Time for another batch of potentially useful Wordpress plugins that are new to the community.  I am currently testing the following items, and have had no major issues thus far, but I cannot yet fully state they are 100% stable.

That out of the way, let’s get to it.

Phpinclude

If you are a PHP developer, I’m guessing you have had the urge to execute code in Wordpress at one point or another.  You can user an iFrame and call your PHP code but that can get a bit… well, it can be a pain to do so over and over.  While other plugins have attempted to execute PHP in the past, they never seemed to work properly – not that they were bad – they just never work right all of the time.  

Enter phpinclude.  

Thus far the plugin has performed flawlessly, and I may finally be able to successfully include PHP into the blog.

WP Post Styling 

This is a very interesting concept, one that I was interested in doing myself, but Joe Dolson got there before I did.  This plugin allows users to add custom styles to be applied to specific pages or posts.  Sweet idea and good execution.

Check them out, give them a try and thank the creators for their efforts.

Quick question for StatsPress Reloaded users – do you find the plugin slows down/chews up CPU power if your log file get’s too large?

As the site contiunes to grow it seems the StatPress Reloaded plugin slows down significantly…

Developers are always releasing new plugins for Wordpress.  As the blogging platform is “alive”, it’s always interesting to see what is hitting the community.  Here are some of the newest, most promising, plugins I’ve found in the last few days.

AutoSuggest Searches

You know how you go to Google and start typing in the search box and suggestions drop down, allowing you to pick from a list of potential results?  Bingo. That is exactly what you have here for your site.  

WordPress Video Solution Framework

Developed by Automattic, the group behind Wordpress, this is a solid release.  This plugin provides a video framework, including a transcoder and  and administration screen.  Note that a significant amount of configuration is required, so if you are not a “technical” person you may want to stay way

Google Custom Search Plugin for Wordpress

Now this is promising (and MUCH needed).  One reason I do not have a search function on the site is due to the poor performance of the built-in search feature.  Wordpress is a blog platform, not a search platform, so why would the development team spend huge amounts of time developing search functionality? Well, this plugin removes the old search and utilizes Google to provide search results to your readers!

I haven’t tested any of these extensions as of yet, so be warned, you may be getting a product that is less than perfect.  From what I’ve see and read, however, they really look to have promise.

Much like the Wordpress templates and plugins sites there a large number of Wordpress News websites available.  Frankly, most of them are spam sites simply attempting to capitalize on the brand name.  People throw up a blog, include AdSense, and link to a bunch of other sites that simply mentioned the term Wordpress in the hopes of having search engine traffic blindly clicking on their ads.

Let’s cut through the junk – here are the Top 4 Wordpress News Sources I utilize.

Planet Wordpress

This is the defacto source of news for all things Wordpress, but it’s not a blog – it’s a blog aggregator.  It collects feeds from publishers around the web and centralize all the information into one giant feed of nothing but the highest quality information.

Weblog Tools Collection

Original content, dedicated writing staff, and additional blogging information makes Weblog Tools Collection a must see on a daily basis.  They usually have some of the freshest news available.   

Wordpress Publishers Blog

Another site run by the Automattic crew – their focus is on making sure publishers get the most out of the Wordpress experience.  One cool thing they do is highlight unique sites that utilize Wordpress.  

WordCast PodCast

Let’s face it, sometimes you are just lazy.  You don’t want to read.  There is nothing wrong if it, I get you, I get the same way.  A weekly podcast informs you of the latest plugins, themes and news related to Wordpress.

Add the sites to your reader, check them daily and enjoy.

You a twitter addict?  

A self-proclaimed “microblogger” maybe?

Here are the top 3 Twitter tools I have/do use in order to integrate Wordpress and Twitter.  Why only three? Well, with so many plugins out there doing the same thing I focused on the “best of the best”.  I could have simply listed a number to Twitter/Wordpress plugins but what good would that do for you?

So, here we go..

Twitter Tools

This plugin alerts Twitter every time you update your Wordpress blog.  It’s a great tool if you only use Twitter for your microblogging.  If you use other networks I would suggest you look at the PingPressFM plugin.

TwitThis

Nice little plugin that allows your readers to create a Tweet of your posts and sends it off to their contact list.  Even takes care of creating the shorter URL.

Twitt-Twoo

An Ajax based plugin (Yay!  No page reloading) that shows your latest Twitter status right in your blog’s sidebar.  It’s nice to see someone developing in AJAX when it comes to Wordpress.

Please let me know if there are other Twitter related plugins I should be looking at… I’m always open to new things that could improve the blog.

I had previously written an article, “4 most useful Wordpress plugins I use”, to help those new to the world of blogging get a bit of a head start with their wordpress configuration.  I mean, if you don’t know what is out there, it’s nice to have a place that you can turn to for a little direction.  

After roughly a month of usage and testing I now have 3 more highly useful Wordpress plugins I can recommend to fellow bloggers, and this crop of plugins ranges from simple site maintenance to social bookmarking.  

Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for Wordpress

Not sure what a sitemap is?  How can this help you, you ask? 

Sitemaps allow you, as a site owner, an easy way to inform search engine spiders about the pages on your site that are available for crawling. Basically, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs and corresponding metadata  (when the URL was last updated, how often it usually changes) allowing search engine spider the ability to crawl your site with ease.

The Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for Wordpress plugin takes care of the creation of the XML file and notifies Google, MSN, Ask.com and Yahoo.com that your site has recently changed.  If you want an easier way of placing data into search engines, this is worth your time.

Sociable

This is intended for the social networking site lovers out there.  This plugin adds social media buttons to your posts, which means your readers have the ability to update their choice of networking sites (Digg, Reddit, what have you) with your latest posts.  

As of this writing roughly 96 social networking sites are included with this plugin.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

This is a great plugin for site maintenance.

I have always had a problem upgrading wordpress for some reason – something would end up missing or a plugin would be uninstalled during the process – but the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin does it all for you, and does so with ease.

During the upgrade, the plugin will back up your files and databases, download the latest version of wordpress, and take care of the upgrade for you.

If you do not have this plugin, I strongly suggest you look into it.

So…

Are there some plugins I should be looking at?  Please feel free to send me an email or leave me a comment and I will take a look…

If you use Wordpress as your blogging platform but do not utilize plugins, you are missing out on a whole level of functionality that you never existed. You can update your readers when you post or have real time stats presented to you all due to the extended functionality.

Understand that plugins only work on independent installations of the platform, not on Automattic hosted blogs, as the company sees these as potential security risks.

As independent developers create Wordpress plugins, potential users really need to take a “hit or miss” approach when looking for what extensions they want to use.  Some plugins don’t seem to work or work poorly.  A number of times I’ve installed an item only to see no added functionality, leaving me a bit frustrated.  In order to help you cut through some of the junk, here are some of the most useful Wordpress plugins I utilize.

Yet Another Related Post Plugin

This plugin returns related blog entries based on the content of your titles, post bodies, tags, and categories, and the feedback I received from readers on the implementation this plugin is phenomenal.  It makes life so much easier to related information embedded in your post instead of having someone look through categories or tags for others information they may find informative.

Wordpress PDA & iPhone

Want to provide your readers with a better PDA or iPhone viewing experience? Well, here you go.  While the developer still is in “beta” mode for the iPhone implementation, I have experienced no technical difficulties thus far.  

StatsPress Reloaded

I love this plugin as it shows real time views stats about your blog.  Aside from the general “number of visitors”, you can see the most popular pages, posts and categories.  It collects data on spiders, search words, feeds viewed, operating systems and browsers.  

PingPressFM

For the longest time I would have Wordpress update Twitter every time a post was made, and I would do so with Twitter Tools… That was until I found out about a service that notifies all your social networks…  That service is Ping.fm.    The PingPressFM plugin simply send a message off to the Ping.fm service informing them of your update, Ping.fm does the rest. This is a must for any blogger who is serious about propagating information to social networks.

I’m sure there are a number of other top-notch plugins out there; I simply haven’t found them yet.  One I really want to find is a quality Sitemap widget.   I will update you if I find some that are especially impressive, and I hope the information listed above is of some benefit.