WordPress 2.3.2 is an urgent security release that fixes a bug that can be used to expose your draft posts. 2.3.2 also suppresses some error messages that can give away information about your database table structure and limits and stops some information leaks in the XML-RPC and APP implementations. Get 2.3.2 now to protect your blog from these disclosures.As a little bonus, 2.3.2 allows you to define a custom DB error page. Place your custom template at wp-content/db-error.php. If WP has a problem connecting to your database, this page will displayed rather than the default error message.For more detail on what’s new in 2.3.2, view the list of fixed bugs and see the changes between 2.3.1 and 2.3.2.Special thanks to Alex Concha for his help on this release.

Here’s the full report via MakeUseOf:

BitNami makes it easier to download and install Open Source software packages (i.e. Wordpress, SugarCRM, Drupal, phpBB…) by bundling each package into preconfigured 1-click setup file. No need to deal with configuration settings or dependencies. Just download a package you need, run installation wizard, and that’s it. Once done, you will have a fully-functional and configured copy on your system.

“The BitNami Project was created to help spread the adoption of freely available, high quality Open Source web applications.”

• Advanced search: browse and search open source packages by category (Blogging, CMS, Collaboration, CRM, Wiki, Photo Sharing, etc.), technology (ASP.NET, Java, MySQL, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc.), license type (Apache, Creative commeons, EPL, GPL, …) or tags.
• Recommend and vote on the next to be stacked apps on Bitnami polls.
• BitNami forums: Get help and provide feedback on the BitNami stacks.

Check out BitNami @ www.bitnami.org

BitNami : Open Source Packages. Simplified.

Writing and General Blog Tips:

• How to Know if Your Readers are Engaged (The Blog Herald)
• How To Turn Your Personal Blog Into a Semi-Pro Blog (Blogging Bits)
• Blog Challenge: Blog About Something You Know Nothing About (Lorelle)
• Using Mindmaps: 5 Steps to Letting Your Blog Posts Write Themselves (Performancing)
• Blog Struggles: Why Should Your Blog Have a Focus (Lorelle)
• 3 Traits of Successful Blogs – Focus, Passion & Originality (WebProNews)
• The Art Of Planning: Making Before Taking The Plunge (Blogtrepreneur)
• 5 Tips For Blogging When You Just Don’t Have The Time (Blogging Bits)
• 10 Simple Rules For Online Success (Performancing)
• 12 Tips for Battling Blogger’s Block (Performancing)
• Tips for Staying Writely Motivated on Your Blog (The Blog Herald)
• Getting Back To Basics: Blog Decluttering (The Blog Herald)
• How To Build a Road Map For Your Blogging Success (Blogging Bits)
• Dealing With Blogger’s Regret (BlogSolid)

Themes and Design:

• Let Readers Read In Peace (Pro Blog Design)
• Why an Editorial Calendar Can Improve Your Blog (Performancing)
• Clever vs. Descriptive Headlines: Which Works Better? (CopyBlogger)
• Your Favorite Aspect of a Blog’s Design (Pro Blog Design)

Search Engine Optimization, Making Money and Traffic:

• Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime (Jonathan Fields)
• Four Reasons Why the Entertainment Niche is Great for Making Money (Dosh Dosh)
• Become Famous, Start a Blog – 3 Things You can do Today to Make Social Media Work for You (The Blog Herald)
• 5 Reasons Why Viral Content is the New King (Daily Blog Tips)
• Profitable Blogging is Blogging for the Long Haul (Performancing)
• 3 Simple Concepts to Follow for a Successful Website or Business (Dosh Dosh)
• The 7 Secrets of Viral Content (Daily Blog Tips)
• Building On Your Success (Daily Blog Tips)
• How to Monetize Without Google PR (The Blog Herald)
• The Economics of Blogging: Minimal Cost and Maximum Benefits (Dosh Dosh)
• Strategic Blogging: Creating the Right Content to Achieve Your Income Goals (Dosh Dosh)
• Building Paid Membership Sites for Money: Teaching Sells Review (Dosh Dosh)
• Branding and PR is Better Than Marketing and Advertising   (Performancing)

My Recent Posts for Improving Your Blog or Website:

• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #6
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #5
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #4
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #3
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-25-07
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-21-07

I think an upgrade for me is in the near future:

WordPress 2.3.1 is now available. 2.3.1 is a bug-fix and security release for the 2.3 series.

2.3.1 fixes over twenty bugs. Some of the notable fixes are:

• Tagging support for Windows Live Writer
• Fixes for a login bug that affected those with a Blog Address different than
  their WordPress Address
• Faster taxonomy database queries, especially tag intersection queries
• Link importer fixes

Unfortunately, some security issues were found in 2.3. Janek Vind found an XSS problem that can be exploited if your php setup has register_globals enabled. For this reason, upgrading to 2.3.1 is advised.

The full set of changes between 2.3 and 2.3.1 is available for viewing on trac.

Get 2.3.1 from the download page and enjoy.

WordPress 2.3.1 (via WordPress)

• Up to 6 months of historical data
• Top query percentages
• Download Search Query Data
• Improved Freshness – Constantly updating results

As you know, the queries used to find your website in search results can change over time. Your website content changes, as do the needs of all the busy searchers out there. Whether the queries associated with your site change subtly or dramatically, it’s pretty useful to see how they transform over time.
Recognizing this, Top Search Queries in Webmaster Tools now presents historical data and other enhancements. Let’s take a closer look:

Up to 6 months of historical data:
Previously we only showed query stats for the last 7 days. Now you can jump between 9 query stats snapshots ranging from now to 6 months ago. Note that the time interval for each of these snapshots is different. For the 7 day, 2 week, and 3 week snapshots, we report the top queries for the previous week. For the 1 to 6 month snapshots, we report statistics for the previous month. And still others of you who log in may notice that you don’t have query stats data going back to 6 months ago. We hope to improve that experience in the future.
Top query percentages:
You might have noticed a new column in the top query listings. Previously we just ranked your query results and clicks. While useful, this didn’t really tell you to what extent one query was ranked higher than another. Now we show what percentage each query result or click represents out of the top 20 queries. This should help you see how well the result or click volume is distributed in the top 20.
Downloads:
Since we’re now showing historical data on the Top Search Queries screen, we figured it would be rude to not let you download it all and play with the data yourself (spreadsheet masochists, I’m looking at you). We added a “Download data” link that lets you download all the stats in CSV format. Note that this exports all query stats historical data across all snapshots as well as search types and languages, so you can slice and dice to your satisfaction. The “Download all stats (including subfolders)” link, however, will still only show query stats for your site and sub-folders for the last 7 days.
Freshness:
We’ve improved data freshness in Webmaster Tools a couple of times in the past, and we’ve done it again with the new Top Search Queries. Statistics are being now updated constantly. Top query results and clicks may visibly change rank a lot more often now, sometimes daily.
So enough talk. Sign in and play around with the new improvements for yourself. As always we welcome feedback (especially in the form of beer), so feel free to drop us a note in the Webmaster Help Group and let us know what you think.

Blast from the past (via Google Webmaster Central Blog)

This is a VERY welcomed improvement for Google Webmaster. I’ve gave feedback on this a long time ago and finally they heard me (and the possible thousands of others). Basically, the ability to control what Google displays regarding your web site is crucial. In addition, you play a direct hand in Google Search Engine Optimization. Here’s what Google has to say:

Sitelinks are extra links that appear below some search results in Google. They serve as shortcuts to help users quickly navigate to the important pages on your site.

Selecting pages to appear as sitelinks is a completely automated process. Our algorithms parse the structure and content of websites and identify pages that provide fast navigation and relevant information for the user’s query. Since our algorithms consider several factors to generate sitelinks, not all websites have them.
Now, Webmaster Tools lets you view potential sitelinks for your site and block the ones you don’t want to appear in Google search results. Because sitelinks are extremely useful in helping users navigate your site, we don’t typically recommend blocking them. However, occasionally you might want to exclude a page from your sitelinks, for example: a page that has become outdated or unavailable, or a page that contains information you don’t want emphasized to users. Once you block a page, it won’t appear as a sitelink for 90 days unless you choose to unblock it sooner. It may take a week or so to remove a page from your sitelinks, but we are working on making this process faster.
To view and manage your sitelinks, go to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard and click the site you want. In the left menu click Links, then click Sitelinks.

Thanks for your feedback and stay tuned for more updates!

Webmasters can now provide feedback on Sitelinks  (via Google Webmaster Central Blog)

Writing and General Blog Tips:

• 3 Non-Financial Reasons Why Anyone Should Blog (The Blog Herald)
• When Serving Your Readers Can Sabotage Your Blog (Performancing)
• Six Steps to a Stress-Free Blogging Habit (Daily Blog Tips)
• Business Blogging Discussion with Ted Demopoulos (Content Robot)
• The Other Side of Blogger Credibility (Performancing)
• Down with the Press Release!! (TechnoSailor)
• 5 Ways to Be Good to Your Blog So Your Blog Will Be Good to You (Content Robot)
• Blog Struggles: Ideas and Drafts (Lorelle on WordPress)
• 41 Reasons Why Your Blog Probably Sucks (Performancing)
• The Virtues Of Posting Less Often (Blogging Bits)
• 12 Reasons to blog on your own domain (Performancing)
• Start a Wordpress Blog on Your Own Site – Part 2: Why Wordpress? (Blogsolid)

Themes and Design:

• How to Create An Archives Page (WPDesigner)
• Generate Image Reflections Using Online Reflection Maker (Sizlopedia)
• 54 Typography Resources Every Designer Should Bookmark (Blogging Bits)
• Why Post Images Should be on the Left (Pro Blog Design)
• UniqueBlogDesigns.com Review: The Elephant in the Room and The Elephant in the Room: Part 2 (WPDesigner)
• Top 100 User-Centered Blogs (Virtual Hosting)
• Get RSS Subscriber Count in Plain text (Pro Blog Design)

Search Engine Optimization, Making Money and Traffic:

• Google’s Matt Cutts on Appropriate Use of NoFollow (Search Engine Journal) 
• The Smart Way to Get Traffic and Links: Creating a Prospect List for Bloggers (Dosh Dosh)
• SEO, It’s About What You DON’T Do (Daily Blog Tips)
• 9 Common Mistakes in Landing Page and PPC Campaign Design (Performancing)
• Here’s How to Stop Worrying About Google Once and for All (Copy Blogger)
• Internet Marketing for Novel Writers (Read/WriteWeb)
• Doshy Link Attack! Sticky Websites, PPC, Note Marketing and Post Frequency (Dosh Dosh)
• Targeting StumbleUpon Users (Daily Blog Tips)
• Link Exchange Strategy: Do You Turn Down Link Exchange Requests? (Blogging Bits)
• How to Transform Content and Yourself into a Profitable Business: A Free Report (Dosh Dosh)
• Making Money Online Report: Teaching Sells (Daily Blog Tips)
• Who’s Talking About You and Your Blog (The Blog Herald)
• The Golden Rule of Twitter Marketing (TechnoSailor)

My Recent Posts for Improving Your Blog or Website:

• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #5
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #4
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #3
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-25-07
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-21-07

First Lorrelle (on WordPress) released some great posts on changing your theme:

• Creating a Clickable Header in Your WordPress Theme
• WordPress Themes: The Ignored Footer
• Customizing Your WordPress Theme Footer
• Are Tags Working For You?

WordPress Theme Changes and Design:

• Use Conditional Tags to Empower Your Content (Design Adaptations)
• 13 Tags to Delete From your Theme (Pro Blog Design)
• How to make a WordPress Page or Post use a different sidebar (Lancelhoff)
• Integrate Drupal with WordPress (Weblog Tools Collection)

WordPress.com News:

• WordPress.com: Category to Tag Converter (Blogging Pro)

New RECENT WordPress Plugins:

• RSS Lightbox for Wordpress 2.3 – take a RSS from Photobucket album and display a lightbox with their pictures.
• RB Internal Links – Link to internal posts and pages in your blog in a similar to style to wiki. No need to remember full URLs, post ids or slugs. Wysiwyg plugin to help
• Tinfoil Hat – Tinfoil Hat provides extra privacy configuration for your blog.
• WP Easy PHP Calendar Admin – Adds the Easy PHP Calendar events administration and setup administration to the Wordpress admin area.
• Wiki Dashboard – Wiki on the dashboard for multiple autors.
• Netfirms Pretty Permalinks – This plugin brings pretty permalinks functionality to Netfirms users for both PHP 4 and PHP 5.
• LiveSearch – Includes LiveSearch in your blog. Now Widgetized.
• jPic WordPress Widget – jPic is a general purpose WordPress widget which shows a picture supplied by an URL.
• Hide upload – Hide upload section
• Fresh Text  – Add classes to your html tags and the innerHTML is then automatically parsed into images with specified size, font, and color.
• Fresh Page – Fresh Page is for creating customized write panels with file and photo uploads. Includes automatic photo resizing via phpThumb and c2c_get_custom.
• Tags Manager – This plugin helps you to manage your tags
• Slickr Widget – Adds a sidebar widget that shows your recent Flickr photos. Requires a Lightbox plugin to work properly.
• Simple Tags – Simple Tags is the successor of Simple Tagging Plugin and is THE perfect tool to manage perfeclty your WP 2.3 tags
• CryptX – En-/Decrypt mailto-Links to prevent Spam Bots scanning Sorcecode for Emails.
• Cat Quotes – This Plugin is based on the “Hello Dolly” WordPress Plugin , When enabled you will randomly see a Cat Quote , in the upper right of your admin screen.
• WP OldPost – If the post is older than 1 year, an alert will be displayed before the post encouraging visitors to check if there are more recent posts on the subject
• WP-DOPPLR – WP-DOPPLR is a Wordpress plugin that displays your DOPPLR information on your blog.
• Lightbox 2 – Used to overlay images on the current page.
• 4Avatars – This plugin allows you to add MyBlogLog.com or Gravatar.com or Avatars.pl avatars to Wordpress comments.
• AnswerLinks – AnswerLinks is a plugin that will auto-suggest links to definitions on Answers.com for words in your blog posts.
• WP Contact Form III – A simple contactform for WordPress with antispam question
• WP 2.3 statistics – WordPress 2.3 statistics Plugin will add the statistics into your blog, such as total posts, pages, tags.
• Favourite Post plugin – This plugin is a replica to ‘noteworthy’ plugin.
• EHT Downloads – This plugin generates automatically downloads lists, just giving a path and URL the plugin will generate all the HTML code itself.
• Daniel’s DropDowns – This plugin extends the category and archive lists by providing a dropdown (select) box with a button or link to activate the selection.
• Bookkeeping – A personal financial bookkeeping system.
• Ajax Post Save – This plugin enables you to save any WordPress post/page with Ajax.
• Berri Youtube Gallery – This Widget will display the YouTube videos that you want and the only data needed are the video URLs. There is no need to get YouTube API.
• Berri Personalized Care – This plugin for WordPress will give up to four personalized messages depending on the origin of the visitors of your blog.

Recently Updated Popular (500 or more downloads) Plugins:

• Live Search Popup – Spotlight ™ like live search with an ajax popup
• Different Posts Per Page – Show different number of posts in home, category, search or archive page.
• WP GuestMap – The plugin is Google Map widget builder, currently three major widgets are supported: Guest Locator, Stats Map and Weather Map
• cforms II – contact form – cforms II is an extremely customizable, flexible & powerful contact form plugin.
• Search Everything – Increases Wordpress’ default search functionality through an options panel. Options include searching pages, excerpts, attachments, drafts…
• BackUpWordPress – Manage WordPress Backups. Beta Release. Please help testing and give me feedback under the comments section of the Plugin page.
• All in One SEO Pack – Optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).
• WP 2.3 Related Posts – WordPress 2.3 Related Posts Plugin will generate a related posts via WordPress 2.3 tags, and add the related posts to feed.
• ©Feed – Extends the feed at copyright, a digital fingerprint, IP of feed-reader, comments, related posts! Search for content theft and many more features.
• Daiko’s Video Widget – Adds a sidebar widget to display random videos of your own choice from Google, Myspace and YouTube.
• Redirection – Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors.
• HeadSpace2 – A meta-data manager that controls almost every aspect of your site’s meta-data, including full tag/keyword support. Perfect for SEO!
• AJAX Calendar – AJAX Calendar is a plugin that will display an AJAXified WordPress calendar.
• Post Notification – With each new post an email is sent to every registered User in the Database. The email can be text or HTML.
• Contact Form 7 – Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.
• Sideblog Wordpress Plugin – A simple aside plugin.
• Flexible Upload – Resize picture at upload and make thumbnail creation configurable, optionally include a watermark to your uploaded images.
• wp-dTree 3.1 – Turns your sidebar into a very convenient, “dynamic” navigation tree. Supports scriptaculous effects.
• Flexible Upload – Resize picture at upload and make thumbnail creation configurable, optionally include a watermark to your uploaded images.
• DMSGuestbook – DMSGuestbook is an easy configurable guestbook with a lot of features.
• FeedStats – Simple statistictool for feeds.
• Post Avatar – Choose an avatar from a pre-defined list to include in a post.
• Quote Rotator – Creates widget for adding quotes (or other content) on the sidebar. Content will rotate through. Adds section under Manage tab to create and edit…
• New Tag Cloud – A small plugin to add a tag cloud widget
• obsocialbookmarker – Add social book mark icons and links at the bottom of each post: bookmarks options includes del.icio.us, reddit, slashdot it, digg, facebook…
• Subscribe2 – Sends a list of subscribers an email notification when new posts are published to your blog

Writing and General Blog Tips:

• Blogging Success is About The Long Haul (Lorelle on WordPress)
• 3+4 Tips for the Traveling Blogger (Daily Blog Tips)
• Are You Truly Focused on Your Audience? (CopyBlogger)
• Making A Long-Term Commitment To Blogging… Don’t Break The Chain (Blog Herald)
• Blog Tip: Create a Link Post in 3 Seconds (Internet Duct Tape)
• Blogging Tip: Feeding the Content Alligator (Really Smart Guy)
• Warning: Read This Before Starting A News Blog (Peformancing)
• Blogging Questions & Answers 1 (Daily Blog Tips)
• 21 Ways to Build a Better Blogger (Performancing)
• Blogging Productivity Tip: Read Only When You Have Time to Act On It (Performancing)
• How to Instantly Increase the Quality of Your Blog (The Blog Herald)

Themes and Design:

• 9 Blog Hacks to Help Show Readers Your Best Stuff (Daily Blog Tips)
• How to Add a Tabbed Content Section to Your Blog (Design Adaptations)
• 5 Tips to Get the Best From Your Designer (Pro Blog Design)
• 30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of (Smashing Magazine)
• Top 25 Web Design Blogs (Daily Blog Tips)
• 12 Ways to Make Better Use of Your Footer (The Blog Herald)
• Browser Tests, Services and Compatibility Test Suites (Smashing Magazine)
• Stop! Before You Make Any Of These 5 Website Usability Mistakes (Blogging Bits)

Search Engine Optimization, Making Money and Traffic:

• 63 Constructive Opinions on the Best Way to Make Money Online (Dosh Dosh)
• The Best Way to Make Money Online: Participate in Dosh Dosh’s Group Survey (Dosh Dosh)
• 22 Free Forum Software To Build Online Communities (Blogging Bits)
• No More Text Link Ads and Paid Links? (Daily Blog Tips)
• 5 Surefire Ways To Build Tons Of Backlinks For Your Blog (Blogging Bits)
• How to Influence Powerful Social Media Users for Traffic and Attention (Dosh Dosh)
• Basic Blogging Tip: Link-out like a loose lemon (Perfomancing)
• The Blogger’s Guide to Google Webmaster Tools (Daily Blog Tips)

My Recent Posts for Improving Your Blog or Website:

• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #4
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #3
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-25-07
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-21-07

Also, let’s give a hearty congratulations to Lester Chan (GamerZ) for updating all of his plugins to WordPress 2.3 Compatibility.

Here’s a Long list of New and Updated plugins, as always, don’t forget to check against any of your plugins against the WordPress community 2.3 Plugin Compatibility List before upgrading.. The plugins below “should” all be compatible, but check the community list for a double check.

Noteworthy Plugin:

• Wordpress Upgrade Preflight Check – “Upgrade Preflight Check is a plugin that will attempt to check your other plugins and themes for problems that may cause errors when upgrading to WordPress 2.3. Run this before upgrading and it may save some headaches. It works in version 2.3 too and may be useful to help identify the cause of errors.”

NEW plugins:

• WP-DownloadManager 1.00 – From GamerZ – Adds a simple download manager to your WordPress blog.
• WP-PluginsUsed 1.00 – From GamerZ – Display WordPress plugins that you currently have (both active and inactive) onto a post/page
• Archives By Category – Creates a link list of posts sorted by category and ordered by title alphabetically
• aNobii WordPress Widget – aNobii WordPress Widget ia a Wordpress widget which shows randomly the covers of some books from your aNobii’s shelf.
• WP Admin Links – Provides a template tag and a sidebar widget that display a drop-down list with links to admin pages that the user has access to.
• Classy wp_list_pages – Adds a uniqe class or ID attribute to each LI tag generated by wp_list_pages() allowing them to be individually styled with CSS.
• Favicon Manager – Manage the favicon image for your WordPress installation.
• TDO Mini Forms – This plugin allows you to add a form to your website that allows your readers (including non-registered) to submit posts.
• CommentLuv – Appends a titled link to the authors last blog post on their comment giving back some luv to the people that join your discussion.
• Correctly Spell WordPress – Simple plugin to never write again Wordpress, Word Press or whatever. One word, capital W and P, it’s WordPress!
• IP 2 Nation – Guesses your visitor’s Country from his IP
• zLinks – A clickable icon for every post, comment and embedded link leads to additional semantic Web and related data resources.
• Auto Moderate Comments – When a post gets old, instead of simply closing the discussion, send comments and trackbacks to the moderation queue.
• Avatar Popup – Add CSS popups next to mailto links or next to any word. Can be any custom image, and has gravatar support.
• Better Feed – Enhance feed items with anything: ads, copyright, “Add to delicious”, “Read More (400 words)” links…
• Click Counter – How many people click on your links ? Track clicks: link popularity, download counter, etc…
• FAQ Auto Responder – Have a blog where readers often ask the same questions ? Give the Auto Responder a try and save support time!
• Who Sees Ads ? – Manage your ads. Define under what condition they will show (visitor from search engine, old post..). Make more money.
• Sabre – Sabre is an acronym for Simple Anti Bot Registration Engine. It’s a set of counter measures against spam registration on your blog.
• WP_Boilerplate – Add “Boiler Plate” text to your post, helping you to avoid having to retype the same instructions etc in different posts.
• Jiglu Auto-tagging widget – Automatically tags and links a Wordpress blog.
• TIL Technorati Incoming Links – This plugin allows you to add again the Technorati Incoming Links to your dashboard (in Wordpress 2.3 or later)
• Tags4page – This plugin allows you to insert tags to pages too and not only to posts

 Recently Updated Popular (500 or more downloads) Plugins:

• cforms II – contact form – cforms II is an extremely customizable, flexible & powerful contact form plugin.
• wordTube – wordTube is your Media Center plugin for WordPress.
• HeadSpace2 – A meta-data manager that controls almost every aspect of your site’s meta-data, including full tag/keyword support. Perfect for SEO!
• All in One SEO Pack – Optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).
• Popularity Contest – Which of your posts/pages are most popular?
• Comment Timeout – Closes comments on blog entries after a user-configurable period of time, with an option to make allowances for active discussions.
• Post Teaser – Post Teaser generates excerpts of posts for the main, archive and category pages, also generate a word count, image count, and estimated reading time.
• AWSOM News Announcement – AWSOM News Announcement allows you to post a news announcement in the area above your posts (or anywhere else you want)
• Google Analytics for WordPress – The Google Analytics for WordPress plugina automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links
• Accessible News Ticker (ANT) – A news ticker/scroller widget that displays posts and RSS with accessible javascript).
• Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam – Stop a lot of spambots from polluting your site by making visitors identify a custom word displayed as an image before commenting.
• Dashboard Editor – With this plugin you can remove sections of the dashboard, add new code, or even add Sidebar Widgets.
• Post Notification – With each new post an email is sent to every registered User in the Database. The email can be text or HTML.
• WP-PostRatings – Adds an AJAX rating system for your WordPress blog’s post/page.
• WP-Sticky – Adds a sticky post feature to your WordPress’s blog.
• WP-UserOnline – Enable you to display how many users are online on your Wordpress blog with detailed statistics.
• WP-Stats – Display your WordPress blog statistics. Ranging from general total statistics, some of my plugins statistics and top 10 statistics.
• WP-Print – Displays a printable version of your WordPress blog’s post/page.
• WP-Polls – Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can also easily add a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page.
• WP-PostViews – Enables you to display how many times a post/page had been viewed.
• WP-PageNavi – Adds a more advanced paging navigation your WordPress blog.
• WP-EMail – Allows people to recommend/send your WordPress blog’s post/page to a friend
• WP-DBManager – Manages your Wordpress database
• WP-Ban – Ban users by IP, IP Range, host name and referer url from visiting your WordPress’s blog.
• WPG2 – WPG2 is a Wordpress Plug-in that embeds Gallery2 within Wordpress to share photos, videos and any other Gallery2 content seamlessly into Wordpress.
• TinyMCE Advanced – Enables most of the advanced features of TinyMCE, the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.

K2 Theme Updates:

K2 Release Candidate 2 – “Go grab your copy of RC2. I’m hoping this’ll fix the SBM reordering problems. For now though, please be aware that IE7 might still have problems. And of course, if you’re an IE7 expert and you have some time on your hands, let me know, cuz we could sure use your help.”

Related WordPress Posts:

• 2 Updates for my Blog – WordPress Category and Full Text Feed
• 20+ New and Updated WordPress Plugins – All 2.3 Compatible
• WordPress 2.3 is Here – Posts and Plugins
• WordPress Plugins, Updates and WordPress 2.3 Posts

Writing and General Blog Tips:

• Writing for the Social Media Everyman (CopyBlogger)
• Create a Blogging Plan by Breaking Down Objectives into Task List (Blogging Bits)
• AirPress Desktop Blogging Client Powered by Adobe Air (Sizlopedia)
• Are You Improving In These Areas Or Have You Stalled? (Blogging Bits)
• How Much Do People Talk About You? (TechnoSailor)
• Linking Abuse Or Linking Awareness (Andy Beard)
• Writing a Blog Disclaimer (The Blog Herald)
• Are You Writing Content That Attract Links? (Performancing)

Themes and Design:

• Good Design Looks Good. Period. (Pro Blog Design)
• WordPress Theme Releases for 9/28 (Weblog Tools Collection)
• OwnSkin launches OwnTape Tool as free photo slideshow for personalizing mobiles and blogs (The Blog Herald)
• Using Video and Audio to Build Your Brand (Performancing)
• Test Your Website on a Mobile Phone (Daily Blog Tips)

Search Engine Optimization, Making Money and Traffic:

• How to Get Repeat Visitors for Your Website (Dosh Dosh)
• How to Attract More RSS Subscribers – For Real (Daily Blog Tips)
• Link Advertising with TNX.net (a Review) (The Blog Herald)
• 5 Sources That Brought Me Tons Of Visitors (Blogging Bits)
• Make Money Online with YouTube Video Units (Sizlopedia)
• Atypical Visitors: How Not to Turn Them Away (Daily Blog Tips)
• WidgetBucks: Today’s Big Thing (Aiming for Independence)
• Convince Ad Blockers to Turn Your Ads Back On (Pro Blog Design)
• Finally…A Simple Formula for Applying “Domaining for SEOs” (Performancing)

My Recent Posts for Improving Your Blog or Website:

• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts #3
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-25-07
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-21-07

There were a lot of General and Writing blog tips in the past few days, I’ve taken out the best below. There’s a good chance you’ll learn a few things as well. Also, be sure to check out Dosh Dosh’s Google Custom Search article!

Writing and General Blog Tips:

• Google Webmaster Tools:A Comprehensive Guide (SearchEngine Journal)
• Creating A Blogging Schedule (Blog Herald)
• How Bloggers Can Give More To Get More (Performancing)
• 40 Best Personal Organization Tools To Boost Your Productivity (Blogging Bits)
• Tip #6 : Enhancing WordPress administration (WordPress Bits)
• Blogs and the Mobile Web (Weblog Tools Collection)
• 10 Tips for Writing Better Posts (Daily Blog Tips)
• Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques (Copyblogger)

Themes and Design:

• 10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of (Smashing Magazine)
• 5 Advanced Techniques for Creating Plugins and Widgets for WordPress.com (Lorelle on WordPress)
• Warning: Your Blog Is Being Forgotten! (Pro Blog Design)

Search Engine Optimization and Traffic:

• How to Set up Google Custom Search for Your Website and Make Money (Dosh Dosh)
• 25 Reasons You Get Thumbs Up (Andy Beard – Niche Marketing)

My Recent Posts for Improving Your Blog or Website:

• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-25-07
• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-21-07
• 15 New Posts to Better Your Blog or Web Site

Don’t forget to check against the WordPress community 2.3 Plugin Compatibility List.

Here’s a Long list of New and Updated *ONLY 2.3 Compatible plugins:

NEW plugins:

• Uploaded File Permissions – This plugin changes the file permissions after the upload.
• iPhone / Mobile Admin – Gives a mobile-friendly admin UI to browsers by User Agent. The iPhone is the primary supported device for the first release.
• Cleaner Dashboard – Removes the WordPress news sections and reorganizes the sidebar for maximum screen usage. See the screenshots for more details.
• digg widget – Displays your past 10 dugg stories and make it a widget.
• AutoLink – This plugin takes delimiters and replaces them with links using the GoogleAPI.
• PrivatePost – This plugin is a full featured private post management interface. It allows you to manage all private post’s publishing status via the “Manage” admin
• Anonymous WordPress Plugin Updates – Anonymizes the data transmitted during plugin update checking and notification system.
• CyStats – Statistics plugin including information hits,visits,operating system,browser,dimensions,earchengines and earchwords,pages,time and more
• Remove Parents – Remove Parents is a tiny plugin which remove “category” and parent categories from permalink.
• TSViewerWidget – Show your teamspeakserver as a widget in your wordpress-sidebar.
• Adminbar – This plugin adds an adminbar on the top like in Wordpress.com. Screenshots on my website.

Updated Popular (500 or more downloads) Plugins:

• Social Bookmarking RELOADED – Social Bookmarking RELOADED – Add the social bookmarks services’s icons to your articles in your blogs in order to submit them
• Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam – Stop a lot of spambots from polluting your site by making visitors identify a custom word displayed as an image before commenting.
• cforms II – contact form – cforms II is an extremely customizable, flexible & powerful contact form plugin
• Wordbook – This plugin allows you to cross-post your blog posts to your Facebook Mini-Feed. Your Facebook profile will also show your most recent blog posts.
• BackUpWordPress – Manage WordPress Backups.
• Last.Fm Records – This plugin shows cd covers for cds your listened to, according to last.fm. It can behave as a widget.
• Better Comments Manager – Better Comments manager allows you to view your comments post wise, it also allows you to reply to your comments from within admin panel.
• WP 2.3 Related Posts – WordPress 2.3 Related Posts Plugin will generate a related posts via WordPress 2.3 tags, and add the related posts to feed.
• Sideblog Wordpress Plugin – A simple aside plugin.
• Upcoming Events – This plugin can receive iCalendar feeds from third party sites and display aggregated upcoming events from multiple feeds in your sidebar.
• WPG2 – WordPress / Gallery2 Integration – WPG2 is a Wordpress Plug-in that embeds Gallery2 within Wordpress to share photos, videos and any other Gallery2 content seamlessly into Wordpress.
• Front Page Excluded Categories – A basic plugin that *excludes* posts from one or more categories from appearing on the front page.

Previous Plugin Releases and Updates:

• WordPress 2.3 is Here – Posts and Plugins
• WordPress Plugins, Updates and WordPress 2.3 Posts

Technorati Tags: Internet, Technology, Wordpress, Plugins, Updates, News

Writing and General Blog Tips:

• Improve Your Workflow with a Blog Editing Program (Daily Blog Tips)
• The 3 Easiest Ways to Speed Up WordPress (Lorelle on WordPress)
• Blog Tip: Creating a Blog Maintenance Start Page with Netvibes (Internet Duct Tape)
• Weekly Digest: WordPress Tips Month, Grateful to Guest Bloggers, WordPress 2.3 (Lorelle on WordPress)

Themes and Design:

• How Would You Improve Your Blog Or Blogging? (Andy Beard)
• How to Achieve Site Goals Through Design (Pro Blog Design)
• What Makes a Good Design? (Pro Blog Design)
• So, Tell Me Again, Which Links Will Count In The Future? (Performancing)
• When Akismet Goes Bad: What to do when Akismet starts spamming your own comments (Lorelle on WordPress)
• Top 10 Things To Do To Put Off Your Readers (Blogging Bits)

Search Engine Optimization and Traffic:

• Four Simple Ways to Make More Money with Adsense’s Firefox Referrals Program (DoshDosh)
• Doshy Link Attack! Social Media, Word of Mouth, Wordpress Themes and Usability (DoshDosh)
• Risk-Taking Bloggers Make More Money (Performancing)

My Recent Posts for Improving Your Blog or Website:

• Improve Your Blog and Web Site – Need to Read Posts 9-21-07
• 15 New Posts to Better Your Blog or Web Site

Facebooked is a WordPress Theme, that I am thoroughly impressed with and it’s relatively acurate design to Facebook. It even has the the little arrows that can minimize the sidebar options.

Here’s a screenshot of the Theme in Action:

Hit up Justin Tadlock » Facebooked: Wordpress Theme

Technorati Tags: Internet, Wordpress, Themes, Facebook