I noticed some blogs list at the end of the post other posts that are related to them.  They also list the most popular posts.

To do related posts I first tried the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP).  However I got some strange results like my post Wild Goose Chase – Yawning Angels being related to the posts WaMu Free Checking and Poisonous Wild Mushrooms.  Also this plugin didn’t find any posts related to my Sort of Vegetarian post.

I next tried the WordPress Related Posts plugin but that did not work at all, I think it wasn’t updated for WordPress 2.7.1.  So I went back to YARPP and configured it to not show excerpts, not promote the plugin, and to use a lower match threshold of 4.25.

For popular posts I first tried the WordPress Popular Posts plugin but it reported no popular posts.

Next I tried the WordPress.com Popular Posts plugin which uses WordPress.com Stats.  Fortunately it works quite well even though I got a warning during installation that it had not been tested with WordPress 2.7.1.  The only configuration change I made was to list the number of views for each post.

I always wanted to be popular.

Update 06-07-2009: I just found out that YARPP does not play well with User Permissions.  If a post that is not protected has related posts that are protected then the User Permissions plugin redirects instead of allowing the user to see the unprotected post.

Tags: wordpress
Categories: Web
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By accident I discovered that you can schedule posts.  Here is what you do to schedule a post to be published in the future.

1. Click on the Edit link next to "Publish immediately" inside the Publish box of the Edit Post screen.

   

2. Change the date to a future date when you want the post to be published.  Then click on the OK button.

   

3. After you clicked on the OK button in the previous step the Publish button changed to say Schedule.  Click on the Schedule button to schedule your post to be published in the future.

   

This is how I scheduled all my Dominion posts.  I actually wrote all of them on June 1 but I scheduled only one to appear per day.  There are still four more posts.

Update 2009-08-19: To cancel a scheduled post you have to set the scheduled date to a date in the past.  Then the Schedule button should change back to the Publish button.  Press the Publish button and the post will be published with the date you just set.

Tags: wordpress
Categories: Web
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When you install a WordPress blog on Dreamhost it automatically sets up the update service to notify people that you’ve updated your blog.

The default pinging service is http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
but this blog article suggests using these.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://bblog.com/ping.php

And that’s what I did.  What do you use?

Tags: wordpress
Categories: Web
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In an attempt to help increase traffic and make my site “stickier” I added two plugins, Add to Any and Subscribe to Comments.

The first plugin adds this lovely button which allows the reader to share a post from my blog or save it to their blog or bookmarks.

The second plugin allows users who comment on one of my posts to be notified via email if there are new comments made on the same post by simply clicking on the checkbox like below.

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”

I was considering a different plugin, Comment to Reply Notification, because users were complaing about the Subscribe to Comments plugin and recommended this plugin.  The Comment to Reply Notification is newer and is designed for WordPress 2.7, the latest version as of this writing.  However this plugin did not work for me and thankfully Subscribe to Comments is.

Tags: wordpress
Categories: Web
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This article, Google Analytics script, has a comment thread where people debate whether Google Analytics or WordPress.com Stats is better.  The consensus seems to be that you might as well use both and that though Google Analytics has more info it might be overkill.

WordPress.com Stats was easy enough to install and I could use the same WordPress.com API key for all my blogs.  The only issue was that to see the stats in my dashboard I had to enable third-party cookies in my browser (normally I don’t to keep out unwanted cookies).

Google Analytics took a little longer to set up but was still easy.  I had to create separate Google Analytics accounts for each of my blogs.  Google asked if I wanted to share my data and though I was suspicious I said yes because they said I would have access to other services if I did.  I then configured the plugin for each blog with the correct Analytics Account ID.  For this blog the footer does not call wp_footer(); for some reason so I placed the tracking script in the header.  For my professional blog I placed the tracking script in the footer since that is the default.

I have a feeling I am going to end up liking WordPress.com stats better because it is simpler and more tuned to the stats I want from a blog.  Below is a sample screenshot.

But I am glad I am also at the same time compiling stats on Google Analytics.

Tags: google,wordpress
Categories: Web
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You are most likely viewing this page because you tried to access a post that is protected.  To view that post you must be registered and logged in.  After doing this please try accessing the post again.

Previously I was concerned about privacy, i.e. my blog posts showing up in unexpected places and being read by unintended guests.  I tried to address it by having everyone log in to view my blog but that proved to be a problem because RSS feeds no longer worked.  Recently I opened my blog to search engines and noticed a spike in traffic but I think that was mostly from Google.

I have searched for a solution for awhile and I finally found a good compromise, the User Permissions Plugin.  By using this plugin I can restrict certain posts to only be available to readers who are registered and logged in.  Also these restricted posts will not show up in RSS feeds.  I modified the plugin to redirect to this post instead of “/“.

The downside is that my regular readers will have to be logged in to read these restricted posts.

Regular readers please register if you have not already and always log in if you want to read all the posts, especially posts about my kids.

Tags: security,wordpress
Categories: Children, Web
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I asked a friend how to automatically post to Twitter and Facebook whenever I write a new blog article and he pointed me to twitterfeed.  This started an interesting Web 2.0 journey.

1. Went to twitterfeed.
2. Tried to register and realized I needed an OpenID.
3. Went to myvidoop to register for an OpenID.
4. Returned to twitterfeed and logged in using my OpenID URL.
5. Logged in to my twitter account on twitterfeed.
6. Created a bit.ly (URL shortener that does more than TinyURL) account to use with twitterfeed.
7. Created a feed for my blog.
8. Went to Facebook and added the Twitter application.
9. Linked Twitter to Facebook by clicking on the link “Want Twitter to update your Facebook status?”
   Update 07-27-2009: I now use the Tweetpo.st Facebook application instead of the Twitter Facebook application.  It is much better as described in this Mashable article.
10. Realized I needed to turn off protected status in my Twitter account.
11. Went back to Facebook and clicked on the link “Want Twitter to update your Facebook status?”
12. Posted this blog and hoped that twitterfeed works.

Update 06-02-2009: I decided to turn off twitterfeed because I did not like the tweets it created.  I realized more since to create them manually and try to enter as much information as possible since people do Twitter searches on the tweets.

Tags: facebook,twitter
Categories: Web
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As mentioned in my Privacy post I had previously blocked all search engine and turned off notifications to all update services.  Now I am going to try just opening up my blog to search engines and see what kind of traffic I get.

Categories: Web
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Nice tip from Seth Godin.

As discussed before, there are networks of companies planting cookies on your machine and tracking behavior across websites. That means you’ll see an ad on one site based on what you did on another.

You can opt out for free. Here’s the not very well promoted link.

You’ll see a list of which members of the NAI are already placing a cookie on your machine and you can get rid or some or all of them.

To be really clear: I don’t mind the cookie sniffing. I don’t mind getting better ads. I don’t mind the sites making money.

I mind the sneaking around part.

Seth’s Blog: How to opt out of cookie sniffing and trading.

Categories: Web
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Another tip from Mac Tricks And Tips.

The app is called Advantageous MP3, its a small iTunes script and application working in conjunction with the iTunes Store. Every time you search for a song on iTunes and go to the specific product page you can then you Advantageous to quickly send you to the Amazon Store. The script runs from the script menu (Duh!), once as you click it, it will take a couple of seconds for it to find the correct URL and open Amazon in your web browser where you can then download the MP3 for a lot less.

Get iTunes Songs From Amazon | Mac Tricks And Tips.

Tags: amazon,itunes
Categories: Mac, Web
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