Since I posted “Life after Posterous – a search for a new blog tool” in March I have exclusively used WordPress as my PhotoBlog and ScrapBook. I had previously used WordPress and built up knowledge but since moving from Posterous I’ve been through a pretty steep learning curve. Much of the curve has been to do with the server installation and configuration on Amazon EC2 but I have also experimented with a ship load of plugins in the attempt to get the blog functioning how I want with specific difficulties in moving posts and keeping broken images and URL’s to a minimum.
I’m pretty happy now. It seems to do what I want and I can post images easily using the iPhone and I’m using the app Blogsy when using the iPad. After a few people have asked, I decided to list my current setup and plugins in order to help anyone else just starting out. Hopefully this doesn’t prove to be a security risk for my site, but here goes …
Firstly I thoroughly recommend The Genesis Framework as the underlying WordPress framework with a responsive design for the Genesis child theme. I customised mine from the basic Genesis template, but you could choose from the ready built selection available.
Secondly, from my own experience I recommend the following plugins (descriptions taken directly from WordPress) …
|
Plugin
|
Description
|
|---|---|
| 404 Redirected |
A smart 404 redirection plugin that provides the ability to log incoming 404 URLs in real time, automatically redirect visitors to most relevant content, and provides page suggestions when relevant content can not be found. Admins can also manually add redirects to system and control automatic deletion of old redirects when they are no longer being used. |
| Add Linked Images To Gallery |
Examines the text of a post and makes local copies of all the images linked though IMG tags, adding them as gallery attachments on the post itself. |
| Akismet |
Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep. |
| Auto ThickBox Plus |
Overlays linked image, inline, iFrame and AJAX content on the page in simple & fast effects. (improved version of Auto Thickbox plugin) |
| Broken Images |
This plugin is designed to handle the broken images that might appear on the posts on your blog. |
| Broken Link Checker |
Checks your blog for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found. |
| Disqus Comment System |
The Disqus comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus. Head over to the Comments admin page to set up your DISQUS Comment System. |
| Easy Featured Image |
This plugin enables editting the featured images on the edit.php in the admin menu. You will need to put this in your functions.php to enable featured images:<?php add_theme_support(‘post-thumbnails’); |
| ELI’s Related Posts Footer Links and Widget |
This Plugin creates links to Related Post at the bottom of every post. There is also a Widget for your WordPress sidebar or footer area. Links can be displayed in a Tree View or as a Simple List and can be related by Tags or by Category. |
| Faster Image Insert |
Fully integrates media manager into editing interface, avoid having to reload it separately in thickbox pop-up; comes with enhanced features, suitable for precise image control. |
| Find and replace |
Lets you find and replace pages and posts with a GUI. |
| Genesis Simple Hooks |
Genesis Simple Hooks allows you easy access to the 50+ Action Hooks in the Genesis Theme. |
| Google XML Sitemaps |
This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog. |
| Gravatar Favicon |
This plugin allows you to generate a gravatar favicon for your blog, feed logo and admin logo included Apple touch icon. |
| Javascript Flickr Badge |
Displays photos from Flickr, with optional tag filtering, with client-side javascript. Several eye-catching effects available. |
| Jetpack by WordPress.com |
Bring the power of the WordPress.com cloud to your self-hosted WordPress. Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress.com users. (The gallery feature is a must for PhotoBlogs)
|
| Login Alert |
Lets you know when people attempt to login and sends their details to Government Agencies. |
| Login LockDown |
Adds some extra security to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range.
|
| Notification Toolbar |
This is a toolbar placed on the footer of your blog and it will show your custom notifications on it. This plugin is developed based on the Static Toolbar plugin. |
| P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) |
See which plugins are slowing down your site. Create a profile of your WordPress site’s plugins’ performance by measuring their impact on your site’s load time. |
| Postie |
Signifigantly upgrades the posting by mail features of Word Press (See Settings and options) to configure your e-mail settings. |
| Proper Redirect |
Redirects you to the proper URL of the website. In case of stumbling upon a working alias. Normally http://misterwebsite.nl (an alias) just works, but it should be redirected to http://www.mrwebsite.nl. The same goes for http://mrwebsite.nl (it should be with www. instead of without), https://www.mrwebsite.nl (it should be http instead of https) and all other aliases. |
| SEO Friendly Images |
Automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search results and makes them W3C/xHTML valid as well. |
| Simple Auto Featured Image |
Automatically generates the featured image (Post Thumbnail) for a post, page or custom post type if it does not have one. |
| Simple Sitemap |
HTML sitemap to display content as a single linked list of posts and pages, or as groups sorted by taxonomy (via a drop-down box). |
| Slickr Flickr |
Displays photos from Flickr in slideshows and galleries |
| Touch Punch |
Super lightweight Plugin that enables WordPress drag/drop functionality to work on iPad/iPhone. |
| Tweet Images |
Allows you to post images for tweets to your blog from your Twitter client. Creates a post per image. |
| WordPress.com Popular Posts |
Shows the most popular posts, using data collected by Jetpack stats. |
| wp-jquery-lightbox |
A drop in replacement for LightBox-2 and similar plugins. Uses jQuery to save you from the JS-library mess in your header. 🙂 |
| WP-Optimize |
This plugin helps you to keep your database clean by removing post revisions and spams in a blaze. allows you to rename your admin name also. Additionally it allows you to run optimize command on your wordpress core tables (use with caution). |
| YouTube Channel |
Widget that display latest video thumbnail, iframe (HTML5 video), object (Flash video) or chromeless video from YouTube Channel or Playlist. |
I hope it helps, let me know.
Great post. Just booked marked this as I’ve moved over to wordpress. Just need to get my site design sorted…
Cheers, it might be a little out of date, but I think the basics are still there 🙂
I’m so far out of touch with WP that any good article will help 🙂