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

Wordpress on LinkedIn and LinkedIn on Wordpress

If you want a wordpress blog to appear on your linkedin page then;

Log into LinkedIn. Along the top menu bar, you will see a menu marked more. Click on this, and you should see the option 'Application Directory'. Open this up and their is an application called wordpress.

Add this, and you can the URL of your blog. Your blog will now appear under your profile.

If you want a LinkedIn Badge on your wordpress blog, then do the following.
Log into LinkedIn and go to Edit Profile. Edit Public Profile Settings. You will need to look for this, as it is not clear, but under Public profile there is a link to promote your profile with  a customised button. Click this and you will have the code you need, which you can then copy paste.

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.

How to downgrade your LinkedIn Account

This really pisses me off when companies make it hard for someone to cancel or downgrade a subscription or membership to a site.

These are the steps I took to downgrade my Linkedin account from a business account to a personal account.

1) Log into Linkedin
2) Click on Help *
3) Type in downgrade
4) This should bring up an article called "Downgrading your premium subscription" and in that article is the option to Cancel your account. Clicking on this will send an email request to customer services to cancel your account**

*When googling this, I noticed some people provide a direct link - this link has seemed to have changed  hence why I have included the steps.
**The first option is to change subscription type, you need to scroll down for the cancel option.

There is no reason why they can't have an option under settings or an option under account types. Notice how easy they make it for you to sign up. This is really shit business practice and people should not put up with it, especially considering the premium service offers no real benefits.

How to download youtube videos

I have been searching the web looking for a youtube for audio (not really much joy yet any recomendations ?) and the search results have been littered with

Convert Youtube to MP3
Download youtube videos for free
Simple App for Saving youtube

etc, etc

Which reminds of a very simple way to download youtube videos which I thought I would post up here to save you having to hand over email address to the spam masters , installing adware or handing over credit card details.

You need to be using safari to do this.

Open Up Safari
Go to youtube and find the video you want to download
Press Command - Option A (or open the activity window from the window menu)
In the activity window scroll down to what will be the largest file and double click to download it.

To play it in quicktime or to convert it, use something like http://perian.org/

Quick Webpage thumbnail

I wanted a quick thumbnail of a couple of my other blogs pages. I did a search on the web and came across several options for acheving the result, but they all seemed to involve paying or inserting something or other into your webpage. So I thought about just using the coverflow history feature in safari and taking a screenshot, the result is as above.