Category: Plugins

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Plugin Recommendations from WordCamp UK in Edinburgh, Scotland

I’m decompressing in Nottingham, England with two great friends after WordCamp U.K.  It was such a great learning, givinTravel Blogger 101 WordPress pluginsg and networking event.  I was just looking at the #wcuk twitter feed and saw something I have to tell you about from one of the attendees.

In WordPress, there are some little things called Plugins.  From the WordPress.org site you can find the following definition:

Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress…Plugins offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs.

These little gems make your life easier when you set up your blog.  There’s always a lot of conversations about what plugins to use, which ones are better, etc.  We will talk about plugins some more in our upcoming travel blogger 101 course.

I told you in the “have you ever been to a WordCamp” post that I missed the Plugin Talk by Michael Kimb Jones at WordCamp U.K. in Edinburgh, Scotland, as I opted to go to the How To Create A Web Magazine” Talk instead.  Kimb have just tweeted about it as he’s posted the list on his blog (scroll down to the last entry).

I met Kimb after his WOW Plugins Talk and the guy is very personable and promised that he’d give a list of the Plugins and he has indeed in that post.  Apparently, he’s been doing this since WordCamp UK 2009 and have now created a Website called WOWPlugins.com to showcase them.  This is a must view Web site in your arsenal once he gets it going.  Go check it out and let me know what you think and which plugins are you currently using or have heard others talk about.

From his list, I am currently using only two of the ones mentioned (you can use the search feature from the Dashboard in WordPress).  Are you using any of them?
  1. CTravel Blogger 101 - Contact 7ontact Form 7 – I use this one to handle my contact us page unless the theme I’m using has its own Contact us page that handles it. I’m actually using it for this blog. It’s very simple to use, just define the fields you want, it gives you a line of code to past into the Contact Us page you create and you are done.  There are some additional options as well, but you don’t have to get sophisticated at all.
  2. WP-Table Reloaded – I love this one as it heTravel Blogger 101 - WP-Table Reloadedlps me to create tables easily and also helps me to manage them.  Just say the number of columns and rows et voila.  Plus you can import a table from Excel which makes it so much easier to use.  It saves you from having to do all the html to format the table.  It even does the alternating colors for you ;-).

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