The iAssistant is an AssistU trained virtual assistant who also writes instructional ebooks about WordPress plugins.
Archive for Share This
Think Outside the WP Box
Posted by: | CommentsSomehow, I’ve always thought that any plugin that went into WordPress had to come from the WordPress Repository, or at least be designed specifically for WordPress. After figuring out how to use the ShareThis plugin on my website, I realized that other plugins could work on a WordPress site.
Take a look at this screenshot:
Have you ever seen this widget on a web page and wondered how it got there? Go to Twitter Goodies, click on “Widgets”, and then “My Website”. You will have a choice of four kinds of widgets: Fave, List, Search, and Profile. The one displayed here is a profile widget that displays my latests tweeps.
It is very easy to do. Even though it looks like nothing is there, click on “Finish & Grab Code”. When you see the code, highlight and copy it.
Then, go over to your WP Dashboard, open “Widgets”, locate the place in your sidebar you want it to display, drag a text widget over there, and paste the code in. There it is!
The widget code didn’t render the correct width to work in my theme, but I changed the width a few times, and it worked just great at 170 pixels.
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WP Podcasting Adventure
Posted by: | CommentsHi Everyone!
I know I said I would be working on an ebook entitled” The Easy, The Hard & The Impossible” about the Sociable, About Me 3000, and Share This WordPress plugins, but I got sidetracked today. Do any of you get sidetracked?
Someone asked me today if I knew how to podcast. I replied that I’d been wanting to learn. To be honest, part of me is scared. I don’t have an iPod, my husband does. I had iTunes installed on my computer but uninstalled it because I never used it. Never one to let technology beat me, I plunged right in.
First, I decided I should figure out exactly what a podcast was, yep, that’s where I was. Wikipedia had an excellent article on podcasting. Basically, podcasting is different from a plain mp3 file because it can be delivered by RSS.
A sidenote here: RSS is handy if you want to avoid email spam, but it doesn’t have the intimacy that having something delivered to your inbox does. RSS is read through a web browser, for those of you who were once like me and had no clue. 
So, now I’m working with two WordPress plugins to insert podcasts into blogs. I have to say, it is one of the harder plugin functions I’ve investigated. 
First, I’ll learn podPress (Mighty Seek) and then I’ll graduate to Blubrry Power Press. Power Press is an upgrade from podPress.
I hope I’ve provided some useful information here. There will definitely be more to come!
WP Social Networking Plugins
Posted by: | Comments
Hello Everyone,
I’ve been working an hour or so every day on an ebook featuring three WordPress social networking plugins: Sociable, About Me 3000, and Share This. It’s up to nine pages now. I’m calling it “The Easy, The Hard, and The Impossible”. So far, the ebook contains support information and how the plugin displays on the page. As I dig into the functionality of these WP plugins, I’m sure there will be more.
What I’ve found so far has helped me, if no one else. I now have an “About Me” widget in my sidebar. I couldn’t get it to work before. The more time I spend with WordPress, the more I understand how things come together on my websites.
Sociable displayed a list of my social networking links at the bottom of my blog posts and worked great. Then, I saw Chris Brogan’s blog. He uses Share This, so I started using that plugin. Once the site visitor clicks the icon, she can choose from a multitude of social networking sites. If she wanted to tweet my post, she would login to her Twitter account. But, if she signs up for a Share This account, her information is saved and she wouldn’t need to type it in every time. It’s an extra step the first time, but saves one every time thereafter. Sounds like a win-win situation for the time impaired. 
Bye for now, I’ll talk with you again soon.
