Software

How To Run WordPress Locally With Vagrant

by Blair Williams · Apr 12, 2012

I've always been somewhat disappointed with the available options for running WordPress locally (not to mention the lack of functionality making every WordPress site slow). Generally, there are pros and cons to each method (MAMP, WAMP, XAMPP, native, self-compiled, Fink, Homebrew, etc) … but they've taken too long to setup, don't allow for enough configuration options (or in most cases allow me to run multiple WordPress websites at the same time) and leave unused config files and data deep inside my computer when I decide to uninstall. Vagrant is a new way of approaching this setup and seems to solve all of the issues I've had in the past when trying to get a local environment up for WordPress.

Vagrant makes it easy to run a full virtual linux (or Unix) server on your local machine … kind of like you'd run windows on a mac using VMWare (only with much less RAM & CPU being drained on your local machine).

Vagrant isn't always used to run WordPress locally (obviously, it has many…many other uses) but I've found that one of the main ways I use Vagrant now is for running a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP) server locally … which I then run WordPress on.

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Announcing the Pretty Link API

by Blair Williams · May 14, 2009

The Pretty Link Plugin for WordPress now has an API (as of version 1.3.28) that Developers can connect with to shorten links using a user's WordPress website.

Are you a WordPress plugin developer? Or are you developing a killer app for Twitter, Facebook or other Social media? It is now possible to give your users the ability to create short links with their own domain name (in addition to offering them with the options of Bit.ly, TinyURL, etc).

There are 2 ways that the Pretty Link API can be accessed:

As a Local WordPress API — there are a set of Pretty Link functions that have been defined and are usable by mock api, WordPress plugin developers.
As a Remote XML-RPC API — there are a set of XML-RPC based functions that can be used by any other application that is Internet enabled. It doesn't matter what language your App is written in, if it is Internet-based or a client app running on the desktop — you can now offer your users the ability to create short links on their own domains.

For more details about the Pretty Link API, please visit the Pretty Link API page here:

https://blairwilliams.com/pretty-link/api/

New Pretty Link Features Added

by Blair Williams · Apr 16, 2009

Well, since the launch of my first public WordPress Plugin, Pretty Link a couple of weeks ago I've had an overwhelming and positive response. I've added several new features that the community has requested in my latest release. I really think that these changes are making Pretty Link the ultimate link shrinking / redirection / tracking method available (I'm using it in my own marketing efforts and love it). Here's a breakdown of what's new in the last few releases (up to the 1.2.5 release) of Pretty Link:

User Interface Enhancements — I just added some nice javascript enhancements to make things easier. I had a few people tell me that they couldn't see the calendar dropdown on the stats page (sometimes flash likes to stay above javascript pop overs) — this has now been fixed. I'll probably be making more of these types of enhancements in coming weeks.
A shot of some of the new enhancements
Simple Link Sharing — Post your links to Twitter or share them via Email … these can be done from the new quick actions link list under each slug name on the main Pretty Link page:
A shot of the new actions bar for each slug
Awesome Click Tracking — You can now see information about each individual click on your site including: Operating System, Browser, Browser Version, Referring URL, IP Address, and even the remote host name.
A shot of the new click tracking details

What do you think?

I seriously want to make this plugin great and I have several ideas for features that I'd like to add soon. Here are some of the possible features I could add to Pretty Link in the near future:

Goal Tracking — say you have users going to a sign up page for your eNewsletter and you want to be able to see how effective it is. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do that easily in Pretty Link?
Pretty Links Widget — I'm thinking that you could put a sidebar widget on your blog that would show all, a selected group or a randomized group of your pretty links. This could be great for Affiliate marketers who promote several different products.
Download Click / Goal Data — I'm pretty sure this one will happen soon, I want to be able to download click data and stats to Excel so that I can analyze it more carefully.
Link Names and Notes — In an effort to keep the interface simple I haven't added a field for a name and description on the edit / new page of Pretty Link. I'm thinking that this may be important for the Widget feature and to generally keep track of links as users have increasing numbers of pretty links (especially if they're using the randomly generated slugs).
Link Filtering & Searching — This would allow users who have large lists of Pretty Links to manage them a little easier — they'd be able to search or filter them.
Optional iFrame Redirection — Okay, now I know that Digg and several other sites that redirect but keep users in their own iframe have been taking a lot of heat lately — but this may make sense for some of us — on some links. I'm thinking this would be a simple bar at the top of the site the user is redirected to that would have your Blog name & subhead and a way to close it. Of course, this would be an advanced option on each Pretty Link and not turned on by default.
Enhanced Reporting — Of course if goal tracking is added, there would have to be goal tracking (with calculated conversion rates) added to the stats page but I'm thinking about adding some other charts including a pie chart of Operating Systems and Browsers. If you have any other stats you'd like to see added to this plugin, please let me know.
Pretty Link Groups — I'm not sure how helpful this would be — or if it would just be confusing but for some users it may be very helpful to be able to group pretty links.
Click Geo Location — I'd love to do this one right now, unfortunately I haven't found a really good way to do it technically in a 100% open source application. If anyone out there knows of a good solution, let me know.

I'd like to thank all of you who have gone out and given me a good rating on Pretty Link's WordPress Plugin Page and have helped to promote this plugin — that kind of response is really fun to see. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions or ideas on how I can make this plugin better … THANKS!

Turn your iPod into a Skype Phone

by Blair Williams · Apr 4, 2009

Recently, Skype launched an app for the iPhone for its free Voice over IP service. I downloaded it and installed it on my iPhone the other day and liked it quite a bit. My brother lives in a different city — since we're both on the computer 24×7 and we work together we use Skype everyday. My brother has an iPod Touch and so of course he installed Skype and we tried it out — he could hear me but we couldn't hold a conversation because his iPod Touch has no mic. Well, I did a little research and as it turns out, the same microphone accessories that work with the iPhone also work with the iPod Touch. Here are a couple of places you can go to learn about them:

This is a MacWorld article from a year ago that reviews different third party microphone adapters:
https://blairwilliams.com/y1x

This is a link to the Griffen Mic Adapter which was the #1 mic adapter MacWorld reviewed — I'm probably going to get this one, it's only $19.99:
https://blairwilliams.com/8v2

The Apple iPhone headphones will also work with the iPod Touch 2G — This one should definitely work but costs $29.99:
https://blairwilliams.com/kzm

With this small cost (assuming you already have an iPod Touch), you can have yourself a skype phone that you can use anywhere you can get wireless Internet. Well, even though I don't have an iPod Touch, I'm planning on taking advantage of Skype to help me keep my minutes down. I've got my Google Voice account and I'll be using it to route calls to skype first and then my phone — since I'm around a Wi-Fi connection 90% of the time, this should help me at least conserve minutes. For your business you can use the voip phone systems melbourne.

Don’t Use TinyURL – Create and Track Links from your WordPress Website

by Blair Williams · Mar 29, 2009

A few weeks ago I started getting frustrated because I had to go into my apache config file every time I wanted to add a redirect link. I stopped using BudURL and TinyURL some time ago because my users have started to realize that they're being tracked whenever they see a link from one of these services. I've talked with several other Affiliate marketers and they've been saying the same thing, “don't put a tinyurl on your site.” Affiliates are always concerned with masking their URLs and with tracking so these link shrinking services seemed perfect for them… well, now users have caught on.

Last week, I started working on my own replacement for TinyURL, a WordPress plugin named “Pretty Link.” The thing that's great about this plugin is that I can now generate ultra small urls that redirect wherever I want and hang off of my domain name! I'm also able to track clicks on these URLs and in future releases of this plugin more stats than just clicks in future upgrades.

I just released this plugin tonight and can be downloaded from the WordPress plugin directory here:

https://blairwilliams.com/download