Today we’re covering the Configure SMTP WordPress Plugin. This simple plugin allows you to customize the server your blog sends email for notifications, comments, etc… It is very useful if your emails from your blog are getting blocked because of the smtp server they are relayed through is black listed.

Features Include:

• SMTP host and port options
• SMTP authentication user name and password
• SMTP over secure SSL option
• Sender “From:” name and email
• Configure for Gmail option
• Test configuration

Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Any

To learn more about the Configure SMTP WordPress Plugin, please visit the WordPress plugins page, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/configure-smtp/. To see more projects developed by Scott Reilly, please go to www.coffee2code.com.

Today we’re covering the MailPress plugin to quickly add a newsletter mailing list to your blog.

Features include:

• Newsletters for (users can subscribe to)
  • Each post
  • Daily (digest of posts each day)
  • Weekly digest
  • Monthly digest
  • Comments
• Manually send newsletters
• Detailed logging of sent messages
• Themes for Email newsletters
• Add-ons (Sort of like plugins for this plugin)
  • Bulk import tool (comma separated list of addresses)
  • Import data (csv, XML sample, other WordPress plugins from database)
  • Mailing lists manager
  • Newsletter categories
  • Synchronize WordPress accounts with MailPress Users
  • Add roles and capabilities (Special User Roles to apply to WordPress accounts)
  • Custom Fields

The plugin is very powerful which makes it very complicated to setup and configure. It definitely helps to read all of the documentation and have previous knowledge of how to edit source code before attempting to use this plugin.

Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Advanced

To learn more about MailPress, please go to www.mailpress.org.

Today we’re covering the ShareThis WordPress plugin. The ShareThis plugin adds the famous ShareThis widget to your blog posts and pages. The ShareThis widget makes it easy for your viewers to link your posts and pages on their preferred social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Facebook, Delicious and MySpace and also provides an share via email option.

Features Include:

• Simple ShareThis link with icon
• Extensive list of social bookmarking and sharing sites
• Share via Email option
• Options to add to pages and posts
• Code snippet to add to your theme
• Widget you can add to other parts of your web site

The plugin gives you the ability to customize the placement of the ShareThis widget in your theme. All you have to do is add the following line where you want the ShareThis link to appear.

<?php if (function_exists('sharethis_button')) { sharethis_button(); } ?>

To learn more about the ShareThis plugin, please visit the ShareThis WordPress plugin page, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/. To learn more about ShareThis, please visit the official ShareThis web site, www.sharethis.com.

Today we’re covering the WP-DB-Backup plugin and touching on a few other backup tips. With just a few simple steps, you can keep backups of your blog so you can feel confident you’ll never loose data.

Key features in the WP-DB-Backup Pack include:

• Complete database backups
• Exclude post revisions
• Exclude comment spam
• Backup to folder on server (not recommended)
• Email backup as attachment
• Save backup on your computer
• Schedule backups

To learn more about the WP-DB-Backup plugin, please visit the WordPress plugins WP-DB-Backup page, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/.

Some other backup tips include:

• Keep a backup copy of your wp-config.php and .htaccess file on your local computer
• Occasionally backup the entire wp-content/uploads folder and all of its contents
• Keep a list of your important plugins handy in case you need to re-install them
• If you modified your theme, backup the entire theme folder and its contents, typically found in the wp-content/themes/your_theme/

PodCamp Toronto This Weekend

I will be attending PodCamp Toronto this weekend. On Saturday between 2-2:30pm I will be speaking in room 357 on “Setting up WordPress for Podcasting”. If you can make it out to PodCamp Toronto, please feel free to say hello.

Today we’re covering the CFormsII plugin to add contact forms, applications and other custom forms to WordPress.

Key features include:

• Complete gamut of field types (radio, checkbox, dropdown, listbox, password, date, etc…)
• Auto confirmation Email message
• Email admin(s) of form submission
• Use forms for blog comments
• Integrates with the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) content editor
• Multi-page forms
• Ability to attach files
• Captcha image to prevent SPAM form submissions
• Data saved in database exportable (XML, CSV, TAB)
• Specify start and/or end dates when forms are available
• Works with WordPress 2.7 (latest version as of this writing)

The plugin is developed by Delicious Days. To learn more about CFormsII plugin as well as other plugins developed by Delicious Days, please visit www.deliciousdays.com.