Technology Bites » Wordpress

10 Handy E-Commerce Plugins for WordPress

Srikanth AD — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:11:46 +0000

When WordPress was released it was hard to think of using it for shopping platform or selling things from blog. But now WordPress has improved so much that every hour a new plugin for WordPress is released which extends its wings to most of the platforms. Here are 10 handy WordPress plugins for e-commerce.

1. WP e-Commerce: WP e-Commerce is very simple, elegant and easy to use shopping cart plugin suitable for selling your products and services online. It is designed with an eye on the aesthetics, web standards and usability.

It integrates well with Google Checkout, Paypal, Authorize.net, Payment Express and many other trusted payment processors. It processes in fewer pages so that your customers have great experience shopping. This is probably the powerful plugin for e-commerce.

2. WP Live-Shopping: WP Live-Shopping is a shopping cart plugin that displays all the relevant needed for online shopping in a single widget. The widget can be added to the sidebar and can be customized to change its appearance.

3. Are PayPal:

It’s a WP plugin to monetize your wordpress blog content with PayPal. Post/Page in wordpress can be set to have hidden content. The content can be set hidden for unregistered-unpayed users and visible for registered-payed users.

To view the hidden content the user is shown a message about the actions need to be taken to view the content hidden (payed-registration). Administrator can grant users to access payed contents. This plugin uses PayPal IPN – Instant Payment Notification so payment/content delivery process is fully automated.

4. eShop: Powerful shopping cart plugin for wordpress with some of the following features:

Make use of WordPress pages, or posts, to create products.
Provides basic Statistics
Automated emails on successful purchase.
Integrates with: Authorize.net, Paypal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque!

5. YAK: YAK is simple open source shopping cart plugin. It associates products with weblog entries so that post ID reflects the product code. It also supports pages as products and handles different types of products through categories. It also provides a screen with list of options to configure the shopping cart.

6. Paypal Shortcodes: This plugin allow you to place Paypal button in post or pages using a short code. This plugin doesn’t have management panel as of now.

7. EasyDonation: This WordPress plugin lets u place a Paypal donation button in the posts or pages, so that your visitors can tip you for your appreciable work.

8. ArtPal: It is a free WordPress plugin originally developed for Artists, to integrate Paypal with their WordPress blog to sell their masterpiece. All you need to do is supply your Paypal email address, this plugin will disable the work being sold if it has already been sold.

9. WP Auctions: WP Auctions is a new plugin that lets u create, manage and edit unlimited auctions on your WordPress blog.

It provides the feature to delete the fraudulent bids easily from your custom admin panel. It provides all other features that are needed to host bidding.

Once you list your auctions, you can register your plugin with the WP Auctions Live page and generate some traffic for your website.

10. StorePress: StorePress is a premium WordPress plugin fully packed with scripts that will allow you to completely transform your WordPress blog into virtual e-commerce store.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

Essential Caching Plugins for WordPress

Srikanth AD — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:30:55 +0000

Caching is a technique that can improve the performance of your web page by transparently storing data such that future requests for that data can be served faster. Caching your WordPress blog can effectively optimize the performance of your blog even during high traffic peaks.

When caching is enabled on your blog, only the first visitor goes through the series of processes such as processing of PHP code, making calls to the database and finally displaying the HTML output. The final output is saved as a static file and is used to serve subsequent requests. This improves the page loading time significantly and also reduces the server load.

There are a lot of caching plugins available for WordPress. Below are some of the most effective caching plugins for WordPress.

1. W3 Total Cache – This plugin improves the overall performance of your blog by improving your server performance, caching every aspect of your site, providing transparent Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration and also reducing the download time of your theme. This plugin caches and minifies your pages, posts, feeds, search results page, database objects, Javascripts and also CSS. It also provides browser caching of CSS, Javascript and HTML files using the future expire headers and entity tag.

2. WP Cache – WP Cache is an extremely efficient caching plugin. It caches the WordPress pages and stores them as static file for serving future requests rather than loading and compiling the entire PHP code. It enables you to set the expiration time for the static pages, define rules for accepting and rejecting which files should be cached and also manage the cached files.

3. 1 Blog Cacher – This plugin caches your WordPress pages and stores the cached files in organized directories emulating the URL’s, making it easy to manage them. It enables you to set the expiration time for the cached files and also allows you to delete all the cached files or just the expired ones. Cached files are updated whenever new posts or comments are published, edited or deleted.

4. Hyper Cache – Hyper Cache enables you to cache the entire HTML output of the pages to files and also enables you to cache 404 pages and redirects. It reduces the disk space usage by using compressed storage and also auto-cleaning the system. It is very easy to use and can manage both plain and gzip compressed pages.

5. Speed Cache – This plugin caches external Javascript and CSS files and stores them on your own server instead of downloading it every time from an external server. This plugin comes in handy if your blog uses certain external Javascripts like Google Analytics Javascript code etc.

6. WP Super Cache – WP Super Cache is a fork of WP Cache plugin. WP Super Cache caches your WordPress pages and serves future requests directly from the cached file without even loading the PHP engine whereas WP Cache requires the PHP engine to be loaded. Thus, this plugin can optimize the performance of your blog even during high traffic.

7. Hot Linked Image Cache – This plugin automatically caches hot linked images in your WordPress posts locally. It also gives you the option to cache specific posts by specifying the post id. This plugin works on any server running PHP as it supports both furl and allow_url_fopen.

8. Optimize DB – This plugin runs an optimize_table command on your WordPress tables, effectively defragmenting it. It is very useful for tables that are frequently updated. This plugin is very easy-to-use and the interface contains only a single button and some info on how much space will be saved.

9. WordPress Clean Options Plugin – This plugin detects redundant options in your WordPress database and enables you to delete them safely. It gives you an easy and safe way to clean up your wp_options table, thereby improving the performance of your blog. It also has many inbuilt safety features that prevents you from accidentally deleting the wrong entries.

10. DB Cache – This plugin has a different method of caching. Instead of caching the HTML output to file, this plugin caches WordPress’ MySQL queries to a file. Thus, it uses very less disk space for caching and also optimizes the performance of your blog significantly.

11. Throttle – Throttle enables you to implement bandwidth and scripting limiting on your blog. It can be really handy during high traffic peaks. It tries to prevent the non-critical elements of your blog from loading, thereby improving the overall performance of your blog.

12. CSS Cache Buster – CSS Cache Buster is a simple but powerful plugin. It is a really great plugin for developers as it displays the changes in your CSS immediately. It ensures that your WordPress blog delivers the latest version of your CSS stylesheet to your visitors.

13. WP Widget Cache – This plugin enables you to cache the output of your blog widgets. It enables you to set the cache time for each widget individually. This plugin cannot be used as a replacement for plugins like WP Cache and WP Super Cache, but can be used in addition with them.

14. WP Cache Users – WP Cache Users is a really useful plugin for a multi-author blog. This plugin automatically caches individual author’s data so as to reduce the number of database queries each time a post or comment page is viewed.

15. Cache Time – This plugin enables you to display the time of caching of the current page. The time zone of the WordPress blog and whether caching is enabled on that page is also taken into account. It also enables you to easily customize the display text when the page is cached, no cache is present and also the date format.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

Top Google Buzz Plugins for WordPress

Srikanth AD — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:17:04 +0000

Google Buzz, is a trending way to share information with your friends on the web. With the craze for Google Buzz, many applications, utilities, and plugins are being developed. If your blog is based on WordPress, to help you quickly and easily integrate Google Buzz, following are a selection of some of the best Google Buzz plugins.

1. WP Google-Buzz - This plugin automatically displays a Google Buzz button for every post and page on your blog. Allows you to display the buttons before or after the post content. You can select from 14 different Google Buzz button images. WP Google-Buzz also enables you to add “no-follow” attributes for buzz links.

2. Google Buzz Button for WordPress – Adds a Google Buzz button to your WordPress posts or pages. This plugin is similar to WP Google-Buzz, but you do not have the option to select from various button images. You can insert the button before or after the post or adjust the position manually.

3. Buzz This – Enables you to quickly integrate a Google Buzz button in your blog posts. Unlike other plugins, this button comes in two languages : English and Polish. You can select the small type or the big type button and also post the button anywhere you want to.

4. WordPress G_Buzz_Button – This plugin adds a “Buzz This” button to your blog posts. The button also displays the number of Buzz shares. It also opens the dialog box for addition of a link in a pop-up window.

5. WPBuzzer – WPBuzzer displays a Google Buzz button on your posts but, compared to the rest, it provides you with more flexible options. It allows you to add the button to your posts, pages, home page and also your feeds. In addition to this, you can select the position of the button, it’s size, and also the target. It also calculates the number of Buzz shares using Bit.ly, short URL service.

6. Google Buzz ER - Show your public Google Buzz posts on your blog. This plugin allows you to select a custom title, a custom color scheme, show images from posts and also select the number of posts to display. You can also add it as a sidebar widget.

7. Google Buzz Plugin – Allows you to show your latest buzzes on your blog. Compared to Google Buzz ER, this plugin gives you the option to select the response time and also the number of posts to fetch. You can also cache the buzz posts for faster loading of web page. If caching is turned on, the plugin will check for updates for the time interval you specify. You can use this plugin as a sidebar widget as well.

Do tell us about your favorite Google Buzz plugin for WordPress in comments.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

3 Cool WordPress Plugins to Add Images to your Blog

Srikanth AD — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:42:38 +0000

There are plethora of fabulous images on the web you might want to use in your blog. But, some times you might not be sure of the license and whether the image is copyrighted or not. Following are three useful WordPress plugins which enable you to add images to your blog without the hassle of license and copyright issues.

PicApp – premium celeb, news, sports images

PicApp enables you to add the best images for your blog. It has over twenty million images from Getty Images, Corbis and alike, covering wide range of categories like sports, news, entertainment, fashion, travel etc. All images provided by PicApp are free and fully licensed. Moreover, these images come tagged to improve Search Engine Optimization(SEO) and help reader interaction. As all images are licensed, you need not worry about any copyright or license issues.

Photo Dropper

Photo Dropper is a similar WordPress plugin which lets you add Creative commons licensed images to your blog posts from Flickr. Once installed, just type in a keyword in the ‘Photo Dropper Browse Photos panel’ for the type of images you are looking for, then hit “Search” button. Photo Dropper plug-in will return photos relevant to your search terms from Flickr. Each image loads with options for dropping the image into your WordPress editor in 3 sizes – Small, Medium and Large. You might want to read more about how Photo Dropper works here.

Tagaroo

This WordPress plug-in gives you an integration between your WordPress blog and OpenCalais web service. Tagaroo retrieves semantic data like people, places, events, etc. relevant to your blog post. You can use this data as tags on your blog. It will also use these tags to search Flickr for appropriately licensed images for use in your blog posts.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

Wp.me Short URLs for all WordPress.com blog posts

vrreddy — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:43:30 +0000

The folks at WordPress.com launched a URL shortening service for all WordPress.com users. They acquired Wp.me domain name for the same and now each and every post of WordPress.com will carry a short URL.

If you blog at wordpress.com you can use of the feature, when you edit or create a post it will display Get Shortlink button, clicking on that link will popup a short URL for that post or page which you share it on sites like twitter. You no longer have to worry about losing your data as they are hosted on WordPress.com. They are claiming that these links will be there as long as WordPress.com is around.

These links are also added to the HTML of the post in the section with rel=”shortlink” microformat. For now these links are only available to WordPress.com users, currently self hosted wordpress blogs doesn’t have this feature but this may be coming as the comments in the official post point out.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

WordPress 2.8 Final Released

vrreddy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:32:04 +0000

WordPress 2.8 Final version is released to the public. 2.8 version brings lot of improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies and overall speed according to WordPress blog. Visually it looks the same as previous version 2.7 but you will see some changes like code editor and others.

New Features / Improvements:

WordPress 2.8 is way faster compared to previous versions, this was achieved by changing the way Wordpess handles style and scripting.

Like the one click plugin installation now you can browse the WordPress official theme directory and install themes in one click all from the wordpress admin dashboard.

If you use widegts and doesn’t feel good about the current widget management, here is a good news, they redesigned the widgets interface to allow users do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t have to start all over again later. The widget system also brings a robust API aimed at developers.

Now you can change the screen options on every page using the tab in the top right. By default it uses two columns of widgets, now you can customize it.

There a total of 180 new features, changed, upgrades and improvements, you can find them here.

Here is the video for quick overview

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

WordPress Image Uploader crashes Firefox, how to fix it

vrreddy — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:25:21 +0000

I am experiencing a Firefox crash when I tried to upload images to WordPress using the built-in WordPress Flash image uploader. In Google Chrome it works fine but Firefox crashes immediately when i try to upload an image.

The issue seems to be caused by the Google Gears extension for Firefox, I am using Google Gears to speed up WordPress on the local machine. If I disable the Google Gears extension the wordpress image uploader works fine. Strangely the problem occurred yesterday for the first time and it is continuing, i don’t remember updating Google Gears addon for Firefox or Firefox itself.

There is an option in Google Gears settings to selectively disable a single site or more, i tried this option also but it is not a solution as Firefox is still crashing. The only option now is to completely disable Google Gears or just use another browser like Google Chrome or Opera.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

BuddyPress: Create Social Network with WordPress MU

vrreddy — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:40:11 +0000

BuddyPress is a set of plugins for Wordpres mu, those will transform the multi user wordpress into a social network. BuddyPress is under development for quite some time, yesterday version 1.0 is out, like WordPress it is released under GPL.

BuddyPress current features include Extended Profiles, Private Messaging, Friends, Groups, The Wire Activity Streams, Blog Tracking and Forums. Upcoming features include status updates and Photo albums.

The extended profiles include user details, some defaults and other chosen by the administrator of the site. Private Messaging allows members to contact each other with short messages. Friends plugin allows users to add other users as friends like any typical social network. Groups will allow members to setup groups on various topics and discuss things on forums. For forums you need to install bbpress, another Automattic product

Installing WordPress Mu is a bit tricky compared to WordPress and so BuddyPress. You can install buddypress on a shared host but you can’t get all the functionality of wordpress mu in that case. So this is not for everyone at the moment, but it adds a solid foundation for creating a social network for a niche or for a group of enthusiasts.

You can test a demo of the buddypress at testbp.org, or install on your localmachine with xampp.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

WordPress 2.7 released

vrreddy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:16:28 +0000

WordPress 2.7 final version released today which brings complete new admin interface. The most important features are drag and drop dashboard elements, quickpress for posting quick posts, threaded comments, paging and the ability to reply to comments from the dashboard, sticky posts and plugins can be downloaded from wordpress.org with a single click.

I have posted earlier WordPress 2.7 beta release features with screenshots. This is a major release for wordpress and it brings some cool features to the table. You can download the release from here.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites:

Download Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta

vrreddy — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:41:01 +0000

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta and Windows Server 2008 SP2 beta are available to download from Microsoft Download center. Few days back it was released for MSDN and Technet subscribers and from yesterday it is available for general public. This update is available to users who have any of these languages: English, German, French, Japanese or Spanish.

Download Five Language Standalone file, If you wish to download using Windows Update you can find the file here

More information on Service pack 2 is available here, Frequently asked questions regarding this pack can be accessed here. Release notes for Windows server 2008 SP2 beta can be accessed from here and release notes for Vista SP2 can be accessed from here.

You need to have SP1 installed before installing SP2. Remember if you install this beta release you need to uninstall it before installing SP2 final when it is released. Vista SP2 final release won’t come until first half of 2009 according to Microsoft. If you have installed release candidates previously you need to uninstall them before installing SP2.

Read this note before installing SP2 Beta

Windows Server 2008/Windows Vista SP2 Beta apply to people, organizations, and technical enthusiasts who are comfortable evaluating prerelease software. This prerelease software is provided for testing only. Installation of Service Pack 2 Beta will result in Microsoft collecting information about the installation process, even if the installation is not completed. We do not recommend installing this software on primary or mission-critical systems. We recommend that you have a backup of your data before you install any prerelease software.

---
Related Articles at Technology Bites: