Couple of new plugins to share with you:

* “Identicon”:http://scott.sherrillmix.com/blog/blogger/wp_identicon/ – Identicon is a pretty cool little plugin that generates a random avatar for every person who comments here. It’s a visual security tool based off “9-block IP identification”:http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark/2007/01/18/visual-security-9-block-ip-identification to help identify phishers who might leave comments using previous commenters’ information. In its default state, Identicon actually assigns an avatar to a user based on their email address, and since Bad Behavior and Akismet do a good job of keeping spammers and phishers away, I’m not inclined to switch it over to IP identification at this point. So, the long and the short of it is, now everyone who comments here has their own unique identifying image. Personally, I think they’re kind of fun.
* “WP-Amazon”:http://manalang.com/wp-amazon/ – I’ve been wishing for an easier way to look up links to Amazon for books, movies, and video games I review (or simply want to promote). This plugin adds a button to the Write page in the WordPress dashboard that enables you to look up any title and instantly transfer the appropriate information directly into your editor. It’s currently designed to work best with the Rich Text Editor, but it also has some limited functionality with the plain text editor (which is the only thing I use anyway). The plugin’s author has promised an updated version in the near future that works better with the plain text editor, but what he has at the moment works well enough for what I need. You pretty much need an Amazon Associates key to use it, though, so if you opt to use this plugin, you’ll want to sign up for the Associates program first.

Yes, I’m a plugins addict.

Discover more from Jim Stitzel

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading