Etiqueta: Plugins for WordPress

WordPress.com and Windows Live partnering together and providing an upgrade for 30 million Windows Live Spaces customers

Over the last few weeks, we’ve spent a good bit of time talking about our approach to partnering with the web, and as part of that, how we’re deeply integrating with the leading consumer services that you find most valuable. Earlier today, I had the opportunity to get on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, and with Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic (the parent company of WordPress.com), announce an exciting partnership between our companies.
Providing a great blogging experience

As we looked at customers’ blogging needs and what different companies were providing, we were particularly interested in what WordPress.com is doing. They have a host of impressive capabilities – from a scalable platform and leading spam protection, to great personalization and customization. WordPress powers over 8.5% of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people every month. Not only that, Automattic is a company filled with great people focused on improving blogging experiences. So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com.


Over the last few weeks, we’ve spent a good bit of time talking about our approach to partnering with the web, and as part of that, how we’re deeply integrating with the leading consumer services that you find most valuable. Earlier today, I had the opportunity to get on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, and with Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic (the parent company of WordPress.com), announce an exciting partnership between our companies.

Providing a great blogging experience

As we looked at customers’ blogging needs and what different companies were providing, we were particularly  interested in what WordPress.com is doing. They have a host of impressive capabilities – from a scalable platform and leading spam protection, to great personalization and customization. WordPress powers over 8.5% of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people every month. Not only that, Automattic is a company filled with great people focused on improving blogging experiences. So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com.

Windows Live and WordPress.com

As we looked at how we brought Windows Live and WordPress.com together, there were three big things we wanted to deliver:

How to Customize the WordPress Admin Area

WordPress is one of the best CMSs out there — if not the best (but of course, I’m biased because I’m a WordPress fanatic). It has loads of handy features that make site administration a breeze. WordPress is a publishing platform with a comment system, a GUI for creating, editing and managing posts and pages, handy built-in tools like the “Export” feature to back up your content, user roles and permissions, and more.

But how much of these features do we really use? Though already simple and user-friendly by default, we might want to customize the WordPress Admin interface to make it even simpler and more manageable for our clients, our co-authors, and ourselves.
Why Customize the WordPress Admin Interface?

Lately, WordPress has reached phenomenally high usage rates. There are over 25 million publishers[1] who use WordPress, making it a popular publishing platform. This means that its use has been extended outside of just a blogging platform (although it was certainly built for bloggers at the start) to other types of sites such as portfolios, business sites, image galleries, and even e-commerce sites.

Here is the problem, though. A robust publishing platform like WordPress has way more features than a regular user would ever need. Take the “Comments” panel for instance: Not everyone is going to need all the moderation privileges it has. Some sites might not even need commenting capabilities on their content. For example, a static informational site that doesn’t have a blog section might not want people to be able to comment on static pages like their About and Contact Us page.

The following image shows the default WordPress Dashboard — the first page you’ll see when you log into the Admin area. For tech-savvy folks and power users, it’s great. But imagine a person (such as a paying client of yours) who doesn’t need half of the things they see in this screen. All they want to do is publish a post. Maybe edit it if they make a mistake. That’s it. Nothing else.


by Filip Stefansson | http://sixrevisions.com

Become a Facebook Fan of Six Revisions.

WordPress is one of the best CMSs out there — if not the best (but of course, I’m biased because I’m a WordPress fanatic). It has loads of handy features that make site administration a breeze. WordPress is a publishing platform with a comment system, a GUI for creating, editing and managing posts and pages, handy built-in tools like the “Export” feature to back up your content, user roles and permissions, and more.

But how much of these features do we really use? Though already simple and user-friendly by default, we might want to customize the WordPress Admin interface to make it even simpler and more manageable for our clients, our co-authors, and ourselves.

Why Customize the WordPress Admin Interface?

Lately, WordPress has reached phenomenally high usage rates. There are over 25 million publishers[1] who use WordPress, making it a popular publishing platform. This means that its use has been extended outside of just a blogging platform (although it was certainly built for bloggers at the start) to other types of sites such as portfolios, business sites, image galleries, and even e-commerce sites.

Here is the problem, though. A robust publishing platform like WordPress has way more features than a regular user would ever need. Take the “Comments” panel for instance: Not everyone is going to need all the moderation privileges it has. Some sites might not even need commenting capabilities on their content. For example, a static informational site that doesn’t have a blog section might not want people to be able to comment on static pages like their About and Contact Us page.

The following image shows the default WordPress Dashboard — the first page you’ll see when you log into the Admin area. For tech-savvy folks and power users, it’s great. But imagine a person (such as a paying client of yours) who doesn’t need half of the things they see in this screen. All they want to do is publish a post. Maybe edit it if they make a mistake. That’s it. Nothing else. Leer más “How to Customize the WordPress Admin Area”

CMS Comparison: Which Content Management System Should You Use?

Once you have found a company to host your website, you will need to select an appropriate content management system (CMS), which is the software used to organize your website, to efficiently produce new articles, and to easily maintain old content. I built one of my first websites using the Dreamweaver CMS, and I later progressed to learning how to use Joomla and WordPress. There are many excellent open source software options on the market such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, as well as paid options such as Dreamweaver.

Your options for content management systems are extensive, so think carefully about your business requirements to narrow down your choice. It’s tempting to get a CMS with all the bells and whistles, but your business requirements may not warrant using such a sophisticated system.

To help you decide, I’ve reviewed the two CMSs that I use on a regular basis: WordPress and Joomla. Both are open source software, which means that they are issued under a license that is generally made available to the public for free, and allows users to make changes to its code as needed.


Nita Teoh
//thenetsetter.com

Once you have found a company to host your website, you will need to select an appropriate content management system (CMS), which is the software used to organize your website, to efficiently produce new articles, and to easily maintain old content. I built one of my first websites using the Dreamweaver CMS, and I later progressed to learning how to use Joomla and WordPress. There are many excellent open source software options on the market such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, as well as paid options such as Dreamweaver.

Your options for content management systems are extensive, so think carefully about your business requirements to narrow down your choice. It’s tempting to get a CMS with all the bells and whistles, but your business requirements may not warrant using such a sophisticated system.

To help you decide, I’ve reviewed the two CMSs that I use on a regular basis: WordPress and Joomla. Both are open source software, which means that they are issued under a license that is generally made available to the public for free, and allows users to make changes to its code as needed. Leer más “CMS Comparison: Which Content Management System Should You Use?”

Top 5 Excellent E-Commerce Plugins for WordPress


by Kyle Prior

Top 5 Excellent E-Commerce Plugins for WordPress

With the internet being used more and more by your average consumer, you may be wanting to start your own online shop so you can unleash your products to all those potential customers. I’m sure you know that there are countless ways to do just this, but here I’m going to talk specifically about e-commerce plugins for WordPress.

Maybe you’ve heard about the odd plugin that allows you to sell products from your WordPress blog, but you might not know exactly what they are. To help you on your way to selling your products, I’m going to tell you about the five best e-commerce plugins for WordPress.

1. Ecwid

Ecwid

Ecwid is a free plugin for WordPress. It is a full shopping cart/e-commerce system that is extremely easy to install and even easier to maintain. It’s also customizable so you can have it looking however you like. See their showcase gallery that features live sites that use this WordPress plugin.

But as with most things in life, there is a downside. Ecwid uses Ajax for nearly everything, so SEO could be affected and users who don’t have JavaScript enabled can find it impossible to use your site. But don’t let that stop you because this is being worked on and there are already three solutions that you can utilize. Leer más “Top 5 Excellent E-Commerce Plugins for WordPress”