There are many plugins available to you for your worpress site and sometimes it gets confusing as to which to use! The first thing to check out when looking at plugins is to make sure that it is compatible with your wordpress version. For example the great social bookmarking plugin gregarious only works for wordpress up to 2.3.1 and is not compatible for 2.5!

Here are some plugins that I have found useful in the past!

Askimet (already in plugins automatically)

Feedburner http://feedburner.com

I love social bookmarking (WP 2.5) http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/i-love-social-bookmarking/#post-2477

Gregarious (WP 2.3.1 or less) http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gregarious/#post-465

WP Super Cache : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/

There are many more…and you have to be ready to use trial and error to know if it will do what you want it to do!

This is a great HTML color code site…if you ever have to lookup which color codes your theme is using and so on…try this site:

http://html-color-codes.info/

This link is also listed in the links page!

NOTE: a great way to change up the colors of your blog is to go through the code…find where there is color codes and then switch it up to see how it would look like with a different color…just don’t forget which color you started with!

If you are looking to add links to your posts and you want to customize the look and feel of your link you need to click on the HTML tab seen at the top right hand of your post box >> right next to Visual

Then you enter this code:

<a href=”http://website.com”>website.com</a>

example: http://larqsonltd.com

If you want to add a specific color to your link you must add the following code with the appropriate color code:

<span style=”color: #3366ff;”><a href=”http://website.com”>http://website.com</a></span>

example: http://larqsonltd.com

If you want the link to open in a different window when you click on it you need to add the following code

<a href=”http://website.com” target=”_blank”>website.com</a>

example: http://larqsonltd.com

You can also have a different name for the link….for example if you want to have www.larqsonltd.com read Wordpress Made Easy instead you would write:

<a href=”http://larqsonltd.com” target=”_blank”>Wordpress Made Easy</a>

example: Wordpress Made Easy

Hope this helps you in adding links to your posts and pages!

I just found out how to do this and am passing this on to you!

I was trying to figure out how have a place where people can leave comments on the Wordpress pages, so I did some research in the plugins and that yielded nothing…then I researched the Wordpress Forum (very useful by the by) and found what I needed..I tried it and it worked…the proof is on my pages…check it out if you want and leave a comment!

All you have to do is add a bit of code in your page file!

Go into Presentation or Design (depending on the wp version you have) then click on theme editor

Look on the right hand side and find the page.php file and click on it

Now look for the code :

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

somewhere in between or right before the line <?php endwhile; endif; ?> on a different line enter the code:

<?php if ((’open’ == $post-> comment_status)) { comments_template(); } ?>

So, your new code should be like this:

<?php if ((’open’ == $post-> comment_status)) { comments_template(); } ?> on one line

<?php endwhile; endif; ?> on the next

then click update >> check it out in action by clicking on View Site

Uploading Plugins is much the same as uploading your templates. For complete details see the post on How do I Change My Template / Theme : http://larqsonltd.com/?p=17

You follow the same step as uploading your theme except when you transfer your plugin from you c:// drive to your File Manager using your FTP client you will upload it into wp-content >> plugins instead of wp-content >> themes

When your plugins are uploaded in your file manager >> log into your wordpress admin area >> click on plugins >> then activate the plugins you have uploaded.

NOTE: Some plugins will require you to go into settings or options where you can fix the settings on these plugins (most don’t need anything done..but some do..doesn’t hurt to check!)