blog software updates

Wow, I had really let this blog fall by the wayside! 🙁

When I started the [30-day challenge][zero-to-hero] earlier this month, I knew one of the urgent things that needed to be done was a full update of the blog software, theme, and plug-ins. I finally got it done! WordPress is up-to-date, along with the [twentyten][] theme and all my active plug-ins. I also took this opportunity to delete old themes and plug-ins that are obsolete, stale, or unlikely to be used.

When I updated the twentyten theme, I was expecting to see a widget for images in my admin panel. After all, the Zero-to-Hero post links to an [image widget][] page which makes it seem like that’s a regular feature. Or maybe it’s only applicable to a [wordpress.com][] hosted site? Anyway, I wanted to add a zero-to-hero badge/widget, and since there doesn’t seem to be one built in I’m trying out [Image-widget][] and [Simple-image-widget][].

Some other plug-ins/features that I’d like to add are:

* additional spam protection ([Akismet][] is great, but I get too much comment spam to check for false positives — [Stop Spammers][] is looking good!)
* recipe support, maybe [Easy Recipe][]?
* the official [Facebook plugin][] and possibly [Simple Share Buttons][]
* [syntax highlighting][] (for source code)
* some “support” plugins such as [Jetpack][], [broken link checker][], and [GoogleMaps][]

I’ve uploaded all of those, but I still have to activate and test them, including making sure they don’t interfere with each other!

[zero-to-hero]: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/zero-to-hero/
[twentyten]: http://wordpress.org/themes/twentyten
[image widget]: http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/image-widget/
[wordpress.com]: http://wordpress.com
[Image-widget]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/image-widget/
[Simple-image-widget]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-image-widget/
[Akismet]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/
[Stop Spammers]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-spammer-registrations-plugin/
[Easy Recipe]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/easyrecipe/
[Facebook plugin]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/facebook/
[Simple Share Buttons]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/
[syntax highlighting]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/syntaxhighlighter/
[Jetpack]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/
[broken link checker]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/
[GoogleMaps]: http://wordpress.org/plugins/comprehensive-google-map-plugin/

About Jim Vanderveen

I'm a bit of a Renaissance man, with far too many hobbies for my free time! But more important than any hobby is my family. My proudest accomplishment has been raising some great kids! And somehow convincing my wife to put up with me since 1988. ;)
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