Archive for the ‘plugins’ Category

Recommended WordPress Plugin: Facebook Like Button Plugin

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Recently I installed a Facebook Like button to a client website. I first tried the method of installing the plugin manually, per Facebook instructions. I decided, however, for quick turning on and off of the button, to opt for a plugin instead of  editing the theme files (which is harder to un-do later). (more…)

New work, plus thoughts on WordPress themes

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Since WordPress has been the bulk of our work lately, the three newest additions to our portfolio are WordPress. All three were built on existing themes, which gave me even more of a solid opinion about which themes I enjoy working with, and which are less enjoyable. (more…)

WP-Hive: a painless WordPress multi-site manager

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Upgrading and maintaining a WordPress installation has recently become a lot less time-consuming thanks to the automatic upgrade feature for both the main WordPress installation and the plugins. It is ideal, though, if you’re managing multiple installations for multiple clients, that these clients are running off of one installation of WordPress. This makes upgrades and maintenance a lot less painful. (more…)

Adding a Forum to WordPress

Friday, April 17th, 2009

The default comment feature on WordPress is good for generating discussion on topics that you start, but what if your visitors want to create their own topics? A forum is the best format for this type of discussion. I have worked with two different forum softwares for WordPress. One is a project of the WordPress folks (Automattic) called bbPress. And the other is a plugin for WordPress called Simple:Press. (more…)

Amazon S3 for hosting site downloads

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Girlebooks.com was one of the first sites I set up in WordPress. The site is not only a hobby for me but also a great playground to see what I can do with WordPress. It also is a great site to point prospective clients to when they want to see examples of what we’ve done with WordPress.

The site’s main focus is hosting free ebooks. Since we have our own hosting space for our web development work, I have been using the extra space on that account for Girlebooks. Lately, due the the increasing popularity of the site, Girlebooks has been hogging all of our extra bandwidth and disc space so that we have none left for hosting new clients or upgrading existing accounts. It was either buy more space on our hosting account or seek out an alternative for Girlebooks’ growing needs. (more…)

From Our Portfolio: Global Insights Consulting

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

GIC already had a fully functional website and design. What they wanted was an ecommerce area that would allow them to sell digital products. We set up an online marketplace for GIC’s WordPress-powered website. In the Marketplace visitors can add digital products to their cart, purchase their products (payments are made through PayPal Standard), and download their product immediately upon successful payment. In addition to the public marketplace, we created a consultant-only marketplace that is accessible to certified consultants only. (more…)

A Subscription Website Using WordPress

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Note 2010/06/09: Since I wrote this post, our client has sold her site to Morningstar, which has replaced the subscription area we developed with their own, Windows-based subscription service.

Our latest work involves development of a subscription system using WordPress on the popular financial blog, Footnoted.org. The requirements of the system were as follows:

  1. A subscriber registration and payment processing interface
  2. System tracking of subscription expiration dates
  3. Download management allowing the administrator to easily upload files as well as restricting file downloads to paying subscribers only
  4. An email notification sent to paying subscribers when a new publication is available

(more…)

WordPress Plugin: Ad-minister

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Note 2010/06/09: I’ve noticed lately that the developer of this (still excellent) plugin has not kept up with WordPress compatibility. The main issue seems to be that you cannot add more than one ad widget to your sidebar. This has been remedied with another plugin by Finding Simple. Just install it, activate, and you’re set to go!

Recently, a client asked if I could create some ad spaces on his WordPress blog that he could administer himself. The requirements:

  1. ad spaces of differing sizes
  2. ad spaces in multiple locations on the site
  3. a simple administration interface with the ability to input ads with HTML code or to upload an image with a link

(more…)