As the use of Wordpress continues to grow with bloggers and web designers the number of plugins created is also increasing. Some plugins are superb and can really make a difference between a sub standard Wordpress blog and an excellent one, however this is not the case for all the plugins.

I will be outlining 5 must see plugins which all Wordpress websites should be using. Some of the plugins I will be mentioning are solely there to make life easier whereas others assist you in generating the traffic your blog deserves.

1. All in One SEO Pack

Although a large amount of search engine rankings is done on your content alone there is no harm in giving yourself every chance to get your blog posts to the top of google, yahoo or other search engines. If your blog post ranks well in search engines you will generate a large amount of traffic to your site.

The All in One SEO Pack is an excellent, simple way to add title, descriptions and keywords to your posts and pages therefore giving you the best possible chance of getting yourself near the top of the search engine rankings.

Download the All in One SEO Pack plugin here >>

2. Google XML Sitemaps

Sitemaps are important to search engine spiders as it provides a list of links that your website has. Each link that is picked up by a search engine means another page you have listed in search engines for users to find therefore increasing the traffic to your website.

This excellent tool takes all the effort away from generating sitemaps by automatically generating a new sitemap each time a change is made on your blog. This means that if you blog about the latest news your post is instantly submitted to the search engines and users can begin to find your blog straight away!

Download Google XML Sitemap plugin here >>

3. Search Everything

It has often been noted that Wordpress’ search feature is one which often lets them down due to its inaccuracy. This is no longer a problem thanks to an excellent plugin which increases the ability of the default Wordpress search facility.

Included features in the plugin are: highlighting, search every post, page, comment, tag, category and more! Don’t prevent your users from finding the information they are looking for on your blog, install this plugin straight away.

Download Search Everything plugin here >>

4. TweetMeme Retweet Button

Traffic is a major key to a websites success. You can write the best blog posts and have the flashiest website but this does not drive traffic to your website. Twitter has become a phenomenon every since ‘A’ list celebrities began telling us their life stories and this can be used to your advantage by jumping on the bandwagon.

Simply add ‘Retweet’ buttons to your blog posts using this excellent plugin and any users who use Twitter can easily ‘Retweet’ your blog post to all their followers therefore expanding your potential target audience.

Download TweetMeme Retweet plugin here >>

5. WP Super Cache

There is nothing more frustrating than when your viewing a slow website. If the pages take an age to load you get fed up and often leave in order to find an alternative website to find the information you were looking for. Don’t let this be a problem on your blog by installing this superb cache plugin which increases the speed at which your pages load.

Not only that it also decreases the required CPU processing to load the page as it stores static versions of your site for faster viewing!

Download WP Super Cache plugin here >>

Plugins, Plugins and Plugins

This is just a small number of Wordpress plugins which are freely available on the internet to increase the performance of your blog. This is just a start and as time goes on many more will be made available however make sure you install the 5 mentioned above to give you a head start in generating a fast, effective and traffic driven Wordpress blog.

Wordpress is becoming a more widely used tool by web developers to create websites. Originally Wordpress was seen solely as a tool for blogging, they were easy to setup and you can choose from a selection of free templates to make your blog stand out from the crowd. As developers have learnt more about the capabilities of Wordpress it has become apparent that creating your entire website in Wordpress is advantageous as it makes for an excellent CMS.

How do I get started?

As with any normal website you need the basics before you can start creating your Wordpress website. The basics include purchasing domain name and hosting package. Once you have this setup you can download the latest version of Wordpress here.

Next you need to upload the files you downloaded to your server, the best way to do this is using an FTP program such as FileZilla which you can download here for free, the details you need to connect to your website will be provided by your host.

Once you have uploaded all the files simply go to the domain where you want to set this up to for example: http://www.bytewire.co.uk. You will be taken through the steps to install Wordpress on to your server.

How do I stop Wordpress looking like a blog?

In order to setup Wordpress to function like a “normal” website and not just a blog you need to make some changes to your Wordpress settings. First you need to give your pages a template name, this is so that Wordpress can link a Page created to a file, this will all begin to make sense further down.

Setting up template names:

• Navigate to the files of the theme you are using for example yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/
• Create a new file called homepage.php
• Add the following code to the top of the page: <?php /* Template Name: Home */  ?>

Linking template names to Wordpress Pages:

• Login to the dashboard and navigate to the Pages tab
• Create a new page called Home
• On the right hand side change the template from “Default template” to “Home”
• Create another new page called Blog and leave the template as the “Default template”

Set Wordpress to show the Homepage not the Blog

• Within the dashboard you need to navigate to “Reading” which is in the Settings tab
• Set it so that the “Front Page” shows “a Static page”
• Select Home from the Front page drop down box
• Select Blog from the Posts page drop down box

Turn on Permalinks

• By default Wordpress does not use enable Permalinks, permalinks allows URL’s to be more friendly for example news/20/11/2010/setting-up-wordpress
• To enable permalinks go to “Premalinks” in the Settings menu
• Select “Day and name” option as this gives you the best URL’s.
• Press Save Changes
• Wordpress will now attempt to create a .htaccess file to make the changes to your Wordpress settings, if your files have strict permissions set on them Wordpress will not be able to do this, follow the on screen instructions to complete this manually.

Common Problems

Sometimes when you set a static homepage this page is also shown on your posts page. If this happens to your blog, you need to rename the homepage file on your server to something different. Wordpress uses a template hierarchy in which index.php and home.php are at the top. Your posts page will be named index.php therefore you posts page should not be called home.php to avoid confusion.

Your Wordpress website

You now have a Wordpress website which now has a static homepage whilst still making use of the superb blogging system provided by Wordpress. From here you can add other pages just like the homepage was setup to create your whole website in Wordpress.

Is your Xp logging you straight out as soon as you click to login. Do you click your name and see your background flash up and then it says logging out straight away and takes you straight back to the main screen?
Then this article will help you through fixing it and why it happened in the first place, which is probably the bigger question youll be asking yourself.
Despite windows xp being particuarly vulnerable to its own self this problem is not caused by an error by windows, it is however caused by an infection which kindly deletes your userinit.exe file for you.

This to the average computer user probably means nothing, but basically this file contains windows system settings for each user on your machine. Deleting basically means it will no longer work hence the problem you are now facing.

One thing that worries us all when we hit a problem is ‘will I be able to get my files off my computer if i gave to wipe it’. Simple answer in this case is Yes.

A few days ago my girlfriends dad got a problem with his computer and came to us for help. Having never actually come accross this problem before i set about doing some research.

Okay onto the solutions

1. Okay firstly you can do the following but you’ll need a spare computer or a mate. Remove your hard drive from your machine insert it into the spare machine  or friends machine whatever you choose to do then boot up your friends computer making sure that your hard drive is the secondary drive. Now you’ll be able to navigate to my computer and select the good hard drive, ie the one thats on your mates computer or your spare computer from there youll need to do this click into WINDOWS Folder then – > System32

Then what youll need to do is simply hunt down the userinit.exe file from your good installation of windows copy it and paste it into your bad copy of windows on your other drive which can be achieved by very simply right click and copying and then right click paste into the bad installation.

Now if you put the hard drive back into your computer and boot it up. You will be able to log into your user again like normal and will have access to all of your files. If this works for you please skip to the last section titled Cleaning and keeping the computer safe.

You now need to locate on your bad hard drive the file called wsaupdater.exe which is also will be found if its present in the system32 folder on your bad installation hard drive ie the one with the original problem. Locate it and delete it.

2. The next solution is something rather more challenging for the average computer user however is also a very good solution and will enable you to do the above but without having to use another computer or a mates.
   • SpyBot Search and Destroy – Excellent piece of malware detection software also FREE
   • Spybot Search and Destroy

Boot using your winxp cd.
Enter recovery console.
at the command prompt go to

C:/windows/system32

next type:
Dir *.exe

If you find, it, type

copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe

Exit and reboot normally. You should now be able to logon.

Run regedit

Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\

In the right pane, you should see

C:\WINDOWS\System32\wsaupdater.exe,

Change it so that it reads:

C:\WINDOWS\System32\userinit.exe

That should solve the problem, if the malware was the one that caused the issue.

3. The last solution we will talk about and by far the most permanent of solutions to the problem is to simply delete your windows partitition and install a fresh un-tainted copy of windows xp.
Youll probably find that if you have nothing particuarly that needs saving on the computer that this is really the best solution, so long as you remember to be more careful with what you download next time round tut tut!

Cleaning and looking after your computer

I would personally recommend and suggest taking a look at some of the below links if you need to clean your computer of virus’s and malware.

Malware

Spybot search and destroy – Great little program to delete unwanted spyware and trojans.

Super anti spy ware – Is another good program for the removal of malware and trojans.

Viruses

AVG free edition – Still highly recommended above others.

Having recently converted to Mac as you may have read in a previous blog “Moving from PC to Mac” we decided that it was also time to look for a new Text Editor to use for programming.

The first code I ever wrote I used a basic Text Editor which has no tools to assist you, a great way to learn how to code if your a beginner, since then I used Macromedia Dreamweaver but have never been fully satisfied with the way it works. Macromedia, being such a big company, can often mean less effort is added to the product to make them as good as they can be.

So in search for a new Text Editor which can be used on Mac’s I came across Coda, made by Panic. I have been using the software for a week now and I am impressed.

Features:

- Excellent layout with side menu to show list of files
- Ability to manage sites – including screenshot of the homepage of each site
- Built in terminal so you can use SSH instantly
- Supports subversion so you can update easily
- Allows split screen so you can view more than one file at a time – horizontal or vertical

The software is $99 but you do have a trial period to test it out and see if you like it. The staff at Panic appear to be interested in ideas to improve the software further so if you have any suggestions its worth dropping them an email.

Screen shot of Coda Text editor by panic.com

Ever wanted to translate your website so that it appeals to a wider audience?

If you have then continue reading as ill take you through the steps in which to set this up. There is an excellent function in PHP called gettext. In simple terms instead of just writing “Hello World” in your document you would write <?=gettext(“Hello World”);?> or shorthand <?=_(“Hello World”);?> then PHP looks up the equivalent of that text in your desired language and displays it on the screen.

To me, the best way to get this working is to work locally then upload to the server afterwards, so thats what I am going to do. So to start with create a new folder on your desktop called “Translation”.

Inside the Translation folder create a file called test.php. Insert the following code into the page:

[sourcecode language='php']echo gettext(“Hello World!”); [/sourcecode]

Next you need to download a program called poEdit – this makes your life much easier when translating to different languages. Once you have downloaded and installed poEdit you need to setup the directories for the files to go into.

Inside the Translation folder create a new folder called: locale.

Inside this folder you create the folder for your desired language, for this example we are going to use german so we create a folder called: de_DE.

Inside this folder you create another folder called: LC_MESSAGES.

If you are getting confused at this point, don’t worry, we are just setting up the necessary directories ready for the translation steps.

With the directories now setup we now need to setup poEdit so that it creates the necessary language files. Open poEdit then go to File -> New catalog.

Insert anything in the Name of the project.

Language:  German

Country: Germany

Charset: iso-8859-1

Source code charset: iso-88591

Then go along to the paths tab at the top of the window. Enter the base path to the folder you created on your desktop for example “/Users/Bytewire/Desktop/Translation”. Then in the paths list below click the dotted square and type the path as “.”. Having set this up, press Ok. When asked saved the file as messages.po inside the LC_MESSAGES folder.

poEdit should now have the string “Hello World” displayed in the top half of the screen. Click on the string and it will display the text in the 2nd box down. The 3rd box down will be empty, here is where you enter your translation, so for german enter “Hallo Welt!”. Once you have done this, save the file, which will automatically create a file called messages.po.

The next step is to set the language of the page to german and then view the page again. So create a new page in the same location as test.php and name it “localisation.php”. Inside this file enter the following code:

[sourcecode language='php']
$locale = “de_DE”;
if(isSet($_GET["locale"])) $locale = $_GET["locale"];
putenv(“LC_ALL=$locale”);
setlocale(LC_ALL, $locale);
bindtextdomain(“messages”, “./locale”);
textdomain(“messages”);[/sourcecode]

The above code basically sets your language to german, so that when you view the page it will display the german equivalent of the text if available. Finally you need to open up test.php and include the localisation file so at the top of the file add the following code: require_once(“localisation.php”);

Now if you view test.php, you may need to upload all the files you just created to your server if you dont have a local server, you should see the text “Hallo Welt!”.

Although fairly time consuming to setup, gettext is a very good method of translating your website and is very commonly used. Having set this up you should be able to further this and translate in many different languages.

I hope this helps some people translate their websites.

Ever wondered how daunting it is to move from a PC to a Mac?

Well try putting yourselves in my shoes! Having been a PC user all my life and having never used a Mac at all I was faced with getting to grips with a Mac to use for programming etc.

The Mac I got was a 24″ iMac 3.06 GHz, pretty impressive piece of kit when you look at it but would it live up to the hype I have read since I faced the prospect of using one?

Having used the Mac for a couple of days now the short answer is Yes it does. Its impressive to use as well as look at. Yes there are differences between a Mac and a PC I wont deny that but having used the mac for a few days they are changes I am willing to make.

Having set the mac up I was faced with the problem of how to navigate through programs and how to install new programs. This is a small learning curve and I got to grips pretty quickly. Anything you can do on a PC you can do on a Mac its just a case of knowing how to do it.

Thinking about moving from a PC to a Mac? Dont hesitate, jump in, its worth it. The speed of the Mac alone is enough to convince you, thats without the added bonus of the array of features it bolsters.

My only bad experience with the Mac so far is the mouse, hardly a problem here as I simply plugged in my old mouse and problem solved.

Mac all the way!

Somebody asked me how do i reset my windows xp password the other day now for me its common knowledge but for others it may not be.

Say you have some really good intentions you set yourself a password to try and keep your laptop or computer secure. So secure infact that even you as the owner cannot remember the password or in some cases the username to log back in then what do you do?

1. Reboot your computer while tapping F8 – > this will start your computer in ‘Safe mode’.
You may wonder what safe mode is, if thats you then look no further:

Safe Mode is a special way for Windows to load when there is a system-critical problem that interferes with the normal operation of Windows. The purpose of Safe Mode is to allow you to troubleshoot Windows and try to determine what is causing it to not function correctly. Once you have corrected the problem, then you can reboot and Windows will load normally.

2. This will now start your computer in safe mode which will allow you to simply head onto your control panel following the below sequence.
Desktop start button – > Right hand side (6 up from the bottom in most cases) Control panel – > User Accounts – > Change an account or create new account.

3. You can now add change passwords etc as normal, this is because when you are logged in under safe mode windows presumes you are the system administrator and therefore gives you full priviledges.

This applies mainly for Windox xp machine, but the same principal can be applied on all windows operating systems.

Thats all there is to it.
Hope some day some people might find this useful.

Have you ever wanted to remove the extension from your website pages such as .php, .asp etc?

Its actually easier than you think. All you need to do is create a file on the main directory of your website called .htaccess, or edit the existing .htaccess file if you already have one.

Once you have done this simple add the following code into the file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

The above code removes the file extension for you, you can still access the page using the extension if you want to.

Advantages of doing this:

- Cleaner, easier to write, easier to remember.

- More search engine friendly.

- If you decide to mix the language your pages are written in the inclusion would be seamless.

Having  adding the code into the .htaccess file simply remove the extensions from all the file paths on your website, for example change index.php to index.