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SimpleTags is my prefer automatic tag generating plugin. It greatly simplifies tagging your posts and it’s just an all around well done plugin. One problem: It doesn’t work with the latest version of Wordpress… or does it?

After my initial upgrade I simply thought the author Amaury BALMER was just a little behind the curve in updating the plugin… or *gasp* maybe it wouldn’t be supported in the future. Perhaps both are true, but after a quick search in the plugin repository I discovered that there is nothing that prevents SimpleTags to work except that there is a hard coded Wordpress version check in there. This isn’t a BAD thing… maybe the later versions of WP wouldn’t work with it? Who knows… but the solution to resolving the issue is pretty straight forward and simple.

If you edit the plugin via the editor interface, find this line (near the top):

if ( strpos($wp_version, '2.7') !== false || strpos($wp_version, '2.8') !== false) {

and change it to

if ( strpos($wp_version, '2.7') !== false || strpos($wp_version, '2.8') !== false || strpos($wp_version, '2.9') !== false ) {

Save and you’re good to go!

With blogs becoming more and more user-friendly everyday, the need for a “Featured Post” display became a necessity. Say, for example, you begin a free giveaway on your blog on Monday. By Friday, if you had posted everyday during the week, that giveaway post from Monday may be on page 2, never to be seen again. This is where a “Featured Post” display comes in most handy. It appears that the use of jQuery to implement a very eye-appealing animated “Featured Post” display is becoming more and more in demand in the world of Wordpress themes. Here are some of the most popular javascript plugins to get the job done:

1. s3Slider – One of the most common types of “Featured Post” displays (and the one I use).
2. JSGallery – Maybe you want no words and only the post thumbnail images to display.
3. Agile Carousel – Another powerful jQuery slideshow-like plugin.
4. jCarousel Lite – Very lightweight javascript carousel plugin.

Tabbing systems are becoming increasingly popular in all forms of web design, not just Wordpress. This is expected, as they are a very unique and effective way of displaying alot of content in a small amount of space. Common uses of tabs in Wordpress include displaying popular posts, recent comments, post categories, etc, etc… You get the idea. Here are some of the more popular solutions to getting yourself a fully-functional tabbing system in just a few minutes:

1. StereoTabs – Simple tabbing system, part of the scriptaculous library.
2. DOMTabs – I’ve heard good things about this system.
3. TabMenu – Another great and lightweight tabbing system.
4. Tabifier – Another lightweight javascript tabbing script.
5. UI Tabs – Powerful tabbing system run off of jQuery.

Since the side work business seems to be kicking up again I decide to roll out a separate site for my consulting services. The new site can be found at http://consulting.paulspoerry.com. It’s still a bit of a work in progress but feel free to swing by and check it out.

Just upgrade to WordPress 2.7 and wonder how to enable Google Gears?

Gears is a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. You can use Gears on websites to let access information offline or provide you with content based on your geographical location. To install Gears, visit http://gears.google.com. It’s pretty cool and really speeds things up. For WordPress it is used to store all images and other web page components from the admin area to you local PC, speeding up access and reducing unnecessary web traffic.

Prior to 2.7 the admin dashboard had a “Turbo” button at the top… you’d click that and if you had Gears installed you were good to go. In WordPress 2.7 the “Turbo” button has been removed.

To enable gears login to your Admin section and go to the Tools SubPanel. Once there you have the ability to use Google Gears to make WordPress work in a “Turbo” mode. In addition, the “Press This” bookmark tool is detailed.