blog software

Where Did Pretty Link Cloaking and the Pretty Bar Go?

by Blair Williams · Sep 24, 2010

This morning Pretty Link disappeared from the WordPress.org plugin repository because it didn't comply with a new, apparently undocumented policy that doesn't allow plugins to cloak links. Pretty Link wasn't the only plugin affected by this policy change, wordpress.org removed all plugins from the repository that allowed users to cloak links.

I've been working with the guys at wordpress.org this morning to get Pretty Link back on the repository. The only way to do this was to remove link cloaking, pretty bar and pixel tracking from the Pretty Link Lite versions 1.4.51 and beyond.

How will this change affect me?

Here are the facts you need to know about this significant change: [Read more…] about Where Did Pretty Link Cloaking and the Pretty Bar Go?

Why you Should use Self-Hosted WordPress for your Blog

by Blair Williams · Jul 19, 2010

There was a great writeup on WebProNews about a blogging service (Blogetery) housing 70,000 blogs was shut down today by an unnamed government agency. Apparently it was due to some user generated content on Blogetery's servers.

Seriously — if your blog is at the center of your business, don't trust it to a free (or ultra-cheap) hosting service… Get some decent hosting and use self-hosted WordPress — it will give you more control and peace of mind.

WordPress.TV: Pimp Your WordPress Plugin

by Blair Williams · May 21, 2010

WordPress.TV just posted my presentation from OCWordCamp, “Pimp Your WordPress Plugin” … FYI — it's actually quite a bit more technical than it sounds — but if you want to learn some of my techniques for developing & maintaining larger-scale plugins, this is the one for you:

Here are the slides for this presentation: Pimp Your WordPress Plugin

Anyone Can Use WordPress Hooks

by Blair Williams · May 18, 2010

Hooks are one of the greatest features of WordPress — yet they are unseen by most WordPress users.

Okay, I'll admit, hooks are only available in the code — but I believe they're simple enough to be used by anyone technical enough to use a text editor and FTP.

WordPress has a really good Intro to Hooks and there are a couple of WordPress Hook databases out on the web too … but these might be a bit technical and overwhelming for many users wanting to customize their blogs.

This is my basic overview of what hooks are for and how they can make your life easier as a WordPress user. [Read more…] about Anyone Can Use WordPress Hooks

WordCamp 2010 Orange County Style

by Blair Williams · Apr 7, 2010

I'm excited to announce that I'll be speaking at WordCamp in Orange County, California on April 24th! The organizer of this event — Brandon Dove (of Pixel Jar, Think Press and @brandondove fame) and I met & became friends at Blog World / WordCamp Las Vegas last October.

Brandon has asked me to cover two topics related to building WordPress plugins — here they are with a link to the blog posts I did over on OC WordCamp's blog for each of them:

Pimp Your WordPress Plugin — this presentation's going to show people how to create their own Platform Modifying Plugin (PMP or Pimp) using a Model View Controller (MVC) approach … you can expect that I'll be sharing some tips & tricks of plugin development in addition to the MVC stuff as well 🙂 .
How to Create a Premium WordPress Plugin — In this presentation, I'll be covering some material that I have seen nowhere else — trust me, as I've been building premium wordpress plugins I've had to figure this all out from scratch … This presentation will cover a lot of strategy, higher level architecture but will also get into the nuts and bolts of how to do this technically.

You might now be asking yourself:

Uh … is this just one of those technical conferences? … No, it is going to be much more than that.

My topics are fairly technical but OC Wordcamp is going to have something for writers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, developers, graphic designers and marketers alike. If you'll be in or around Orange County that weekend then I hope you'll attend — it's going to be awesome!

Optimize your Blog with these 4 Powerful Tools

by Blair Williams · Mar 29, 2010

If you haven't heard yet Matt Cutts (Google's SEO Spokesman) announced last month that performance (measured by page load speed) is a big indicator in SEO now. I've taken that indication seriously and have been searching out some ways to optimize the performance of my blog and think you should too.

When assessing your blog, there are really 3 separate factors that play into it's performance:

Number and Complexity Database Calls pages on your site are making: This performance issue is caused by code running on your blog that is reading and / or writing to the database. The only way it can be fixed is to identify code that is making too many database calls and eliminate it or get the author of the code to optimize it. Take it from me — database queries can be tricky and small changes to them can either make them run quickly or grind your server to a screeching halt. If a software vendor releases something without optimizing queries (which, sadly, I have been guilty of in the past as well) then they could be responsible for slow performance on your site. To optimize your site you absolutely *need* some kind of tool that will show you what calls are taking the longest and where they are located.
Script Execution Time: There are many different factors that can influence this one. Poorly coded software in your website, your server's hardware or just your web server software settings.
Memory Management: This is possibly the most elusive problem of the three. This one could be caused by how much software is loaded by your website on page loads, poor software implementation or just software that is just crunching a lot of data.

Tweet Your Blog Posts … Automatically

by Blair Williams · Mar 23, 2010

Shrinking your blog posts' permalinks (on existing or newly created blog posts) and then sending a tweet out for them can be a hassle — especially if you have multiple twitter accounts. Luckily, you can automate this process and auto tweet your blog posts right from your wordpress website using Pretty Link Pro. Hopefully this article will show you how this can save you time and the simple steps you'll need to go through to get this auto tweet feature working for you.
[Read more…] about Tweet Your Blog Posts … Automatically