If you haven't been following the saga, Social Warfare blew up some websites a couple of weeks ago with a buggy update. After 7 updates to fix it, I found the plugin was still slowing my sites down. So I decided to replace Social Warfare, and I got a nice little traffic bump for speeding up my site. My Decision to Replace Social Warfare Over a year ago, I decided I ... [Read More]
Tools
Review: Top 25 Social Icons plugin
I recently switched from another plugin to the Top 25 Social Icons plugin for WordPress by Vyas Dipen. It displays icons in the sidebar to encourage you to follow my social media outlets, which you should go do right now before you forget - c'mon, follow 'em all, you know you want to! They're in the sidebar - go on, now, I'll wait! In all seriousness, for most blogs ... [Read More]
Easiest way to move a WordPress installation to a new host
Turns out there's a very easy way to move a website to a new host, or to clone a website to a subdirectory for the purpose of testing plugins or themes. It involves the use of a plugin called WP-Clone by WP Academy. It grabs all your files, your database - everything. No FTP or Cpanel backups required. Step 1: Install the plugin at the old site Click "Plugins" in ... [Read More]
Zoho Mail: a serious free email contender
More than two years ago, I chose Zoho Mail as my free email provider, and I've been very happy with them ever since. In light of the recent PRISM scandal, a few people using free email from providers named in that debacle have asked me how I liked Zoho. Update: I wrote this article in 2011, and had been using Zoho for two years. At some point in 2016, I could no longer use ... [Read More]
Zoho Notebook and Zoho apps
I found Zoho back in 2007 when I was looking for an online notebook app, and I think it's time to update the review I wrote then. Zoho's come a long way in the past three years. It's now my go-to app for working in the cloud. I should mention a few personal rules I have. First, I don't put anything very personal or identifying anywhere online, no matter the security and ... [Read More]