Category — Wordpressing

C.H. Weng’s beautiful plugin kept working through a series of past upgrades but the junp to version 3.0 seems to have killed it. I;ve had to deactivate it while I find out more. The plugin was always listed as beta and I understand how time-consuming it can be to work on these things. Oh well, good while it lasted. Thank you, C.H. Weng. If you do and update, I’ll be quick to use it.

9Update] BlueMediaLayer’s Sliding Read More plugin is providing me with a WordPress 3.0-worthy alternative. Thanks, people!

When I uploaded an FLV for display recently, the Kimili plugin would sometimes deliver the video quite quickly. Other times it would be painfully slow.

The plugin depends upon a file called SWFobject.js and, by default, it gets this file from a Google repository. This seems logical, because the repository copy is probably up-to-date, thus keeping the plugin up-to-date automatically.

But what if the Google server is slowed down for some reason? Reasoning that this might be the cause of the plugin’s sluggish behaviour, I changing its settings to use the internal SWFobject, rather that the Google copy.

At the moment, the video is coming in faster. I’ll have to keep trying it, to see if the improvement is consistent.

It’s a nice little WordPress plugin and I can understand why a developer might want to make some money for the trouble it took, BUT…

By default, the plugin reveals a link saying “Get Skype, Call free”. This link does take you to a Skype download page but first it goes through the plugin author’s affiliate advertising account, earning him credit for the click made on your page.

I discovered this on my own, searching for a way to get rid of that link. Most people wouldn’t know what the link is doing, and that’s the point. It would have been more “out front” if the author had explained how he was monetizing his plugin.

Anyway, he has provided a way to disable both the offending link and the click-through ad thing. Here’s how, as explained by the author himself :

There is an option called “Use Download Skype now! link” on the
Settings > Skype Status page (sorry you will have to go and visit it
again and risk seeing an ad AGAIN!) that will disable the link below
each button. OR you can set the “Link URL:” (just below that) to
either “Skype download page” or “Skype main page”.

I disabled the click-through link and am using the plugin in my sidebar.

UPDATE: I removed the mobile plugin because I didn’t like the way it hobbled navigation and slide shows for iPhone users.

I just installed a WordPress plugin that detects visitors who are using a mobile phone to read my pearly pages.

On a cellphone, the content is presented in a faster-loading, simplified format, perfect for those of you killing time in a queue at the bank or camping for hours in the emergency department.

While I was at it, I updated WordPress to version 2.8. It’s supposed to be speedier, too.

This slideshow is brought to you with a WordPress plugin called Lightbox-Plus, by Dan Zappone. It exploits the Lightbox javascript by Lokesh Dhakar, now built into WordPress. I think the way the image format changes between horizontal and vertical formats is pretty cool. What do you think? Is it better than a Flash slideshow?