Plugin for Wordpress - A Better Tag Cloud

I've just come across a plug in for wordpress called "A Better Tag Cloud" and it does exactly what it says on the side of the tin. It offers you a fair bit of customization on the Tag cloud front. I've updated my my Smokeback and The Dead Adventurers Club sites with it, so you can see it in action.

I also have this post here, which includes a few more useful wordpress plugins that I use

PlugIn for 301 Redirections for WordPress

As mentioned previously in this blog, where I moved my smokeback.com site from blogger to wordpress, I had a ton of crap left over .  This plugin was exactly what I needed back then, it allows you to redirect wrong URL's . I would say this is a must have for anyone moving form blogger to wordpress on the same domain.

Plugin website

PlugIn for Posting Code on a WordPress Blog

Firstly a rant. 


IF YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY AS A PROGRAMMER THEN;


Make sure you keep all your historic projects in check. Whether that be, making it clearly marked that it is abandoned, removing all instances of it from the web, or updating documentation/websites and pointing past users to newer versions. 


rant over. 


I have been helping out on setting up this wordpress blog for a Leeds based IT contractor who is posting up code samples amongst other things.  It has been a real pain finding a plugin that works (see above rant) and in the end, the blog is using Syntax Highlighter Evolved. I honestly couldn't tell you whether it was the best, because I gave up going through them, when I found the first one that worked. 

Handy Widget For Blogger - Related Posts

Not quite perfect, but just discovered LinkWithin , a 'widget' for blogger, which show  related posts at the bottom.  On my wordpress sites I use Effective Related posts, which is pretty accurate in terms of its selections, which is where Linkwithin looses some points.

Still, I do find that people do tend to click on related posts and have been looking for something like this for blogger for a while.

WordPress PlugIns that I actually use

The following is a list of plugins that I use on either my drawing , writing blogs, or blogs I have set up for other people.

updated  05/04/2010

Efficient Related Posts
This inserts at the end of your post, links to other posts on your site that are similar in content to the current one. Its not to bad at all, I would like a bit more customisation options but, out of all the ones I have tried, this seems to be the best.

Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin generates a XML sitemap and submits it to search engines. It has a wide range of options and does exactly what it says on the side of the tin. Handy to use in conjunction with google webmaster tools.

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

I only have this activated on my drawing site at the moment as that has been hit a few times by spam comment attacks. Again, It does what it says on the side of the tin, I have not had any spam comments since.

Redirection

This allows you to set up 301 redirects on your site with ease, most recommended if you are planning to move from blogger to wordpress on the same domain.

Syntax Highlighter

Allows you to post code snippets within your blog. Handles a wide arrange of programming languages and seems to work well.

Easy Contact

Allows you, very easily to set up a contact form on either a page or post on a wordpress blog. A good few options of customisation

A Better Tag Cloud

Does exactly what it says. Offers a better tag cloud than the default one installed and offers a wide range of options.

Best thing about all of the above, is they will cost you nowt.

Wordpress blog not appearing in Google

I started the Dead Adventurers Club back at the end of September 2009 and I have been wondering why it has not yet been showing up in google.

I did read somewhere, that google ignores blogs with less than ten posts. I do not know if this is true or not. However, Looking into ways to boost my site presence, I came across a wordpress plug in called Google(XML) Sitemap generator , when I was installing this on my blog I came across the following setting on wordpress that I have never noticed before.



Guess what setting it was on...