What plugins I used in my Wordpress Projects and Why I used them?

A plugin is a piece of software that acts as an add-on to a web browser and gives the browser additional functionality. Plugins can allow a web browser to display additional content it was not originally designed to display.

In Wordpress, plugins can extend WordPress powered websites to do almost anything you can imagine. In the WP directory you can find, download, rate, and comment on all the best plugins the WordPress community has to offer.

The key to effective use of plugins is to deploy them only from properly vetted sources, and only when necessary. Plugins should solve a specific problem or provide an essential function. They should not indulge our vanity or our desire for a “shiny new object”.

In this post, I listed the different plugins that I normally used in my wordpress projects.  You may suggest a plugin that you may think useful, I am open for it. Just let me know.

1. Advanced Excerpt
-Keeps HTML markup in the excerpt (and you get to choose which tags are included)
-Trims the excerpt to a given length using either character count or word count

2. BackupBuddy
-Database or Full Backups
-Send your backups (individually or on a schedule) to offsite storage destinations like Amazon S3, Dropbox, Rackspace Cloud, FTP or email.

3. Better WP Security
-New name is iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security)
-Changes the URLs for WordPress dashboard areas including login, admin and more

4.Contact Form 7
-Manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup.

5. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
-This plugin creates a sitemap for your WordPress powered site.
-This is not just another XML sitemap plugin, but rather a true sitemap generator which is highly customizable from its own options page in the WordPress admin panel.

6. Enable Media Replace
-This plugin allows you to replace a file in your media library by uploading a new file in its place.
-No more deleting, renaming and re-uploading files!

7. Google Analytics for WordPress
-This plugin uses the asynchronous Google Analytics tracking code, the fastest and most reliable tracking code Google Analytics offers.
-Automatic Google Analytics site speed tracking.

8. Jetpack by WordPress.com
-Supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.

9. Maintenance Mode
-Adds a splash page to your site that lets visitors know your site is down for maintenance.
-Full access to the back- & front-end is optional.

10. Obfuscate E-mail
-Deter e-mail harvesting spammers, while retaining the appearance and functionality of hyperlinks.
-"Obfuscation" simply means that techniques are employed to modify e-mail address strings that appear on your site in such a way that bots scraping your site are unable to identify those addresses.

11. PHPEnkoder
-Encodes mailto: links and e-mail addresses with JavaScript to stifle webcrawlers.
-It is used to display text in a way that users can see and bots can't.

12. Really Simple CAPTCHA
-Really Simple CAPTCHA does not work alone and is intended to work with other plugins.
-It is originally created for Contact Form 7, however, you can use it with your own plugin.

13. ShareThis
-Features Social Analytics, CopyNShare, Open Graph Sharing, and the Hovering Bar!
-Use small or large buttons, add counters or use one of the Sharing Bars

14. Simply Exclude
-Provides an interface to selectively exclude/include Post Types, Taxonomies and Authors 4 actions used by WordPress.

15. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
-Allows commenters to sign up for e-mail notifications of subsequent replies.

16. TinyMCE Advanced
-This will let you add, remove and arrange the buttons that are shown on the Visual Editor toolbar.
-Enables the advanced features of TinyMCE, the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.

17. W3 Total Cache
-The only WordPress Performance Optimization (WPO) framework; designed to improve user experience and page speed.
-Improves the user experience of your site by increasing server performance, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.

18. Wordfence Security
- is a free enterprise class security plugin that includes a firewall, anti-virus scanning, cellphone sign-in (two factor authentication), malicious URL scanning and live traffic including crawlers.

19.WordPress SEO
-Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.

20.WP-Optimize
-This simple but effective plugin allows you to clean up your WordPress database and optimize it without phpMyAdmin.

21. WP-Testimonials
-The plugin includes the option to display a random testimonial in your sidebar using PHP code or the built-in widget.

22. WP Mail SMTP
-Reconfigures the wp_mail() function to use SMTP instead of mail() and creates an options page to manage the settings.  

How to create a list in AWeber?

Today, I received few emails asking me how to setup a list in AWeber. They found tutorials over the net but most of them are quiet obsolete already. So I decided to create a tutorial and hopefully I can help some of my fellow web developer / marketers.

What is AWeber?

AWeber is an email marketing software that gives you the ability to create newsletters and sign up forms and manage your subscribers – quickly and easily.

How to create a list in aweber:

1. Login using your username and password.

2. Click on "My Lists" and click "Create a List"

3. Enter a List Name
Let's set up your new list! First, name your new list (so you can tell it apart from any other lists you create later). Then Click on Save Settings.

4. Brand Your Campaign: Describe Your List
You can brand your email campaigns with your company name and other information. To start, describe what this list is all about. Example: Website Development

5. Set Up Your Confirm Email: Subject Line
When subscribers join your list, they'll get an email asking them to activate their subscription. For best results, customize the subject line of this email so your subscribers will recognize it.

6. Create a Web Form
To get subscribers, create a web form (or "signup form") that you can put on your website. You can choose a template then add a headline to let your visitor know about your email and what they will receive once they will sign up.

7. Put The Form On Your Website
Now that you've created your signup form, copy and paste it onto your website using the "Publish" option, then test your form. This step will be marked complete within 24 hours of your first form subscription.

Learning Joint Ventures (JV)

Hi everybody, its quiet awhile that I haven't posted something new here in my blog. Well, today I am going to share to you the new things that I learned online, it is called - JV Affiliates. At first, this is quiet strange for me but when one of my clients told me to create a website like this then I have no choice but to study this stuff and would learn about it. And, it's so cool, I mean this tool or idea or thing is great. JV or Joint Ventures could mean few things. Let's watch a short video to understand what is JV mean?

Here is the JV site that I am making as of this moment. It is still not finished yet. Link: http://www.jvpage.smsmobilesolution.com
Secondly, I am also learning how to create Webinars. Here is a short video on what is a Webinar. 

Currently, I am also working with automated Webinars.

Things are getting better for me as the new year comes. Thanks!

What is Amazon S3?

Amazon S3 is the acronym for Amazon Simple Storage Service.

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Here is a short video that will help us understand on how Amazon S3 works:

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

Online Great Stuffs!

Here are some of the online softwares that I learned from my online jobs. I had already used some of them though, but I posted here again so I can review some of these great stuffs. 

1. Google Docs
-Create and share your work online and access your documents from anywhere. Manage documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys, and more all in one
-Link: https://docs.google.com

2. WordPress SEO 
-Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.
-Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/screenshots/

3. Google Webmaster Tool
-Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages' visibility on Google.

4. Optimize Press
-OptimizePress is a unique WordPress theme that gives you the ability to create conversion optimized Squeeze Pages, Sales Letters, launch pages & more.
-Link: http://www.optimizepress.com

5. Digital Access Pass
-A WordPress Membership Plugin that allows you to protect and drip content, has a built-in free shopping cart, email autoresponders, and an affiliate.

Paypal and s2Member®

Due to the demands of my new task, I intentionally upgraded my Paypal from Premier Account to a Business Account. I didn't know what to put in the Business Name so I just put it there "Online eShop", that was the first term that pops up into my mind during the upgrade process. 

Oh I am also learning a new WP professional plugin called "s2Member® Framework". After spending a month of studying DAP(Digital Access Pass), my client gave it up, upon realizing that it cannot provide setup for online courses. As of this point of time, I am starting to learn this new plugin called "s2Member® Framework" through rigid tutorials. Deep Sigh! I hope I can make a catch up since we are about to launch our online course website in Israel on this First Quarter of 2013.

Pahabol lang ni akoang blog post kay its quarter to 12AM na before Dec 2. Wew, I can smell the cold breeze of Christmas na. :)

Reading a Time Zone Map

Defining the Skill
A time zone map shows the 24 time zones of the world. The prime meridian runs through Greenwich (GREHN•ich), England. Each zone east of Greenwich is one hour later than the zone before. Each zone west of Greenwich is one hour earlier. The International Date Line runs through the Pacific Ocean. It is the location where each day begins. If it is Saturday to the east of the International Date Line, then it is Sunday to the west of it. 

Applying the Skill
Use the strategies listed below to help you find times and time
differences on a time zone map.

How to Read a Time Zone Map
Strategy 1: Read the title. It tells you what the map is intended to show.
Strategy 2: Read the labels at the top of the map. They show the hours across the world when it is noon in Greenwich. The labels at the bottom show the number of hours earlier or later than the time in Greenwich.
Strategy 3: Locate a place whose time  you know. Locate the place where you want to know the time. Count the number of time zones between them. Then add or subtract that number of hours.
For example, if it is noon time on the west coast of Africa, you can see that it is 7:00 A.M. on the east coast of the United States. That is a difference of five hours.

Reference: http://petrimoulx.pbworks.com/f/Chapter1skillbuilder.pdf