There are so may things to talk about that I just don’t have time right now to go through them all. From the revamped admin menu to the simplified post screen it’s just so much cleaner. The ability to add media such as video and audio is also a great addition. I just love this!

All my plulgins seem to be working fine, however there are some other plugins with issues. The plugin compatibility list can be seen over at wordpress.org.

So much new to play with, to bad I don’t have the time to sit an play all day.  My one tip though, after upgrading, clear your browsers cache.  That’ll help avoid any odd issues like the ‘add link’ window not opening.

We are back up and running now but not out of the woods. I sincerely apologize to anyone who feels that I spammed them.  I didn’t.  I don’t really know what happened but I HOPE it’s all better now.

If we go down again, that’s probably why. I’m working to fix any issues I can and as soon as I can. However, without knowing how they did it, I can’t for sure say that I fix it.

Thanks

The upgrade was painless and all my Ultimate Tag Warrior tags imported beautifully.  Thanks to LifeSpy for the run down on how-to get them converted.

I had to upgrade 3 or 4 plugins too but nothing major.

Everything looks like it went smoothly.  Sweet!

As an example, if you log into your Google account in Safari, Shiira is also logged in. And it doesn’t stop there. GCal, CSSEdit and Journler all use webkit too so you are automatically logged into your Google account.

This isn’t just a Google thing either. Works with Yahoo mail, Wordpress blogs and any site that has a checkbox for “remember me.”

In my mind Apple’s Webkit should be more like Mozilla’s Gecko where each application stands alone. Just because you are logged into an account in Firefox, doesn’t mean you area also logged in in Camino or Flock.

I’m sure there is a programming reason, but I don’t know if it’s something Webkit has to fix or if it’s a feature programmers need to be adding in. Either way, I feel as each application should stand on it’s own unless I opt into integration. It just bugs me that I can’t use GCal, Safari and Shirra with separate accounts at the same time.

The initial release is extremely basic. Just install it and enable it. That’s all. It hooks into Worpress via the wp_meta function and will place the button after that information. Usually that’s in the sidebar where it says Meta. If you don’t have that function in your theme, which isn’t completely out of the ordinary, you can manually add some code in. Just see the install page.

So what’s next for the Made on a Mac plugin? Well, I was thinking of adding in some more graphics. Letting you, yes you, design some buttons and send them in. Then future users could choose from a number of different looks.

Other button ideas, besides just more Apple buttons, could include: Designed For Firefox, Built with skEdit or CSS by CSSEdit.

Ok, I’ll admit, I was just going to add some icons to my sidebar to promote the great software I was using for my site. Then I decided to make it into a plugin to share. There is only one button now, but, if others are interested, I can add more in too. Just let me know if you like the idea and I’ll get a form up to let you submit your buttons.

For now, you can download your very own Made on a Mac Wordpress plugin and start showing even more Apple love on your Wordpress blog.

* Ok, it’s not the greatest plugin ever. That would probably be Akismet in my opinion.

Mint
This has to be one of the best stats programs out there. For $30 you get the code and install it on your own server. It’s no harder than installing Wordpress which means it’s quite easy. It comes with the basic functionality and you get to choose what elements you’d like to install to customize your own stats look and feel. It’s kind of like Firefox and having the ability to add extensions/functionality as you wish. Very easy to use and you have all your stats information at your fingertips, on your own site.

Google Analytics
A must install for any website. Sure, it may give you more data that you know what your looking at, but you should at least have it for the future. Google Analytics is 100% free and very in-depth. It’s great for those who want details and like digging into every aspect. I do like this information, but feel it’s a bit much to look at on a daily basis.

Clicky (aka Performancing Stats)
I liked the interface and it seemed to work quite well. However, it is a work in progress and is getting better all the time. They recently added the ability to report on blocks of time (like the past month) so it’s starting to rank higher in my book. It’ll be interesting to see where this one goes. The free version maxes out at 1000 visitors a day though so it doesn’t work for this site without paying.

FeedBurner StandardStats
I like FeedBurner’s StandardStats too. Simple and easy to use. All the basics are there; incoming traffic, outgoing traffic, pages and visitors. Another nice, and free, basic stats program. However, now that Google purchased it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stats all rolled into Google Analytics.

103Bees
I’m not sure if it’s the bland interface or the odd usability but I’m not overjoyed about this one. It seems like it should be nice but I just can’t myself to use it.

Wordpress.com Stats (blog only)
I’m getting mixed signals with this one. With one site, it worked for a few days, then didn’t work for many more afterwards . I about gave up when it started working again. With other sites, it just works. Overall, it is a nice and simple interface that anyone can adapt to. Plus it’s free. It’s not that indepth, but is great for those that just want a quick overview of the past day or two.

Webalizer/AWStats
Ok, I’m really just putting this on the list so that people know that they are not the best stats programs. They usually come installed by default on most web servers and are better than nothing. However, they have a tendency to track things like css files and javascript files. In reality, we only want to track what pages visitors go to. If you just run Webalizer or AWStats, it’s time to look into something more indepth.

Now I know there are lots more stats programs out there. Some cost money, others are free and not all are worth the time and effort. Those above are a mix of free and low cost stats programs that all work well and they are a great addition to any site.

What stats program have you found that you like?

I started Blog Backup Day in hopes to encourage other blog authors to save their data. You never know when a hosting error or hacker will pop up. There is nothing worse for a blogger than realizing that your past year (or more) worth of blog posts are simply gone.

So, take a few minutes and backup your blog!

I’m not sure why, but I was in a crazy mood to just start upgrading blogs. I started with my wife’s blog which was simple. Then to another blog that gave me hell for unknown reasons. Then I thought, what the heck, and upgraded this one too.

I did two database backups, downloaded all the files, upgraded all plugins then took a leap of faith from Wordpress 2.0.10 to 2.2.

So what happened? Well you’re reading this right? Ok, so I knew the posts would make it over no problem. It’s the plugin issues I was worried about and I don’t seem to see any. Yes, a bit of re-configuration was necessary, but nothing hard.

So, so far so good. I have auto save, the nice ‘code’ link on my WYSIWYG editor and I forget all the other cool features. If I make it a week with no big issues, I’ll be upgrading blogs all over the place. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Ohh and for those of you that do find issues, please do report them.

Now, I haven’t read the book yet, but since I’m in it, it has to be good. Right?

You can get your copy of Search Engine Optimization with PHP on Amazon today. From what I’ve paged though, it looks like it should be a great read.

There is an article out there on how to Make Auction Ads Contextual but it works with the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin. What I was looking for was a way to tie the ads into the categories, so I coded it out. Here is how you can customize your AuctionAds to be category specific with Wordpress.

The firs thing you’ll need to do is create the code for your AuctionAds and place it where you want in your blog. Then we’ll update the auctionads_ad_kw line to:

auctionads_ad_kw = "< ?php $cat = get_the_category(); $cat = $cat[0]; echo $cat->cat_name; ?>”;

Now, when the AuctionAds render on the page, they’ll pull the first category and use that as the keyword to base the ads on.

If you’re like me, and your first category is always the same (General in my case) you can pull the second category instead.

auctionads_ad_kw = "< ?php $cat = get_the_category(); $cat = $cat[1]; echo $cat->cat_name; ?>”;

Now, if your categories are General & Software, AuctionAds keyword will be Software.

What I came to realize next was that a some of my posts are old and came from an old Blogger blog. Those don’t have any categories associated with them so no keywords would get rendered and thus the AuctionAds would be left blank. However that’s an easy fix.

auctionads_ad_kw = "< ?php $cat = get_the_category(); $cat = $cat[1]; echo $cat->cat_name; ?>,software,apple”;

Now, if there is no category associated with a post, the keywords will be software and apple. This will help ensure that no matter what, AuctionAds will show.

With this minor edit to the AuctionAds code, you can bring your ads one step closer to being content targeted. This is especially necessary for a blog like mine where the posts cover a wide range of topics.

Important Note: In order for the raw code above to render correctly in a Wordpress post, there is a space between the < and the ?php code. This space should be removed when adding it to the source of any php files.

An interesting side effect was that it also inserts FeedFlare into your posts as well. This makes it extremely easy to install and configure both items without ever having to mess with the template.

If your interested, check out the FB StandardStats plugin and give it a go.

So what have I been doing while it’s so cold? Well coding of course. I have a new Wordpress plugin to release later today at my blogging blog. I also have a new theme in the works. It’s got a long ways to go yet but I’m liking where it’s headed. And I’m a bit disappointed that Mozilla hasn’t approved PinkHope yet. I was hoping for that to get a little traction and attention over the week and yet nothing. Might be time to put in a request to a friend. Either that or become an addon approval person. Hummm….

My fist test, besides looking at the new editor, was to see if the Chicklet Creator and Social Bookmark Creator plugins worked. Sure enough, they had no issues.

These are two plugins you can check off the worry list as there is nothing to worry about here.

If I don’t hear anyone screaming about issues in Wordpress 2.1, I may just update this blog in a few days too.

See for yourself:

Tiger Administration Hosted on Zooomr

This makeover is curtsy of the Tiger Administration plugin from the Ordered List.

One thing I did notice is that more and more spam is getting though so I added a quick security question. It’s really simple and will hopefully weed out a few unwanted comments.

If anyone has issues with it, head over to my contact form and let me know.

The Wordpress plugin now includes an admin page for managing your social bookmark options and database integration to remember your choices.

Social Bookmark Creator plugin works with almost 50 different social bookmarking services including:

• BlinkBits
• BlinkList
• Blogmarks
• Buddymarks
• CiteUlike
• Connotea
• del.icio.us
• Digg it
• Earthlink
• FeedMarker
• Flog this! (Finance)
• Feedmelinks
• Furl
• Give a Link
• Gravee
• iFeedReaders
• igooi
• Lilisto
• Linkagogo
• Linkroll
• ma.gnolia
• Maple.nu
• Netvouz
• Netscape
• Newsvine
• Onlywire (Multi)
• RawSugar
• reddit
• Scuttle!
• Shadows
• Simpy
• Spurl
• StumbleUpon
• Taggly
• tagtooga
• TalkDigger
• Wink
• Yahoo MyWeb
• Britney (Music)
• Diigo
• Favorri (Turkish)
• Mister Wong (German)
• PopCurrent
• SearchSniff
• Wykop (Polish?)
• YardBarker (Sports)
• Hatena (Japanese)

Download it, check it out and have some fun.

I had more issues with this one than expected as it kept hooking into my Chicklet Creator plugin and editing that. However, I think that’s all fixed.

If you’d like to test it leave a comment below. The only thing I ask is that if you install it, try it out and get back to me in a few days so I can fix any bugs and get it released to the general public next week.

Version 0.5 Includes:

• A configuration pane in Worpress’ admin area.
• New Feed Buttons.
• Lots of new code.
• All local images for fast load times.
• More like a real Wordpress plugin.

Check out the Chicklet Creator Wordpress Plugin v0.5 and let me know what you think.

You can leave feedback below and I’ll workout any issues I can. At this time, there is no drop down option. For that, you’ll need to use the online tool.