Dave Caolo

A good reminder from Jared Earle boils down to this: Someday the legions of readers you’re after will arrive. All at once. If you’re running WordPress, you’ll want WP Super Cache installed, or they’ll only find a crippled server.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Several months ago, I listed the plug-ins I add to every WordPress installation. This post is an update to that list. Here are my standard WordPress plug-ins.

1. Akismit eliminates comment spam and trackback spam effectively. You’ll need a Wordpress.com API key to enable it. I occasionally see something sneak through, but those occurrences are the exception, not the rule. Akismit is the first plug-in I set up.
2. Thank Me Later sends first-time commenters a single email thanking them for their participation. Customize the time delay between receipt of the comment and deployment of the email, the body of the message itself and more. It’s not essential, but a nice touch.
3. WordPress.com stats provides real-time statistics in your dashboard. Again, you’ll need a Wordpress.com API key to enable this one.
4. WordPress Database Backps does just what the name implies — creates a backup for your blog’s (or WP-powered site’s) database files. For some real fun, check out my super-simple instructions for setting up automated, off-site backups.
5. Share This lets visitors share your articles with their favorite social sites without having to leave your blog.
6. All in One SEO Pack certainly isn’t a replacement for SEO best practices (see “WordPress and SEO“), but it makes certain aspects easy.
7. Subscribe to comments allows readers to receive email notifications of responses to posts they’ve commented on. It fosters conversation and gives readers following the thread a reason to return.
8. Related posts scours your tags each time you publish a post to find older entries that are a match. Those are listed just above the comment box. This gives readers a reason to dig into your archives.

So there you have it, my basic WordPress starting point. What’s yours?

I’ve spent the last few weeks with Posterous, a relatively new blogging platform from Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan. The result is both a modest record of my travels and a powerful enthusiasm for the service.

Posterous is going to be huge.

I’ve used every blogging platform I’ve found, including (but not limited to) WordPress, Typepad, MoveableType, Squarespace, Vox, Livejournal, Blogger and Textpattern. The easiest among those are the hosted solutions, like Typepad, Livejournal, Blogger, Squarespace and Vox (Note: Typepad, Livejournal and Vox are all products of Six Apart). WordPress and MoveableType are (usually) self-hosted and require the blogger* to create and link to a database.

After installation is complete, they all require additional fiddling. Customizing the layout, design, colors, graphics etc. takes time. Adding something like an image gallery is even more time consuming, and typically requires a plug-in which you must find, upload, configure and test on your own.

By contrast, here’s how you create a complete blog with Posterous: Send an email message to post@posterous.com. That’s it.

Here’s how you create a full-featured, thumbnailed photo gallery with built-in navigation on Posterous: Email your photos to post@posterous.com.

Want to post a video? Same thing. It’ll even encode it for you. Send nearly any codec you want.

It’s brilliant because there’s nothing to learn. Everyone knows how to send an email message. Additionally, there’s nothing to download, install or configure. You can use the email client you already know; the email client you probably have with you all day via your laptop, phone or iPod. Additionally, you can have Posterous notify your other accounts, like Facebook and Twitter, each time an update is posted.

I oversee many bloggers at my day job and some are more technically savvy than others. We use WordPress, which I love, but does pose a challenge for some of the writers. However, they’re all proficient with email. If I could simply tell them, “Just email your posts and pictures to this address and you’re done,” they’d fall down with gratitude and relief.

The sticking point right now is the lack of customization. If I’m going to embrace Posterous for work, I’ve got to be able to customize the CSS and other layout features. But that’s an extreme case.

For the vast majority of people, Posterous is a very desirable option. Sachin and Garry took an incredible idea — get out of the way and let the blogger write via a familiar and nearly ubiquitous tool — and executed it wonderfully. I can’t wait to see where this goes.

*Some web hosting companies provide a one-click install for WordPress and MoveableType.

The Tweetback WordPress plugin displays mentions of your blog on Twitter along with reader comments. Setup is quite simple. I’m going to try it out this weekend.

Another stellar article from Smashing Magazine.

Last week I listed the WordPress plug-ins that are a part of my standard installation. Today, I’ve picked out some more favorites (plus a couple goodies). These are plug-ins I’ve used with various projects and my own site. If your favorite isn’t listed, let me know! I enjoy finding new ones.

1. Google XML Sitemaps creates a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap. You needn’t lift a finger, and your custom pages are included. Plus, it pings all major search engines with each update.
2. Sideblog WordPress is what powers the “Interesting Finds” section of my sidebar. The way it works is simple: Identify the category you want to appear in your sidebar and paste the code in the right location (or add the widget). I love it because it allows me to post all the interesting things I find, while not cluttering up the longer articles.
3. Google Analytics for WordPress makes it super easy to install Google Analytics code. The best part is that if you change your template, you needn’t paste the Analytics code in again. The plug-in takes care of that for you.
4. flickrRSS pulls your latest Flickr images. I dare say this should have been included in my base installation, as so many templates make use of it.
5. PodPress powers my podcast, The Sci-Fi Cast. I do love this plug-in. PodPress takes care of all the data that iTunes wants, including categories, image and more. Plus, it puts a flash player with each post. It’s great.

Other goodies

WordPress for iPhone/iPod touch [App Store link] is pretty nice. Writing short posts is pleasant enough, and adding photos is easy. The truth is I prefer SixApart’s Typepad iPhone app as a mobile blogging tool [App Store link], but the demo of WordPress version 1.2 looks promising.

Woopra isn’t unique to WordPress, but there is a WordPress plug-in. It provides real-time stats, lets you chat with visitors, tag them, and much more. It’s in beta right now that they’re qutie pokey about approving new sites, but it’s worth it.

Last time, Nina suggested I check out WP-SpamFree, an anti-spam plug-in. I’ve only used it briefly, but it’s doing a nice job of catcing spam so far. Thanks, Nina!

One of my recent goals was to create a ready-to-go installation of WordPress. Today it’s complete, and I’ve written to share a bit of it with you. Specifically, these are the plug-ins I include in any basic installation. Of course, not every project is the same, but this is always my starting point.

1. Akismit eliminiates comment spam and trackback spam effectively. You’ll need a Wordpress.com API key to enable it. I occasionally see something sneak through, but those occurences are the exception, not the rule. Akismit is the first plug-in I set up.
2. Thank Me Later sends first-time commenters a single email thanking them for their participation. Customize the time delay between receipt of the comment and deployment of the email, the body of the message itself and more. It’s not essential, but a nice touch.
3. WordPress.com stats provides real-time statistics in your dashboard. Again, you’ll need a Wordpress.com API key to enable this one.
4. WordPress Automatic Upgrade makes it very easy to apply updates. After some simple configuration, you can install WP updates from the dashboard. It’s a real time saver.
5. WordPress Database Backps does just what the name implies — creates a backup for your blog’s (or WP-powered site’s) database files. For some real fun, check out my super-simple instructions for setting up automated, off-site backups.
6. Share This lets visitors share your articles with their favorite social sites without having to leave your blog.
7. All in One SEO Pack certainly isn’t a replacement for SEO best practices (see “WordPress and SEO“), but it makes certain aspects easy.

So there you have it, my basic WordPress starting point. What’s yours?

I manage 8 WordPress blogs. Creating timely backups for all of them is a pain. So, today I put an automatic solution in place that results in hands-free, off-site storage of weekly backups. Here’s how.

You’ll need a paid Backpack account (the free account does not offer file storage) and the WP-DB-Backup plugin. First, we’ll set up Backpack.

One of the cool features of Backpack is that each page has a unique email address. Anything sent to it gets posted to that page. We’re going to take advantage of that feature. First, create a new Backpack page with a name like “WP Databse Backups.” Note the email address in the page’s footer. That’s the address we’re after.

Now it’s time to install the WP-DB-Backup plugin. As usual, just drop it in /wp-content/plugins on your server. Next, activate it via the “Plugins” page of your WordPress control panel. After that, click “Manage” and then “Backup.”

There are several options for you to fiddle with. For our purposes, look at “Scheduled backup.” Select “Once Weekly” (or whatever schedule you like) and place the email address you got from the Backpack page in the field labeled “Email backup to.” Finally, click “Schedule backup” and you’re done.

There you have it! Automatic, off-site backups of your WordPress database. Since each backup has a unique name based on its creation date, you needn’t worry about overwriting anything. Have fun!