If you’ve been a regular reader/visitor of JaypeeOnline the past few years then you’ll know that I used to frequently post blog updates. These updates are my way of keeping track of the changes I’ve made here in the blog and at the same time, sharing with you guys the plugins and other resources I use to run this blog. The last blog update I posted was about three years ago so this one is long overdue.
Below are the different WordPress plugins that I’ve installed and uninstalled in the past few months:
Uninstalled Plugins
- Comment Info Detector — plugin that detects and displays the commenter’s country, web browser and operating system.
- Dashboard Notepad — plugin that adds a simple notepad widget within the WordPress dashboard. You can read the review I made for this plugin here.
- nRelate Flyout — plugin that displays a flyout of related posts on the side of the blog.
- TimThumb Vulnerability Scanner — plugin that keeps TimThumb installations up-to-date and free from vulnerabilities. Also checks for signs of compromised sites.
- WP Security Scan — plugin that performs security scan of WordPress installation.
These plugins were uninstalled primarily to lessen the load on the server and also because some of the features are no longer necessary. The Dashboard Notepad plugin was uninstalled because I’ve replaced it with a new plugin. I no longer need the TimThumb Vulnerability Scanner because the theme I’m using right now doesn’t use the timthumb script while the WP Security Scan has been replaced by the WordFence Security plugin.
Installed Plugins
- Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress – Easy Social Share Buttons automatically adds share bar to your post or pages with support of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, VKontakte, Tumblr, Reddit, Print, E-mail. Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress is compatible with WooCommerce, bbPress and BuddyPress
- Remove Query Strings From Static Resources – Remove query strings from static resources like CSS & JS files.
- Tynt Insight for WordPress – Learn what’s being copied off your website and how you can leverage this behaviour to get more traffic, more often.
- WP Dashboard Notes – Working with multiple persons on a website? Want to make notes? You can do just that with WP Dashboard Notes. Create beautiful notes with a nice user
- WordPress SEO – The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.
- WPtouch Mobile Plugin – Make your WordPress website mobile-friendly with just a few clicks
I was looking for ways to promote our content as well as provide readers & visitors a simple and effective way to share our content online and found the Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress plugin from Code Canyon. The share bar that you see on the left side of the screen (viewing posts) is made possible by the Easy Social Share Buttons plugin. It’s one of the most popular social sharing plugins available and it offers a lot of features & customization options plus it only costs $14.
In an effort to comply with Google’s new mobile-friendly update as well as make this blog load faster, I’ve installed the Remove Query Strings From Static Resources plugin. This plugin, as the name suggests, removes query strings from static resources like CSS & JSS files which, if left unattended can add to page load times. Installing this plugin has helped cut down the load time by 2 seconds based on tests done with the Pingdom Website Speed Test.
I installed Tynt Insight for WordPress to keep track of the content that’s being copied from this site. This plugin also provides other information like where content is being shared and what keywords bring in traffic from search engines.
I replaced Dashboard Notepad with the WP Dashboard Notes plugin because it provides a cleaner and more organized interface. I use it to keep notes on my dashboard to remind me of deadlines, upcoming posts, ideas for future articles, events, etc. This plugin is also great for a multi-author WordPress blog or website because it allows the admin to share notes with other users. You can drag & drop items and you don’t need to click on a save button because it doesn’t have one. It automatically detects and saves the note when you’re done.
WordPress SEO – one of the must-have plugins for any WordPress-powered website or blog. I’ve had this installed for quite a while now but I decided to include it here because it wasn’t covered in the last blog update. WordPress SEO is not only necessary for SEO purposes but it also provides other useful features like claiming Google Authorship, enabling Twitter Cards, and a whole bunch of other useful tools.
When I did a theme reboot a couple of years back, I uninstalled the WPtouch Mobile Plugin because the new theme I got had a responsive layout and was supposedly mobile-friendly. Then when the Google mobile-friendly update came about, I discovered that the theme didn’t meet the requirements to be considered “mobile-friendly” so I decided to reinstall the WPtouch Mobile Plugin.
EXTRAS
Aside from the WordPress plugins, other changes include using dlvr.it to automatically deliver the latest posts & updates to our Twitter account and Facebook page. I’ve also updated the Hot Topix theme to the latest version, 2.8 which was released last June 3, 2015.
We are making all these changes and updates as part of our conscious effort to provide you not only with good quality content but also a good user experience. Btw, this is an on-going process and we will continue to find ways to make JaypeeOnline better.
If you have any comments, feedback, or suggestions to make this blog better, please don’t hesitate to share it via the comments section below or via the contact page. Thank you and have a nice day!
[image source: flickr.com/photos/clement127]