Free Online Wordpress Theme Generator

If you plan to start a new Wordpress blog, or you are going to refresh design for your existing blog, you may be looking for the nice template, which may fit your format, color scheme, design, and structure. No problem, if you have knowledge and experience on the web development, and you can make template for your blog exactly as you want. If you are not proficient on web design, or you have no time or interest in doing that yourself, there are multiple readymade templates on the Web, both free and commercial. But any template you find has limited set of the adjustments and changes you can make, so it is quite possible that your blog appearance will look similar to thousands other blogs, using the same template.

In this post, I would like to present free online services from Lubith.com, offering Wordpress themes creator.

Main Features

• Intuitive interface. Move and resize the theme elements just by dragging the two knobs.
• No code required. You can design, edit and use your theme without needing to write a single line of code.
• Every theme is being kept on server for 7 days after your last save and then it will be erased. So, you can get back and make adjustments to the theme you have initially generated.
• You cannot work on several themes in parallel. If you reset the theme, the previous layout will be lost.

Installing your Theme in WordPress

• From WordPress admin panel, go to the Appearance ->Themes.
• Click the Install Themes tab (at the top).
• Click the Upload link.
• Browse for the zip file downloaded from Lubith and click Install Now button.
• Click the Activate theme link to activate the theme.

Website: http://www.lubith.com/

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7 Wordpress Plugins to get more visitors to your blog

There are many ways to directly increase traffic to your blog, but there are even more indirect ways to give your blog traffic a significant boost. Using the Wordpress plugins listed below, you can automate the process of leveraging some of the best blog traffic building opportunities available through search engine optimization, social bookmarking and social networking. There's even a Wordpress plugin to help you use Twitter to increase traffic to your blog!

1. SEO Title Tag

The SEO Title Tag plugin allows you to override the automated title tags that Wordpress sets for your blog posts and pages, so you can use keywords in your title tags that are far more search engine-friendly than the words in your actual post or page titles.

2. All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack plugin does exactly what its name implies - it allows you to add title tags, descriptions, keywords and more to every page and post published on your blog. Users consistently report a noticeable increase in traffic to their blogs from Google searches after installing and using the All in One SEO Pack plugin.

3. Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps is a plugin made with a specific search engine optimization benefit in mind - to help Google find every post and every page on your blog, index them and include them in search results. This plugin is particularly helpful for blogs that want to get indexed by search engines quickly.

4. Simple Tags

The tagging functionality in Wordpress is great, but the Simple Tags plugin takes it to a whole new level. Great tags can boost your blog's search traffic, so adding the Simple Tags plugin is a great way to get started.

5. Sociable

WP-Notable adds icons at the end of each blog post you publish asking visitors to your blog to share the posts they read through Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, and so on. Making it easy for people to submit your content to social bookmarking sites by using a plugin like WP-Notable can give your blog a boost in exposure and traffic.

6. TweetThis

TweetThis is a great Wordpress plugin to help you increase the likelihood for visitors to your blog to share your posts through Twitter thereby increasing potential blog traffic. When you install the plugin, an invitation link is included at the end of your blog posts suggesting that readers "TweetThis" and share a link to the post they're reading through their Twitter feed.

7. WP-Email

The WP-Email plugin is a must-have. When you install this plugin, a message and link is included at the end of every post enabling visitors to send posts they like to friends via email with a single mouse click. Allowing readers to introduce other people to your blog through emailed posts is a great way to pick up some new visitors!

Source: http://weblogs.about.com/od/addonsandplugins/tp/WordpressPluginsBoostTraffic.htm

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WordPress Exploit Scanner – Check your blog for malware!

The WordPress Exploit Scanner is a free plugin that scans your blog installation to see if any nasty malware code has been inserted into your site by hackers. It hunts for unauthorized code in the database and WP files on your server (it’s designed for self-hosted WordPress, not WordPress.com) and sends back a report on anything suspicious it finds.

When a website is compromised, hackers leave behind scripts and modified content that can be found by manually searching through all the files on a site. Some of the methods used to hide their code or spam links are obvious, like using CSS to hide text, and we can search for those strings.

The database can also be used to hide content or be used to run code. Spam links are sometimes added to blog posts and comments. They’re hidden by CSS so visitors don’t see them, but search engines do. Recently, hackers took advantage of the WP plugin system to run their own malicious code. They uploaded files with the extensions of image files and added them to the list of active plugins. So, despite the fact that the file didn’t have a .php file extension, the code in them was still able to run!

You can find the Scanner admin page linked off the Dashboard. This is the screen you’ll see.

You can search in numerous ways:

1. Files and database.
2. Files only.
3. Database only
4. Search files by custom keyword.

The custom keyword form allows you to search your files for whatever you like. Be careful with that one because a search for a common keyword like “php” will takes ages and generate an extremely long list of files.

Warning! Searching through the files on your site will take some time. Even a clean WordPress install with no plugins will probably take a noticeable length of time. It’s also heavy on your server. Only run the file check when your server is idling and not busy.

More information and direct downloading link at the developers website: http://ocaoimh.ie/exploit-scanner/

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Using Favicon for your Blog or Website (Part 2)

The Best 5 Free WordPress Plugins to Enable Favicon on your Blog

In our previous publication we explained how you can create custom Favicons to be used as your trademark for you blog. The next step would be activating it. The related action plan will be different for various blogging platforms. In this post, we will present several plugins to enable Favicon for your WordPress blog.
As a first step of your activation process, you have to upload Favicon you generated earlier to your blog directory, for example, http://localhost/blog/, or you can keep it in one of your free image storage location, when the link to the image is handy for the further processes. As the next step, you can use one of the free Wordpress plugins to create a link to it from the header of the Wordpress blog pages and administrative console.

faVicon is a simple and easy to use plugin, creating a new options menu. After downloading faVicon.zip, unzip the contents and upload them to your wp-content/plugins Wordpress directory (you do not need to upload all images file - they provided only for examples). Then, navigate to the plugins page in the Wordpress administrative console and press Activate.

As plugin is activated, in the top navigation bar of your administrative console, click on Options. Then, in the sub menu thatappears, click on faVicon. An options page will then appear. In the text boxes labeled Favicon URL, Animated Favicon (GIF) URL, Admin Panel Favicon (GIF) URL, enter the web address of your desired favicons.

Favicon Head is a simple way to automatically include correct tags for linking to your favicon in the head of every page in your blog. No file editing is required, you only have to upload the file to the plugin directory and activate it. The default favicon location is favicon.ico, but can be changed through the options page.

Installation Steps:

• Download Favicon Head 1.1.
• Unzip the file and upload it to wp-content/plugins/.
• Click the “Plugins” tab in the WP admin panel and activate Favicon Head.
• Go to the “Options” tab and click the “Favicon Head” sub-page in order to change the favicon location from /favicon.ico.

Features:

• Animated favicon support
• Custom favicon location
• Works in WordPress 1.5 and 2.

Admin Favicon is a very simple plugin, creating a link to a shortcut icon, or favicon, into the header of the WordPress administrative console. After downloading adminfavicon.zip, unzip it’s contents and upload them to your wp-content/plugins WordPress directory (you do not need to upload wpfavicon.ico). If you wish to use the sample WordPress favicon provided, upload wpfavicon.ico into the location of your choosing on your server. Then, navigate to the plugins page in the WordPress administrative console and press “Activate”.

This plugin creates a new options menu. Just navigate to “Settings.” Then, in the sub menu that appears, click on “Admin Favicon”. An options page will then appear. In the text box labeled “Favicon URL”, enter the web address of your desired favicon. If you uploaded the sample wpfavicon.ico, enter it’s location on your server here. Otherwise, use your own favicon image. Typically, this will be an ico file that you’ve created and uploaded to your server. For example, if you’ve uploaded favicon.ico to your main website address, you would enter http://www.MyMainWebsiteAddress.com/favicon.ico

Favicon Manager Wordpress Plugin is a small plugin that allows you to manage the favicon image for your WordPress installation. You can specify any arbitrary file, either locally within your installation, or at an arbitrary url. You can also optionally have the image included in either your RSS2 or your Atom feeds, or both. All options can be set from the new options menu in the administration panel. There is no editing of any files required.

Installation steps:

1. Download the zipped file to your plugins directory and unpack. You should have a new directory containing the favicon manager files now.
2. Activate the plugin from the Plugins panel.
3. Set your favicon location and your feed options from the Options->Favicons menu of the Administration panel.

Features
This is a drop in plugin, there are no additional files to set because it’s all done through the administration panel under Options->Favicons. Once you set your favicon location, it will display below the input field. This helps you determine quickly whether or not you entered your favicon location correctly without having to go refresh other browser windows or tabs to see if it worked. Note that this plugin will only work with WordPress 2.0 and above.

MaxBlogPress Favicon Wordpress Plugin allows you use the preset collection of the embedded favicons, or gives option to link to the image in the blog directory or on the external website. Installation can be completed in three easy steps.

Step 1: Install the plugin and go to: Options >> MBP Favicon
Step 2: Click on the icon which you want to use as favicon:

Step 3: Click on save

Note that when you first activate the plugin you will be asked to register it, which signs you up to an email list which you then have to confirm your subscription to. Upon clicking the confirmation link you are then directed to a page that is trying to sell you some blog traffic package. You’ll need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to select “no thanks”.

On the following video, Caroline Middlebrook gives a nice video presentation of the plugin installation:

MaxBlogPress WordPress Plugin to install Favicon

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AdSense Revenue Sharing on Multi-author Wordpress Blog

If you have WorPress Blog with multiple contributing authors, and you are running Google AdSense program, you might be looking in the opportunity to split the revenues fairly between the participating members. The present plugin is exactly what you need to program the ads revenue sharing. It is absolutely free, and quite easy to settle up.

AdSense Revenue Sharing is a wordpress plugin which allows you to easy display ads in your posts by using a quicktag and share your adsense impressions with your friends and co-authors.

To dispaly the ads you can either insert <!-adsense-> anywhere in your post or use the quicktag button.
For configuration go to Options>Revenue Sharing

Usage:

1. Download, unzip, copy adsense-revenue-sharing directory to your plugin folder.
2. Go to your wordpress admin panel, click on Plugins and activate Adsense Revenue Sharing.
3. Go to Options>Revenue Sharing and configure the plugin.

* Top left is a default publisher id. Delete it or modify it with your own.
* Add other publisher codes from your co-authors if available.
* Edit the adsense ad setting (border, color etc); do not fill the ad channel if you added more than one publisher id.
* Select yes or no for the All pages option.
* Click Update AdSense Settings.

How the pluging works:
There are two ways you can use this plugin.
1. You can use the quicktag and insert an ad wherever you want in your post.
2. Second, you can use the All pages setting.

By choosing number the second option one add will appear at the end of every single post and page.
By using either one of the above, on the pages that have more than one post like main page or the archive page, only the first post on the page will display one ad. Google only lets you display 3 ads at a time so it’s better to show one ad, than to show 3 ads and 4 to 7 empty spaces.

Using two or more authors at once, everyone will get equal ad exposure. So if there are 2 authors, each of then will get 50%. For 4 authors the percentage will be 25% for each and so on. Every time the page loads a different author id will be used to display the ad/ads. Remember due to Google only one publisher id is allowed to be used on a page. So if you want to add other ads in your design read the Google TOS first, you will have to disable the plugin or use only one publisher id with it.

Remember if you have 2 or more publishers, the one with less hits will be displayed.
EX.: 5 publishers, someone visits the website and the id from no.1 is shown; for the next 4 visits no.1 will not be shown, meaning that the other 4 will be, randomly; now the hit count is equal again and the pub. no.1 will be shown again; every id will be shown once every 5 hits.

If you want to add another authors publisher id and you already have one or more, either reset the other publishers hit count, or insert and equal number with the current hit count of the existing ones to the newly added. If you don`t, the next thing will happen:
Ex.: you have 8 publishers and each of them has 1000 hits; you add another one with 0 hits. If you don`t reset the hit count for the other 8 or insert 1000 as the new publishers hit value, ads with his id will show up until he reaches 1000 hits.
Features:

• Nice admin area with live ad preview
• Add as many co-authors as you desire
• Simple add/edit/delete/reset co-authors
• Fast insert your ads in you posts and pages
• “Show all” feature to insert one ad at the end of every post

Requires: WordPress: 2.3 to 2.5.1

Installation:

1. Unzip the downloaded package and upload the AdSense Revenue Sharing folder into your Wordpress plugins folder
2. Log into your WordPress admin panel
3. Go to Plugins and “Activate” the plugin. “Revenue Sharing” will now be displayed in your Options section
4. Set up as many AdSense Account ID`s under Options -> Revenue Sharing
5. Edit your Ad options under under Options -> Revenue Sharing

Settings Screenshot:

    

Developer Website for more information and plugin download:
http://www.maiq.info/work/wordpress/adsense-revenue-sharing/

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