OTWOMD | Bluepanjeet.Net

I have been away for a while from blog hopping because I added some new features and plug-ins to OTWOMD that would create a more pleasant experience to my readers. Thanks to Jaypee who has featured his new plug-ins on his recent post and Ronnie who also made an overhaul with his blog, I finally found time in adding some plug-ins that I got from them (actually, links that I got from them). I should have added these changes a long time ago, but I was afraid to install additional plug-ins in my Wordpress because of the painstaking incident that this blog had, before it was even launched on the net. A blank page with a number 54 on the left upper corner and an error, which persisted for 2 straight days prior to its launch, gave me enough fear of losing my blog entirely. It was only today that I finally decided to face the consequences in modifying the inner sanctum of this Tapsilog. Fortunately, nothing “unholy� happened.

 

 

When installing a plug-in, I make it sure that I read every detail about it: compatibility issues, features, , purpose, dynamics, upgrading history, screen shots, change log, new releases etc. And of course, getting the best and latest plug-ins from reliable sources such as the WP Plug-in Directory and Weblog tools collection.

Internal Changes

Influenced by Jaypee’s post on his blog’s new look, I also would like to feature here the newest updates on my blog, fresh from the oven, mainit-init pa (still hot). Featuring some of these newly installed plug-ins will surely benefit other newbies who want to try it out and apparently doesn’t know where to get it. So here are some of the additional plug-ins and widgets that I got from them (Jaypee and Ronnie) and from my search in the WP directory, which I recently installed in my blog-machine:

1. Grin - This plugin allows you to put clickable smilies on your post and comments forms. Can’t remember the right syntax for one of the smilies? Just click on it and it will be inserted right into your post/comment.

I got tired of typing the syntax for every smiley. It is as if you have to memorize a whole bunch of hieroglyphics just to let the people know that you are smiling. The encoding days are over, click-trip is here to stay. The smilies are on the comments area.

2. Useronline - Enable you to display how many users are online on your Wordpress blog with detailed statistics of where they are and who they are (Members/Guests/Search Bots).

My old online tracker widget was weird. There was this instance when it recorded a 105 people online on that same hour. When I checked my other tracking devices, there were less than 30 people who logged in for about 30 minutes or so. So I found a way (and a reason) to dispatch it with the advent of this new (old) plug-in. Plus the fact that I read somewhere that my old online tracker collaborated with some spammers who uses spyware to phish out some pertinent info about the owner of the blog. Good Riddance! You can find the user online just below the “Porta Bloga� (Meta) and above the TTS (tapsilog Translation Service)

3. Wordpress Table – enable custom tables to be published on the blog without having any breaks. size, color, design and number of rows and columns can be modified according to ones preferences.

This is a cool plugin. I used to create tables from MS Word and MS Excel and then copy paste it on my blog, but the end result was disastrous: breaking the line and crashing my control panel due to a incompatible script which renders my Rich text editor/HTML editor in error. Here is a sample of the cool table:

[TABLE=2]

[TABLE=3]

4. Post Views - Enables you to display how many times a post/page had been viewed. It will not count registered member views, but that can be changed easily.

I added this to monitor the most popular topics on my blog so that the readers may know which is the most read entries: the humor or the irony? The Post Views are just below the title of every blog.

5. WP Footnotes - Creating a footnote is dead simple, just include it with double parentheses. It creates a link on the superscript which takes you down to the footnote area but in a sliding motion. I am used to include footnotes so this plug-in would truly organize my references in a very chic way. This uses ajax technology (not the detergent and not the mythological character) and javascript. using the WP-Footnotes plugin enabled the previous sentence will end up looking like this example:

Click on the superscript number 1 at the end of this sentence ((O dib a nakaka-abnoy? Ang galing-galing. O click mo naman yung link nito sa huli – [See, it’s really eye-catching. Excellent. Try to click the link at the end of this])).

O sabi ko sayo eh nakaka-abnoy! (I told you, It’s really eye-catching!)

6. Top Commenters - This plugin will add a list of the most frequent commenters posting to your blog. They are gathered in descending order (highest number of comments at the top) The list items will be links to the comment author’s URL, if provided. The following parameters are configurable by the user, either from the widget admin interface or directly (if used as a standalone plugin):

a. Number of people to show
b. List of names to exclude from the list: An array of names to be ignored from the counts.

I always see this plug-in on some blogs and it gave me the nudge to try it. Yet I am not sure if this will present good results considering the multiple reasons that Andy Beard laid on his argument in using this plug-in. But what the heck, I’ll try it anyway. Top Commenters is located on the sidebar just below the Uninhibited Views (recent comments).

7. Gregarious – is a social bookmarking plug-in which allows users to submit, comment on, and “promote� websites. The Gregarious plugin supersedes the Digg This Reloaded Plugin allows for seamless integration between your Wordpress Blog and social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com, Del.icio.us, Reddit and more. Requiring no editing of templates, and a simple point and click interface, Gregarious is the ultimate social bookmarking plugin for Wordpress.

This is a very useful plug-in because it also uses the ajax technology which makes bookmarking easy and less straining to your browser page loading. You can see this at the bottom of every post. And if you feel that you want to share a certain post to the world, you have three options:

(1) Click on the digg badge to submit the post on digg.com,

(2) click on the bookmarking options of your choice and

(3) send the post via email to whomever you want to. Nakakaabnoy ano?

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8. Quick Stats - Quick Stats is a configurable and embarrassingly easy to install statistics plug-in for Wordpress that shows live statistics about referrer data, content hit count and browser versions back to a configurable number of hits. Individual hits are also shown with IP address and hostname. Quick Stats is not meant to be a full featured log analyzer. It is intended to show real-time statistics on a recent time window. It does all the analysis on demand and shows them on an easily accessible single page.

I get exhausted when going to my page stats by clicking at least ten links just to get my recent stats considering that I’m always on the go. So I installed this plug-in to see my blog activity inside my very own blog.

9. General Stats - Counts the number of users, categories, posts, comments, pages, links, words in posts, words in comments and words in pages. Fully-option page-configurable, easy to integrate (ships with widget functionality), high performing with caching technology and customizable memory usage plus Now with Drag and Drop admin menu page.

This is a summary of my post stats (Stat’s Quo) which you can view on my sidebar. It is located below the TTS.

10. ebibleicious - eBible.com is a Web 2.0 Bible site that can be instantly integrated into your WordPress blog with this plugin. After installing and configuring the plugin options you just continue blogging and all posts past, present and future with Bible references in them will be linked to eBible.com. On page load javascript is used to bring your scripture references to life.

I am fond of citing bible passages so this will really be easy for me and my readers to read the full passage in real-time without actually writing it here on my post. Hover your browser on this passage: Genesis 9:7

11. Comment Relish - Comment relish is a Wordpress plugin developed to send an e-mail message to users who comment on your website who have never commented before. The message dispatched to the user is defined within the plugin’s preferences. Numerous tags have been integrated to allow for information to be included in the message easily (I.E.: timestamp, author name, comment, ETC.).

This is also a great plug-in which gives your first time commenter an email message containing your thank you note and some of the details of your blog and post. So if you have never commented here on my blog before, try this one for a change by leaving a comment and you’ll receive a thank you message from me.

12. PageNavi - Adds a more advanced paging navigation your WordPress blog.
Example: Pages (17): [1] 2 3 4 » … Last »

Some readers have no time to go on searching for past posts so I installed this plugin to enable the readers to navigate freely on the archives (by date posted) on the pages of my blog. At the very bottom of the homepage you will see the link to navigate the blog pages. It is only visible on the homepage and not on individual posts.

13. WP Lightbox 2 - is a simple, unobtrusive script used to to overlay images on the current page written by Lokesh Dhakar. Add rel=�lightbox� attribute to any link tag to activate the lightbox. This plugin integrate its feature into your WordPress blog.

This is a cool plugin which I installed just three weeks ago wherein your photos are shown in their original sizes right on your face. Some photos are linked to an external site, but lightbox enable photos linked externally (in your facebook or in your flickr) to be enlarged in full size without leaving the site. The trick is you have to wait for the entire page to load before it can take effect otherwise, it will just defeat the purpose by taking you to an external site. I know you have seen how this plug-in works, but for the sake of my effort, let’s just pretend that you haven’t seen this before. Click on the image to see the enlarged view:

14. Odiogo - Create instant podcasts from your blog text with this plugin from Odiogo.com. It creates a “Listen� button on your blog that people can click to listen to the text of a post. The content is read by a machine and the voice stream is linked in a flash player format on your blog. The mp3 resides on the Odiogo server and can also be downloaded. with the help of this service. You can do the same for your blog by signing up for their podcast service.

Now this is another cool plug-in. I installed this plug-in for my visually impaired readers. Well I don’t know if I have any, but it’s better to be prepared than never at all. This is a cool way to listen to your own post being read by a machine. Plus you can actually create your own podcast without actually recording it. The plug-in will automatically do it for you. As of this writing, this plug-in is not yet operational because the staff of Odiogo is still verifying my blog if it is worth the trouble. If within three days, the plug-in is still not operational, then, more or less my blog was denied of the access (I’m hoping that they won’t).

15. Ajax Comments – This plug-in is so cool that I asked Ronnie about it. Its features are the following:

a. comment form validation happens server-side without refreshing or leaving the page.

b. Script.aculo.us Fade In/Out Effects make readers happy

c. works with AuthImage captcha word verification plug-in to prevent comment spam

d. still works traditionally if browsers don’t support JavaScript (or have it disabled)

e. uses existing theme code to match styled comment threads when producing new comments

f. 25-second server timeout ensures readers aren’t left hanging

g. works in current versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape, and Safari.

This awesome plug-in enables you to see your own comment awaiting moderation, being previewed at the comments area in real time. I have installed it but its not yet fully operational. It is because my theme does not support the ajax comment and I still have to configure it manually in the theme editor. Unfortunately, the procedure is complicated and requires a back-up of my php files which will consume most of my time. So I have to hold it for a little while until I find a sufficient time to configure it. But nevertheless, enjoy commenting without the page load and without the preview

External Changes

Other minor changes which I made in this site are:

1. The number of post shown on the homepage is limited to 15 recent posts to lessen the loading time and the load bulk for those readers who have a lower kbps on their internet connection. Still instead of looking into the archives, you can navigate the page buttons at the very bottom of the page near the footer. With this I removed the “recent post� from my sidebar.

2. I will launch the “iDream�, “iTalk�, “The Voice� and “Blog Reloaded� Series from time to time:

a. Dream Series – A post written by a guest blogger that I will choose. The chosen blogger will write his own dreams, ambitions and if wholesome, even his/her fantasies. This is to celebrate humanity’s triumphs and struggles amidst personal storms, just to reach his dream. Everyone has his dream whether it is for self, for others or for World Peace. So this is your chance to share the world the Dream that you want to achieve.

b. iTalk – A post that will also be written by a guest blogger (again) about a certain topic that will be given to him/her in which he/she is actually good at. For example: If I would choose Reyna Elena, I would ask her to write about those darn politicians and the pros and cons of inflation rate; Dom OSB, about how to shot a photo of himself while baking; Rino, about bikes and mountain biking; Ross about all kinds of sodas in can; Claudia, about art; Fr. Jessie, about social justice and morals; K, about the survival guide in starbucks; Jaypee about Wordpress; Ceefive, about anything under the sun; FT, on how to actually talk using your fingers; Mike on how to be a monk and a rocker at the same time; Fruity Oaty about how one person can be sweet without actually acquiring cavities; Ronnie, on how to live in a box; Llarena on being lucid; Kip on how to concoct tea; Russ on being Theological and satyrical at the same time; Airwind about World Peace! and so many more topics that I want to throw at my correspondents to write it for me ( —yan ang tamad! that’s what you call lazy)

c. The Voice – A series about the vocation story of your popular religious and priest bloggers. The goal will be twofold: (1) to let the readers have a glimpse on what really happens when one is called to the service of God, so that it will answer the basic question most people asks: “what is it like being called to the service?�. And also (2) to instigate, trigger, promote, advertise and whatever you may call it, the vocation for religious life. This will be a fun series for it will entail funny instances and ironic experiences along the story line. I know a man who was called to the priesthood just by accidentally smelling a fried “tuyo� (dried fish) inside the seminary. Thanked God he is now a priest. This will be a testimony on how God works in mysterious ways.

d. Blog Reloaded – No, this will be written by yours truly or else this blog would end up as a cover blog of some sort. I will feature interesting reads from different blogs (as a result of my blog hopping) throughout the cyberspace. This will be my little apostolate to help other emerging bloggers be acknowledge of their existence and their interesting posts in the blogosphere. (I know what you’re thinking… nope, I’m not link baiting… )

But of course, these series will not appear regularly on OTWOMD and will only be posted alternately once or twice a month depending on the availability of yours truly and the chosen guest bloggers. I wouldn’t want my fellow bloggers to think that I’m too lazy to run this blog.

3. I placed a Saint’s of the Day podcast on the TLU (Tapsilog Latest Updates). It’s not in the auto-start mode so you have the choice to listen or not to listen to it (unlike the annoying song that plays on my homepage—as if you have a choice!). It will somehow give the readers (do I really have any?) a daily dose of saintly inspiration.

4. I placed a video feature on my sidebar and removed it from the topmost post, as not to lengthen the page accumulation of the TLU. The video area will feature pertinent breaking news, trailers from upcoming movies that I’m dying to watch, and some Music Videos that will inspire the soul (or not).

5. I enlarged the World Youth Day Logo that links to my WYD Through The Years page to highlight the upcoming event. Well the truth is, I saw some bloggers flying the WYD logo in full pride, so I joined the caravan to increase the awareness of the readers of the worldwide event.

6. I also changed the font of my post-titles for easy scanning of topics. The old lettering is not that readable. The new font which is “Impact� has a bold type format which is easily read by astigmatism-stricken readers like me.

Popularity Changes

I really don’t give a damn if my blog is popular or what. My actual concern is its existing readers. It is enough for me that readers flock to my blog and lurk as much as they want to even without giving any links or comments in return. Some lurkers visit my blog on a daily basis (I have google analytics and stat counter) and in my own assumption, they are just humble readers and not bloggers nor are they active commenters or just basically (and maybe) spammers (I don’t even have that much spam) and phishers. They just come and go on my blog and read my recent post. That’s okay with me, as long as they don’t spam, phish or scrape. But as you can see, I don’t give much attention to my technorati or digg standing, maybe because my purpose is not competition but just to do my own little apostolate here. But recently I noticed a change on the popularity on my blog.

My actual Technorati rating a month ago was 2,345,672 (way to go man ) and who knows whose blog belongs to the 4 Millionth place. But surprisingly enough, a month after its launch, my blog shed 2 Million ranks at the bottom and climbed a little bit higher having a rank of 323,754 ( I’m laughing at myself right now! C’mon, is this what you call an achievement? ). This for me is already an achievement considering that I’m not that active in popularizing my blog.

Another merit that I gained (and I really don’t know if this is really a merit or just a darn delusion on my part) is ranking (almost) on top on the google, yahoo and MSN search engines. I got the link from Bro. Vince of the website but I forgot to bookmark it. It is called something like ego or ego surf, or something to that effect. I tried to calculate my search rank by giving the domain of my blog and using three search names: On The Wings Of My Dream, OTWOMD and bluepanjeet.

With “On The Wings of My Dream� I ranked 48th. Obviously many web page contains the words on the title of my blog (excuses, excuses). But when I used OTWOMD (oh-tee-wom-dee) and bluepanjeet, my rank skyrocketed to the 1st and 2nd place. Maybe because I was the only one using those terms on the net (loser! ). My Technorati and del.icio.us resulted zero on the search even though my blog exist on those two social bookmarking sites. Nevertheless it is indeed an achievement no matter how insignificant and lousy it is for others. At least I exist even on the search engines . Click thumbnail to enlarge:

On The Wings of My Dream egosurf result

OTWOMD egosurf result

bluepanjeet egosurf result

But you know what? With all of these changes that my blog is experiencing, I can’t help but wonder: The popular changes and external changes that my blog is having is totally dependent on its internal change. Without the plug-ins, widgets, php modifications, and javascript installations, there would be no external change on the appearance of my blog and it would be very appalling to all visitors. And because of that external change, people will somehow be attracted to it (I hope) with all the features, design and of course the content. And would comeback (Crossing my fingers here) from time to time, thus becoming popular.

You see they are all inter-connected. The external change of my blog benefits from the internal change and the change in popularity benefits from the external change. It all boils down within. My blog achieved something (significant for me) because of the gradual changes happening inside it, deep within it. Behind the graphics, the sound, the videos of my blog is a messy and chaotic core that was gradually improved because of the elements added to it.

All changes starts from within and it somehow crawls on the surface outside for people to see.

If only people can be living blogs just for a while, maybe the world’s inhabitants could exist and live in peace, without war, without famine, without strife and definitely without discrimination of any kind, even for a moment.

That is if people, like blogs, would gradually have an internal change (change of heart), and acquire new and good plug-ins from time to time (Values and Virtues) to install it in their administration panel (heart and mind) which is the core of its existence. Then somehow, the internal change (change of heart) would benefit the external appearance of the blog (personality, behavior and attitude) so that readers, bloggers, and lurkers (other people around him) would see the change, and blog popularity and site rankings (harmony, unity and understanding) wouldn’t be too far to reach across the cyberspace (the world).

It is inside every human person where changes commence and not on the surface of the skin. For when a person change internally, good things will probably exude externally for others to experience and see.

Of course, like us humans, no matter how I want other blogs to change their look, style and appearance, I cannot force them because they have their own way of expressing themselves and have their own unique style of doing things. And I do highly respect that.

But like my blog, rest assured that the change would start in me… so that others would see, how cool changes can be.

There is always time for a Cool Change!