FiddyP

Since CommentLuv got moved to the FiddyP server it has been performing quite well, I think Sharon had some trouble with the site loading slowly over the weekend and I think that’s probably to do with spam comments disprupting the script as there are times when the commentluv script that does the retrieving of the last post gets absolutely hammered.

50,000+ hits to the script each day is a fair amount, I think I need to update commentluv to ignore any comments made with a url that links direct to a file on a site rather than the root. That would probably catch a few of the spam comments from calling the remote script. I have updated the plugin recently to 1.93 but it seems as though the wordpress codex pages haven’t updated in a while. I’ll add some stuff and get it up to 1.94 and press for an update to the pages.

Here’s some hits!..

I am in the process of doing something with all the last blog posts found, right now the script just passes back the html to add to the comment being submitted but for the future I will put in some code that will store statistics in a database which will, eventually, lead to a widget for people to use to display something similar to blogrush but for their own commenters.

I might even get around to doing a back end registration site for it, it might be nice for people to be able to log into a commentluv settings page where they can choose a default feed url for their site which will be used whenever commentluv encounters their registered url.

People could promote a particular post on their page too, log in and set it to display a particular html link for any comment they make on a commentluv enabled blog.

ooh ooh, there could even be stats page to show how many sites display their last blog posts and and and…(anyone know a way to extend the hours in a day?) lol

hmm, what do you think? any ideas for back end features of a commentluv site?

Popularity: 3% [?]

I bought a book recently after seeing it mentioned in the WP dashboard news items, it’s called Wordpress Theme Design by Tessa Blakeley Silver and although a lot of the information regarding the functions of wordpress can be found at the codex, the book gives you so much more like the process gone through to design a theme from scratch.

I do quite a lot of sites in wordpress now and find it much easier to provide a client with a website that can be updated so easily, a few plugins here and there and you can provide a website that does all and more that’s needed.

Usually I get a standard theme and cut it up a bit and change the css to give me my site, or create in photoshop and send off for wordpressing but lately due to some more custom design requests I’ve received and the always dependable mistakes that freelancers can make I have wanted to do the whole thing myself from scratch..

I’ve downloaded a tutorial before about WP theme design from small potato before it was taken over and that was pretty darn useful but was made a little while ago so it wasn’t 2.5 specific.

That’s why I like what Tessa has put her book, it takes you step by step through the process of creating a non-blog wordpress blog, from sketch to WP core code. It’s made a big difference to my initial prototyping of concept sites and has really opened my eyes to what you can do with a bit of manipulation of the wordpress template tags. I’m even working on a magazine style front page for here so I can have a featured post for contests that stays up while it’s open for entries as well as excerpts to the regular posts..

You can buy the book printed or get it as pdf for a bit cheaper (I printed mine out from pdf on someone elses printer lol!) at packet publishing

Popularity: 4% [?]

I’ve been away from fiddyp for a while but not away from wordpress as I’ve been working really hard on some WP based sites that have turned out pretty well using WP as a CMS combined with some useful and custom plugins.

It’s pretty amazing what you can do with some customized templates and a bit of hacking the code here and there so I thought I’d list some of the useful tools I work with to make life a little bit easier.

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Cforms II

This is a really easy plugin to use straight out of the box just by entering <!–cforms–> onto a post or page where you want the contact form to appear.

Select which fields you want in the options page and you can’t get a simpler contact form made on Wordpress!

It can be used in a more complex way too, it has options for AJAX, custom fields and even a file upload function. Get into the code some more and there are ways to generate custom contact forms within the wordpress template code so for example, you could generate a “request more information on this product” form on a product listing which has the product code automatically inserted as a hidden field which will be sent along with the contacts details and message.

You can read more about Cforms II and download the latest version at
http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin

It works well and is constantly being updated with new features and options.
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Popularity: 5% [?]

Here I am looking at the new post screen on wordpress! yey. oh how I missed your light blue tones

It’s funny, I’ve been busier and had more work to do over the past weeks and months than ever before but I don’t feel as half as stressed as I used to. It must be the nice weather or I might be (shock!) getting used to the workload!

I took on a charity website job last week and completed the final touches this morning, it’s for the Newtown Santa Run in 2008 which is a record breaking gathering of people dressed as Santa who run a few miles to raise money for good causes. It’s held every year in Newtown, Powys and there’s oodles of prizes to be won and lots of money to raise for charity. Visit the Newtown Santa Run website and see what they get up to..

I promised to do a few links here and there to get it noticed so you might notice it popping up here or there until google indexes it properly…

Popularity: 4% [?]

Sorry if you’re having problems with commentluv plugin, I’ve been having real issues with my nameservers and dedicated server. I’ve moved the feed retrieving file to FiddyP.com now and I think that’s the best place for it.

Along the way of all these changes, I’ve learned not to get a dedicated server from streamline.net

I noticed that my disk usage was over 50GB and I only host 4 sites on my server, I sent them an email asking where this extra space usage was coming from and do you know what the expected me to accept as an answer??? - “that’s space taken up by the OS and plesk”

don’t make me bloody larrrrf. OS using up over 50GB? eejits

turns out it was the log files, fancy that, log files taking up 50gb. doh

Popularity: 4% [?]