Social media cross-posting with Fotostat

I've been expanding the number of social networks I use, almost like an addict lately :) So I've been looking for a way to administer my addiction in an easier way. I had an automation between G+, Twitter and my Wordpress blog (so I was only posting on G+) and additionally was cross-posting to Facebook and LinkedIn through Hootsuite.

Today I'm trying out Fotostat, a new service currently in beta for posting your photos (but also text, this post was written on fotostat) as well as gather statistics about them. To copy the service's description:
- Save time by scheduling your uploads to multiple social photography sites, blogs and merchant facilities.
- Discover how well each photo is performing by seeing all available statistics from each of your networks.
- Interact with your followers by commenting across all your sites from one easy to use location.

The service works very nicely: you first connect to your networks and your existing photos are imported to the service so you already have statistics on your content so far. You then can post new content, selecting each time to which networks you want to post to.

Currently supported are Google+ (Publishing to albums only, no post creation as yet.), Facebook, Flickr, 500px, Smugmug, Tumblr and WordPress. The effort is headed by Daniel Treadwell, developer of the G+ to WordPress plugin I have been using for over a year now, so I'm sure there are lots of improvements to come.

Try it out for free at http://fotost.at/

Improve links to your site on Twitter with Twitter Cards

// Announced since last July, Twitter Cards is Twitter's equivalent (or "answer" if you like tech drama) to the Open Graph. By defining a set of #meta #tags in your #HTML code you can provide instructions to #Twitterin order to display an "expanded" preview of your page, when your page's URL is included in a tweet.Twitter Cards come in 3 types:
- summary: The default card, which includes a title, description, thumbnail image, and Twitter account attribution.
- photo: A Tweet sized photo card.
- player: A Tweet sized video/audio/media player card.

Basically, you can use the first for article pages (think of blogs), the second for pages where the main content is a photo (e.g. Instagram) and the third one for pages of videos (e.g. YouTube).

The structure of the meta tags are similar to #OpenGraph and you can read about it in the official documentation (http://bit.ly/twittercards). While Twitter re-invented the concept of meta tags for describing a page for social media consumption, they acknowledged that having duplicate meta tags is kind of silly, so if you already have the OG tags of title, image, url and description in your code, they will be recognised for their twitter equivalents (you still need to add a couple of twitter tags though).

The feature is still in development, simply adding the tags on your site will not do anything yet. You need to submit a form (http://bit.ly/t-cards-form) asking to be included in the beta.  Twitter promisses to respond to you in "a few weeks". Until then, you can try out your page on the preview tool (http://bit.ly/t-cards-preview). If you have a WordPress blog, you can use the Twitter Cards plugin (http://bit.ly/wp-twitter-cards) which does (almost all of) the job for you.

If you have gone through the process and can share some feedback on how this worked for you, post in the comments :)

Track WordPress Queries with Debug Bar

// I'm in #WordPress  mode these days (building a site for a client), so here's another handy plugin: Debug Bar gives you helpful information for #debugging  like PHP error/notices, the full list of database queries and more. I needed the database part as you can see in the screenshot. Get it here: http://bit.ly/Z7YAWe 

Secure WordPress with WP-Security

// WP Security Scan is a set of tools for adding some basic #security  on your #WordPress  installation. It includes: 
- A series of tests like if you have the latest version, if you're not telling the world your version of WordPress, .htaccess protection, etc (see screenshot) 
- Information on your PHP/MySQL installation for debugging
- Permissions checks on your files
- Feature to backup your database 
- A password tool to select a hard to brake password

Get WP Security Scan at the WordPress.org plugin directory http://bit.ly/Xx6dPe

For getting .htaccess setup without messing directly with files, see the AskApache plugin http://bit.ly/YQLhFU (will have another post on it at later time). For more on WordPress security see my previous posts http://bit.ly/1262rDZ

How to save space in your WordPress site

// Handy #plugin  for #WordPress : WP-Optimize will give you the option to clear revisions, draft posts and spam/pending comments and also optimise your database tables, freeing up value disk space and speeding up all database access.

That said, if you use the Google+ Blog plugin http://bit.ly/yNwPxo by +Daniel Treadwell to import your G+ posts in WordPress, you may want to check the size of your posts table. With just 440 posts there were almost 130.000 rows in my posts table, the likely cause being the Google+ Blog plugin. 

Get WP-Optimize here http://bit.ly/WBF81q

How to stop SPAM trackbacks in Wordpress

// Nearly every #Wordpress  blog will start getting spam trackback requests shortly after they have it's first few visitors. If you're not familiar with trackbacks, it's an automated method to get notified (and add link back) when someone links to your blog. Trackbacks are by default enabled in WordPress installations. 

To the rescue come the Simple Trackback Validation #plugin by Tobias Koelligan (following previous work by Miachel) which runs several tests (like checking the IP of the request as well as the actual URL of the page that supposedly linked to you) on #trackback  requests and finds out if they are legitimate or not. 

See the screenshot of settings for more details and download here http://goo.gl/uolcm

Gantt charts with Javascript II

// I've previously (http://bit.ly/ZTPsnX) wrote about some #javascript based #gantt solutions, here are a couple more:

Teamwork Gantt by Open Lab is based on #jQuery and provides features such as: in-place editing, drag&drop, zooming, do/undo, multiple dependencies, full editing, dates shortcuts, css skin, multiple browser, resources editing, multiple assignment, milestones, export data in JSON format, resize & scroll, etc.
Get it here http://bit.ly/VTH0zI 

Ext Gantt is commercial solution by Bryntum based on #ExtJS, offering features such as: dependencies, resources assignments, PDF export, MS Project import, printing support, baseline tracking, easy theming and more. 
Find more about it here: http://bit.ly/ZTPR9O

Do you use something else for gantt charts?

Explore the possibilities with multivariate testing

[Subtitle A]

You probably have heard of A/B Testing where you have two versions of your page, serve them randomly to your visitors and track which works best. But there is a more advanced version of this, Multivariate Testing. This (obviously) involves multiple possible designs and of course it gets more complex to setup and analyze.

For #WordPress the Google Website Optimizer Plugin comes to the rescue to automate things, standing in the shoulders of course of Google's Website Optimizer service for the tracking and statistical analysis part.

+Tara Hornor at designfestival.com has a comprehensive tutorial on the whole thing. Check it out here http://bit.ly/I5cZ9U

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Google+Blog for WordPress v.1.1.2

I had previously wrote http://bit.ly/yNwPxo about +Daniel Treadwell's Google+Blog plugin which imports your #GooglePlus posts into #WordPress . I've been a happy user ever since so I'm jumping to the opportunity to post about it again as it has recently been updated.

These are changes of v.1.1.0 although it has been silently been updated to 1.1.2 (bug fixes I guess):
- Support for importing from multiple Profiles/Pages
- New option to exclude posts containing a given hashtag
- Posts shared via Google Reader will now be imported
- Hashtag character set expanded and related bugfixes
- Updating your settings no longer forces import (unless specified)

More details and download link here http://bit.ly/yTIeAQ

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The Cross-CMS Perception Matrix

In the spirit of the latest "What People Think I Do / What I Really Do" meme (more at http://chzb.gr/A6accB), here is how #CMS developers view other developers and their favorite system. I think each CMS has it's own purpose and use but there no harm with a little fun :) Included: #WordPress , #Drupal , #Joomla , #WIX and #Sharepoint . Matrix image via +Ana Nakamura Bonus graph on web developers ;)

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Weekend WordPress reading

Just got this! http://t.co/GdRVvuWu Digging into WordPress +Chris Coyier and +Jeff Starr is 400 pages of WordPress knowledge. Just updated to cover WP 3.3 (and with a promise of free future updates forever!) this looks really good. Hopefully, I'll repost soon with a review of the book :)

Edit: just discovered the "All AJAX" theme included with the book. I always wondered if someone had done something like that. /installs now :)

Check out a free PDF sample and the full contents here http://bit.ly/xJsLHJ

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Login log for your WordPress

Here is a companion #WordPress #plugin for the Limit Login Attempts one I posted about before ( http://bit.ly/z3q1gM ): Simple Login Log does exactly that. It keeps a log of all successful or not attempts to login on your site. You'll be surprised at the number of attempts (I certainly was when I found I had 600 attempts from bots in 3 days :))

Simple Login Log can be found at WordPress.org http://bit.ly/xeA67f

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Block brute-force attempts on your WordPress blog

WordPress on it's own a quite secure #CMS but this doesn't mean there is no room for improvement. A simple but effective way to make your #WordPress installation more secure is to limit the amount of attempts that can be made on your login page. This will block automated or not attempts to gain access to your site by guessing the password.

The #plugin is called Limit Login Attempts. It will log attempts to login, and will limit the amount of times an IP can fail the login process. Over a (custom) limit it will just block any further attempts. Many customizations are offered (see screenshot). You will certainly be surprise by how many attempts are being made by #spambots!

Limit Login Attempts can be found on WordPress.org http://bit.ly/we0JdW

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Mail your WordPress posts with Postie

#WordPress has a "post by e-mail" feature included, but it's fairly basic: you only enter the access information of the e-mail address you are going to use and then pray it all works. #Postie http://bit.ly/yhJpi4 is the same feature on steroids. Here's what more you can do it with it:
- Test your configuration to see that WordPress can connect to your account
- Setup how often the e-mail account will be checked for new mails
- Configure who can use the feature and setup e-mail alerts (so even if your special e-mail is found, no spam ever gets posted on your blog)
- Set default category and tags
- Filter the content of the message
- Option to setup galleries or choose a template on how to display attached images
- Options for videos and other file attachments.

You can pretty much leave everything on the default option for a start. You just need to create an e-mail address that only you will know and set it up on the first tab of options. Then whatever you mail to that address will be posted, with the subject as the title and the contents of the message as the content of the post.

You can get Postie at WordPress.org http://bit.ly/wMPRiE

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Location-enhanced photos in your WordPress

So you're taking photos with your mobile and posting them in your #WordPress -powered #photoblog but you find that you're missing something. While your phone has included location information in the photo, it is nowhere to be found on your site.

A solution comes with the GeotagPhoto #plugin : it will identify attached images in your post, find if they have location data and put a marker icon on it when it's displayed on the post. Clicking on it opens a Google Map with the location. It comes with several customization options and you only need a Google Maps API key to start using it.

See a live example here http://bit.ly/yxk5z2

You can get GeotagPhoto at WordPress.org http://bit.ly/xrTPSa
As the code is a little outdated, a small fix is required in you're running WordPress 3 and over, you can find it here http://bit.ly/ADSMSh

In album 2012-01-21 (4 photos)

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Easy Google Maps on your WordPress

My #WordPress #plugin discovery of the day: MapPress by Chris Richardson (find it on WordPress.org http://bit.ly/zgNHrR or the developer's site http://bit.ly/zmMgHa)
You can easily add maps on your posts and pages, full with multiple markers, html descriptions, directions, all the usual Google Maps control, etc.

It's free (which covers most uses) with an affordable pro version for some more special features.

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Document Management for WordPress

WP Document Revisions is a document management and version control plugin for the popular content management system, WordPress. Built for time-sensitive and mission-critical projects, teams can collaboratively edit files of any format — text documents, spreadsheets, images, sheet music… anything — all the while, seamlessly tracking the document’s progress as it moves through your organization’s existing workflow.

The plugin by Ben Balter looks quite interesting and full featured. Looking forward to a chance to try it out and in real environment!

Full details and screencast at http://ben.balter.com/2011/08/29/wp-document-revisions-document-management-version-control-wordpress/

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How to add Facebook / Twitter / etc authentication on WordPress

In the old days of the internet, it was quite accepted that on each site/forum/whatever you encountered and wanted to participate in a discussion, you had to make a new account. Nowdays, both due to privacy concerns as well as getting used to be automatically logged in, we have ended up seeing that many people are turned off when they are not able to comment on a site with their Facebook login. For a small blog this means a significant loss in engagement and a chance for more visitors.

I have been looking for a solution for my #WordPress blog, initially trying a Facebook-related plugins (also with integration with Facebook pages), then trying out #Livefyre, which is a complete authentication/comment solution. Livefyre and similar solutions (which I've tried) though will ignore comments that come in from other sources, like the recent Google+ integration I've added. So comments on Google+ were imported in the WordPress database but never shown. Back to the standard WordPress comment module then, but I still needed authentication from social networks.

Which when I found the Social Connect plugin. It allows users to register and loggin via their Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo or WordPress.com account.

Installation is as easy as an WordPress #plugin. For Facebook and Twitter integration you will need to create an application on each of them and enter the related API keys in Social Connect's options page. The options page has all the links to guide you through the process.

If everything goes well you will have a the login icons on your comment forms and login page. You will also find a widget for your sidebar available. If there is a problem with your them and the icons don't appear in the comments form, you can call them just with a line of PHP like this
_ <?php do_action( 'social_connect_form' ); ?> _

Users who use the icons will also be added in your WordPress database.

You will find Social Connect at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-connect/

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How to import your Google+ posts in WordPress

It's not actually any kind of magic, thanks to Google+ API and developer +Daniel Treadwell we have the the Google+Blog WordPress Plugin which you can find here http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/

The plugin is free with a backlink which can be removed for a well-worth $10 (Hi Daniel, I'm currently waiting for my download link :)). Installation is as easy uploading any #WordPress plugin. You will need two pieces of information:
1) a Google+ API key which you can get from https://code.google.com/apis/console/ (first enable the Google+ service from the list of all Google services and then you can find your API key on the "API Access" page
2) Your Google+ ID (the number in the URL of your profile)

The plugin works like a charm, it imported 200 posts and a few hundred comments in a seconds :)

[Update] Note for the future: one thing missing from this plugin is the ability to add attached images in the WordPress media library so that they can have their own page and comments. Here is the relevant function (just need to find some time to experiment now :))
http://wpscale.com/download-image-and-attach-into-post-programmatically-in-wordpress-3/

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#WordPress #security

#WordPress #security

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Thousands of WordPress sites commandeered by Black Hole
Webmasters, update TimThumb now!
Mass attacks that exploit a known vulnerability in the WordPress publishing platform have continued to bear fruit for hackers, with thousands of websites claimed in the past few weeks, a researcher said.…

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