HART-Empire

I have added the Smooth Slider plugin to this blog. You can too .. if you go to your wordpress dashboard “Plugins” section in the sidebar, “Add New”, and then search for “Smooth Slider”.

The smooth slider is that featured box above the title of the posts. If I think a post is informative for others, or extremely interesting (opposed to just being a waste of cyberspace and me ranting and raving about nothing) then I will attach the post to be displayed in this section. I have tested several sliders and other featured content gallery type plugins because on Battling For Health blog .. everytime I try to reinitiate a paid plugin that I bought called “Action Popup” … I receive error messages on the page – something to do with the Ajax or java or some stupid thing. I know that this plugin does NOT fix that problem, but of all the features of the other plugins and sliders .. I liked this one the best and is simplest for my needs.

I’ve recently added a new wordpress plugin to my blogs … called “AmazonFeed“. You need to be an affiliate of Amazon, and get the Amazon API code and the Amazon Secret Access Key from Amazon Web Services .. plus your server requires the module “MCRYPT” which allows AmazonFeed to encrypt communication with Amazon as per Amazon regulations.

Check out the bottom of any post!

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I have just activated the Backtype Connect wordpress plugin on this blog. What I find interesting, is that I have been using this on my PetLvr blog for about two weeks now, and it really does find other social media comments about the blog post! This includes people tweeting your posts, mentions on friendfeed, comments on digg and reddit – etc – and then it integrates them with your regular comments!

People seem to read more, or want to comment more – when they see other people commenting already.

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I Should Be Sending Out Newsletters

I’ve been blogging since Mid-May 2005 and although I do offer the option to subscribe to our RSS Feed via email (via Feedburner) – not many people have been subscribing. I mean, I have just about 1,000 subscribers on the 40-50 blogs of the HART-Empire Network .. (and to you subscribers who have signed up .. THANK-YOU!) .. but I feel I should have a LOT more subscribers by this time in 2009.

But, why would you sign up for my newsletter? I’m not sending out newsletters. Actually, on half my blogs I don’t think I am even sending out daily recaps of my RSS Feed. But, to be honest .. even if everything was working correctly and I was on the ball .. I just don’t have any clue how to send out newsletters with Feedburner!

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I’ve decided to add TweetMeme’s “Retweet Button” to all my sites. I am a fan of twitter, and although I have added the Wp-To-Twitter wordpress plugin which, included with other social media buttons appears at the bottom of each of my posts, I think this is complimentary. I remember looking at this plugin early on, and didn’t want anything to do with it because I never saw the RT’s .. it was all going to @tweetmeme, but they changed that. Also, I was receiving a conflicting cron error message with my other twitter plugins (tweet this and wp-to-twitter) so I assumed having more than one twitter plugin will always conflict. This one doesn’t conflict!

The tweetmeme button shows the number of retweets of the post, so I can see how many people LUV the post .. plus I have configured it to mention @PetLvr (me!) so I know our posts have been retweeted. It’s easy to install – just like all wordpress plugins .. go into your dashboard, click Plugins, then click Add New .. and search for “Tweetmeme” .. and install, then activate. Simple

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Okay .. maybe “sexy” is a little overdoing it – but, I’ve been blogging since May 2005 and have many blogs and I like to think that I have some experience in selecting the right wordpress plugins for my blogs. Plugins are like the backbbone of your blog, and just like your theme .. determines the functionality and look of your blog. I thought I would share all of the major plugins that I am using around my network of sites.

Here’s how I keep track of all my plugins .. On my local hard drive, I have a folder something like this:
c:\2009-Latest-WordPress

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