There are many services out there that offer widgets you can embed into your own web site layouts.  How do you know which ones are the best?  Well, I am not an expert. Since this is the Internet though, I can pretend.

Here are my top 10 favorite widget related web sites.

Widgetbox – Tons of free widgets to put on your site.

LinkWithin – Post related stories and thumbnails on your web site.

ShoutMix – Free shoutbox/tagboard chat widget.

Wowzio – A lot of random widgets to choose from here.

SpringWidgets – Web site tools for blogs and social networks.

YourMinis – Widgets for your blog, website, start page, and desktop!

Monitter – Real time live Twitter watch and badge creator.

Widgipedia – Your ultimate web site widget resource.

Widgiland – A social network based around awesome widget production.

FeedWind – The free online feed widget.

Know of another great place to grab online widgets or tools for your web site?  Drop in a comment and let us know.  I’m looking for the best of the best in online tools, embeddable items or fun sidebar distractions.

Thanks to the powers of the Wayback Machine, here is the earliest layout I can find for Mitchelaneous (then hosted as a part of the lockergnome.net blogs). Actually, you could probably say that Chris Pirillo (and the old Lockergnome team of writers) played a big part in this web site’s existence.

I like to say I was a part of the last great team of writers at Lockergnome.com, before they turned it into a big social network/everybody can sign up type of mess.  At the time, I was trying to build up my own resume, so writing more seemed to be a natural progression.  So I set up a blog, start to pontificate, and the rest is digital history.

So in closing, I just wanted to take a minute to thank each and every one of you for stopping in day to day, and making this little pet project of mine a fun one to be apart of.  I appreciate your support, no matter if you just came in once or you come in every single day.

Want to make sure you don’t miss a post in the next five years?  Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed, in your feed reader of choice.

I am always looking for great web development resources to share, but this time around I am going to give you a link that also highlights the best of the best when it comes to designer or developer tools.  Corkdump.com is one of the best resource web sites for webmasters.

They provide resources for:

• CSS/XHTML
• JavaScript/AJAX
• Flash/ActionScript
• Photoshop/Illustrator
• Blog Resources
• Design Insperation
• PHP/MySQL

That is not all, but I have to leave you with a few surprises, right?  So if you want a database of some of the best web developer links – check out and bookmark corkdump.com.  You will not be disappointed.

• Dotclear – Great Blogging Alternative
• Easy Blog Publishing with Zomplog
• Eggblog, the Free PHP MySQL Blogging Script
• Beautiful Blogging with Textpattern
• Database-less Blogging with Flatpress
• A Wiki/Blog Hybrid in WikyBlog
• Habari = Next Generation Blogging Script?
• WordPress Sucks? Try Nucleus CMS
• Small, Yet Powerful Blogging with Pritlog
• Media Publishing Made Easier with Loudblog
• LifeType is Your Blogging Solution?
• Flexible Blogging/CMS with Serendipity
• The King of Kings is WordPress

Have any other blogging script suggestions you would like for me to check out?

The requirements are pretty basic to get it up and running, so any Linux-based shared hosting environment should do.  The install is just as simple too, with your basic download, configure, setup database, and upload.

It can handle just about any blogging task you throw it’s way.  From content publishing, multiple contributors, link management and the inclusion of Textile, a simple syntax for nudging plain text into structurally sound and stylistically rich web content, it is not lacking in features.

If you want to give it a test drive, there is both a front end and admin demo up on OpenSourceCMS.com.

It comes ready for themes and plugins too.  Your best resource to pick those up would be the Textpattern Resources web site.  TextGarden.org also has a number of Textpattern themes to use.

All in all, I think Textpattern is a simple, yet effective blogging script that is well worth trying out. 

Looking over the fresh install instructions, the process looks pretty straight forward.  You upload, configure and get your blog going.  Some of the features include (but are not limited to):

• Simple. Designed for users of all technical levels.

• Robust Editing Interface. Featuring an (optional) WSYISWG editor, easily browsable image manager, extended entry support, entries statistics and a host of other features.

• Threaded comments, Nested categories and posting to multiple categories are supported.

• Anti-Spam / Comment moderation. Through use of a (bundled) plugin you can enable CAPTCHAs, SURBL-blacklisting, automatted comment moderation based on the content of a comment. Highly configurable.

Here is a little more about the blogging script from the developers:

Serendipity is a PHP-powered weblog application which gives the user an easy way to maintain an online diary, weblog or even a complete homepage. While the default package is designed for the casual blogger, Serendipity offers a flexible, expandable and easy-to-use framework with the power for professional applications.

There is also full support for both themes and plugins.  So extending Serendipity is an option, if you need a few more tools at your fingertips.  Also, be sure to check out the demo hosted over on OpenSourceCMS.com.

Want to know more?  Check out the FAQ.  I would highly recommend Serendipity to anybody looking for an alternative to MovableType or WordPress. 

The Nucleus CMS install process isn’t rocket science, so that is defiantly a good thing.  Any basic Linux hosting account should make a good home for it. 

You can check out more screenshots of Nucleus CMS in action here.  You can also play with the demo too, if you what to try some of the features out for yourself.

Here is a little more about Nucleus CMS from the developers:

Thanks to an international community of sophisticated developers and designers, Nucleus CMS remains simple enough for anyone to learn, and expandable enough to allow you to build almost any web site you can imagine. Nucleus CMS lets you integrate text, images, and user comments in a seamless package that will make your web presence as serious, professional, personal, or fun as you want it to be.

The must for any blogging platform, skins and plugins are both there.  So this means you have even more possibilities when it comes to customizing Nucleus CMS to meet your own needs. 

You can download Nucleus CMS for free, so why not give it a shot?

Some of the features of Eggblog are:

• easy to use web-based administration to add, edit and delete news articles
• easy to use web-based configuration to manage your web site settings
• WYSIWYG easy-to-use text editor for publishing or editing news articles
• download themes to easily change the style, layout and colors of your site

I also like the forum feature, which is simple – yet unique. You can check it out (with examples) on Eggblog’s own web site. Check Eggblog out in action here:

The installation process looks pretty easy.  You download it, edit the configuration files, and then you are done.  They also have an installation guide to help you along the way.  The server requirements are lightweight too.  You only need to have a fairly modern version of PHP, MySQL, and the PHP-GD library.  There are a number of different themes you can use too, just in case your not happy with the default one.

If you want to check out a demo of the script in action, be sure to visit this page for the login details.  Eggblog might not have all the features that a script like WordPress might have, but it is a nice alternative if you want to move away from the fold. Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my firefox help site and my hosting podcast too!

  ]]> http://www.mitchelaneous.com/2008/11/27/eggblog-the-free-php-mysql-blogging-script/feed/ 0 http://www.mitchelaneous.com/2008/11/26/dotclear-great-blogging-alternative/ http://www.mitchelaneous.com/2008/11/26/dotclear-great-blogging-alternative/#comments Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:13:59 +0000 Mitch http://www.mitchelaneous.com/?p=2148 There are a lot of blogging tools out there under the sun.  One that does not get much credit, but I think is pretty nice is Dotclear.  An open-source web publishing software, Dotclear has been around since 2002.  The project’s purpose is to provide a user-friendly tool allowing anyone to publish on the web, regardless of their technical skills.

Some of the features included in Dotclear are:

• Automated install
• Fully customizable themes
• User-friendly administration
• Naturally optimized for search engines

You can read more about the many features of Dotclear over on their features page.  Did I mention they promise you can get it up and running in a minute too?

One minute install from Dotclear on Vimeo.

If performance is your main concern, Dotclear is fast.  It promises to be as responsive as possible, no mater the quantity of the blog.  Need some help to get it going?  They provide a pretty nice documentation guide to go along with as you customize it to fit your own needs.

Since it will not cost you a thing, Dotclear is definitely worth checking out.  

I’m happy to announce that version 2.6 of WordPress.org is now available, almost a month ahead schedule. Version 2.6 “Tyner,” named for jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, contains a number of new features that make WordPress a more powerful CMS: you can now track changes to every post and page and easily post from wherever you are on the web, plus there are dozens of incremental improvements to the features introduced in version 2.5.

Also here are some of the improvements, updates and upgrades:

• Word count! Never guess how many words are in your post anymore.
• Image captions, so you can add sweet captions like Political Ticker does under your images.
• Bulk management of plugins.
• A completely revamped image control to allow for easier inserting, floating, and resizing. It’s now fully integrated with the WYSIWYG.
• Drag-and-drop reordering of Galleries.
• Plugin update notification bubble.
• Customizable default avatars.
• You can now upload media when in full-screen mode.
• Remote publishing via XML-RPC and APP is now secure (off) by default, but you can turn it on easily through the options screen.
• Full SSL support in the core, and the ability to force SSL for security.
• You can now have many thousands of pages or categories with no interface issues.
• Ability to move your wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location, for “clean” SVN checkouts.
• Select a range of checkboxes with “shift-click.”
• You can toggle between the Flash uploader and the classic one.
• A number of proactive security enhancements, including cookies and database interactions.
• Stronger better faster versions of TinyMCE, jQuery, and jQuery UI.
• Version 2.6 fixes approximately 194 bugs.

You can read more (and watch a video tour) from WordPress.org about it here:
http://wordpress.org/development/2008/07/wordpress-26-tyner/

You can download WordPress 2.6 here:
http://wordpress.org/download/

Also looks like somebody has already found the easter egg in it too.

For those of you using cPanel/Fantastico to manage your install and upgrades, the upgrade for you might not come for a couple of more weeks.  Are you excited about WordPress 2.6 yet?