PCWiz Computer Blog

Its a question that every web developer may ask when considering to switch from a plain old static HTML site to a more refined and flexible Content Management System (e.g. Joomla, Mambo, Drupal, etc.). Why should they make the switch? There are a variety of reasons to switch your site to a CMS system, and here they are:

1. No coding needed – no need for your web editing programs anymore
2. Everything done online – manage and add content from any place that has internet access, no matter where it is
3. Wide array of extensions – make your site do whatever you want it to do
4. Tons of beautiful templates available – a great look for your site in minutes
5. Content is easily updated – no need to reupload anything or manually edit
6. Barely any FTP work involved – just upload the CMS and it takes care of itself, no need to mess around with files in FTP (usually)
7. Automated – the system takes care of pretty much everything once you set it up and you can just sit back and relax while it does the work
8. Great set of features – Many features built in to the system that you could never ever have with a static HTML site

OK so once your convinced, you realize that there are a ton of CMS systems available. Which one to choose? The truth is, it all depends on personal preference. Its your needs and wants that decide what CMS is right for you. Test out a variety of CMS systems, some good ones to start with are: Joomla, Drupal, and Mambo. Install them all into folders and compare them, test them out for a while and then see which one works the best for your site. So you know what CMS you want, now comes the extremely painful process of transferring all your content over.

It would be really easy if there was some script that transferred over your static HTML content over to a CMS automatically, but sadly it cannot be done because HTML sites have no standard, they could be done a lot of different ways and too many ways to cover. So you have to do it manually. Typically this would mean cutting and pasting but depending on where and how your files are stored you may also need to move files around. To finally get the ideal setup, it takes months even for a small site, and for a large site it may take a year or longer. But this also future proofs your site, and you can have reasonable assurance that you won’t have to switch again for a while.

With the release of WordPress 2.5, the plugin that was widely used to put Digg buttons automatically in every post, it became incompatible leaving bloggers with no easy way to put Digg buttons auto on their pages. There is an easy fix thankfully, this doesn’t have all of Gregarious’ features, just the Digg button but it works fine. To do it, go into the WordPress theme editor in the admin panel and choose your current theme to edit. Start off by editing index.php. Find the line that says:

<?php the_content(’Read the rest of this entry &raquo;’); ?>
                </div>

Right below it paste the following code:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
digg_url = ‘<?php the_permalink() ?>’;
digg_title = ‘<?php the_title(); ?>’;
digg_skin = ‘compact’;
digg_window = ‘new’;
</script>
<script src=”http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

Do the same for single.php and archive.php. Find that line, put the code below it. Save, and you now have the Digg buttons back! A good easy fix and alternative.

Here are 10 essential WordPress plugins that every blogger should have installed:

AdSense-Deluxe* – Quickly insert Google Ads into your posts and manage where they are displayed
Akismet – Highly accurate comment spam blocker that is tightly integrated with WordPress. Requires an API key (get an API key by signing up for an account on WordPress.org.
Bad Behaviour – Effective bot blocker that prevents spam bots from accessing your site in the first place. It has intelligent filtering and will not filter out legitimate bots like Google.
Google AdSense Widget* – An easy to use widget to display Google Ads in your Sidebar. Has easy customization features to change color, size, and more.
Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin generates an XML sitemap of your blog accepted by Ask, Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo and will make sure that all your pages are indexed by search engines
Gregarious – The easiest way to display Digg buttons and social bookmarking options in your posts. This plugin allows you to add Share This (social bookmarking) and Digg functionality to your posts
WordPress Database Backup – A blog-saving tool to back up your blog database in case something goes wrong
WP-Cache – A cache module to speed up loading time of your blog
WP-Lightbox2 – Automatically overlay all your image links with a Lightbox module

* AdSense Note: Google AdSense is a Pay Per Click program that displays unobtrusive ads on your pages and earns you money. To take advantage of AdSense and the 2 AdSense plugins sign up for Google AdSense.

These plugins are essentials that every new blogger should have to improve their blogging experience

The people behind orderedlist.com have a great theme for the Wordpress administration panel. The default panel is very plain and has a classic vintage look to it. After you’ve easily installed the Tiger Admin Panel, your administration panel will be brightened up to look like Mac OS X Tiger. The panel has been installed on this blog and it looks great and works very well. This would be a fantastic addition to the iLeopard Wordpress theme.

For more info and the download, see this page.

This is a Wordpress theme based on Mickey Cheung’s i3Theme (which is based on Nick La’s iTheme) with a few modifications to make it look more Leopard like. This theme is compatible with Wordpress 2.1.x-2.3.x. The font has been changed to Verdana.

The background by default is the Leopard aurora. If you want a different background, replace main-bg.jpg in the /images folder with your own image (rename it to main-bg, make sure its in JPEG format). If a new background’s base color is not black, you will also have to change the bg color in style.css. This theme is also AdSense ready. Edit the PHP files (index.php, single,php, search.php, page.php) and insert the AdSense code in the <!–start adsense code–> and <!–end adsense code–> tags.

If you have a very high widescreen resolution, you may want to replace main-bg.jpg with a Leopard aurora background with a higher resolution to match your computers resolution.

You can download the zip (480kb) for iLeopard here.