We make deductions based on our project specifications and create "the best" possible version and then publish it. However, no matter how experienced we are, users are not always predictable and our "best" version could turn out to be the worst.

With Google Website Optimizer Tool, we can now measure the effectiveness of different solutions, by allowing you to test different versions of your site content and thus determining what will best attract users and lead them to convert on your site.

The Experiment

The idea is that we'll have two landing pages for our fictional product, a "Cats who Code" tshirt. Each page will have a different background color (red and blue). By the end of the experiment we'll know which page converted best by the number of orders from each page.

To start using this free tool you'll need a Google account. After we sign in we can just go ahead and create a new experiment.

There are two types of experiments you can do:

• A/B Experiment - The simplest way to start testing fast. This method compares the performance of entirely different versions of a page.
• Multivariate Experiment - The most robust way to test lots of ideas. This method compares the performance of content variations in multiple locations on a page.

We'll go with the A/B experiment, as that is faster and easier to set up.

Luckily, the Google Website Optimizer team has made this quite easy to understand and implement. We'll need three things before we can continue:

1. The initial page you would like to test. I'll call this 'index.html'. This is the blue version one.
2. The alternate version of our test page. This will be called 'index-red.html'. These URLs could be bookmarked by your users, so after your experiment finishes, you may want to keep these URLs valid.
3. Identify your conversion page. In out example that will be represented by the 'order.html' page. For you this might be the page displayed after a user signs up for a newsletter, or fills out a contact form.

Once we have these three pages setup we can go forward and build our experiment. Google will ask you where your pages are located.

Setting up the JavaScript code

The next step is basically the most "technically challenging" one. We have two options: your web team will install and validate JavaScript tags or You will install and validate the JavaScript tags. Since most of us like to do things our self we'll go ahead and insert the JavaScript.

There are 4 JavaScript codes that you need to copy-paste into your 3 pages. To make matters easy the Website Optimizer team included some really user friendly code validations that will tell you the exact error in case you get one, so instead of spending time searching for a typo you can set up your experiment fast and painless.

The code will have to be inserted inside:

• The Original page - at the beginning and at the end of it
• The Variation page - at the end of the source code
• The Conversion page - also at the end of the source code

Now all we have to do is start it and wait for the results to come in. It's recommended to have at least 100 conversions per page or it won't be conclusive.

Learn More

While this is a simple example, you now have some basic knowledge to build on. Google not only developed an extremely useful tool to help your website convert, but also produced all the needed information to educate it's users, so even if you don't want or need Google Website optimizer, just by reading the documentation you'll definitely learn something new.

If you're still not convinced visit the Workout page from Google, where 4 case studies are presented with insight on the workflow and actual results from real life projects.

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New to cURL? If yes, check out the following articles to learn the purposes and basics of cURL/libcurl.

• cURL Wikipedia page
• cURL tutorial: Using cURL to automate HTTP jobs

Please note that some of the techniques shown here can be used for "blackhat" methods. The goal of this article is only educationnal, please do not use any of the snippets below for illegal stuff.

1 - Update your Facebook status

Wanna update your facebook status, but don't want to go to facebook.com, login, and finally being able to update your status? Simply save the following code on your server, define the variables, and voilà!

<?PHP
/*******************************
*	Facebook Status Updater
*	Christian Flickinger
*	http://nexdot.net/blog
*	April 20, 2007
*******************************/

$status = 'YOUR_STATUS';
$first_name = 'YOUR_FIRST_NAME';
$login_email = 'YOUR_LOGIN_EMAIL';
$login_pass = 'YOUR_PASSWORD';

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://login.facebook.com/login.php?m&amp;next=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2Fhome.php');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,'email='.urlencode($login_email).'&pass='.urlencode($login_pass).'&login=Login');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "my_cookies.txt");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "my_cookies.txt");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3");
curl_exec($ch);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://m.facebook.com/home.php');
$page = curl_exec($ch);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
preg_match('/name="post_form_id" value="(.*)" \/>'.ucfirst($first_name).'/', $page, $form_id);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,'post_form_id='.$form_id[1].'&status='.urlencode($status).'&update=Update');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://m.facebook.com/home.php');
curl_exec($ch);
?>

Source: http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/1204

2 - Get download speed of your webserver

Do you ever wanted to know the exact download speed of your webserver (or any other?) If yes, you'll love that code. You just have to initialize the $url variable with any resources from the webserver (images, pdf, etc), place the file on your server and point your browser to it. The output will be a full report of download speed.

<?php error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);

// Initialize cURL with given url
$url = 'http://download.bethere.co.uk/images/61859740_3c0c5dbc30_o.jpg';
$ch = curl_init($url);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'Sitepoint Examples (thread 581410; http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=581410)');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 60);

set_time_limit(65);

$execute = curl_exec($ch);
$info = curl_getinfo($ch);

// Time spent downloading, I think
$time = $info['total_time']
      - $info['namelookup_time']
      - $info['connect_time']
      - $info['pretransfer_time']
      - $info['starttransfer_time']
      - $info['redirect_time'];

// Echo friendly messages
header('Content-Type: text/plain');
printf("Downloaded %d bytes in %0.4f seconds.\n", $info['size_download'], $time);
printf("Which is %0.4f mbps\n", $info['size_download'] * 8 / $time / 1024 / 1024);
printf("CURL said %0.4f mbps\n", $info['speed_download'] * 8 / 1024 / 1024);

echo "\n\ncurl_getinfo() said:\n", str_repeat('-', 31 + strlen($url)), "\n";
foreach ($info as $label => $value)
{
	printf("%-30s %s\n", $label, $value);
}
?>

Source: http://cowburn.info/2008/11/29/download-speed-php-curl

3 - Myspace login using cURL

<?php

function login( $data, $useragent = 'Mozilla 4.01', $proxy = false ) {
    $ch = curl_init();
    $hash = crc32( $data['email'].$data['pass'] );
    $hash = sprintf( "%u", $hash );
    $randnum = $hash.rand( 0, 9999999 );
    if( $proxy ) curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, '/tmp/cookiejar-'.$randnum );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, '/tmp/cookiejar-'.$randnum );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $useragent );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1 );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0);
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.myspace.com' );
    $page = curl_exec( $ch );
    preg_match( '/MyToken=(.+?)"/i', $page, $token );
    if( $token[1] ) {
        curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://login.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=login.process&MyToken='.$token[1] );
        curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, 'http://www.myspace.com' );
        curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, Array( 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' ) );
        curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1 );
        $postfields = 'NextPage=&email='.urlencode( $data['mail'] ).'&password='.urlencode( $data['pass'] ).'&loginbutton.x=&loginbutton.y=';
        curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postfields );
        $page = curl_exec( $ch );
        if( strpos( $page, 'SignOut' ) !== false ) {
                return $randnum;
        }
        else {
            preg_match( '/MyToken=(.+?)"/i', $page, $token );
            preg_match( '/replace\("([^\"]+)"/', $page, $redirpage );
            if( $token[1] ) {
                curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0 );
                curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://home.myspace.com/index.cfm?&fuseaction=user&Mytoken='.$token[1] );
                $page = curl_exec( $ch );
                curl_close( $ch );
                if( strpos( $page, 'SignOut' ) !== false ) {
                    return $randnum;
                }
            }
            elseif( $redirpage[1] ) {
                curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, 'http://login.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=login.process&MyToken='.$token[1] );
                curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, $redirpage[1] );
                curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0 );
                $page = curl_exec( $ch );
                curl_close( $ch );
                if( strpos( $page, 'SignOut' ) !== false ) {
                    return $randnum;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return false;
}
?>

Source: http://www.seo-blackhat.com/article/myspace-login-function-php-curl.html

4 - Publish a post on your WordPress blog, using cURL

I know that most of you enjoy WordPress, so here is a nice "hack" as the ones I regulary publish on my other blog WpRecipes.
This function can post on your WordPress blog. You don't need to login to your WP dashboard etc.
Though, you must activate the XMLRPC posting option in your WordPress blog. If this option isn't activated, the code will not be able to insert anything into WordPress database. Another thing, make sure the XMLRPC functions are activated on your php.ini file.

function wpPostXMLRPC($title,$body,$rpcurl,$username,$password,$category,$keywords='',$encoding='UTF-8')
{
    $title = htmlentities($title,ENT_NOQUOTES,$encoding);
    $keywords = htmlentities($keywords,ENT_NOQUOTES,$encoding);

    $content = array(
        'title'=>$title,
        'description'=>$body,
        'mt_allow_comments'=>0,  // 1 to allow comments
        'mt_allow_pings'=>0,  // 1 to allow trackbacks
        'post_type'=>'post',
        'mt_keywords'=>$keywords,
        'categories'=>array($category)
    );
    $params = array(0,$username,$password,$content,true);
    $request = xmlrpc_encode_request('metaWeblog.newPost',$params);
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $request);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $rpcurl);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 1);
    $results = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    return $results;
?>

Source: http://porn-sex-viagra-casino-spam.com/coding/poster-automatiquement-sur-wordpress-avec-php/

5 - Test the existence of a given url

I know, it sounds basic. In fact, it is basic, but it is also very useful, especially when you have to work with external resources.

<?php
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.jellyandcustard.com/");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch)
echo $data;
?>

Source: http://www.jellyandcustard.com/2006/05/31/determining-if-a-url-exists-with-curl/

6 - Post comments on WordPress blogs

In a previous article, I have discussed how spammers spams your WordPress blog. To do so, they simply have to fill the $postfields array with the info they want to display and load the page.
Of course, this code is only for educationnal purposes.

<?php
$postfields = array();
$postfields["action"] = "submit";
$postfields["author"] = "Spammer";
$postfields["email"] = "spammer@spam.com";
$postfields["url"] = "http://www.iamaspammer.com/";
$postfields["comment"] = "I am a stupid spammer.";
$postfields["comment_post_ID"] = "123";
$postfields["_wp_unfiltered_html_comment"] = "0d870b294b";
//Url of the form submission
$url = "http://www.ablogthatdoesntexist.com/blog/suggerer_site.php?action=meta_pass&id_cat=0";
$useragent = "Mozilla/5.0";
$referer = $url; 

//Initialize CURL session
$ch = curl_init($url);
//CURL options
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
//We post $postfields data
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postfields);
//We define an useragent (Mozilla/5.0)
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $useragent);
//We define a refferer ($url)
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, $referer);
//We get the result page in a string
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
//We exits CURL
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

//Finally, we display the result
echo $result;
?>

Source: http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/how-spammers-spams-your-blog-comments

7 - Follow your Adsense earnings with an RSS reader

Most bloggers uses Adsense on their blog and (try to) make money with Google. This excellent snippet allows you to follow your Adsense earnings...with a RSS reader! Definitely awesome.
(Script too big to be displayed on the blog, click here to preview)
Source: http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/track-adsense-earnings-in-rss-feed/

8 - Get feed subscribers count in full text

If you're a blogger, you're probably using the popular FeedBurner service, which allo you to know how many people grabbed your rss feed. Feedburner have a chicklet to proudly display your subscriber count on your blog. I personally like the chicklet's look, but I heard lots of bloggers complaining about it. happilly, cURL can simply grab the count value and return it to you as a variable so you can display it as you want on your blog.

//get cool feedburner count
$whaturl="https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=feedburner-id";

//Initialize the Curl session
$ch = curl_init();

//Set curl to return the data instead of printing it to the browser.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

//Set the URL
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $whaturl);

//Execute the fetch
$data = curl_exec($ch);

//Close the connection
curl_close($ch);
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
$fb = $xml->feed->entry['circulation'];
//end get cool feedburner count

Source: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/display-google-feed-subscriber-count-in-text/

9 - Get the content of a webpage into a PHP variable

This is a very basic thing to do with cURL, but with endless possibilities. Once you have a webpage in a PHP variable, you can for example, retrieve a particular information on the page to use on your own website.

<?php
    ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "example.com");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    $output = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
?>

10 - Post to Twitter using PHP and cURL

Twitter is very popular since some time now, and you probably already have an account there. (We have one too) So, what about using cURL to tweet from your server without connectiong to Twitter?

<?php
// Set username and password
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';
// The message you want to send
$message = 'is twittering from php using curl';
// The twitter API address
$url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml';
// Alternative JSON version
// $url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json';
// Set up and execute the curl process
$curl_handle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=$message");
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");
$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
curl_close($curl_handle);
// check for success or failure
if (empty($buffer)) {
    echo 'message';
} else {
    echo 'success';
}
?>

Source: http://morethanseven.net/2007/01/20/posting-to-twitter-using-php/

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There's already tons of quality articles about WordPress shortcodes. If you're new to WordPress shortcode, you should consider reading theses posts:

• Using WordPress shortcodes
• WordPress Codex: Shortcodes reference

Regarding this article, the codes have to be pasted on your theme functions.php file. Then simply use the shortcode as displayed (Usage...)

1 - Displaying related posts

Related posts are definitely a great way to get your visitors staying longer on your blog. Sure, there's tons of plugins to display them, but what about a simple shortcode?

function related_posts_shortcode( $atts ) {
	extract(shortcode_atts(array(
	    'limit' => '5',
	), $atts));

	global $wpdb, $post, $table_prefix;

	if ($post->ID) {
		$retval = '<ul>';
 		// Get tags
		$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
		$tagsarray = array();
		foreach ($tags as $tag) {
			$tagsarray[] = $tag->term_id;
		}
		$tagslist = implode(',', $tagsarray);

		// Do the query
		$q = "SELECT p.*, count(tr.object_id) as count
			FROM $wpdb->term_taxonomy AS tt, $wpdb->term_relationships AS tr, $wpdb->posts AS p WHERE tt.taxonomy ='post_tag' AND tt.term_taxonomy_id = tr.term_taxonomy_id AND tr.object_id  = p.ID AND tt.term_id IN ($tagslist) AND p.ID != $post->ID
				AND p.post_status = 'publish'
				AND p.post_date_gmt < NOW()
 			GROUP BY tr.object_id
			ORDER BY count DESC, p.post_date_gmt DESC
			LIMIT $limit;";

		$related = $wpdb->get_results($q);
 		if ( $related ) {
			foreach($related as $r) {
				$retval .= '<li><a title="'.wptexturize($r->post_title).'" href="'.get_permalink($r->ID).'">'.wptexturize($r->post_title).'</a></li>';
			}
		} else {
			$retval .= '
	<li>No related posts found</li>';
		}
		$retval .= '</ul>';
		return $retval;
	}
	return;
}
add_shortcode('related_posts', 'related_posts_shortcode');

Usage:

[related_posts]

Source: http://blue-anvil.com/archives/8-fun-useful-shortcode-functions-for-wordpress

2 - Show a Google chart

The Google Charts API is probably the easiest way to create dynamic charts online. here is a shortcode to make the process even easier on your WordPress blog.

function chart_shortcode( $atts ) {
	extract(shortcode_atts(array(
	    'data' => '',
	    'colors' => '',
	    'size' => '400x200',
	    'bg' => 'ffffff',
	    'title' => '',
	    'labels' => '',
	    'advanced' => '',
	    'type' => 'pie'
	), $atts));

	switch ($type) {
		case 'line' :
			$charttype = 'lc'; break;
		case 'xyline' :
			$charttype = 'lxy'; break;
		case 'sparkline' :
			$charttype = 'ls'; break;
		case 'meter' :
			$charttype = 'gom'; break;
		case 'scatter' :
			$charttype = 's'; break;
		case 'venn' :
			$charttype = 'v'; break;
		case 'pie' :
			$charttype = 'p3'; break;
		case 'pie2d' :
			$charttype = 'p'; break;
		default :
			$charttype = $type;
		break;
	}

	if ($title) $string .= '&chtt='.$title.'';
	if ($labels) $string .= '&chl='.$labels.'';
	if ($colors) $string .= '&chco='.$colors.'';
	$string .= '&chs='.$size.'';
	$string .= '&chd=t:'.$data.'';
	$string .= '&chf='.$bg.'';

	return '<img title="'.$title.'" src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht='.$charttype.''.$string.$advanced.'" alt="'.$title.'" />';
}
add_shortcode('chart', 'chart_shortcode');

Usage:

[chart data="41.52,37.79,20.67,0.03" bg="F7F9FA" labels="Reffering+sites|Search+Engines|Direct+traffic|Other" colors="058DC7,50B432,ED561B,EDEF00" size="488x200" title="Traffic Sources" type="pie"]

Source: http://blue-anvil.com/archives/8-fun-useful-shortcode-functions-for-wordpress

3 - Integrate Adsense ads

Adsense is probably the easiest way to make money online and most bloggers are using it in order to earn an online income. using widgets , you can easily add Adsense ads in your blog sidebar, but the best way to get clicks from visitors is definitely to integrate Adsense in your posts. The whole process is incredibly easy, using WordPress shortcodes.

function showads() {
    return '<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-3637220125174754";
google_ad_slot = "4668915978";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
';
}

add_shortcode('adsense', 'showads');

Usage:

[adsense]

Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/how-to-embed-adsense-anywhere-on-your-posts

4 - Display member-info content using a WordPress shortcode

Since some months, more and more blogs are creating "members-only" section, featuring premium downloads and infos. Do you know how easy is it to display some "member-only" content on your blog, using a shortcode?

function access_check_shortcode( $attr, $content = null ) {
    extract( shortcode_atts( array( 'capability' => 'read' ), $attr ) );
    if ( current_user_can( $capability ) && !is_null( $content ) && !is_feed() )
        return $content;

    return 'Sorry, only registered members can see this text.';
}

add_shortcode( 'access', 'access_check_shortcode' );

Usage:

[access capability="switch_themes"]

Source: http://justintadlock.com/archives/2009/05/09/using-shortcodes-to-show-members-only-content

5 - Embeddable RSS feed reader

Among other great things, WordPress have a built-in RSS reader, used to display feeds on your dashboard. I already shown how you can use it on your blog sidebar (or header, footer, etc...), but with a shortcode, you can even insert it on your posts.

//This file is needed to be able to use the wp_rss() function.
include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php');

function readRss($atts) {
    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
	"feed" => 'http://',
      "num" => '1',
    ), $atts));

    return wp_rss($feed, $num);
}

add_shortcode('rss', 'readRss');

Usage:

[rss feed="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Catswhocode" num="5"]

Source: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/02/mastering-wordpress-shortcodes/

6 - Automatically create a short url for Twitter

If you're on Twitter, you know how short urls are usefull. But a definitely boring thing when you want to tweet a blog post is to create the short url yourself. So, what about using a shortcode to make your readers life easier?

function subzane_shorturl($atts) {
	extract(shortcode_atts(array(
		'url' => '',
		'name' => '',
), $atts));
$request = 'http://u.nu/unu-api-simple?url=' . urlencode($url);
$short_url = file_get_contents($request);
	if (substr($short_url, 0, 4) == 'http')    {
		$name = empty($name)?$short_url:$name;
		return '<a href="'.$short_url.'">'.$name.'</a>';
	} else {
		$name = empty($name)?$url:$name;
		return '<a href="'.$url.'">'.$name.'</a>';
	}
}
add_shortcode('shorturl', 'subzane_shorturl');

Usage:

[shorturl name="shortcode" url="http://codex.wordpress.org/Shortcode_API"]

Source: http://www.subzane.com/2009/05/shortcode-advantage-unus-url-shortener/

7 - Display the last image attached to post

Instead of dealing with image url, a simple shortcode can retrieve and display the last image attached to post:

function sc_postimage($atts, $content = null) {
	extract(shortcode_atts(array(
		"size" => 'thumbnail',
		"float" => 'none'
	), $atts));
	$images =& get_children( 'post_type=attachment&post_mime_type=image&post_parent=' . get_the_id() );
	foreach( $images as $imageID => $imagePost )
	$fullimage = wp_get_attachment_image($imageID, $size, false);
	$imagedata = wp_get_attachment_image_src($imageID, $size, false);
	$width = ($imagedata[1]+2);
	$height = ($imagedata[2]+2);
	return '<div class="postimage" style="width: '.$width.'px; height: '.$height.'px; float: '.$float.';">'.$fullimage.'</div>';
}
add_shortcode("postimage", "sc_postimage");

Usage:

[postimage]

Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-shortcode-easily-display-the-last-image-attached-to-post

8 - Add administration notes on posts

If you're owning a multi-author blog, it should be useful to be able to leave messages on posts that can only be seen by other admins. For example, the blog owner should add a message on a post, asking the writer to correct a mistake or add more info.

add_shortcode( 'note', 'sc_note' );

function sc_note( $atts, $content = null ) {
	 if ( current_user_can( 'publish_posts' ) )
		return '<div class="note">'.$content.'</div>';
	return '';
}

Usage:

[note]This is a personal note that only admins can see![/note]

Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/add-private-notes-to-your-wordpress-blog-posts

9 - Remove WordPress automatic formatting

If you're used to display code snippets on your blog, you know that WordPress automatic formatting can be a pain for developers. The solution is simple: Using a shortcode to remove the auto-formatting functions on certain portions of text.

function my_formatter($content) {
	$new_content = '';
	$pattern_full = '{(\[raw\].*?\[/raw\])}is';
	$pattern_contents = '{\[raw\](.*?)\[/raw\]}is';
	$pieces = preg_split($pattern_full, $content, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

	foreach ($pieces as $piece) {
		if (preg_match($pattern_contents, $piece, $matches)) {
			$new_content .= $matches[1];
		} else {
			$new_content .= wptexturize(wpautop($piece));
		}
	}

	return $new_content;
}

remove_filter('the_content', 'wpautop');
remove_filter('the_content', 'wptexturize');

add_filter('the_content', 'my_formatter', 99);

Usage:

[raw]This portion of text will not be automatically formatted by WP.[/raw]

Source: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/280732

10 - Display your blog stats using shortcodes

Ever wished to be able to display your blog stats, in real time? Thanks to Wesley and his "Blog Stats" plugin, you can display stats info as such as number of posts, number of comments, average comments per post, google pagerank, alexa rank, etc, using simple shortcodes.
The Blog Stats plugin can be downloaded here and have to be installed on your blog just as you install any other plugin.
Usage:

[pagerank]
[feedburner_subscribers]
[alexa_rank]
[technorati_authority]
[technorati_rank]
[user_count]
[post_count]
[page_count]
[comment_count]
[trackback_count]
[avg_comments_per_post]
[category_count]
[tag_count]
[link_count]
[google_backlinks]
[yahoo_backlinks]
[delicious_bookmarks]

Source: http://www.improvingtheweb.com/wordpress-plugins/blog-stats/

By the way, did you already visited our new sponsor DaThemes? They provide awesome WordPress themes as well as a great affiliate program that you can join and make money.

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Back in June 2008, I was blogging since almost a year on Lyxia.org, a blog in French language that I have sold since. Together with a friend, we decided that it should be really cool to create a blog in English to share our knowledges with people worldwide.

We had to pick up a domain name. It wasn't easy, as always. I first tried to find something like "webdevmagazine.com", but all the interesting names were already taken. So, as both me and Michael (the friend I was starting Cats Who Code with) are cats lovers, I came up with the name Cats Who Code, which I found original, funny and catchy. 1 year later, I still really love that name.

So, Cats Who Code were born. I created the first blog theme, which was pretty simple and not so pretty. For our first articles, Michael and I translated posts from our respective blogs. While I was in holidays in New York City, one of our early articles, 100 Vim commands that every programmer should know hitted Delicious.com frontpage, which was very encouraging. At the time, our feedburner count was something like 70 readers.

Cats Who Code first logo, used from June to December 2008.

In august 2008, Cats Who Code did a great performance by placing two GNU/Linux related articles on Digg frontpage. On August 18, we had 18000+ unique visitors, which is still our absolute traffic record. As the blog was starting to grow, it required us to work more on it. I started to work a lot and to publish WordPress related posts on WpHacks to attract some new readers for Cats Who Code. At the time, I was contacted by Packt Publishing for writing a book about WordPress. I accepted, and after 9 months of hard work, the book is going to be released soon.

October 2008 was definitely an important month in my life as a blogger. Inspired by the WordPress book I just started to write, I decided to launch a new blog, focused on providing small but usefull WordPress hacks, tips and tricks. This blog is a great business model because the posts takes approximately only 10/15 minutes to be written. I didn't expected it, but 2 months after launching, WpRecipes already had 1000 rss suscribers, while Cats Who Code only had 700.

WpRecipes allowed me to sell lots of premium WordPress themes and benefit of affiliate programs. My online revenue was multiplied by two, which I think was great.

As 2009 was arriving, Cats Who Code became an established blog with an average 3000 unique visitors per day and 1000 rss suscribers. WpRecipes had almost 2000 rss readers, and the average unique visitors per day were 1000, which was not bad at all for a blog having only two months!

Sadly, at this time I was fucked "Smart"priced by Google. My Adsense income was divided by 10, so I decided to focus more on direct advertising. It worked more on WpRecipes than on Cats Who Code, probably due to the fact that CWC was more generic than WpRecipes, which is only focused on one thing, WordPress.

At the beginning of 2009, I launched PsdRecipes with my friend Jeremy Herve, and relaunched WpVote, the Digg site for everything WordPress. Sadly, none of theses sites managed to get an efficient online recognition. While I still think they're both great sites, it didn't attracted people as Cats Who Code and WpRecipes did. You can't win everytime. At the same time, I sold my first blog, Lyxia.org, for $3500 because I didn't had the time to maintain it.

The story continues with two great thing that allowed me to earn more money online: The first is BuySellAds.com, an advertising marketplace where you can sell ads on your blog. At first, I didn't wanted to join because they take 25% of your revenue, and though that I'd make more money by selling ads directly on my blog. But I finally decided to give a try. I had nothing to loose anyways.

I was susprised, but 2 weeks after creating my account, BSA had already sold the two ad spots available on Cats Who Code and WpRecipes, for a total amount of $105 (after they took their 25%). At the time, I understood that the 25% they good is nothing because BSA allowed me to sell more ads, and sell it at a higher price than I used to sold it directly on my blogs.

The second good thing at the time was WpWebHost. This company, which provides a WordPress friendly hosting, contacted me and asked to join their affiliate program. They also gave me free hosting, so I switched most of my sites on their servers, and I'm very happy with.

With their killer affiliate program, WpWebhost pays me a nice amount of money every month.

May 2009 was also an important month, because for the first time, I bought a blog. The blog is PsdVibe, and it focus on providing Photoshop tutorials and resources. When I bought the blog, it has 750 rss readers. Three weeks later, the count jumped to 1200. One of the greatest thing of having multiple blogs is that you can use one to promote the other, and vice-versa. I used this technique a lot and had great results.

The blog today

Currently:

• Cats Who Code have +/- 2500 rss suscribers and an average 3500 unique visitors per day.
• WpRecipes have 3600+ rss readers and an average 1500 unique visitors per day.
• PsdVibe have 1200+ rss readers, and an average 3500 unique visitors per day.

And now...A new design!

...Happy birthday Cats Who Code! And of course, thanks to each of you for enjoying reading this blog.
To celebrate the first one year, I have redesigned the blog, making it looking a lot more profesional (In my opinion, of course!) Also, we have a new mascot, designed by talented Ukrainian designer Zira. The new mascot is a drawing of my cat.

Any plans for the future?

I talked about the past, I talked about today, so now let's talk about the future.
My main plan is to continue my works on my 3 most important blogs. Don't forget that most of the time, success is exponentional. As an example, when I started Cats Who Code, popular Web Design/Web development blog Six Revisions had 6000 suscribers. Now, one year later, it has 20000+! In fact, it took me 7 months to reach 1000 suscribers on cats Who Code, while 3 months later, I had 2000. The most difficult time for a blog is when you start it.

Cats Who Code had some talented contributors in the past year: Michael, Hayes Potter and Alex Denning, the only Cats Who Code guest author who ever made Delicious frontpage. For the upcoming year, I'd like to get more guest authors, so if you'd like to contribute to any of my blogs, don't hesitate to contact me.

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<style>
    li {
        width: 200px;
        min-height: 250px;
        border: 1px solid #000;
        display: -moz-inline-stack;
        display: inline-block;
        margin: 5px;
        zoom: 1;
        *display: inline;
        _height: 250px;
    }
</style>

<ul>
        <li>
                <div>
                        <h4>This is awesome</h4>
                        <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3623/3279671785_d1f2e665b6_s.jpg" alt="lobster" width="75" height="75"/>
                </div>
        </li>
        <li>
                <!-- etc ... -->
        </li>
</ul>

Source: Cross browser inline-block property

2 - Disable Textarea resizing for Safari

/ * Supports: car, both, horizontal, none, vertical * /
textarea }
      resize: none;
}

3 - Cross browser rounded corners

.rounded{
    -moz-border-radius: 5px; /* Firefox */
    -webkit-border-radius: 5px; /* Safari */
}

Source: Border-radius: create rounded corners with CSS!

4 - Cross browser min-height property

selector {
  min-height:500px;
  height:auto !important;
  height:500px;
}

Source: Min-height fast hack

5 - Image Rollover Borders That Do Not Change Layout

#example-one a img, #example-one a {
    border: none;
    overflow: hidden;
    float: left;
}

#example-one a:hover {
    border: 3px solid black;
}

#example-one a:hover img {
    margin: -3px;
}

Source: Image rollovers that do not change layout

6 - Cross browser transparency

.transparent_class {
	filter:alpha(opacity=50);
	-moz-opacity:0.5;
	-khtml-opacity: 0.5;
	opacity: 0.5;
}

Source: CSS transparency settings for all browsers

7 - Lighbox in pure CSS: No Javascript needed!

Source: Lightbox effect in pure CSS: No javascript needed!

8 - Cross browser pure css tooltips

<style type="text/css">
a:hover {
    background:#ffffff;
    text-decoration:none;} /*BG color is a must for IE6*/

a.tooltip span {
    display:none;
    padding:2px 3px;
    margin-left:8px;
    width:130px;
}

a.tooltip:hover span{
    display:inline;
    position:absolute;
    background:#ffffff;
    border:1px solid #cccccc;
    color:#6c6c6c;
}
</style>

Easy <a class="tooltip" href="#">Tooltip<span>This is the crazy little Easy Tooltip Text.</span></a>.

Source: Easy CSS Tooltip

9 - Set color of selected text (Firefox/Safari only)

::selection {
    background: #ffb7b7; /* Safari */
}

::-moz-selection {
    background: #ffb7b7; /* Firefox */
}

Source: Use CSS to Override Default Text Selection Color

10 - Add File Type Icons next to your links

    a[href^="http://"] {
    background:transparent url(../images/external.png) center right no-repeat;
    display:inline-block;
    padding-right:15px;
}

Source: Add File Type Icons next to your links with CSS

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The most important thing to think about when implementing Javascript keyboard shortcuts on a web app is to avoid redefining shortcuts provided by the client's browser. Imagine that you're using a web app, you want to close the tab by pressing Cmd+W, and the web app trigger an action, just because the developer redefined a keyboard shortcut used by your browser...How annoying. This is why I recommend to avoid using the Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (Mac) key for your web app shortcuts. You should definitely use another key as such as F1, for example.

As you may already know, Javascript have lots of useful event listeners. For keyboard shortcuts, we'll use onkeyup,
which allow you to perform an action when a key is pressed. Then, we'll just have to compare the returned value with the keyboard code associated with the key used by one of our custom defined keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard codes are simple code consisting of 2 or 3 numbers. Each keyboard key have its own keyboard code. For exemple, the Ctrl key code is 17.

For a full reference of keyboard keys, scroll down to the end of this post.

Examples

In the following example, we're simply going to verify the key pressed down by the user. If the key pressed are Ctrl+S, a function will be triggered.

First example, without JQuery:

var isCtrl = false;
document.onkeyup=function(e) {
    if(e.which == 17) isCtrl=false;
}document.onkeydown=function(e){
    if(e.which == 17) isCtrl=true;
    if(e.which == 83 && isCtrl == true) {
         alert('Keyboard shortcuts are cool!');
         return false;
    }
}

Example with the JQuery framework:

var isCtrl = false;$(document).keyup(function (e) {
if(e.which == 17) isCtrl=false;
}).keydown(function (e) {
    if(e.which == 17) isCtrl=true;
    if(e.which == 83 && isCtrl == true) {
        alert('Keyboard shortcuts + JQuery are even more cool!');
 	return false;
 }
});

In theses examples, we started by verifying that the Ctrl is pressed by the user. If yes, the initial value of the isCtrl variable is set to true. If the keys are released, isCtrl will be set to false again.

Once done, we have to verify that the second pressed key is S. As the shortcut consists of a keyboard combination, we also have to check that is isCtrl variable have true as a value.

If both the isCtrl variable ius set to true and the second pressed key is S, then we can trigger a Javascript alert to display a message. Of course, in a "real" web app, you'll use a more useful function

Keyboard codes reference

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PsdVide has been created at the end of 2008 by Matthew Heidenreich. This blog focus on provide Adobe Photoshop resources, freebies, and of course, great tutorials as such as the ones showcased in this post. In May 2009, I became PsdVibe new owner.
My goal is to take this great site to a higher level by providing lots of useful tutorials and resources for modern webdesigners. If you enjoy what you're going to see in this post, do not hesitate to grab PsdVibe rss feed!

Create a modern blog layout

Design Studio Layout

Clean Photo Gallery Website Layout

MyBlues WordPress Style Layout

Tutorial Site Blog Design

Corporate Business Layout

Watercolored Design Studio Blog Layout

Design Lab TV Styled Layout

GreenPress WordPress Theme Design

Website Gallery Layout Design

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The classPhpPsdReader.php Class was created by Tim de Koning in 2007. It is based on the GD library, which can do numerous operations on images with PHP, but sadly, can't open PSD files.

The classPhpPsdReader.php Class can be downloaded for free on PhpClasses.org. It is compatible with both PHP4 and PHP5.

Usage

Nothing hard here. Once you have downloaded the classPhpPsdReader.php class and uploaded it on your server, you're now ready to display PSD throught a web browser.
To do so, just refer to the following code example:

<?php
// Send header to client browser
header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
// Includes the requested class
include_once('classPhpPsdReader.php');
// Finally display the PSD on the screen
imagejpeg(imagecreatefrompsd('yourPsdFile.psd'));
?>

The result

Great tool for people who are, like me, both webdevelopers and webdesigners!

On another note, I just purchased a new blog to complete my network. The blog is called PsdVibe and you can have a look here. The blog focus on providing Adobe Photoshop tutorials, resources and freebies.

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The premium WordPress Theme market goes very well: Every month, new themes are released, and new people/companies join the market. It is a good thing because it's great to have the more choice possible, but too much choice can easily make your choice harder.

After reviewing the whole Elegant Themes service a few months ago, I went into their latest release, called eBusiness.

Colors schemes

As a very advanced theme, eBusiness not only have a great layout, it also come with 9 color schemes and 3 different layouts:

Advanced features

Let's have a look to eBusiness features:

• Threaded Comments
• Optional Blog-style Structure
• Gravatar ready
• Firefox compatible
• IE7 + IE6 compatible
• Advertisement Ready
• Widget ready sidebars
• Theme Option Pages
• Custom thumbnail images
• PSD files
• Valid XHTML + CSS
• Smooth tabless design

Great, isn't it? But it isn't over: eBusiness also have built-in thumbnails resizing, a control panel where you can set up options for the theme and an advertising manager. Also, althought eBusiness has been created to be used as a CMS, you can still use it as a blog, thanks to the optionnal layout.

But...How much is it?

Now that I have shown you how advanced the ebusiness Theme is, I can easily guess that you're asking yourself "Well, but how much such a theme costs?". To answer your question, the ebusiness theme can be downloaded for no extra cost by any Elegant Theme member.

Elegant Themes membership cost only $20/year, and once you're a member you can download and use any of their themes and get premium support if needed. So, the eBusiness theme will cost you only $20.

Have you seen many great premium themes for such a low sum? Honestly, I haven't. So if you're looking to a cheap way to make your blog looking really professional, what about purchasing the eBusiness theme?

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1. WP Security Scan

This very easy to use plugin will sort out some of the basic security issues with WordPress - it'll change your database's name and alert you to flaws in your installation's security, amongst other features.

Download.

2. Protect your plugins

Plugins are an easy way for a hacker to get access to your blog if they've got flaws in them. An easy way for hackers to find out which plugins you're using is to go to /wp-content/plugins/, and they'll find all the plugins that you're using. The solution? Put a blank index.html file in the wp-content/plugins/ folder.

3. Update WordPress

This is super-easy to do, but a surprising number of people don't do it: update WordPress. If you're super-security-conscious then don't upgrade to the next big release immediately (ie 2.8), wait for the bug fixes to come in (ie wait for 2.8.1).

4. Pick a good password

Common sense. Use a good password. Don't use the same password that you use on every site, create something that is easily memorable, with a mix of UPPER and lower case and some numbers in there too. Change your password regularly too.

5. Change the admin user name

By default, the WordPress user name is admin. [Lots]% of people don't change it. Why should you change it? If a hacker has your username, he's halfway there to getting into your site, he just has to guess your password. If the hacker has to guess your username as well, then that's twice as much work to do. It's super easy to migrate posts from one user to another, just create your new user and then delete the admin user. You'll be given the option to migrate posts to another user.

6. Protect your WP-Config.php file

Your WP-Config.php contains your database name, database username and database password. It's something to protect.

Just add the following code to your .htaccess file:

# protect wpconfig.php

order allow,deny from all

Source - Nometech.com

7. Hide your WordPress version

First off, go into your header.php file and remove the meta data (something like <meta name="generator" etc). Trouble is, WordPress adds in the meta data automatically! How do you remove it? Paste this code into your functions.php file.

<?php remove_action('wp_header', 'wp_generator'); ?>

Source - ProBlogDesign

8. Limit the number of times user can enter their password (wrongly)

The Login LockDown plugin will lock out users if they enter their password wrong too many times. You can choose how many times users can enter their password and also how long they're locked out for via a neat options page.

Source - WP Plugin Directory

9. Limit WP-Admin access by IP

This isn't something that I do personally, as I blog on a fair number of different computers, but if you're just on the one, with a fixed IP, then this is a great hack for you: you can restrict access to the wp-admin directory with a spluginimple .htaccess hack:

order deny, allow
allow from a.b.c.d. #your static ip
deny from all

Source - Nometech

10. Login via SSL

If your host has an SSL certificate then you can use this great little plugin to login via SSL. The Admin SSL plugin "secures login page, admin area, posts, pages - whatever you want - using Private or Shared SSL."

Source - WP Plugin Directory, via MakeUseOf.com

And finally

It is very easy to get bogged down in plugins, but bear this in mind: a strong password that is changed regularly, and a couple of .htaccess hacks (this post might help) will keep the casual hacker out.

If you've enjoyed this post then please do take a look at Nometech.com, my new blog, and perhaps even subscribe to the RSS feed. If you're on Twitter too then new followers are always welcome!

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