About the new design.

Well this is the longest time I have ever taken to design something, the design went through more than 40 revisions, it was partly my fault since kept putting it in the back burner and every time I brought it up to work on I would change something. I happy with the overall look and design. I know its not as colorful as my last one. The pink color in my last design became a running joke among my friends. Currently the site is still in beta.

• Running on the latest and best WordPress 2.8.
• Very Lightweight.
• Uses only one image for the whole site, CSS Sprites.
• All Javascript are hosted on External CDN
• New featured content slider on the homepage.
• New community submitted articles.

Please do provide some feedback, will really appreciate it. If something is broken get in touch with me using the contact form. Lots more new stuff coming up on the site just keep a watch.

Related posts:

1. Back from the dead
2. The Launch and A Happy April Fool’s Day
3. My Web Design Got Ripped
4. Wordpress Launches Free Hosted Stats
5. Part2 Top Ten Best Free Wordpress Themes and Templates

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Web-Design Tags: Blogging, Web-Design, Wordpress

Plugins for Comment Spam.

Simple Spam Filter for WordPress.

Get Simple Spam Filter from here. Most of the spam caught by Akismet is pretty obvious spam i.e.

• Contains 5 or more links to external sites
• Contains nothing but links
• Contains [url=http://www.example.com]example[/url] style links (my blog does not support bbcode style links)
• Contains a word that matches a short list of common spam words (for example, viagra or cialis). See the plugin’s source for the full list.

Simple Spam Filter helps you combat this kind of obvious spam. Its has a setting page where you can tweak it to suit your likings.

WordPress Comment Spam Stopper.

This a very simple Plugin that asks a very simple question that bots are too stupid to answer. I have found it even more effective if you change the default question. Get this plugin from here.

Comment-Policy WordPress Plugin

This is a alternative to Comment Spam Stopper. Instead of asking the users to enter an answer, you ask the user to agree to your comment policy by having a required field CheckBox. Since its JavaScript based most bots won’t see it. Get the plugin from here.

Plugins for Trackback Spam.

Extended Comments Options for WordPress.

While most of the plugins above will take care of comment spam. I found that I was getting tons of Trackback spam, since Trackbacks are not validated by WordPress. Using this plugin you can disable TrackBacks or Comments for your older posts. I have disabled trackbacks for posts older than a month. You can get this plugin here.

Simple Trackback Validation Plugin.

If you don’t like the idea of disabling trackbacks for your older posts you can use this plugin to validate trackbacks.

1. checks if the IP address of the trackback sender is equal to the IP address of the webserver the trackback URL is referring to.
   This reveals almost every spam trackback (more than 99%) since spammers do usually use bots which are not running on the machine of their customers.
2. retrieves the web page located at the URL included in the trackback. If the page doesn’t a link to your blog, the trackback is considered to be spam. Since most trackback spammers do not set up custom web pages linking to the blogs they attack, this simple test will quickly reveal illegitimate trackbacks. Also, bloggers can be stopped abusing trackback by sending trackbacks with their blog software or webservices without having a link to the post.

You can get the plugin from here.

Antispam Collateral Condolences.

The last plugin does not combat spam but notifies a commenter in case his/her comment is caught in the spam queue or moderation. I highly recommend this plugin get it from here.  

Related posts:

1. The Best Way To Kill Blog Spam Forever
2. Wordpress Plugin Better Comments Manager Update
3. Better Comments Manager Wordpress Plugin
4. Wordpress 2.2 Has Been Released
5. Copy Feed Wordpress Plugin Translated To English

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2008. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Featured, Wordpress Tags: Download, Free, Plugins, Wordpress

Of course Graffiti is built on .NET and truth be told any good developer can make either PHP or ASP.NET code perform. However, we think there are more long-term advantages in Microsoft’s platform and better tools. So for developers familiar with ASP.NET its full power and capability are available to you.

Those are the words from their site. They don’t seem to bashing PHP directly or too much.

I particularly like the comment below by Ian

Hello folks, greetings from “the dark side”!

I have never tried WordPress but at first glance it appears to be fond of MySQL and PHP, both of which make my stomach turn.

Are you suggesting that I should migrate across to an unfamiliar platform in deference to using a solution which runs on my favoured “stack” of Windows, SQL Server, and ASP.NET? Or are you just taking issue with their advertising message? I’m not being facetious or rhetorical, I’m genuinely curious.
Personally speaking, I have found this early beta release of Graffiti to be an excellent CMS platform and more than adequate for my requirements of a personal blogging platform on the MS stack.

Best wishes,
Ian

So would anyone like to point out to me how PHP is technically better than ASP.NET. Both Technologies have there advantages and disadvantages. The only reason why ASP.NET seems to be gets bashed is because it made by Microsoft.

It’s not about what platform you prefer to use (I’d rather slit my wrists than use IIS, ASP.NET, or SQL Server, for example), but about your approach to how to sell your product. The majority or websites on the ‘net today run on Linux boxes, usually running PHP and MySQL (or some other database solution and scripting methodology running on a *nix box of some sort), so to dismiss that vast amount of installed user bases and developers so simply and simply to state that one solution is better than another is to miss the whole point entirely.

Otto needs a reality check

Its not a religion people its just technologies. Shame on Matt for linking to a complete non-issue. WordPress is good at what it does but it can’t be everthing, there will always be people marketing themselves as better than WordPress.

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1. Wordpress Launches Free Hosted Stats
2. Wicked Cool Documentation Manual Inside Habari
3. Wordpress News 2.2.1 RC, 2.3 New Feature And WPzipper Update
4. WordPress 2008 = Blog 2.0 Cool Future Features
5. How to Write a WordPress Plugin Series

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2008. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Wordpress Tags: Open Source, Programming, Web-Development, Wordpress

This blog has come a long way. While I have slowed down a bit on the posting frequency I will continue to post quality content. If any of you would like to do a guest post here on my blog do let me know what you are going to blog about and use the contact form to contact me.

Related posts:

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2. Top Ten Popular and Useful Wordpress Plugins
3. Happy 60th Indian Independence Day
4. FeedSmith The Official FeedBurner Wordpress Plugin
5. Wordpress News 2.2.1 RC, 2.3 New Feature And WPzipper Update

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Wordpress Tags: Marketplace, Open Source, Wordpress

1. Drop the WordPress Meta Tag

By default a large number of WordPress themes have the WordPress Meta Tag which show the version of WordPress that is currently running on the blog. I have even removed the Powered by WordPress links from the footer this has reduced spam by a certain degree.

2. Disable Access to your Directory Indexes.

If you are not aware by default if some types in the path to your Plugins Directory they can view a list of all files in the directory. The best way to disable this is through the HTACCESS file. add the line given at the bottom of your Htaccess file in the root of your blog.

Options -Indexes

The other way to disable it as outlined by matt cutts is to put a blank index.php or index.html file in the Plugins directory.

3. Disable access to /wp-admin/

This is the most drastic measure you can take. i.e. to block access to the wp-admin directory using htaccess. But this will work only if you browse the net with a Static IP address. Also this is not necessary if you are using the latest version of WordPress.

4. Bonus Point Keep your WordPress Blog upto date using The Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin

Related posts:

1. The Best Way To Kill Blog Spam Forever
2. Clean A Free Wordpress Theme
3. Wordpress Security Alert Adsense Deluxe Plugin Vulnerable
4. SandPress 0.71 WordPress Theme Update
5. Reduce Comment Spam To Zero Without Akismet

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: General, Wordpress Tags: Hacking, Security, Wordpress

The SandPress WordPress theme has been updated to Version 0.71 its has a number of minor css fixes, and a few other fixes based on user feedback. I am thinking of moving to a better host soon. My current choices are Mediatemple.net and Bluehost. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Below is the ChangeLog. You can view the Demo Here

• Updated To the Latest SandBox Version 0.9.7
• Fixed 31st Date-Stamp CSS bug
• Fixed Strong Bold text CSS Bug
• Removed SandPress Header
• Changes To The Menu, Smaller Font
• Reduced Header Size (based on SmallPotatoes Feedback)
• Search box looks much better now
• Prettier Vista fonts for headings
• Better Styling for the Calendar Widget
• Added Home Link in menu
• Max-width for images

Download The Theme

[download#3#image]

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1. SandPress Free Wordpress Theme
2. Clean Wordpress Theme Updated To Version 0.6
3. Clean A Free Wordpress Theme
4. The SandPress Theme Won 1ST Place, So What’s Next?
5. Dezinerfolio A Dark Free Wordpress Theme

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 39 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Downloads, Web-Design, Wordpress Tags: Download, Templates, Themes, Web-Design, Wordpress

1. WordPress is evolving into a content management system.
2. WordPress Plugins updates will be shown in your WordPress Administration Panels and will be linked to the database in the WordPress Plugin Directory.
3. BackPress a library which will create an API that will expose core functions of WordPress (user system, login system, formatting, sanitization, script building).
4. WordPress Caching Proxy (WPCP) something similar to the Wp-Cache2 Plugin.
5. A new WordPress Administration Panel will be coming in the WordPress 2.4
6. A built in API for using S3, Flickr, or other storage sites.
7. Better localization of languages.
8. Improvement of Akismet, particularly how it deals with comments when the Akismet server is unavailable.
9. Improvements to the Visual Editor.
10. Improved support for images, sounds (i.e., podcasts) and videos.
11. Sandbox will likely to be included in the installed themes, unlikely as the default.
12. Some sort of Tumblr functionality.
13. “Asides” in the core.
14. Handling storage be improved, especially for storing images, videos, and other multi-media on-site and off-site.
15. Improvements in documentation on the WordPress Codex in the next year with videos, screencasts, podcasts, and more.

Too Bad the Shuttle Project won’t make it in the core. I’ve been waiting more than a year for it to be implemented in the core. Liz Danzico of Happy Cog seems to be in charge of designing the new Admin Interface. Thanks to adam for the scoop.
What the New Administrative Panel will have.

1. A modular dashboard like widgets.
2. You’ll be able to use custom feeds in your dashboard.
3. Comment Panel will be made like the Gmail interface, replying from within the admin interface.
4. Photo management with a cleaner interface, and will be allowed you to select different sizes, and adjust settings.
5. Ability to customize the menus of the Admin.
6. Cleaning things up so that scheduling posts is cleaner and more intuitive.
7. Widgets screen will be cleaned up.
8. When you make a post, you’ll be returned to the manage posts page, rather than write a new post page.
9. Consistency over all.

Source: Most of this stuff was stolen from lorelle wordcamp.info bloggingpro

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1. Best Plugins From The Wordpress Plugin Competition
2. Wordpress 2.2 Has Been Released
3. Cool Hidden Features In Wordpress 2.1 Editor
4. Wordpress Plugin Better Comments Manager Update
5. What’s New in Wordpress 2.3

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Design, Wordpress Tags: Wordpress

Who Sees Ads?

An extremely powerful AD Management Plugin for your blog. Its time to ditch you Adsense deluxe and landing page WordPress Plugins. This baby can do it all and more. A super cool drag drop interface, a well thought out interface. A rules engine i.e. you can specify who see ads your regular visitors, search engine visitors etc. Its even compatible with the Adsense Deluxe Plugin. This Plugin has so many features that it would be better if you checked it out yourself, and yeah I am blogging about this the third time.

Download Link Here

WPSysLog

This Plugin is extremely useful if your running a multi-author blog. The default purpose is to track core events, such as users writing posts, changing profiles etc. Sometime back I had wished for such a feature in WordPress after someone deleted a post on a multi-author blog that I was running. If you run a multi-author blog it very hard for to track what the authors or users are doing. I personally feel this Plugin needs to part of the core. The popular Drupal CMS has something similar to this.

Download Link Here

WPVault

Another Powerful Plugin to manage your file uploads and downloads and to organize them. File organization is a mess in WordPress. Another Plugin that needs to part of the core WordPress.

• You can upload and store any type of files (not just image files). You can use the installation of WordPress as a file storage, so you have access to files anywhere, as long as you have the Internet access.
• Browse files in Ajax-powered interface.
• Attach image gallery to any posts or pages using stored files, without additional coding. It works without fiddling with any WordPress or theme files. There is absolutely no coding needed. No copy-and-pasting a piece of code. Not even inserting tags into your post entries.
• Make image or non-image files available for download.
• Organize files by tagging them.
• Built-in protection on published files to discourage hot linking.

Download Link Here

MyDashboard

This is how the WordPress default dashboard needs to look like. All netvibes, pageflakes and iGoogle Fans or users are sure to love this Plugin. And for people complaining about not being able to customize your WordPress dashboard this must be god sent. What you can do with this Plugin.

• Drag and drop to reorder the gadgets location to your liking.
• Add or remove gadgets at will.
• Fully extend-able – easily add your own gadgets to the dashboard using the very simple API.
• Skinable – The look of the dashboard can be changed simply by selecting a different skin (CSS style sheet).
• Standard gadgets – I have provided a number of standard gadgets.

Download Link Here

WP Plugins Tracker

Another Plugin that needs to part of the WordPress core. This Plugin helps webmasters to track the new releases of the Plugins they are using in their website from admin panel. But I guess the WordPress guys are working on something similar to this for both Plugins and themes.

Download Link Here

OneClick

It just what the title says with a single click it helps you install Plugins and Themes, how cool is that. It allows uploading of a Plugin or theme without the need of manually uploading by FTP, allowing the upload from the Admin panel. All you have to do is browse for the zip file and click “upload” and the Plugin does the rest.

Download Link here

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin

A Plugin that update your WordPress blog automatically. While upgrading WordPress is pretty easy most end users find it a big hassle.

Download Link Here

CRM WP Plugin

Customer Relationship Management WP Plugin. Er. I don’t have to tell what this is do I. It looks like a really powerful Plugin I don’t see end users using it but for large sites or sites that use WordPress as a CMS this Plugin would be very useful.

Download Link Here

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1. Security alert: WordPress Competition Winning Plugins Vulnerable
2. Wordpress Plugin Better Comments Manager Update
3. WordPress Plugins To Combat Sploggers
4. Copy Feed Wordpress Plugin Translated To English
5. How to Write a WordPress Plugin Series

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Software, Wordpress Tags: Plugins, Wordpress

WP©Feed

The Plugin adds content to a feed. It is possible to configure the copyright message. You can use html. You can add the IP of a feed reader and digital fingerprint for an explicit key. There can also be a domain name for a whitelist and this domains became not the message. The plugin search for this key at content theft. It is furthermore possible to add comments and related posts to the feed. For the related post feature it uses a database-search for the content. You can use the plugin “Simple Tagging” for related posts in a feed. The copyright notice can be added even when using entry excerpts.

Download Link Here

Better Feed

Your feed, on steroids : add a custom footer to RSS items with, for example, a copyright notice, a “Read More (400 words)” links, an “Add to del.icio.us” link, a list of related entries. Improve connectivity between your feed and your site.

Download Link Here

Feed Footer WordPress Plugin.

Feed Footer is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add footers under all your blog posts in your RSS feed. With this nifty plugin, you can:

• Copyright Your Feed! Add copyright notices under all your Blog Posts in the RSS feed
• HTML Enabled Footers. Any HTML code can be shown in your footers! You can snazzy up your footers with banners and images! You can make your text bold or italics or underlined.
• No Word or Line Limit. Your footer ads and notices could be 200 lines long if you so desire!

Download link here

Related posts:

1. Copy Feed Wordpress Plugin Translated To English
2. Top Ten Popular and Useful Wordpress Plugins
3. Best Plugins From The Wordpress Plugin Competition
4. FeedSmith The Official FeedBurner Wordpress Plugin
5. Security alert: WordPress Competition Winning Plugins Vulnerable

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Internet, Wordpress Tags: Plugins, Wordpress

Reasons to move from Blogger.

1. Cutting edge and the very best blogging Software. Comparing Blogger and WordPress, Wordpress beats Blogger hands down.
2. Huge Community Which means Thousands of free cool Themes and Templates and Plugins.
3. Easier blogging, better commenting system, spam fighting etc etc.

Draw Backs of Moving from Blogger to Wordpress.

1. Importing from Blogger to Wordpress doesn’t import your blogger hosted pictures, they’ll still remain on Blogger, they’ll be visible for sometime but since Blogger doesn’t allow hot-linking you won’t seen them after sometime (Read about it here from the official Google FAQ), so you’ll need to move them maually to your webhost or to some photo hosting service. Luckily for most people this is not a big problem since most bloggers host their images on Flickr or Photobucket. For the more Geeky you can check out this Plugin or this shell command to move your pictures to your own domain.

I thought I would write a step-by-step tutorial since a lot of other people/bloggers will find this extremely useful. I am using kiruba.com as an example.

I am assuming a few things here.

1. You know how to run and install Wordpress. (Here are some Step-by-Step Guides to install Wordpress on your Local computer Or To Install it on your Webhost Look at the Installation Section)
2. You are using Blogger Beta (I guess by now everyone has been forced to migrate to the new blogger Beta by Google)
3. You are hosted on your own domain like kiruba.com (for people trying to move from http://yourblog.blogspot.com I have posted extra steps you need to follow at the end)

How To move from Blogger To Wordpress and Maintain your URL/Permalinks/post-slugs and Traffic

1. Install a Temporary Wordpress Installation.

The first step is to Install a temporary Wordpress installation either on your local Computer on in a temporary directory on your web host. The reason why we are installing WordPress on a temporary location is that, since we need to get all the posts from kiruba.com to WordPress then, delete the blogger installation, then Install a fresh Wordpress Installation on kiruba.com and then put back all the Posts. We will use this temporary Wordpress installation to import all your blog posts and comments and to test and see if all your blog posts and original Permalinks or URL’s are being maintained. After Installing WordPress Go To Manage Posts and Pages and Delete the dummy Hello world Post and the About us page these get created automatically when you first install WordPress. Learning how to install and enableing Permalinks is the only difficult part here, the rest is extremely easy.

Important Note: If you are installing Wordpress on your local machine make sure you can use Permalinks. The step-by-step tutorial to install WordPress that I provided above shows you how to enable Permalinks it is given at the very last under the notes section.

2. Modify the Blogger Importer.

Don’t worry there is nothing much to do just download this file [download#4#nohits] and replace it with the original file located at wordpress/wp-admin/import/blogger.php

For the more technically inclined here are the changes that I made to the Blogger.php File thanks to David Pascoe

Open the file WordPress/wp-admin/import/blogger.php and look for the line containing the string wp_insert_post – at around line 520. Insert these 2 lines after the call to wp_insert_post; Note: The second and third line need to be in one single Line I had to break into two lines to fit it in.

preg_match("/([^/]+).html$/", $entry->old_permalink ,$matches);
$wpdb->query("UPDATE $wpdb->posts SET post_name =
'" . $matches[1] . "' WHERE ID = '$post_id'");

3. Import All the Post and Comments From Blogger to Wordpress Using the Importer.

Go to Mange > Import > Blogger

You’ll be presented with a option to Authorize the Importing process Click Authorize

You’ll be asked to Enter your Google User Name and Password.

After which you need to Click the Grant Access Button.

You’ll be shown a list of all the blogs you own on blogger and the number of posts and comments. Click the blog that you want to import.

Once you click the import button you’ll see a progress Bar as the comments and Posts get imported. Once its Done the Text in the Button gets changed to Set Authors Click this.

You will See your blogger username (if you have multiple authors you see them too) select Admin(This is the default Wordpress user) from the drop down list and click save changes.

That’s it your done your done with importing your blog Posts. yay

4. Changing Your URL (Permalinks or Post slugs) to Maintain Your Google Juice and Page Rank

Ok here’s the part you’ve been waiting for its pretty easy go to Options > Permalinks

Change the selection from Default to Custom

Enter the Following text in the Custom Structure Textbox to

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

Note: If you’ve installed Wordpress on your local system computer using Xampp like I mentioned above you’ll need to enable Permalinks. The step-by-step tutorial to install WordPress that I provided above shows you how to enable Permalinks under Xampp it is given at the very last under the notes section. After you’ve enabled it you’ll need enter

/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

instead of the text I have provided above.

Your done.

5. Checking Your URLs and Permalinks

Once your done just check your URLs to see if they are the same. The parts Highlighted in Bold are the ones you need to check

Original URL:

http://clazh.blogspot.com/2006/10/microsoft-and-apple-together.html

URL after Importing:

http://localhost/kirbs/index.php/2006/10/microsoft-and-apple-together.html

Move Everything To Fresh WordPress Installation

Once you are satisfied with everything, go to your temporary WordPress Installation Manage > Export Click the Download Export File. Download and save the XML file.

Delete your Blogger Installation and files Except your Image Directory i.e. if you have one.

Install a Fresh Copy Of Wordpress in your Original Blog Location Example if your Blog was at kiruba.com then you need to install WordPress in the root if it was at kiruba/blog then you need to install WordPress in a directory called blog.

Import The XML file which you saved before Mange > Import > WordPress Browse and upload the file.

Select Admin from the Drop Down Box and press submit.

Repeat Step 4 to Switch on Permalinks that’s it your done do a Google search for any of your posts if your posts turns up that means you migrated to WordPress successfully while maintaining your Permalinks or URLs.

Extra Steps for Redirecting Your Traffic For Bloggers Moving From A BlogSpot Subdomain.

There are two ways to go about this. One is the quick and dirty way which is also a bit difficult the other is the long way which is the easiest.

The slow and easy way to move from a blogspot Subdomain.

I would recommend you to follow this rather than the quick and dirty way.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Buy your own domain.
2. Use that Custom Domain Option. See this Step-by-Step Guide on configuring Custom Domains.
3. Your original Blog*Spot address will automatically forward to your new domain. That way, any existing links or bookmarks and search traffic to your site will still work.
4. Wait for 5-6 months for all search engines to update their data and links to your new site.
5. Follow the Steps I have outlined above.

The Quick and Dirty way to move from a blogspot Subdomain.

I do not recommend this. Do this only if you are really eager and want to move quickly. See this guide here

Related posts:

1. Get A ReadyMade Wordpress Zipped File With our Favourite plugins
2. Wordpress 2.2 Has Been Released
3. How To Upgrade and Update WordPress A Simple Guide
4. How To Get Instant Traffic For Your Blog Or Website
5. Best Plugins From The Wordpress Plugin Competition

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Google, Internet, Tutorial, Wordpress Tags: How To, Wordpress