esn studio

If you are using any WordPress Themes from esn studio, you might like to download latest versions from WordPress Themes page. You don’t have to update it if you don’t want to as old versions will still work just fine, but I suggest you do in order to take advantage of newly added features.

The following updates have been made to all themes:
1. A customised favourite icon (favicon.ico) has been added for each theme
2. header.php, footer.php, style.css and readme.txt files have been updated

Technorati Tags: wordpress, design, theme, themes, templates, wordpress-themes

While WordPress offers almost every functionality you need for running a blog, there are a few things missing when using it as a Content Management System (CMS) for a corporate website. The following plugins are considered must haves (by me) because they provide various functionalities which contribute to a successful website but do not come with a standard WordPress installation.

Add Meta Tags - A website, unlike a blog, needs different meta data (such as description, keywords) for different pages of the site. Add Meta Tags plugin automatically adds the description and keywords meta tags to the home page and to single pages based on excerpt and they can also be overridden by creating custom fields.

Google Sitemap Generator - When you are using WordPress as a CMS, you would want to make sure that every page on your site gets indexed by search engines. This is when Google Sitemap comes in. The Google Sitemap Protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. (Ref: Wikipedia) Google Sitemap Generator plugin automatically creates a google sitemap in XML format. This plugin also notifies Google whenever the sitemap is updated and therefore helps search engine crawlers to perform a better job.

Advanced Search - While WordPress comes with a built-in search functionality, it does not handle complex requests such as boolean search, search within a category, search for exact match which are necessary for a corporate website. Advanced Search plugin, on the other hand, offers intelligent search which allows words searching (not character strings), combination of search operators (eg: +apple -tree), search scoping (based on categories, period), sorting, and more.

WP-Cache - If you website has many pages and receives a lot of traffics, you might like to start using a caching method. WP-Cache is an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system that makes you site much faster and responsive by caching pages in a static file for future requests rather than querying from the database and processing a request each time. The plugin gives you the ability to view and delete cache files and also allows you to customise settings such as expiration time.

WordPress Contact Form with Spam Protection - Contact form is a must have for any website because it enables users to get in touch with your company. WordPress Contact form with Spam Protection offers deployment of multiple contact forms on a single site which is very useful because more often than not, you need more than one contact form on a website; for example, you need a contact form on contact us page, and you also need a contact form on advertise with us page. And having a Spam Protection prevents automated software(bots) from spamming and performing repetitive actions.

Technorati Tags: cms, content management system, software, wordpress, plugins, plugin

According to the folks at WordPress, version 2.1.1 may contain a security hole, and therefore, if you are running 2.1.1, upgrade it to 2.1.2 immediately.

Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.

For more info, visit the official WordPress Development Blog.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, blog, blogging, wp, security

This blog’s title (have a look in the title bar ^) has been seo-ed to the max. Here’s what I put in header.php of my current theme.

<title>
    <?php wp_title($sep = '');?>
    <?php if (is_home()) { bloginfo('description'); } ?>
     - <?php bloginfo('name'); ?>
</title>

Robert thinks it’s cool! What about you?

[Edit]

Here’s yet better version from Robert.

<title>
    <?php if (is_home()) { bloginfo('description'); } ?>
    <?php if (is_search()) { _e('Search Results' .
        ' for ' . get_query_var('s')); } ?>
    <?php wp_title($sep = '');?> - <?php bloginfo('name'); ?>
</title>

Technorati Tags: seo, wordpress, search engine optimisation, search engine friendly

Golden Green WordPress Theme (pic above) is now available for download.

Features:

• Links to all pages with an excerpt
• Advertisement spot (Leaderboard) in the header of all pages
• A matching favicon
• An image logo
• Links to 10 recent posts on the homepage
• Links to random posts at the footer - You will need to install Random Posts plugin for this to work

It’s designed for WordPress 2.1 but it should work with others. Please let me know if it doesn’t.

Technorati Tags: wordpress, download, theme, themes, free, layout, design, web design, blog, blogging, wp theme, wordpress theme, wordpress-theme, css