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Top 5 Wordpress Plugins
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The Aliens finally arrive and obliterate earth, saving only you and 5 female field hockey professionals to continue humankind in a petting zoo on their home planet.
You are allow to rescue one film, one book, and 5 Wordpress plugins to be preserved forever on an alien planet as examples of the artistic and technical peak of our civilisation.
Without hesitation you select Dumb and Dumber and its screenplay, but as for the plugins… You have to stop and think for a while.
Another way of framing this question could be, ‘what would be the plugins you would most likely donate to if you ever became mentally incapable of making sensible lucid decisions?’
NB. For people uninterested in this post, I’ve set an alternative assignment: Go away and work on just being better informed generally. Subscribe to a BBC podcast, read a news article that isn’t about the Perez Hilton lawsuit, or even just learn a new word (this is easy, just type something like ‘define: misanthrope’ into google).
Here’s my list. Bear in mind that to me, these plugins are the tools of someone primarily working on SEO stuff and online marketing.
#1. Redirection by John Godley
“Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors”
For me this is my number one plugin because it saves so much time as I am constantly changing url structures like a madman, but without any fear of negative repercussions with the search engines (do we still say ’search engines’ or have I embarrassed myself? It suddenly struck me as sounding a bit early 2000s).
#2. All in One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert
“Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog.”
I’m sure there are a million seo tools for Wordpress out there but this is the one I choose early on, and I’m happy to stick with it until it develops AI and tries to explode my optic nerves.
#3. Breadcrumb NavXT by John Havlik
“Adds a breadcrumb navigation showing the visitor’s path to their current location.”
More often than not, a breadcrumb-style navigation helps usability massively, and this plugin perfectly anticipates everything you need in a breadcrumb. I just cracked a quarter chub.
#4. Advertising Manager by Scott Switzer, Martin Fitzpatrick
“Control and arrange your Advertising and Referral blocks on your Wordpress blog. With Widget and inline post support, integration with all major ad networks.”
As an ad pimp, I love this plugin.
#5. Contact Form 7 and Really Simple CAPTCHA by Takayuki Miyoshi
“Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.”
“Really Simple CAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA module intended to be called from other plugins.”
Again, I’m sure there are plenty of other plugins providing basically the same functionality, but I do love these plugins for the ridiculous amounts of time it saves me from doing any manual work.
Honourable mentions
- Top Level Categories by Filipe Fortes
What it does: Removes the prefix from the URL for a category. For instance, if your old category link was/category/catnameit will now be/catname
I love it because: It gives me lovely urls. - WP-DBManager by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
What it does: Manages your Wordpress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.
I love it because: By backing up my sites, it allows me to sleep at night - Inline Google Maps by Avi Alkalay
What it does: This plugin shows google maps anywhere on blogpage. Just add a permalink of google map to any text (with images) in a page, set title=”googlemap” and you’re done. Also works with complex multimarker maps and KML-based maps.
I love it because: I’m a lazy cunt. - p2pConverter by Brian D. Goad
What it does: This plugin allows you to easily convert a post to a page and vice versa through an easy to use interface. You may either click on your Manage tab in Administration, and you will see a Convert option under Posts and Pages sub-tabs, or click Convert while editing a post or page in the bottom right side bar.
I love it because: It saved me from MySQL hell
You gotta fight for your black and white right
"Wait, wait, umm, this is a bit embarrassing - he's trying to breast feed. Also, how are my veins?"
Went to see my newborn niece in hospital the other day.
My sister-in-law told me that my brother, rather than looking directly at his new daughter, had mainly been looking at himself holding her in a large hospital mirror, presumably shirtless and flexing his guns.
My feeling is that this is a perk of fatherhood that doesn’t dawn on men until shortly after their child is born. Whereupon they are thrilled to finally have a legitimate excuse to have dramatically-lit shirtless black and white photos taken of themselves.
It reminded me that I’ve never once window-shopped a glamour photography studio that didn’t have an obligatory black and white picture of a shirtless father holding his newborn child.
Typically, he will have some sort of tribal pattern or barbed-wire tattoo round one of his biceps, and be an ethnic minority, but importantly a light-skinned black man (Will Smith Mocha rather than Seal Black) so as to not put off too many white shoppers.
These guys so own this particular photographic category, that it is almost their inalienable right.
Which made me wonder at the potential for Baby Day Hire for men who haven’t yet had children but are getting on a bit and are worried middle-age spread will ruin the artistic seriousness of future photos.
Of course this niche industry is based on the ‘folk wisdom’ that all new-borns pretty much look the same, and with the deep shadows of glam shots, the child will be none the wiser looking at the photos in later years.
My other favourite good ol’ dependable glam photo category is the once-beautiful 40-something, desperately grasping for her lost youth, stripped down to her waist, wearing dirty blue jeans with her much younger boy toy who is playfully grabbing handfuls of her tits from behind.
Territory marker scent packing
Why I oughta!
Two nights ago I heard a noise outside and, investigating, disturbed a stranger lurking in my back yard.
It was around one o’clock and I’d been deep in the middle of Buffy Series 3.
Peering out at the intruder, I wondered ‘would this be the beginning of a soulless vamp eternity, or just another kill?’
Such is the life of a slayer.
Buffy never had the night vision of Mr Magoo though…
With no optical aids at hand, or conveniently broken chair legs, I realised it would be both irresponsible and difficult to brutally slay what was likely an escaped mentalist.
I challenged Stranger McBlurry.
“You been drinking mate?”
He had indeed been drinking and enquired about the whereabouts of the female tenant that I’d replaced, helpfully providing a height estimate of her (quite short). Clearly he’d been her 1am man-whore booty call.
I told him she’d just moved out, and that he should probably leave in case ’some other more uptight person’ called the cops on him.
He obliged and I stalked around for a bit like Batman to make sure my kingdom was secure.
Heading to my trusty backyard piss spot for a victory wazz, I was horrified to smell fresh stranger wizz all over my spot.
My senses reeling, tail between legs, I meekly choose a new spot.
You may have won this time wifebeater-clad stranger, but you just don’t bogart another man’s leak zone.
Next time there’ll be hell to pay.
Or a piper to pay.
One of those.
Neil Finn – Sinner
I think Sinner is my favourite Neil Finn song.
Because you’d forgotten how amazing it is, I’m going to treat you to both the music video and a sensational acoustic rendition.
The acoustic version has such a different feel to the studio version, without the intoxicating layers of trip behind it.
I prefer the heady groove of the studio version, though I do like the more traditional ‘Crowded House feel’ of the live version.
Studio Version
Acoustic Version
‘I could eat a knob at night’
A decade in review – The Best of Entertainment, 2000-2010
Upon reflection, there were a few noteworthy achievements in the world of entertainment, but only one that I am still really passionate about: The emergence of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and their outstanding comedy.
They saved the decade for me. I would have laughed about 90% less if it wasn’t for them – this is what I would have looked like most of the time:
What do you mean I have to pay for Gervais podcasts now
So here’s my Top 5 Best Gervais Stuff list. It’s pretty much just videos because it’s hot and my back hurts.
#5. Various Film Appearances
#4. Extras
#3. Stand-up
#2. The Office
#1. The Ricky Gervais Show (Ft. Karl Pilkington)
Gervais’ radio show is even better than The Office. There, I’ve done it now. I’ve laid all my cards on the table.
The Ricky Gervais Show was a radio show on London’s XFM which later evolved into a recurring podcast series put out by the Guardian Unlimited.
It starred Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. In my opinion, the Gervais/Merchant/Manc combination is the easily the high point of comedy for the decade.
You can download Season 1-4 for free at www.rickygervaisshow.com. It’s a good idea to start from the beginning and then to listen to the recent stuff to get a handle on how Karl Pilkington happened.
In decades and centuries to come, historians will look back to decide the defining moment of the first decade of the 21st century.
When they realise that it was indisputably when bald-headed Manc twat Karl Pilkington uttered those words, ‘I could eat a knob at night’, it will set in motion a sort of global Jonestown.
If you disagree with me, throw any other event at me from the last ten years and I’ll come straight back at you with ‘nobody cares’.
You will have to accept that I’m right and then eat your knob.
I could eat a knob at night dance remix
Put something on the end of it!
I’m slightly obsessed with Jeremy Kyle. It’s mainly out of jealously.
He’s the luckiest man in the world, getting paid crazy money to yell at chavs all day.
That must be so therapeutic.
His favourite thing to yell is “you should’ve put something on the end of it!”
So I made a public health poster for safe sex (for chavs).
I realise it’s a bit convoluted and technical – I’ll keep working on it.
Also, would chavs understand the word ‘condom’? Perhaps they’ve persisted with ‘rubber johnny’ or summit?
I’m so bored…
The artist who inhaled his own sculpture
With a walrus like that (allegedly insured at one time for £200,000) I would buy shitty drapes from big Merv Hughes in a heartbeat.
Our local TV station, CTV, exists solely and shamefully as a vehicle for local business owners with walrus moustaches and body odour to peddle tile reductions and ranch slider discounts.
I’m sure you know plenty of comparable local stations, stubbornly the last great bastions against taste and relevance.
On CTV, any footage of Christchurch city, regardless of when it was taken and all the advances in video quality, is still somehow green-tinged and suicide-inducing.
The number of times I’ve fallen asleep in front of CTV (this has never actually happened) to later wake in a flickering fever sweat thinking that I have been teleported to 1950s Christchurch and Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker are crouched in my bathroom with brick stockings, their tandem lesbian bicycle parked outside under my carport.
Tragically, there is a limit to the number of local shopping shows so CTV has to pad out its line up with strangely inappropriate shows from overseas.
Unavoidably, these foreign shows are far more interesting and professional than the local content, undermining the station’s credibility with savvy, unemployed 20 and 30-somethings watching from under their unwashed duvets at 11:30 in the morning.
Of the foreign content, by far the finest show is the Arts show (Arts.21) from Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (German and European news, analysis, opinion and breaking news).
Arts.21 mainly features artists from former Soviet shitholes struggling to come to terms with past wounds and their emerging identities by writing dull books about geese.
‘Oh snap, if only we hadn’t all chucked out our VCRs, today there’s a riveting piece about a struggling Slovenian web designer who has to supplement his income by carving giant cocks out of ice for his local brothel’s orgy night Wednesday.’
Easily my all-time favourite feature was on a British sculptor (clearly running short on Eastern European artists), Willard Wigan.
Famously, his sculptures are so small that they are literally created in the eye of a needle or placed on the head of a pin. Apparently, as a kid, Wigan started down this path because he was comforted by the fact that art too small to even be seen could therefore not be criticised.
Clever.
During the interview, Wigan told a great anecdote in which he was making Alice in Wonderland at a whopping one-third of the size of a full stop in a newspaper.
Noticing that Alice had suddenly disappeared from under his microscope, he realised that he’d inhaled her.
Wigan then missed a great opportunity to analogise his windpipe and Alice’s rabbit hole.
Or perhaps he did but they had to edit it out for time? I’m going to go with this assumption, because I refuse to accept that he wouldn’t have gone there.
The Obama Family by Willard Wigan
Does Cheryl West die? Predictions for Outrageous Fortune Season 6
I just finished watching Outrageous Fortune Season 5 on dvd and it was brilliant!
Here’s a few quick predictions for Season 6 in 2010. What a delicious cliffhanger! Gerard clutching his severed throat and firing off 3 shots like such a cop. I feel a little sorry for him because every other character on the show has, at one time or another, done far more heinous things than him and yet he gets a bottle to the throat for his troubles.
3 possibilities for cliffhanger resolution
- Gerard misses both Cheryl and Pascalle. But at such close range it would mean he’s an even worse shot than Dick Cheney. Unlikely.
- He shoots Pascalle only, having just been spurned by her in favour of his arch enemy, Nicky Greegan. Unlikely, as she’s just such a sweetheart and I’m sure he’d be aiming for Cheryl, since she’s the one who brutally stabbed him, but might have hit Pascalle accidentally. Still, unlikely.
- He shoots Cheryl only. Fairly likely, although she’ll have to recover because Cheryl is Outrageous Fortune, in a sense, and just couldn’t die. But then Gerard would also have to recover (despite losing 17 litres of blood from his jugular vein) because if he died Cheryl would have to go away for a long time (or for as much as that’s ever worth on OF).
- He shoots both of them (Cheryl on purpose and Pascalle unintentionally). Then Cheryl and Gerard both recover because they have to and Pascalle either just survives or dies. Not very beautifully positive for her but that would be a fantastic bombshell.
- Pascalle and Cheryl are both saved as the bullets ricochet from their ubiquitous Westie silver jewellery. Fairly likely.
Right, now I’ve confused myself a little.
I think the writers might use Cheryl getting injured as a pretext for bringing Wolf back on the scene, which would be great as he’s the main thing I missed from Season 5, with the exception of the emotionally-devastating episode in which rum-induced Wolf appears. That one may have even surpassed the ‘death of Aurora’ episode in terms of ruining me. Knockout blow after knock out blow.
Actually, I think a more likely reason for Wolf to reemerge would be the sickness and death of Ted West. It’s an idea that’s come up at the end of Season 5, with Eric appearing hilariously in a dream to Ted to predict he would die in prison. It would make sense to at long last have the death of a main character, and would be the dramatic climax of all dramatic climaxes late in the season.
Safe predictions
- Aaron Spiller has his moment in the sun, finally emerging on top, if even for just a few short glorious minutes. The writers outdid themselves in Season 5 looking for increasingly more brutal and hilarious ways to put Spiller through physical punishment. But you just can’t break his little ginger spirit. Aaaah bless him. Particularly splendid was the nod to Chinatown as Spiller has both his nostrils split open with a paint scraper no less (sadistic, brilliant, hilarious writing). I need to go back and make a note of all the ways he’s been beat up on. God I love Aaron Spiller.
- Rochelle has more story action. Seriously, how good is Roz Turnbull? Totally deserves a bit more attention and I reckon she’ll get it too.
- Loretta and Hayden have more rocky split ups. A fairly safe prediction. Hayden has to have a relapse, he’s such a flake.
- Sheree Greegan comes back somehow and Pascalle gets sweet revenge (or at least all the other West’s take it on her behalf). The twins are tracked down, their actual paternity is cleared up, relieving Van of his burden.
- Angel gets more story action. Terrific new character in Season 5. Great potential for more shenanigans with Eric.
- There’s plenty more obvious stuff like Munter and Kasey having their baby (though obviously safe childbirth is no given on OF any more).
- Deleesha Judd gets in more trouble. She’s trouble that one.
Spliff Predictions
- Spiller’s moment in the sun is getting with Pascalle. He’s totally earned it, a lovely little creepy knight in shining chrome armour. A good old pity fuck maybe?
- Nicky Greegan gets out of prison. It’s Outrageous Fortune, of course he gets out.
- Hayden Peters or Wayne Judd are murdered (along with Ted dying). Outrageous.
An important health & safety warning
When Axl Rose sung about the cold November rain, he was thinking of a weather system heading toward winter (and, it would seem, an emotionally-distant lover, the groupie with the great ass who got her hooks in way too deep).
In the southern hemisphere it’s a different story. Rain in November is just a momentary hiccup in a full-throttle charge toward sun-drenched summer bliss.
But a great danger lies in a weather pattern flip-flopping between ’spank-me-it’s-hot!’ and ‘where-did-summer-go?’
So I’m sitting in the fish and chip shop on one of those overcast, drizzly evenings. The bell rings and a big guy strides in.
He’s wearing white socks and jandals (flip-flops, thongs, etc) and I instinctively think ‘fuck yeah’. He’s about 6′ 4” and 120 kgs so I figure he’s pretty much worn whatever he wants from about the age of 15.
Behind every sock+jandal combo is a story of immense personal angst and soul-searching. It is an unspoken statement of intent to the world: ‘okay, I’m willing to accept that it’s turned bloody cold again, but I’ll be fucked if I’m going to postpone summer any longer, the jandals are staying.’
Come hell or high water, and small deadly puddles, the jandal wearer almost without exception will boldly take nature on and stay the course.
The big guy’s inside now and stepping from the wet pavement to the vinyl interior I hear that awful squeaking sound of impending doom as one of his jandals shoots forward.
This is immediately followed by the small distressed grunt as he stabilises and feels the discomfort of slight tearing in his groin.
But today is fish and chip day and he’ll be damned if he’s gonna be stopped so close to the prize. He recovers expertly as only a veteran jandal-wearer can and, with great poise and dignity, orders his 3 fish and half scoop of chips.
So be careful Antipodeans, don’t just blindly dive headlong into summer without respecting the obligatory crap weather here and there.
Be patient, you’ll get your sunburn and barbies all in good time.
That beautiful game in Wellington: New Zealand 1, Bahrain 0
Last night was my new greatest moment as a professional spectator.
Here’s video of the first goal by Rory Fallon late in the first half to put NZ 1-0 up:
Here’s a few All White attempts on goal and the moment when the final whistle blew – sensational!