Does it really benefit your blog?

Like every new hype, most people are implementing the Like button without really considering the usefulness of doing so. A question to ask often is if the Like button is really a good fit for your blog.

There is much talk on the subject, however, most will convince you that it’s as easy as users sharing the links and their friends getting exposure to the links right away. It’s not always the case, unfortunately.

First, let’s sprint through the basics.

What happens when someone “Like” an article
It appears in the following places but there are limitations and conditions:

1. User’s Wall – “Recent Activity” — Very few people see this.
2. Friends’ News Feed — However, it depends on Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm — Not everything will make it to all of your friend’s News Feed.
3. User’s “Likes and Interests” — For any Open Graph object that’s not an article or news tidbit. (More on Objects below)
4. User can receive updates in their “News Feed” — Sent by the hidden page admin. It works only if an admin is specified while implementing the Like button code. It also requires a more complex setup to be able to update the fans all your Liked pages.

So, it’s useful?
While some blogs do find it useful, many small traffic blogs just don’t! I suggest that you read on, get a better understanding and form your own opinion.

How to benefit from it?

Rely on Likes appearing in “News Feeds”
Theoretically, whenever a user Like something on your blog, it gets posted on his/her friends News Feed too. But recall that not all updates or Likes by a user will reach all of his/her friends. It entirely depends on the Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm.

For some blogs where the content really suits the social users, this alone might be very useful. However, more can be done.

Send interesting updates
When implemented correctly, you can send updates to all the users who ever liked a post on your blog. Whenever users Like a post on your blog, they automatically become a Fan of a hidden facebook page which is considered as an Open Graph object. While they can receive the updates in their “News Feed” posted by an admin of this page/object, the object name will link to your blog post instead of a facebook page.

The issue here is, a blog can easily have hundreds of posts. Each post is considered an object and each object has it’s own individual page to send updates from. Manually visiting each page and posting the update for hundreds of pages just isn’t realistic. To update all fans of all objects/pages, you’ll have to do it programmatically. This requires you to register and use a Facebook Platform application. Unfortunately, I have not found a WordPress plugin that can handle the programmatic updates for you. You will have to get it custom built.

Most people don’t realize they’re subscribing to receive updates when they Like something on your blog. So use this wisely; make your updates least spammy as possible or they may as well Dislike your blog.

Again, remember that there’s no guarantee that these updates will appear on all your fans’ News Feeds. Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm calls the final shots.

Use it with Recommendations plugin
If you have a blog with many facebook users and a decent overall traffic, you can implement Like button with other facebook social plugins such as the Recommendations box.

The social recommendations box is usually added to the sidebar to show popular relevant content to your users. Your users will see posts that their friends like (liked or shared), whenever they are logged into facebook. When they’re not logged in, they’ll see posts that are, overall, most liked or shared from your blog.

Everything is an object
If you are using WordPress in such a way that every single post/page is a unique object (unique product pages, movie or celebrity pages, for example), then you can mark it as such. Having pages as objects make them appear categorized in user’s “Likes and Interests” under relevant category.

To implement you can define the og:type tag using one of the supported types. Perhaps you can use tags, categories or taxonomies here. Since this is a rare case, I do not have concrete implementation examples here.

How to add Like button on WordPress

It depends upon your requirement.

Updates and hidden facebook pages required?

Whether or not you setup a custom system to handle programmatic updating of your News Feed, you still need the basic meta tags in place. This will ensure that you can Like your own pages, and then be able to Administer and post updates via them. I recommend Like plugin in the WordPress plugin repository.

No News Feed updates necessary?

Perhaps you use a Fan Page instead. Or perhaps you are not interested in feed updates at all. In this case, the implementation is pretty simple.

Here, you have two choices as well.

The xfbml advantage
It’s more complex, but when the user presses the Like button, a small comment box is display. If a user enters a comment, this not only increases the chance of displaying in user’s friends News Feed, but also is displayed more like a normal update posted by the user. This makes it significantly more useful especially if you’re relying on News Feed exposure alone.

PangPond has a nice article explaining the difference.

To setup on WordPress, you will have to register a facebook application and then use the Like plugin.

Quick, and less complex
Or you can quickly get it done.

1. Open single.php and place the following code where you want the Like button to show.

   <iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:60px;">
   </iframe>
   

   Note that you can generate the same code at Facebook but replace href query parameter with a value of <?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>

2. Save, close and test.

Common Questions

How to send updates?
Like any page on your site. Next, refresh the page to see an Admin Page link. Clicking on the link will take you to the hidden page where you can see all the relevant page. Please note that it will only work if you had specified the correct user id in the fb:admins meta tag, i.e. configured it properly in the plugin.

All the pages that you Like, and those that you can Administer can be managed by clicking the Account menu at top left of your facebook account and then clicking Manage Pages. Note that Manage Page only appears when you are admin of at least one page.

How to install the facebook Recommendations social plugin?
Go to the official code generator. Copy the code into one of the widgets in your WordPress or modify the theme’s sidebar.php manually.

Keep In Touch!

Like it or hate it, Facebook is clearly one of the marketing tools of today. Use it, experiment, learn, adapt and please remember to share your experience.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS Feed and follow us on Twitter to stay updated.

The popularity of WordPress has to be attributed to the business model based around open-source and community contribution. A lot of open-source contributors prefer to contribute to projects that are licensed under GPL. It’s usually due to GPL’s Philosophy and idea of freedom in software being aligned with their beliefs.

First of all, some of the GPL in layman’s terms:

• Anyone may modify, use, or redistribute (provided GPL notices including license, warranty disclaimer etc. are retained) your software for free or for a price.
• Notices, including credits, in source code should be retained when re-distributing. Further credits are preferred to be added using the “modified by” or a similar notice. You are automatically the copyright holder of the code you wrote. But no credits can be forced in HTML since everyone has the right to modify the code and remove them.
• You are not required to release your code modifications to anyone. But once you distribute your modifications to anyone (a friend or anyone else), he/she has the right to distribute/release the code to public.
• If you release the code, all improved versions of the code have to be released under GPL.
• Any library/code that relies on GPL code has to be released under GPL or a GPL compatible license.

Still have questions? Head over to the official F.A.Q.

Your work for WordPress is GPL too

If there’s anything in your code that relies on WordPress’s code (template tags, functions etc.), your work automatically becomes GPL by law (derivative code), whether you state it or not. There are exceptions in both themes and plugins, however. If a few elements do not depend on the WordPress at all, they may be licensed differently – such as css files and images.

For Theme Developers

Themes do not have to be entirely GPL, as confirmed by Matt. But if you want your themes to be listed in WordPress’s directory, you’ll have to make them completely GPL or GPL compatible.

The PHP template files make extensive use of WordPress with HTML to form the layouts. Additionally, they utilize WordPress’s theme engine. CSS and image files are an exception since they do not rely on anything in WordPress at all.

Given that being listed in wordpress.org isn’t a requirement, you can license your theme’s PHP files using GPL but use a proprietary/custom license for the images and CSS.

For Plugin Developers

Practically, all your plugins have to be GPL as they’re derived work. People have debated tirelessly over the issue but as explained in the faq, all your plug-ins have to be licensed using GPL or a compatible license.

The only exception is when you create a completely isolated software that’s bridged to WordPress but uses no API functions (except for a few ‘action’ hooks to initialize the software) or data structures. One example of such would be an isolated photo gallery which is associated with a certain action hook to be displayed at one specific page.

Retaining control and limiting competition

One of the philosophies of GNU GPL is that of freedom. Anyone should have the right to do whatever they want with your software which includes re-distributing your software for a fee. While as absurd as it may sound to the business-minded people stuck with a tunnel vision or a different school of thought, it is the driving force behind the success of WordPress and many other open-source softwares out there.

Having WordPress open-source has resulted in immense contributions and development. That’s exactly what made it so usable for hundreds of thousands of people who use WordPress on daily basis, without paying a penny! It’s also helped setup many small businesses that rely on WordPress. Matt has written an awesome article, price of freedom, explaining the same in detail.

Think outside the box
Cliche, you may say (I’m guilty!). But if you want to earn money from WordPress, learning from Automattic’s success is a good idea. I prefer to think of business opportunities in an innovative style. Offering support, customizations, a SaaS with freemium model etc.

Your competition is not strong enough
Even if somebody decides to take a free-ride on your code, they’ll not know the system and code as good as you do and as such their support will be lackluster. And though it may be legal, it’s considered unethical by most, so a large brand is almost never likely to go that route; in other words, your competition – if any – will be small.

Moreover, without a better execution (improvements) on your competition’s part, you’ll have nothing to worry about. Alister has a good article on creating value and why GPL is not the problem.

Brand Matters and First Mover Advantage
Everyone knows about branding. And brand matters. Business theories, when considering free/cheap me-toos, suggest that they’re often considered inferior alternatives in the mind of consumers. Additionally, first-mover advantage will be in your favor too.

Combine both brand, quality and first mover’s advantage (support, improvements etc.) and you will have almost all of the market.

Isolate it, or license certain elements differently
Isolation is one idea that’s not very practical as discussed in plugins section. But licensing differently is one option for theme developers as discussed earlier.

Good Luck and Keep In Touch!

Licensing issues with WordPress are exaggerated. A business around WordPress still has immense potential given you do it right. So don’t let the naysayers put you off. Your thoughts? Ideas? I would love to hear them. Please leave a comment.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS Feed and follow us on Twitter to stay updated.

1. Add the following code between posts loop. You can edit the Posted by <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?> part from the code to match with your layout.

<span class='authorBio' title='<?php the_author_meta('description', $post->post_author); ?>'>Posted by <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></span>

2. Download & Extract Tiny Tips 1.1 – Mirror

3. Copy & Paste jquery.tinyTips.js to your theme folder.

4. Add the following code to the end of style.css located in your theme folder:

.lightTip .content { width: 310px; padding: 10px; border: 6px solid #e2e2e2; -moz-border-radius: 5px; -webkit-border-radius: 5px; background: #ffffff; color: #020202; }
.lightTip .bottom { height: 14px; background: url('notch-white.png') top center no-repeat; }

5. Copy notch-white.png from demo\images folder from TinyTips package and paste it to your theme folder.

6. Edit header.php and add the following code BEFORE wp_head(); function:

<?php wp_enqueue_script('jquery'); ?>
<?php wp_enqueue_script('TinyTips', get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/jquery.tinyTips.js', 'jquery', '1.1'); ?>

7. Add the following code directly before tag:

<script type='text/javascript'>
jQuery(document).ready(function() {
	jQuery('.authorBio').tinyTips('light', 'title');
});
</script>

Keep In Touch

Leave your suggestions and comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS Feed and follow us on Twitter to stay updated.

Running a multiple author WordPress blog? Lets get your authors page setup real quick. I have written a flexible WordPress page template that will support most themes. To be sure, I tested it on WordPress default theme. If you follow WordPress default theme pattern, you will have no trouble setting this up.

The page template lists all authors ordered by author ID. The format of a listing is author name followed by author description and gravatar which is followed by a link to recent post and finally links to social media profiles. The page template supports twitter, facebook, linkedin, digg and flickr.

Example Listing with Sample Text and only Flickr Link

Installation Instructions

1. Download and extract authors.zip
2. Copy and paste authors.php file to your theme directory
3. Copy and paste the following code on the top of your functions.php file in your theme directory (this will add social media profile fields on edit profile page)

   <?php
   add_action('show_user_profile', 'wpsplash_extraProfileFields');
   add_action('edit_user_profile', 'wpsplash_extraProfileFields');
   add_action('personal_options_update', 'wpsplash_saveExtraProfileFields');
   add_action('edit_user_profile_update', 'wpsplash_saveExtraProfileFields');
   
   function wpsplash_saveExtraProfileFields($userID) {
   
   	if (!current_user_can('edit_user', $userID)) {
   		return false;
   	}
   
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'twitter', $_POST['twitter']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'facebook', $_POST['facebook']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'linkedin', $_POST['linkedin']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'digg', $_POST['digg']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'flickr', $_POST['flickr']);
   }
   
   function wpsplash_extraProfileFields($user)
   {
   ?>
   	<h3>Connect Information</h3>
   
   	<table class='form-table'>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='twitter'>Twitter</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='twitter' id='twitter' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('twitter', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your Twitter username. http://www.twitter.com/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='facebook'>Facebook</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='facebook' id='facebook' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('facebook', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your Facebook username/alias. http://www.facebook.com/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='linkedin'>LinkedIn</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='linkedin' id='linkedin' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('linkedin', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your LinkedIn username. http://www.linkedin.com/in/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='digg'>Digg</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='digg' id='digg' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('digg', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your Digg username. http://digg.com/users/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='flickr'>Flickr</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='flickr' id='flickr' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('flickr', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your flickr username. http://www.flickr.com/photos/<strong>username</strong>/</span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   	</table>
   <?php } ?>
   

4. Create a new page and select “Authors List” from the page template dropdown menu

Usage Instructions

• User must create at least one post to list on the page
• Display Name is used on author listings
• No user description means no avatar
• Links to your social media profiles can be entered on the edit profile page. See:

  

How to customize

• To display smaller or larger avatars, edit author.php and find:

  <?php echo get_avatar(get_the_author_meta('user_email', $author->post_author), 80); ?>

  Replace 80 which is width and height (80×80) of avatar with your desired size.

• To add a different background color for a particular author, in your stylesheet use #author-username css selector to target a particular author.

  Lets say you want to change background color of “admin” listing to black and text color to white, you can use #author-admin { background-color: black; color: white; } css in your stylesheet.

Customization possibilities are endless. If you want help customizing your authors page, let me know in comments, I will respond with a solution.

Keep In Touch

Leave your suggestions and comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS Feed and follow us on Twitter to stay updated.

Add the following code in your theme functions file (functions.php) which will add a link to pending comments page with number of pending comments directly below the post content.

add_filter('the_content', array($this, 'pendingCommentsQuickLink'));

function pendingCommentsQuickLink($content)
{
	if(current_user_can('moderate_comments')) {
		global $wpdb;

		/*
		 * Fetch Pending Comments from Database
		 */
		$pendingComments = $wpdb->get_var('SELECT COUNT(*) AS pendingComments FROM '.$wpdb->comments.' WHERE comment_post_ID = '.get_the_id().' AND comment_approved = 0 AND comment_approved != "spam"');

		$content .= '<p>';

		/*
		 * Parse Pending Comments
		 */
		if($pendingComments):
		$content .= ' <a class="pendingCommentsLink" href="'.get_bloginfo('wpurl').'/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?comment_status=moderated&p='.get_the_id().'">Pending Comments ('.$pendingComments.')</a>';
		endif;

		$content .= '</p>';
	}
	return $content;
}

How does it look like?

Bloggers using WordPress should also be following this trend, just like all other social media. WordPress, by default, doesn’t have fuzzy dates support. So, I have created a plugin that uses the popular timeago jQuery plugin to create automatically updating fuzzy date/time.

Why?

• The fuzzy date/time updates live while you are on the page, without requiring page reload.
• It makes your site appear more lively and user friendly.
• timeago uses microformats.
• Fuzzy date is applied to the comments automatically, even if the default wordpress comments loop is being used. No painful rewriting required.
• Shows time relative to user’s timezone. Normally, the date/time displayed by wordpress is based on the timezone set in wordpress configurations.

Installation:

1. Download and extract the zip archive.
2. Upload the plugin.
3. Activate the plugin from Admin CP.
4. Ensure it works (more below).

Make it work!

By default, the plugin automatically converts your date and times into fuzzy equivalent. However, it’s not perfect and may not work or appear out of context on many themes.

In that case, you will have to edit your theme templates (index.php, single.php, etc.) and replace the default the_time() / the_date() template tags with the_time_ago() (provided by the plugin).

Usage: (while in the loop or comments loop)

<?php the_time_ago(); ?>

When you need to define a custom format (displayed on mouse-over), use as following:

<?php the_time_ago('d M, Y'); ?>

Translation

Edit the file jquery.timeago.js and locate the section where it says “Translate here”. You can either modify it manually or use one of the many translations available at timeago’s repository.

Keep In Touch

Leave your suggestions and comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS Feed and follow us on Twitter to stay updated.

Javascript based widgets can slow down your pages to a crawl. Not only they affect the overall page loading time, but sometimes also delay the loading of the real content, which is a major turnoff for your site’s visitors.

There are very good reasons why Javascript widgets are a cause of page slow-down.

1. Unoptimized code. Heavy usage of document.write function. Loading too many external scripts (javascript/css/images).
2. Slow server of widget host. The widget keeps loading and in the process blocks the more important content.

Today, I’ll show you how to create custom retweet, delicious save and facebook share widgets (with share / save count in plain text) using PHP, so your pages load with lightening fast speed.

Apart from the speed benefit, the HTML markup generated by my code is simple and can be styled with CSS the way you want it!.

Retweet widget (with topsy API)

This widget will use topsy otter API to generate a retweet widget. Example on the top right of this post (custom style).

WordPress Code:

<?php
$shareUrl = urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID));
$shareTitle = urlencode($post->post_title);
$retweetNick = 'wpsplash';
$retweetInfo = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://otter.topsy.com/stats.json?url='.$shareUrl));
?>
<div class='retweet'>
	<a href='<?php echo $retweetInfo->response->topsy_trackback_url; ?>' class='count'>
		<span class='number'><?php echo $retweetInfo->response->all; ?></span>
		<span class='unit'>tweets</span>
	</a>
	<a href='http://button.topsy.com/retweet?nick=<?php echo $retweetNick; ?>&title=<?php echo $shareTitle; ?>&url=<?php echo $shareUrl; ?>' class='button'>Retweet</a>
</div>

1. shareURL: url of the page
2. shareTitle: title of the page which will be used as retweet text
3. retweetNick: twitter username that will appear in retweet message of the text

PHP5 requirement since it uses json_decode function.

Delicious Save Widget

This will generate a delicious widget as seen on the bottom of this post. You can however style it as per your choice with CSS.

WordPress Code:

<?php
$shareUrl = urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID));
$shareTitle = urlencode($post->post_title);
$deliciousStats = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/json/urlinfo/data?url='.$shareUrl));
?>

<a onclick='window.open("http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=<?php echo $shareUrl; ?>&title=<?php echo $shareTitle; ?>", "facebook", "toolbar=no, width=550, height=550"); return false;' href='http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=<?php echo $shareUrl; ?>&title=<?php echo $shareTitle; ?>' class='delicious'>
<?php
if($deliciousStats[0]->total_posts == 0) {
	echo 'Save';
} elseif($deliciousStats[0]->total_posts == 1) {
	echo 'One save';
} else {
	echo $deliciousStats[0]->total_posts.' saves';
}
?>
</a>

1. shareURL: url of the page
2. shareTitle: title of the page

PHP5 requirement since it uses json_decode function.

Facebook Share Widget

This will generate facebook share widget as seen on the bottom right of this post. Like delicious widget, you can style it with CSS.

WordPress Code:

<?php
$shareUrl = urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID));
$shareTitle = urlencode($post->post_title);
$fbLinkStats = simplexml_load_file('http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?method=links.getStats&urls='.$shareUrl);
?>

<a onclick='window.open("http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<?php echo $shareUrl; ?>&amp;t=<?php echo $shareTitle; ?>", "facebook", "toolbar=no, width=550, height=550"); return false;' href='http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<?php echo $shareUrl; ?>&amp;t=<?php echo $shareTitle; ?>'  class='facebookShare'>

<?php
if($fbLinkStats->link_stat->total_count == 0) {
	echo 'Share';
} elseif($fbLinkStats->link_stat->total_count == 1) {
	echo 'One share';
} else {
	echo $fbLinkStats->link_stat->total_count.' shares';
}
?>
</a>

1. shareURL: url of the page
2. shareTitle: title of the page

PHP5 requirement since it uses simplexml library.

This is it! You got customizable Retweet, Delicious, and Facebook share widgets with share count and all, that do not slow down your page.

What icon pack are you using on WPSplash?

We are using Social Media Network Icons Pack by Komodo Media. They are beautiful!

How do I optimize X widget?

Use the API offered by the widget’s site with your favourite server-side language, PHP in case you’re using WordPress. Also, post your requests in comments. We’ll make updates to this post and send status updates via twitter. Follow WPSplash on Twitter, and subscribe to RSS feed.

Code Profiling

Quoting from Wikipedia:

A (code) profiler is a performance analysis tool that, most commonly, measures only the frequency and duration of function calls, but there are other specific types of profilers (e.g. memory profilers) in addition to more comprehensive profilers, capable of gathering extensive performance data.

You may fail to notice any performance issues unless you use code profiling to assist you. For general PHP Profiling, programmers often use xdebug with all sort of PHP applications including wordpress. But, if you’re a wordpress theme developer, usually all you need is a MySQL profiler.

WP MySQL Profiler

I have created this simple plugin to assist both theme and plugin developers in MySQL Profiling. Once installed, MySQL statistics will be available at page footer.

Installation

1. Download WP MySQL Profiler and extract the archive.
2. Rename your wp-db.php file in wp-includes directory to wp-db-backup.php.
3. Upload wp-db.php included in the archive to your wp-includes directory.
4. Upload wpSqlProfiler.php to wp-content/plugins/ directory.
5. Edit your wp-config.php. Find define (‘WPLANG’, ”); and add below:

   define('SAVEQUERIES', true);

6. Enable “WP MySQL Profiler” plugin from the admin CP.

Usage

When logged in as an admin, you will see MySQL query details at page footer. Keep an eye on both total queries and time. Each time you add code to your templates, use the profiling information to check if an optimized function, or code snippet has been used.

If you notice high total queries or time, examine the queries and check the backtrace (more below) to find where the query originated from. Then remove or replace the unoptimized function/code.

The Backtrace

Third column in the profiler gives you the most useful information. In the example above, it shows the functions that were involved in generating the MySQL query. It started at themes/default/single.php on line 7 with the function get_header() which called function wp_head(), kubrick_header_display() and finally get_option() in the file functions.php on line 83.

Note that there’s a link “Show Full Trace”. For simplicity, the profiler doesn’t show all the function calls by default. Instead, it tries to determine function calls from plugins and themes. Since you are going to use it when coding plugins and themes, it makes sense to assume that you’re concerned with function calls originating therein.

Final Steps

If you’re going to use the same wordpress copy on a live site, make sure to:

• delete the wp-db.php and rename wp-db-backup.php to wp-db.php. (optional)
• remove define(‘SAVEQUERIES’, true); from wp-config.php.

Similarly, disable the WP MySQL Profiler plugin.

Ideas And Suggestions?

Lack of tools or lack of information; neither of them are valid excuses anymore. Go ahead and make sure every theme and plugin of yours performs efficiently. Do you use any similar tools to assist you in profiling? Got any suggestions? I would love to hear about them. Leave a comment!

You can add the following code between your WordPress Posts Loop which will generate a “Share to Google Buzz” link.

<a href='http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&title=<?php the_title(); ?>&snippet=<?php the_title(); ?>&srcURL=<?php bloginfo('wpurl'); ?>&srcTitle=<?php bloginfo('name'); ?>'>Share to Google Buzz</a>

The link contains 4 parameters:

url: link to blog post
title: blog post title
srcURL: source url like your blog url
srcTitle: your blog name or title

This is the simplest and plugin free way to add Google Buzz to your blog posts. If you want, you can add a Google Buzz icon instead of text link in the above code.

And now a week later, WP Splash is live! And we’re more serious about it than ever.

At WP Splash we’ll only give you quality WordPress tips, tricks, and hacks. No junk, I promise.

Apart from a blog, WP Splash also includes a gallery of WordPress based designs for your inspiration. Got a great looking WordPress site? Head over to WordPress design gallery and submit it.

Who are we anyway?

We’re a bunch of underground WordPress developers. We’ve helped build many great WordPress sites and products over the years.

Until now, we were not very loud about our passion about all things WordPress. But things gotta change.

So me (Mohsin) Haris, and Asad (He doesn’t use Twitter, can you believe it?) are going to be your hosts here for a very long time. Subscribe to WP Splash RSS feed and follow WP Splash on Twitter now because cool stuff is going to start rolling in very soon.