There are so many updates to give, I decided to record a video to describe them all:
In the video, I talk about a number of changes and updates I’ve made to RCG recently including:
- Rain Drop Ads on RCG… and if you’re one of the first five who signs up, then I’m willing to offer you a particularly good deal!
- New page on how to get involved in becoming a contributor to RCG
- Update to the theme by putting the active contributor information at the footer
- Added MyBlogLog widget to the footer (as well as a few buttons)
- Switched the main RCG feed over to Feedburner
- Made it easier to email articles to others. Look for the “Email this Post” prompt at the bottom of every post
- Speaking of email, you can know subscribe to RCG by email
- Cleaned up the categories and hopefully made them more useful
And finally, because I haven’t done this in a while, I thought I’d list out all the plugins I’m currently using on Rain City Guide.
| Plugin | Description |
|---|---|
| Akismet | Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. By Matt Mullenweg. |
| All in One SEO Pack | Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. By Michael Torbert. |
| Exclude Pages from Navigation | Provides a checkbox on the editing page which you can check to exclude pages from the primary navigation. By Simon Wheatley. |
| FeedBurner FeedSmith | Originally authored by Steve Smith, this plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. By FeedBurner. |
| Get Recent Comments | Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar. By Krischan Jodies. |
| Google XML Sitemaps | This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. By Arne Brachhold. |
| Maintenance Mode | Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. By Michael Wöhrer. |
| Photopress | Photopress adds some image handling tools to WordPress, including a popup upload and browse tool, a random image template function, and a simple album. By Isaac Wedin. |
| Post-Plugin Library | Does nothing by itself but supplies common code for the Similar Posts, Recent Posts, Random Posts, and Recent Comments plugins. By Rob Marsh, SJ. |
| Register Plus | WordPress 2.5+ ONLY. Enhance your Registration Page. Add Custom Logo, Password Field, Invitation Codes, Disclaimer, Captcha Validation, Email Validation, User Moderation, Profile Fields and more. By Skullbit. |
| RSS Footer | Allows you to add a line of content to the end of your RSS feed articles. By Joost de Valk. |
| Seesmic | Enables Seesmic video in wordpress. By Seesmic Inc. |
| Similar Posts | Displays a highly configurable list of related posts. By Rob Marsh, SJ. |
| Subscribe To Comments | Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. By Mark Jaquith. |
| WordPress.com Stats | Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key. By Andy Skelton. |
| WordPress Database Backup | On-demand backup of your WordPress database. By Austin Matzko. |
| wp-cache | Very fast cache module. By Ricardo Galli Granada. |
| WP-EMail | Allows people to recommand/send your WordPress blog’s post/page to a friend. By Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan. |
| WP Ajax Edit Comments | Allows users and admin to edit their comments inline. Admin and editors can edit all comments. By Ronald Huereca. |
| WP Status Notifier | Sends email notification of posts pending review. By iDope. |
With the exception of just one plugin that will remain nameless for now, that’s the full list. If you have any questions about why or how I use any of the plugins, feel free to ask away!
UPDATE:
- I JUST realized I also forgot to mention the “new” RCG search box. I added a Google custom search box that searches not just RCG, but contributor websites and blogs as well. It’s pretty slick and I was even able to integrate it with the site so that the search shows up on right on the page.
someone’s been busy! 😉
I just write here, LOL 🙂 I can’t keep up with the changes.
Yeah.. I have been busy, but I’m definitely not done. Among other things, Anna’s been working on a new page that I think our readers will find valuable and I can’t wait to give it a review and hit publish!
You have done some great things here! Nice video, too!
thank you courtney… and more to come… {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/CSU2Izq0nu_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”thank you courtney… and more to come… “}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/4z2HJint2n”}}}
I feel bad not to keep up with all your great changes, Dustin. But my brain is fried trying to keep up with all of the changes in the new stimulus package 🙂
Your priorities are appropriately placed if you ask me! I’d much rather be worrying about the look, feel and features of the site! 🙂
Just wanted you to know I appreciate all you do for RCG, even if I don’t have the time to try to understand it all.