Archive for the 'Blog Features' Category
While the iPhone and iPod touch do an amazing job of displaying web pages the way they were designed to be seen, often visitors want quick access to your website’s content. The “iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme” displays an optimized version of your blog’s content, formatted perfectly to fit the iPhone/iPod touch’s screen - no zooming in to read the content is necessary.
Try it out on your iPhone today or use the online tool iPhoney. Loads nicely on both EDGE and Wi-Fi. Enjoy!
At the suggestion of Ian over on Sox and Dawgs I implemented the new Easy Gravatars plugin for Wordpress. If you remember back in the day I used to have Gravatars enabled on this site but once the Gravatar site started crapping out it started slowing down the comment section of this site. Dougal Campbell redid the gravatar plugin and released it to the Wordpress Plugin Directory yesterday. Since Gravatar was acquired by Automattic the servers will be serving gravatars three times as fast. Just what is a Gravatar?
A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?
If you do not have a gravatar hop over to the Gravatar Site and sign up for one right away. It’s very easy. You can also sign up for a free gravatar under the comment box in each post. Just enter a password and leave a valid email address with your comment and you will be mailed access to your gravatar account.
Feel free to test your gravatar in the comments of this post.
Enjoy.
I figured this was a long time coming. I put together an About page to explain where this site came from and a little bit about it’s specs. If your interested stop by the About page and read up on the history of SporTech Matter.
The plugin used to create the list of plugins used on this site is by Viper007Bond. You can grab it on his project page.
You can visit the About page whenever you like in the sidebar halfway down the page.
You might have noticed a new widget up on the sidebar. If you didn’t move your eyes over to the left and take a look at aSide Matter. Aside Matter is a new feature that allows me to post headlines, without having to put a post on the main page. Allow me to explain. Throughout the day I browse various blogs, newspaper sites and media outlets that have headlines or articles that I find interesting. To dedicate a post to something like “Zach Thomas sits out practice” is a waste of time for me and takes up valuable homepage space where other content can go. However I would still like to relay this information to you, my readers. So why Asides? Wordpress does a good job of explaining Asides…
When you lean towards someone and tell them a little bit of information, you are making an “aside” comment. In blogs, you can do that on your blog by passing on small bits of information to your readers called Asides.
That is essentially what I am doing. I am using PiePalace’s asides plugin called Miniposts to accomplish this. What’s cool about the plugin is it allows me to post these MiniPosts which still act like posts, they are just contained outside the Wordpress Loop. So you can still click on the title of the aside and view the post like you normally would, only they are hidden from the homepage. These Miniposts will still appear in your RSS Reader. You can also feel free (and again it’s highly encouraged) to leave comments on the Miniposts. You will notice after each Minipost a number in brackets. This shows the comment count for each Minipost. Click on the number and feel free to leave a comment.
If you would like to submit your own Minipost of something you find interesting, drop the link to the article in my contact form with the subject Minipost Submission and I will add it to the Aside Matter widget.
I think this will be a great new feature, let me know what you think.
I’ve been receiving numerous emails over the past few months about commenter’s that needed comments edited either due to content or a misspelling. I began to do some research. Ian from SoxandDawgs.com was kind enough to recommend the plugin he is using on his site (which has a brand new design, stop by and check it out!) which is the WP Ajax Edit Comments. Description of the plugin from the author’s blog…
WP Ajax Edit Comments (for WP 2.1+) allows users and admins alike to edit comments on a post. Users can edit their own comments for a period specified by the admin, and admins can edit all post comments. What better way to show reader appreciation than letting the readers edit their own typos?
So now after you leave a comment (AND COMMENTS ARE ENCOURAGED HERE ON SPORTECH MATTER!) you will see a new fancy timer (screenshot) that counts down the amount of time you have to edit your comment. Why the countdown? For security purposes. So now if you mess up your comment, username used for your comment or your email you will now be able to edit it 30 minutes after leaving it.
Feel free to test out this cool feature in this post and let me know if you run into any issues. Let me know what browser you are using. To see a demo on this plugin works, check out sample videos here and here.
Enjoy guys!
Hey look at that cool new media link at the top of SporTech Matter! See it? I know you want to click on it. Go ahead, DO IT! I promise you will not be disappointed.
Newly added videos to the SporTech Library…
Dolphins/Cowboys 1993
Dolphins/Cowboys 2003
D-Wade Drains 17 Straight Against Pistons
Dwyane Wade vs Lebron James
Visit the all new SporTech Media Page now!!!
Throughout the day I am going to be working on finishing the new SporTech Matter Media Page. This will be a page with all the videos that have been featured on SporTech Matter over the years in a nice neat playlist type media player. Each player will have a certain genre of video and can be used easily to view all the past videos from this site. Below you will find a sample screenshot of what the media player will look like.
Click this link to see that media player in action. This allows me to go around YouTube and host my own videos without worrying about them being deleted.
I will post a link for the media page when the time comes, this is simply a teaser.
As you guys know I love taking pictures at the games I attend. I recently had to make a decision to replace the script I was using with a new, more efficient one that integrated nicely with my new theme. I decided to scrap the FAlbum script I was using and switch to the new Flickr Photo Album script. I grabbed it from TanTanNoodles.com…
The WordPress Flickr Photo Album plugin will pull in your Flickr photo sets and display them as albums on your WordPress site. There is a pretty simple template provided, but you can customize the templates 100% to match the look and feel of your own site.
This plugin will also add a new Photos tab (next to the existing Upload tab) in your WordPress edit screen which will allow you to easily insert your Flickr photos into your blog posts with just a couple clicks (much like the Flickr Post Bar plugin). Your inserted photos will then be linked back to your WordPress Flickr photo album.
I’m still in the process of customizing the script to look perfect but it runs great and navigation through the gallery is nice and easy. Click on the Gallery link on the top of the page or bang the link below.
Enjoy!
I’m nuts!! I have since scrapped this project and gone with a sexy ajax based solution called Slickr Gallery. It’s hella slick!! Clicky below!!
Couple of notes from a day in South Florida Sports…
- The Marlins completed the downfall of the New York Mets, dropping them 8-1 in a game that seemed to be over from the first inning. Tom Glavine struggled to get out of the first inning and the Mets bats were silenced by Dontrelle Willis and the Marlins bullpen. With the win and a Nationals loss to the Phillies, the Marlins were able to knock the Mets out of the postseason for 2007.
- The Dolphins were dominated by Daunte Culpepper today. Ronnie Brown was a monster for the second week in a row but the Dolphins’ defense was unable to live up to it’s guarantee. Any chance we can get a refund on that whole Joey Porter thing? Umm yeah.
As you may have noticed I have changed up the theme of SporTech. I was getting a number of emails complaining that the old style theme, while super sexy, was not loading well in IE6 or IE7. I was reporting load times of 10-15 seconds. That is simply not acceptable. I was also becoming extremely frustrated with the lack of support by the author of the Freshy theme. I’m not sure if him being in France had anything to do with it, but we will leave it at that.
Let me know what you think of the new design in the comments.
Enjoy the new, clean site. It runs great in all browsers.
Guess who’s back…back again…
It’s been a while folks since I’ve done any work on SporTech Matter. This is a combination of a few things. 1) My inspiration for working on the blog hit an all time low. I have had no motivation over the last few weeks to even do a YouTube post, that has now changed. 2) There really hasn’t been anything inspiring to write about regarding South Florida sports lately. 3) In the process of getting my motivation back, I upgraded SporTech Matter to run the new version of Wordpress, codename Dexter Gordon. I recommend any Wordpress user to upgrade immediately. From the Wordpress folks…
I’m thrilled to announce that Version 2.3 “Dexter” of WordPress is now ready for the world. This release includes native tagging support, plugin update notification, URL handling improvements, and much more. This release is named for the great tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon.
Go grab your copy now and get your update process going. Stop by the Wordpress site to check out all the new features.