Technorati Tags: wordpress, wp, blog, wp-cache, cache, top, plugin, html, blogger

2. If you are using Google Analytics to track your blog’s performance I recommend the Google Analytics plugin by Boakes. It is simple to install and configure, just have your Google Analytics User Account handy.

3. If you are using Google Analytics you might also be using Google Sitemaps. Google Sitemaps helps Google crawl and index the new content available in your site. Yahoo and MSN also use Google Sitemaps. I have been using the Google Sitemap Generator plugin from Arne Brachhold.

4. Tags are sooo web 2.0, that is to say so last year. That said, I use SimpleTags by Broobles. I went through several tagging plugins until finally settling with SimpleTags.

5. Along the lines of web 2.0 WordPress plugins, I recommend Social Bookmarks by Apostolos Dountsis. Social Bookmarks adds a list of icon links at the end of each post to submit the post to your favorite social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, and others.

6. If you are a techie blogger and post a lot of code samples you should use SyntaxHighlighter by Erik Range. SyntaxHighlighter can high light the keywords in programming languages such as C++, C#, CSS, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, SQL, VB, XML, and HTML. You can also easily customize other display options for this plugin.

7. If you are like me you are often counting your page views via Google Analytics. Ivan Djurdjevac has written a helpful little plugin called Count Posts that will display the hits per post or a list of the top post on you site. This plugin is a bit more difficult to setup because to display the hit counter you need to edit the theme you are using itself to add a bit of PHP code.

8. If you have a del.icio.us account you should install the Del.icio.us Cached++ WordPress plugin by João Craveiro. LIke Count Posts, you will need to edit your theme files to add a bit of snippet of PHP code. I placed the one liner in the sidebar.php of my current theme.

9. Another kick ass WordPress plugin is the Automattic Widget plugin. The Widget plugin is a mini WP framework which WordPress developers can develop sidebar WordPress components, or widgets. For example, the Del.icio.us Cached++ plugin could easily be re-written to be a WordPress widget. There are a ton of widgets already available.

10. The Exec-PHP WordPress plugin allows PHP code inside you posts. The PHP code is stored alongside you post content in the database and executed before rendered to HTML. This plugin is great because you can embedded custom PHP code in your post and have that managed by WordPress. All of the WordPress PHP functions are visible from Exec-PHP code. This plugin was written by Sören Weber.

There are a ton of other great WP plugins. The ones I have listed above are the ones I have found indispensable. Here is a quick list of runner up plugins that you might find it useful… For a popular WordPress blog you will need WP-Cache for faster loads. To display AdSense ads alongside your content you will need AdSense-Deluxe. I also recommend the Gravatars WP plugin.

What is your favorite WordPress plugin?

Technorati Tags: wordpress, plugin, google, analytics, adsense, sitemap, php, delicious, widgets, exec-php, php, cache, wp, spam, akismet, tags, bookmarks

But if you want to dynamically display images on you Joomla! site, I recommend you take a look at the AJAX Header Rotator module made available by JoomlaWorks. AJAX Header Rotator also requires a image directory path but instead of displaying a single random image, this module will load all the images and display one at a time. The AJAX Header Rotator rotates through images randomly or sequentially. Behind the scenes, AJAX Header Rotator uses jQuery to rotate through the image set.

A note of warning, I had to hack the AJAX Header Rotator module because I felt it lacked a few key parameters. For one, AJAX Header Rotator loads all the images in the image folder and I had felt there should be max number of files that it loads and rotates through on each user visit. I also added a parameter to enter the image alt text. And finally, the module code always displayed the same first image so I had to shuffle the images array to display a distinct image as the initial image.

Technorati Tags: joomla, cms, module, php, ajax, javascript, jquery, design, image rotator, rotator

It is incredibly easy to create a section via the Section Manager. After you have added a section you need to create a category for it. Both sections and categories can have a description and image icon associated with them.

In the New Content item editor you can assign the section and category to the article to be pubished. In most Joomla! templates the article’s section and category are used to create a breadcrumb trail. Well, this only works when you add the section to the main menu! If you don’t add the section to the main menu the breadcrumb trail will default to Home | Blog | Article Title.

To add your newly created section to the main menu, drill down to the main menu (mainmenu) menu items via the Menu Manager from the Control Panel. Create a new Menu Item for mainmenu. In the New Menu Item wizard select the List – Content Section radio button and click the Next arrow. Name your menu item and select the newly created section for the menu item. Click save and you’re done. At this point your breadcrumbs will correctly display your newly created section and category.

Technorati Tags: cms, joomla, section, category, breadcrumb pattern, breadcrumb, content management, content

As soon as you install and configure Joomla! you should log onto the administrator’s control panel and set some global settings. What follows are some advice on the global settings I recommend you configure soon after install Joomla! This advice is based on the current stable release 1.0.11.

In the Site tab of the Global Configuration panel you can set the site name and user properties such as Require Unique Email and Default WYSIYG Editor. I usually just update the site name and move on to the Locale tab.

In the Locale tab set your country code and time offset.

By default an article’s title does not link to the article. You can indicate if you want titles to link to the article in the Content tab. In the Content tab you can also configure if you want to display the created and/or modified time with the article. I usually just display the created time. You can enable a rating system for you content. One of the cool integrated features of Joomla! is that anything you publish is simultaneously available in PDF form.

The last configuration setting I recommend you set immediately after installing Joomla! is in the SEO tab. Click yes to Search Engine Friendly URLs. To enable this you will need to rename the htaccess.txt in your Joomla! installation directory to .htaccess.

Technorati Tags: cms, joomla, seo, pdf, wysiwyg, content management, content