Week Three Assignment: Are you plugged in?
May 24, 2008 – 10:26 pm by Bean
Here is your opportunity to let your classmates know which plug ins or specialized widgets that you tried out this week. I am playing this week with modifying a theme that would be appropriate for a variety of LVS classes. As I tweak the theme, I am also working with different plug-ins. Right now Askimet is activated on this blog. The Theme Test Drive is also activated behind the scenes. For your viewing pleasure, I have Top commentators activated and on visible on the side bar. I will add comments to this posting as I add more. I am a firm believer that a plug in must have a function, a “Gee Whiz that is cool!” isn’t enough to get included on my blog. It has to serve a purpose and accentuate the blog. It can be easy to overwhelm your audience with lots of “shiny: things in your side bar or under your posts. You don’t want anything that will detract them from your blog content.
When posting your comment, be sure to tell us the name of the plug-in or widget(s) that you used. Also remember to put the URL of your blog in the web site field. That way readers will be able to click on the link on your name to see your blog in action.
5 Responses to “Week Three Assignment: Are you plugged in?”
Askimet problem:
I attempted plugin Akismet
However,”Akismet is almost ready. You must enter your WordPress.com API key for it to work.
This plugin was available from my host site, GoDaddy.com but I did not succeed in retrieving api key. When selecting “enter..) the next screen is Askismet Configuration
I select “get your key” and
To find your key go to your Dashboard and then click on Users ->Your Profile (or click on your name in the upper right hand corner) and you should see a sentence that says “Your WordPress.com API key is:” followed by a string of 12 letters and numbers. There you have it! You can copy and paste that string to any place where it is asked for by a service you want to use.
But, I did not find my name in the upper right hand corner and did not find wordPress API key at the top or bottom of Dashboard Screen.
Any suggestions?
By samtex on May 27, 2008
I used the following plugins…or at least have them on my site:
add to any subscribe - I toyed with this but wasn’t cracked up about the interface
lighter admin drop menus - I love this. Changes your dashboard with dropdown menus so everything is accessible much easier.
sem subscribe me - This is what I have on my site now…I liked the customization and, although it said to add a line to the template, I didn’t and it’s working except for the RSS feed and that info has nothing to do with anything in the additions.
smart youtube - I have this but haven’t activated it yet. Not sure I’ll put you tube movies on the site yet. Got it in case I canged my mind.
subscribe remind - This is actually a very neat little plugin. It drops a reminder to subscribe to your blog. I did think, however, that it could be a bit much, as it adds it to every post, so I diabled it for now.
theme test drive - Bean…this one is so neat!!!! I love it. Got to test drive a couple of templates I downloaded just to see if I liked them. Thanks for this one
By Donna on May 27, 2008
I had issues…I think #2 (see class discussion board) is fixed, but issue #1 isn’t
By Donna on May 27, 2008
These are the widgets and plugins I’ve added to my blog.
plugins:
akismet
ravatar-I see the avatar things in my admin comments tab but not on the actual comments in the blog?
snap shots
theme test drive-I love this one!
image manager-Haven’t played with this yet
widgets:
pages
archives
categories
links:blogroll
meta
calendar
text/html (zazzle store)
RSS (Fox News)
By Anita on May 28, 2008
The Widgets I added this week are:
Calendar
Links
Archives
Top Commentators
Akismet
Tags
Pages
By Adele Aldridge on May 29, 2008