I’m also starting up a new WordPress Tips and Tricks Newsletter so if you are interested be sure to sign up!

Startup Weekend Indianapolis has been scheduled for Friday September 12th through Sunday September 14th 2008. You can register online if you plan on attending.

I’ve participated in two Startup Weekends to date, but only for one night each time. As luck would have it I should be back for that weekend. I’m flying back to attend the MotoGP race in Indianapolis with my Dad the weekend after.

I’m looking forward to the event and can’t wait to reconnect with some Indy Techies!

Don’t think I’m not keeping an eye on you guys!

Related posts:

1. A Busy Weekend For Techies In Indianapolis
2. Bloomington Startup Weekend Starts February 8th
3. Live Streaming Bloomington Startup Weekend

All plugins work with WordPress 2.5.1

Akismet – Most blog owners know of Akismet. Akismet is an excellent comment spam filter developed by the creators of WordPress and comes pre-installed on a WordPress blog. Akismet is 100% free for non-commercial use but does require an API key provided by their website.

Simple Trackback Validation Plugin – This plugin checks if the IP address of the trackback sender is equal to the IP address of the webserver the trackback URL is referring to. Basically if the trackback was sent by a spam bot, this plugin will detect it and block it.

Bad Behavior – This plugin is a PHP-based solution for blocking link spam and the robots which deliver it. Bad Behavior works with other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place.

Using this three-pronged plugin approach will stop 99.9% of your comment spam. Now you can enjoy a spam free blog!

Related posts:

1. How To: Remove nofollow from WordPress Comments
2. How To: Install WordPress Plugin Twitter Tools
3. Upgraded Blog to WordPress 2.3

The Todo list plugin is a great way to help organize topics you want to write about. With it’s simple interface you can easily add and manage your own Todo list. The plugin also displays on your dashboard to help keep your Todo list fresh on your mind.

For easy access I created a bookmark directly to the add new item page for quick additions on the fly.

I highly recommend this plugin for anyone wanting to get more organized with blog topics.

Related posts:

1. How To: Setup Native Tagging Support in WordPress 2.3
2. Custom Post Type UI Plugin for WordPress
3. Upgraded Blog to WordPress 2.3

I gave BlogRush 2.5 weeks to show me some results. What did I get you ask? 3 hits. 3 HITS!

Now I understand I don’t post as much as some of the bigger blogs out there, but 3 hits seems a little low for a “Rush” of blog traffic.

I also was not a big fan of their dashboard. For almost a week the dashboard page had “under construction” banners everywhere. I think overall BlogRush isn’t quite ready to be a mainstream widget. Will they get there someday? Maybe, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Looking for a good alternative? Jeff did a great write-up on CLIQin.com, which now has real estate on my sidebar.

Related posts:

1. How to Get More Blog Traffic: BlogRush.com
2. Yuntaa.com – Backup 2.0
3. How To: Setup Native Tagging Support in WordPress 2.3

STEP 1: Import existing Ultimate Tag Warrior tags into WordPress 2.3 database

1. Login to your WordPress Dashboard and navigate to Manage > Import.

2. Select Ultimate Tag Warrior and follow the instructions to import your tags. WordPress does all of the work for you.

Simple as that! Now let’s integrate our WordPress tags in to our existing theme.

There are two different ways to integrate tags into your theme. The first is a Tag Cloud:

STEP 2: Add a Tag Cloud to your existing theme

A tag cloud is a simple widget that displays your most popular tags. The more topics under each tag the bigger the font is in your cloud. An example image is shown.

1. Open up the page you would like to include a Tag Cloud on. Typically this is added to your sidebar.php file.

2. Add the below code:

<?php if ( function_exists('wp_tag_cloud') ) : ?>
<li>
<h2>Popular Tags</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=22'); ?>
</ul>
</li>
<?php endif; ?>

There are many different ways you can customize your tag cloud. WordPress has compiled a nice list of available actions that you can use. View Tag Cloud Doc

STEP 3: Add related Tags to each blog post

Another commonly used method is to list the tags for each post directly below the post.

1. Open up the file you would like to add your tags list to. Typically this is added after each post so you would need to edit single.php and index.php

2. Add the following code:

<p><?php the_tags(); ?></p>

There are many different ways you can customize your related tags. WordPress has compiled a nice list of available actions that you can use. View Related Tags Doc

Tags are a crucial part of any blog. If your not currently using tags take some time this weekend and get them setup. You’ll thank me later!

Related posts:

1. Get Organized with the WordPress Todo List Plugin
2. How to Get More Blog Traffic: BlogRush.com
3. How To: Move a WordPress Blog to a New Hosting Account

One small annoyance, which was changed a few versions ago, is the removal of the Post Preview Pane located at the bottom of the posts form. WordPress 2.3 does include a Preview >> link, but I hate opening new windows just to preview a post. Here is a quick hack to get the Post Preview Pane back:

Open up your post.php file from your wp-admin directory.
Navigate to approximately line 72 and find the following line of code:
include(‘edit-form-advanced.php’);

Directly underneath that line, add the following code:

?>
<div id=’preview’ class=’wrap’>
<h2 id=”preview-post”><?php _e(‘Post Preview (updated when post is saved)’); ?></h2>
<iframe src=”<?php echo clean_url(apply_filters(‘preview_post_link’, add_query_arg(‘preview’, ‘true’, get_permalink($post->ID)))); ?>” width=”100%” height=”600″ ></iframe>
</div>
<?php

Save your changes to post.php and upload. Easy as that!

WordPress 2.3 has added some really slick new features including native tag support, plugin update notifications, and a few new SEO URL updates. It appears all of my plugins ported over without issue, but be sure to check your plugins before upgrading.

I also have the dashboard bug that Jeff posted here. Apparently it has something to do with using Google Blogsearch rather than Technorati. I’ll see if I can find a hack to switch it back to Technorati, because that is a feature I’ve always enjoyed.

* UPDATE
I found the hack for incoming links.

If you want to get Technorati results back change:
“http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss&partner=wordpress&q=link:”

on lines 11 and 12 in index-extra.php to
“http://feeds.technorati.com/cosmos/rss/?url=”
and
“http://www.technorati.com/search/”

I recommend everyone take the plunge and get upgraded!

Related posts:

1. How To Increase Blog Traffic part 1: Google Webmaster Tools
2. How To: Move a WordPress Blog to a New Hosting Account
3. How to Get More Blog Traffic: BlogRush.com

I used the dofollow WordPress plugin. You can download the plugin here:
http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-fixes/dofollow/

To install upload the dofollow plugin folder into your plugins directory and activate the plugin through your WordPress Plugins admin panel. Easy as that! Now readers of my blog who post comments will receive a good inbound link to their site. I wonder if this counts for good karma points?

Related posts:

1. How to: Stop WordPress Comment Spam
2. How To: Install WordPress Plugin Twitter Tools
3. Upgraded Blog to WordPress 2.3

BlogRush is basically a widget for your blog that shows related blog posts from the blogosphere. So what’s the benefit? BlogRush will display your new blog post links inside their widget on other related blogs. In theory this should send a surge of traffic to your blog whenever you publish a new blog post.

It seems most smaller blogs aren’t seeing as much of a surge in traffic as they would like. BlogRush launched to the public about a week ago, so this really doesn’t surprise me. This type of widget takes time to build a strong user base. I’m sure MyBlogLog faced the same scepticism when they launched, but look how mainstream they are now.

I’m going to give BlogRush some real estate on my sidebar. I’ll be sure to post a follow-up with my BlogRush stats once I have some solid numbers to share.

Related posts:

1. BlogRush.com: Not Ready for the Blogosphere
2. How To Increase Blog Traffic part 1: Google Webmaster Tools
3. How to Monetize Your Blog by MomsCashBlog.com