WordPress Plugin Conflicts

 

Plugins are a bit like medication. Take one pill and the results are fairly predictable. Take two different drugs and all should be well, but once several or even dozens get into the mix, the results can be deadly.

WordPress does a good job of screening those plugins which get listed in the docs, but no one could guess how they will all interact with one another. Most blogs use many of these handy add-ons and employ a process of trial and error to get everything running smoothly.

Themes are another complicating factor. It is impossible for developers to test their product with every available theme. WordPress.org currently lists 51 pages of themes and 424 pages of plugins. There are of course many other third party add-ons also available. The possible combinations are astronomical.

When things go wrong the only recourse is to deactivate one plugin at a time until the problem clears. This still leaves unanswered the question of where the conflict lies. Is there a flaw in the one deactivated or does it just not function in combination with one or more others? The solution is to decide what is really needed and what can be done without.

What is the safe course to follow? Limit plugins to the minimum needed to get the results looked for. Don’t keep installing and then deactivating as this doesn’t always remove all components, and those left behind can cause trouble down the line. Backup and do it often! If something goes horribly awry at least it won’t be necessary to start from scratch. Be suspicious of products not listed by WordPress, they may be useful or prove disastrous. Don’t try to do it all at once. avoid installing several plugins at a time. Work with changes for a while before the next move. Taking one step at a time can save time and aggravation.

WordPress is clearly the premier blogging platform. It is almost limitlessly expandable, but the price is a steep learning curve. However meeting this challenge is one of the joys of starting up a new blog.

Building Blog Traffic

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The first challenge faced by new bloggers(myself)is getting people to visit your site.There is nothing more discouraging than checking your stats and seeing 20 visitors for the day.What is worse is never seeing the numbers improve!

Fresh,original content is put forward most often as the key to success.Hard to argue with,except it brings us back to square one.Once you have visitors they may return if the content is to their liking but where do they come from to see these words of wisdom in the first place?

Google search terms such as “generate web traffic”will return thousands of results(mostly from people trying to sell something).The products offered are mainly focused on link building.They range all the way from simply buying thousands of links to link swapping schemes.Having to buy traffic would make it rather obvious that you have little content to view.Swapping links may have some effect on page rank but the blogs you swap with most likely have no intention of actually reading your posts and will  be of little use in terms of repeat traffic.

Commenting is touted as a sure fire traffic generator.This appears at least to make sense.Comment on others posts and they will want to comment on yours.Will the compliment be returned?It depends on the value of your own contribution!”Hi,nice site”,is unlikely to get much feedback.Intelligent comments,showing that one has actually read and understood the author’s ideas  will be appreciated.Before offering comments,first it is necessary to find blogs to comment on.Just like the link swapping schemes it is possible to use sites dedicated to comment swapping.Do they really read your comments,or return again?

Blogclicker and similar services allow surfing of other sites to build up credits.In return your site will be surfed a certain number of times.It brings visits but so what?They remain on your site for twenty seconds and then move on to the next one.Hardly sufficient time to read posts and it is unlikely return visits will occur unless your “number”comes up again in their surfing.

Blog directories,social websites,etc.are all plausible solutions but don’t improve my numbers.

Help!Nothing I do has any real effect on my stats.Could someone tell me what I am doing wrong(or not doing)?Any advice would be appreciated.

Freeware or Commercial

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Recently I crashed my system twice with free accounting software.I can’t blame the products as the fault was insufficient memory in my cranky old computer.Adminsoft Accounts finally proved to be the solution. It does it all without hogging resources.

This did,however,make me wonder how much freeware I have installed compared to packages I paid for.The surprise was that most of what I actually use was downloaded without cost.Many programs that I bought are rarely run or have been uninstalled.

I am writing this with Microsoft Live Writer and will continue to use it.Others tried include BlogDesk,Qumana and Scribe Fire.All do the job but all have their quirks.For straight text editing NoteTab Light handles all but the most demanding tasks while being simple enough for unsophisticated users(myself).A seemingly endless variety of word processors are available,from the most basic to those that rival the big boys such as Word.Having tested a few I rely mainly on Jarte which consumes little real-estate but does all that I require of it.

Firefox is the browser of choice.It offers robust features with excellent security,is open source and has endless add-ons available.Opera has a dedicated following.I loved its use of tabs but ended up back with Firefox.

Avira provides anti-virus protection,and the firewall is courtesy of PC Firewall Plus.Spyware Terminator handles the malware as long as it is updated regularly and run often.There is no reason to pay for Email these days.In fact it is better,for portability,to go with one that is not tied to your ISP. Gmail comes out ahead but has the minor drawback of displaying ads.

Other utilities abound but it would be impossible to deal with more than a few in a single blog.A few of my picks are:Agent Ransack(searches);CCleaner(history cleaner);LeechFTP(ftp).

Think carefully before installing.Before you run a new program Windows gives a warning about the risks of running unknown software.Take this seriously!Download only from well known,trusted sources such as Tucows.com,Nonags.com etc.If a download does anything suspicious,terminate it and remove it.For good measure run a complete scan.

Is freeware always a replacement for commercial software?No it isn’t.Some are limited versions of the commercial version.Others have less functionality,no support,or little to no help.Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Whatever you are looking for,test drive several offerings.It costs nothing but time.There is little to lose and potentially the rewards can go beyond money saved.

First Blog Experiences

As the title implies I’m a newbie to all of this.I originally had other ideas for getting my feet wet but the experience of getting this site up and going has been such a focus in my life lately that I decided to write about it.

I am using WordPress.org as my platform as opposed to WordPress.com. So the first trial was finding a webhost.Sounds simple but which one to pick?There are a lot to choose from,ranging all the way from the big boys hosting millions of sites to the resellers.

Reviews seemed the way to go and I got educated to the reality of reviews on the internet.You start off with the naive belief that these are honest opinions!Not so; most are little more than paid ads for products or services.Worst are any titled “Top Ten”or Five Best”.These are certain to be nothing more than paid promos.Digging deeper produces some genuine opinions,only problem being every review in favor is offset by one of condemnation.

Finally I just checked out as many as I could,weighed the features offered,cut the list down to a few and checked them against the few unbiased reviews I found.I seem to have done alright as everything works fine.

Setting up the site proved quite straightforward.Wordpress not so much.I suspect the .com version is more geared to beginners.Wordpress.org is so rich in features that it is intimidating to amateurs.Documentation is extensive but once beyond the basics it is couched in language more suited to users with a background in software and code.

The out of the box solution is the use of ready made themes.Then comes the fun of trying to place the widgets,and generally configure the blog to resemble what you had in mind.Next come the plugins(which often seem to do things differently than advertised).

Two things I have learned from all of this is do your homework and trust no-one(especially when they tell you it will be easy)!