Tag Archives | plugin

Style, Grammar and Spell Checker for WordPress

Nov/13 in Online Apps

Free Style, Grammar and Spell Checker

Everybody can use a little help when it comes to writing.  After the Deadline is a plugin for WordPress, that is like your own little sixth grade grammar book, living inside your content management system.   They use artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology to find errors in your writing and to offer smart suggestions to correct them.

So, what all does After the Deadline do?

  • Checks for Spelling Mistakes
  • Detects Misused Words and Common English Errors
  • Checks the Style of Writing
  • Checks for Common Grammar Errors

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Send Windows Live Writer to the System Tray

Oct/10 in Desktop, Web Development Tutorials

System Tray Access to Windows Live Writer Want to keep Windows Live Writer in the system tray toolbar? 

Searching around for various plugins and scripts to add onto the already pretty great Windows Live Writer I stumbled upon a tiny program that will let you do that.  Windows Live Writer System Tray is a small application that lives in your system tray giving you quick access to these Windows Live Writer features:

  • Start a New Post
  • Open an Existing Post
  • Show Options
  • Exit

This is the system icon that will be placed in your system tray when the app is started.  You can grab the free download on the Windows Live Writer System Tray web site.  If you enjoy Windows Live Writer as much as I do, I know you’ll appreciate being able to keep it handy in the system tray at all times.

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Use Paint.NET to Edit and Create Icons

Aug/01 in Desktop, Resources

Logo3I had an idea to customize a few of my default Vista icons, but had no way of doing so.  I had the icon files, but no way to edit them.  So after doing some browsing around I did come up with a solution to my icon editing woes.

First Step?  Get Paint.NET!

First step was to pickup Paint.NET.  This is an awesome free image editor with all the bells and whistles of your hundred-dollar programs.

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It  features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help,  tutorials, and plugins.

Grab the Paint.NET ICO Plugin

Well worth having, just as a backup image editor if nothing else.  Since Paint.net does not have .ico support built in by default, I picked up this page:

http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1152

To use it, all you need to do is unzip and then put it in the “FileTypes” folder in the Paint.NET directory.

Startup Paint.NET and try dragging and dropping an .ico icon onto the canvas.  Thanks to this neat plugin, it will open just as any other image would open.  With saving as an .ico, I had a few errors at times but doing it again or changing the name of the file seems to have helped.

So there is a totally free way to edit and create custom desktop icons for your next design project or desktop redecoration.

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Easily Add Related Posts to WordPress Install?

Apr/08 in Odds & Ends

best-related-posts The WordPress Related Posts plugin might be the best of the bunch.  I have added this to a few of my various projects and online homes and I have to say I am really impressed that all you do is pretty much install, fill in some options and you are done. 

Once activated, this plugin will automatically slip related links after all of your stories, articles and posts on your WordPress powered blog.

To your right here you can see what the admin interface looks like for the plugin.  Pretty simple stuff.  If you wish it will also add related posts to your RSS feed too. 

If you want a simple way to keep people on your web site a little longer – related links to other stories they might be interested in is one of the best ways to do it.  This WordPress Releated Posts plugin is hands down the easiest of the many out there that do this sort of thing to get up and running.  On the web page for it, it says it is only for WordPress 2.3, but it has given me no problems at all on WordPress 2.5.

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Battle Feed Scraping, Copyright Content

Aug/09 in Personal, Web Development Tutorials

I made my battle with feed scrapers a few weeks back pretty widely known. It is a pain in the rear to deal with, and personally I feel sorry for anybody who has to deal with it on a day to day basis. Nobody likes having their content stolen and re-published elsewhere.

Since then I got a lot of good advice from a lot of people. The thing that seems to have worked the best was the RSS Signature plugin for WordPress.

Here is a little more about the plugin from the developer:

That’s a great question. Sig2feed’s primary goal is to provide a simple administration interface to allow the addition of a custom tagline, signature or © copyright message to the wordpress generated rss feeds. You can add any kind of message, tag, or even images — as long as it can be displayed in an RSS feed, it’s up to you. Cool huh?

After installing it on all my WordPress run web sites I have noticed the feed scraping has died down again to a minimum. When all is said and done, it just works. The plugin gives you an easy to understand options page where you can insert any copyright message of your choice – and then places it at the end of each of your RSS feed items.

If your looking for a suggestion to tame down the content stealing bandits – give the RSS Signature plugin for WordPress a shot.

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