or their friends.. I often look for this option when I find a good post/recipe/idea… I did take this off most of my pages and reserved it for the recipes and soap info pages.. just trying to declutter some… Oh and it also shows up in the dashboard to show when and who is emailing.. very nice.

WP-Flickr - Just installed this one.. give me some time to try it out. Although, I am able to post from my flickr site.. I just can’t add tags… so I have to come here to edit, so I hope it works! It installed easily enough, and I am able to click the wp-flickr tab in the write post and all my pics show up.. so it looks like it’s on the path to goodness.

WP-PostViews - Not a necessary plugin by any means, and really doesn’t tell much - because it accumulates, new posts will probably always have a smaller view count than some of my other older, popular posts.

WP-Print - This one is up there with the wp-email.. though I can’t see how many print pages.. it does clean up the print page and lists links at the bottom of the post. It’s nice. I also restricted this to recipes and soap info.. seems like those are the most likely pages to be printed.

~:~:~

I wanted to install Comment Relish, and tried, and tried.. and … well… it just wouldn’t work. It broke my mail sending capabilities, which I guess isn’t uncommon, since I found posts about it when I googled it. However, I really, really wanted this one to work - what it does is sends a reply to first time commenters… you can tell them thanks for the comment and encourage them to subscribe to your feed… just really a great idea… so sad it didn’t work.

After 2 years of problems with my Toshiba Laptop, I’ve finally gotten a new one - and yes, a different brand. A Dell Inspiron 1521, in green. I’m a happy momma.

I also started working outside the house this past winter (the Emporium), as well as developed an illness (Crohn’s Disease - but that’s another post). So, the past several months have been slim for me regarding computer time (as you can tell). However, I’m back! Still working, but a little more manageable, medication has started getting crohn’s under control and a new laptop makes me ready to go.

Spent some time manually upgrading my WordPress to the newest release and I even got my sidebar “widget” ready. Though I’m not using widgets, I did find a few new Plugins to use. I’ve updated my Favorite WordPress Plugins post.