12 useful WordPress plugins – 2011

19 Replies Kaushal Gandhi

WordPress is very popular among bloggers and writers today. One of the reasons is because it offers many of plugins that can help make your blog even better!

WordPress PluginsThere are an almost endless number of plugins you can find on WordPress, but it is important to limit your use to a few, as too many plugins can have an adverse effect on your host. The question is, which ones should you use?

Here are some options that can certainly be useful:-

1) Google XML- Sitemaps

This helps search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Ask to index your blog and informs them when you add new posts. These maps also help users to browse well through your various posts and find what they are looking for.

2) DiggDigg

Through this plugin you can insert buttons of various social networking sites on your WordPress site like Facebook like, Facebook share, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn and many others.

3) Insights

Insights help you add more information to your blog. You can insert Flickr images, YouTube videos and interlink various posts to your advantage.

4) WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache converts WordPress PHP scripts into html files, thus reducing load and down time.

5) WP-DBManager

This plugin helps you manage your blog by providing ways to repair, backup, restore, and optimize database.

6) Akismet

Akismet helps you keep a check on spam by checking your blog comments and submitting to your admin such comments for review.

7) YoastWordPress SEO

This SEO plugin helps bloggers in optimising page titles and keywords into XML sitemaps.

8) Contact Form 7

Through Contact Form 7, users can create, manage and customize contact forms on their blog.

9) LinkWithin

This plugin adds thumbnails of relevant posts on your blog.

10) Yet Another Related Post Plugin (YARPP)

YARPP provides information of pages and posts which are related to your new entry thus giving the reader a chance to read more matter on the topic.

11) WP Page Navi

It helps in navigating through the site and provides the various posts with page numbers.

12) Google Analytics Plugin

Google Analytics is a good tool to track your blog and thus access information like outbound clicks, page views, and other metadata.

Whether you are a leisure blogger or a blogger for money, it is important to be familiar with and equip yourself with necessary plugins, as these can make your thought-sharing experience easier and more convenient.

So continue sharing relevant information and happy blogging!

Google Plus – a breath of fresh air?

15 Replies bhattman

For years websites like MSN and Facebook have been growing in numbers. Many rivals, less efficient and less popular social networking website, have died out as they are crushed by the giants. But Facebook seems immune from the possibility of extinction, with a growing number of users currently at over 640 million users!

MSN had a golden period and enjoyed strong competition with Facebook. But the Microsoft owned site has 120 million users and falling. It looks like MSN will be joining the likes of Bebo, Digg and Myspace.  I myself deleted my Myspace account when I decided to hop onto the Facebook bandwagon.

But for years it seemed that Facebook would never be challenged, and that was the case, until, now! A company which has 15 times the amount of revenue is stepping up to the plate. Google. The internet giant is taking over world computing. With 85% of the world using Google as their search engine, 15% of internet browsers in the world are Google Chrome – but this is fast growing – and now the $30 billion company is preparing to take on Facebook with its own social network – Google+.

In its two month infancy it is showing similar trends to Chrome and is rapidly growing in usage with 20 million worldwide users at the moment. Although this may seem puny, bear in mind it isn’t open to the world public entirely just yet.  At the moment, Google+ is an invitation only site until it opens fully in a couple of months.

I have put my name down to use it on its somewhat large waiting list. But what is all the hype?

Key Feature:

  • Circles – This allows me to group my friends, so for example:
    • Music pals – Joe, Tom, Abby…
    • School pals – Michael, Adam…
    • Work Colleagues – Jane, Adam, Monica…
  • Hangouts – A 10 people group video chat
  • Sparks – Using Google’s search engine you can search for interests
  • The Stream – Users can see their Circles’ updates – similar to Facebook’s wall
  • +1 – Allowing people to recommend items and websites

These are just some of the functions available to use on +.  But is it what we are looking for?

The Google+ ProjectIn my opinion yes, just like Google Chrome did with Internet Explorer it will provide a breath of fresh air to the social networking industry and I think will be a very realistic competitor to Facebook.

It seems like it is made with much more quality and with far more enhanced features than Facebook, which has many problems, technically and pragmatically.

So I for one am really looking forward to joining it and setting up my profile when it becomes open to the public.

Barcoding – a history and the future

21 Replies Christopher Roberts

Many youngsters these days are not aware of how recent barcoding technology actually is. In the 1970’s a mere forty odd years ago, it would have been a rarity to see a barcode – anywhere.

Before the barcode, retail was not nearly as efficient as it currently is. Often, till assistants would have to memorise the price of every product in the shop, or products would be individually priced. Furthermore, it was almost impossible to keep tabs on stock levels in real time.

Barcodes revolutionised industry.

Barcoding in retail

Now when you pick an item and take it to the till, a barcode is scanned. The till is linked to a central database where all the barcodes for that shop (or even the entire shop chain) are stored. Information on the price of the product, the stock of the product and usually a description and or image of the product, is all stored in relation to the barcode. Upon scanning, the price is retrieved from the database and one unit is deducted form the shops stock list.

Barcoding makes it easy to increase prices and to reorder stock, that way if something has high demand and is selling fast, more orders can (sometimes electronically) placed and the store can consider raising the price.

Barcoding in car production

Barcodes are also used in many other areas, one example being car production. In car production, each car will be given a barcode. That barcode will often contain information such as the type of car that is to be made, how the car is to be styled, what colour the car is to be pained etc.

Parts that have been made for that car will often also be associated with the same barcode, to ensure that every bit gets to the right car.

The classic barcode is the one with lots of vertical lines, each of different thickness. Below is an example of a classic barcode.

A Random Classic BarcodeDespite the classic barcodes uses, many people believe that the future of barcoding lies with QR codes.

QR Codes

QR codes are like barcodes in that they are all unique, however the image itself can actually store some information. QR codes are common in Japan, however they are slowly making their way westward, and and not uncommon in Europe now.

If you go to your fridge or a cupboard and pick up half a dozen items, the chances are at least one of them will have a QR code. I found one on some cheese the other day 🙂

‘QR Code‘ stands for ‘Quick Response Code‘ as they can quickly retrieve information, just by decoding the pixels in the QR code/image.

QR Codes are basically a code (durr) containing some form of information, be it text, a URL, etc. When you run the image through a QR decoder, it will work out what data is stored in the image.

Confused? Okay, let me give you an example. Below is a QR code image. If run the image through a smart phone QR decoder or an online QR decoder, you should find that it contains the information ‘www.TechnologyBloggers.org’. Why not try it out?

Technology Bloggers QR Code

When decoded this QR Code says 'www.TechnologyBloggers.org'


That information is stored in the actual image, and there is no need for you to connect to a database. That is why many people believe that they are the future of barcoding, as a barcode stores no actual data in the lines, just a reference to a counterpart on a database.

QR codes could store the name of a product and the price on that actual barcode image – although to deduct stock, they would need to be linked into the stock database.

In many countries, QR codes are being used in advertisements, and in some places, that are being used as the actual advert. This is to try and encourage people to decode the image and find out what it means.

So what do you think, are QR codes the future of barcoding? Could they both coexist, or will one emerge on top? What is your opinion of QR codes?

Over to you 🙂