Review >> PiXELWiT

Better Feeds Plugin for WordPress

June 30th 2008 Posted to Site Development

When I talked about customizing the length of your WordPress feed I mentioned that I was using the More Feed Excerpt plugin in an effort to force WordPress to split RSS feeds at the "more" tag. After talking to the developer of the More Feed Excerpt plugin, George Notaras, I decided to take his advice and give version 1.99 of Ozh' Better Feed plugin a try.

At that time it would be fair to say the Better Feed plugin was quite rough or "unpolished" at the very least. All of the features worked but the lack of an administrative interface forced you to dig deep into the PHP code to edit variables and template text. The plugin included a function to put related Categories in the RSS feed's footer but I had to cobble together my own function to display a list of related Tags.

BUT... fortunately for you version 2.0 of the Better Feed plugin has just been released and it provides a great new admin interface and a Related Tags feature ...
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Comments(12)

Going Mobile

June 24th 2008 Posted to General

Believe it or not, I'm a fairly low-tech guy who doesn't even own a laptop or a cell phone, but I'm looking to change all of that and I need your help. I'd like to get some new portable electronic equipment so I can access the web while on the road.

So far, I think I need:

A cell phone.
A laptop.
A GPS.
Maybe a camera for decent still images.
Any combination of the above.

Do you love your laptop? Are you silly for your cell phone? Gaga for your GPS? Crazy for your camera? If you have some recommendations for this Traveling-Tech-Neophyte I'd appreciate any advice you could give. No insight too small. Thanks.

Comments(8)

Ajax Edit Comments, New Features Added

June 10th 2008 Posted to Site Development

A few days ago I reviewed Ajax Edit Comments for WordPress and I really liked what I saw. Since that time the plugin developer Ronald Huereca has stopped by, listened to what people had to say, left a comment explaining his choices, and then promptly released his next version for evaluation. The new Ajax Edit Comments 2.1 Pre-Release Candidate is out and ready to be tested.

If you're a WordPress blogger, I highly recommend installing this plugin to ease and simplify comment editing for both site administrators and site visitors. Plus if you try AEC RC 2.1 right now, there's a pretty good chance that your reasonable feature request will make it into the next version of the plugin.

Give it a try, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Comments(4)

Ajax Edit Comments, WordPress Plugin Review

June 05th 2008 Posted to Site Development

I recently installed the WordPress Ajax Edit Comments plugin and I have to tell you that I'm quite impressed with Ronald Huereca's work. The Ajax Edit Comments (AEC) plugin makes editing comments super simple for site visitors and administrators.

Setting up the AEC plugin is a breeze thanks to a clean administration interface featuring a wide variety of well explained options. Once installed, WordPress administrators who log into the Comments Administration section will see a new "Edit" link next to every comment (red highlight added for emphasis):

Ajax Edit Comments Admin Interface

Pressing the "Edit" link brings up an Ajax window like the one below: ...
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Comments(6)

FlexBuilder 3: The First Thing You See

March 31st 2008 Posted to Flash

After experiencing some minor FlexBuilder 3 installation troubles (my fault) I finally got a little time to fire-up FlexBuilder and check it out.

My first impression was that it looked pretty slick, the layout seemed coherent and I wasn't seeing loads of useless screen space. That's good. I poked around a little, plopped some components on the stage, toggled between Design and Code view to see how one affected the other, and generally clicked on any tab or panel I could find. Neato.

After letting my mouse roam all over FlexBuilder 3 like a teenager's hands on a prom date I decided to try a slightly more refined approach to getting acquainted ...
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Flex Builder 3 First Impression

March 17th 2008 Posted to Flash

If you read my previous article Flex 3 Released you'd know that I was lucky enough to win a free copy of Flex Builder 3 at the February CPAUG meeting. I'm not sure why, but Adobe chose to send a boxed version of Flex Builder to all of the winners rather than e-mailing them a key-code for a downloaded copy. Oh well, that's okay by me, I'm not really in a rush to try Flex and I wouldn't mind having an installation disc around 'just in case' I ever need it.

After a couple weeks, my prize from Adobe finally arrived via Fed-Ex. I promptly stripped it from it's bubble-wrapped confines and marveled at its splendor. Safely nestled within the Fed-Ex package was a shiny white box which contained another more cleverly shaped box which held yet another plastic box. Ooooo (pronounced the way you'd say it if you were watching a fireworks display) this was SO worth the wait! ...
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Comments(4)

Context Search Plugin for FireFox

February 20th 2008 Posted to Site Development

Results from a previous poll indicate that very few PixelWit.com visitors use a toolbar when browsing. I don't use one either, but there's one FireFox plugin that I absolutely have to have. It's called Context Search and I like it so much that it's the first FireFox plugin that I reinstall after a catastrophic hard drive failure. This simple little (9k) tool helps you easily research terms found within a web page.

Here's how it works, let's say you're minding your own business, reading your favorite blog, when all of a sudden, WHAM! you run into an unfamiliar word like "apoptosis". Quick, what do you do? ...
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Comments(2)