{ Dusty Orange Web Solutions } » WordPress

Mas De Panis blog

Dusty — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:10:07 +0000

I have been quite busy over the last week helping a friend set up his first WordPress blog. Go view it here:

http://www.masdepanis.fr

He already has more posts and comments then me so best I get blogging!

Latest plugin – Contact Form

Dusty — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:54:46 +0000

I have just installed a basic contact form called Clean Contact on my “Contact Us” page. It shows up in the list under plugins, is pretty straightfoward to configure (just put who you want to get the email), hides itself from spam-bots and can work with Akismet to filter messages (stop Spam). I send all my email to Gmail which does the filtering for me, so haven’t used Akismet yet. Just sent myself a test message and it works perfectly and took all of 5 minutes to do.

I love WordPress.

Adding a Twitter plugin to Wordpress

Dusty — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:19:28 +0000

I first signed up for Twitter a year ago with no idea of what it was but had heard it was a fabulous marketing tool, great for staying in touch, microblogging etc etc. I thought, who cared and didn’t bother too much? But looking for cheap flights to Napier the other day I have found grabaseat have signed up , so now I can get the latest flights on my phone, rather then going to the website. For those of you who don’t know, grabaseat is an Air New Zealand website that lists cheap domestic fares to places in New Zealand (and some islands too). So now I have found a very good use for my Twitter account, although only as a follower for now.

To sign up for Twitter go here.

I decided I wanted to display my last few tweets in the side bar and to see how updating it from my Blackberry would look. I tried installing a few through the Add new Plugin fetaure in WordPress but found none that really did what I required, just a simple list of my latest tweets.

I then found this website with the 10 Best Twitter Tools for Wordpress so have popped number one on their list in. It is simple and easy to configure!

It is called Wickett Twitter Widget and displays the tweets from a Twitter account in your sidebar. Once you have activated the plugin, you can access it as a widget via the Appearance tab in your administration area.

Dusty Orange’s new website

Dusty — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:21:51 +0000

Welcome to Dusty Orange’s new website. After many years of the same design, I have decided to make the move and build the website on a content management system. This makes it seriously easy to edit, from anywhere, anytime and no need for expensive software. My latest work in progress, Gumtree Gully Alpacas, has been built using the same system so will post up here once it is live.

For the geeks amongst you (I know you are out there!) I have used Wordpress to manage the content. Website here. What, WordPress I hear you say! But that is for BLOGS! Well, originally yes, but what I like about WordPress is that it is not just for blogs, it is a complete online publishing platform, so can offer you easy management of pages, content and images as well as all the cool things blogging tools come with, like free plugins and free themes.

I am a big, big fan of WordPress ever since I “discovered” it 4 years ago and since then have spent quite a bit of time learning how to install, configure, update, edit and transform. It’s a bit like playing with lego. This website is based on the latest version of WordPress, 2.8.4, and is using a theme designed by Bright Cherry in the UK. I have added the following WordPress plugins so far:

Ultimate Google Analytics
- Google Analytics is a rich product developed by our Google friends which allows you to really analyze your website traffic. It’s a bit addictive, so I recommend limiting your visits!
MailChimp
- MailChimp is what I have used to add the subscribe form on the right. It handles new subscriptions, unsubscribes, campaigns, lists, templates, all the things you need for successful email campaigns. Go on, subscribe and try it, not only will you get to see how MailChimp works, but you get to receive my latest web news and views. You can unsubscribe anytime!
WordPress BackUp
- This automatically backs up all my content on a regular basis so should anything happen, I can get it back. It’s like insurance, so hopefully I will never, ever need it.
LightBox Gallery
- This plugin is what gives the cool hover effect with image galleries – see my Portfolio page.

As I quite like WordPress plugins, I tend to add quite a few, just to see what they do, which is why I need my automatic back up! In the next few weeks I am going to look at Twitter plugins to link my Twitter account with my blog posts and also at new Email to Blog plugins. I have had great success with one in the past as it makes it so easy to update your blog without logging into the control panel each time. You just send an email to the blog address, and it is automatically published. Great feature from your mobile phone.