Every website is prone to some or the other attacks from the spammers and hackers (not the ethical ones). The most common way is by attempting to login to the website or certain accounts. There have been attempts of login to various Twitter accounts of the celebrities in the past.

Accounts which have common or dictionary passwords can be easily attacked. The best approach is to choose a strong password for your account.

Prevent Brute Force Login Attempts

If you are a blogger, you should protect your account from such attacks. Choosing a strong password is one option. The second option is to protect your account from brute force attacks. The next question will be “What is a a Brute Force Attack?”

A Brute Force Attack is a mechanism to break into a website with all possible combination of passwords till the correct one is found. If your password is simple enough like a word from a dictionary, it can be easily found by the attackers.

Most of the websites lock down accounts for a particular period of time after a certain number of failed login attempts. This ensures the protection of accounts from brute force attacks. You can add the similar feature in your Wordpress blog.

Serradinho introduced Login Lockdown in Plugins that should be part of WordPress core functionality. Login LockDown is a wordpress plugin which protects your accounts from brute force attacks.

How does Login LockDown works?

Login Lockdown makes a record IP and timestamp of every failed login attempts. If a certain number of failed attempts is found within a specified period of time from a particular IP, Login Lockdown blocks all login requests from the same range of IPs for a specified period of time

Download Login LockDown

After installation, your Wordpress Login Menu will look something like this

The default settings include 3 Maximum Login retries with 5 minutes of Retry Time Restriction and a lockout period of one hour. Depending on your requirement, you can change these settings.

WordPress Plugin - Login LockDown Options

Protect your wordpress account with Lockdrop Login. Do you use any other plugin to protect your account?

I have 5 more eBooks for you download and try. You could also view the rest of my free downloads to see what else you could need or use.

Profit Tricks

Create two versions of your e-zine so people can choose if they want ads included with it or not. This’ll attract the people who hate ads to subscribe. You could also charge a subscription fee to the e-zine without ads. This will make up for the lost advertising revenue.

Create a long-term relationship with your entire customer base. You can stay in touch with them through an e-zine, with greeting cards, opt-in lists,
autoresponders, messages boards, chat rooms, e-mail discussion lists, instant online messages, etc. When you stay in touch, people don’t forget about your business.

Ad Gladiator

Gauher Chaudhry has a resource that will give you the insider information that you need to create a killer solo ad using his unique success formula.

He calls this content-packed resource Ad Gladiator.

You will discover the success formula for solo ads that will help you create a KILLER solo ad campaign that will get you MORE traffic, MORE leads and MORE sales!

For the last six months, Gauher has studied, researched and dissected the best solo ads on the Internet and determined what has made them so wildly successful.  All of these top solo ads were created using the same principles that led to the creation of his success formula.

You can use this success formula to create solo ads that leave your prospects begging for more information. But be careful!  If you miss just one part of the success formula,  then your entire solo ad campaign could fall apart.

7 Ways to Get More Completely Free Web Traffic

This report contains 7 ideas for getting totally free traffic to your website.More Traffic = More Sales = More Profit

All 7 of the ideas listed are effective methods of traffic generation that will also help you to be seen as more of an expert in your field.

30 Tips for eBook Authors

Writing Isn’t Nearly As Hard As You Think… If You Know A Few “Tricks Of The Trade”
5 super-hot topics to write about!

• 7 ultra productive brainstorming strategies
• “In the know” organizing techniques!
• The “fill in the blanks” easy writing method!
• Many more golden nuggets for writers!

How to Create an eCourse in One Day

If your emails aren’t opened, it doesn’t matter how good the offer inside is. Make sure you have the best possible chance to get your message read with Subject Line Secrets. Grab your copy today.

Final Thought

I hope you enjoyed all these free downloads and that they either help you or your business grow. All feedback is welcomed and apprecitaed.

So, this is the first post about newest WordPress plugins for November. Have a look and let me know if you are using them or trying them out.

Sectionize
Takes HTML content which contains flat heading elements inline with paragraphs and automatically nests them withing HTML5 elements.

NoAutoP
Adds the function “thecontentnoautop” which doesn’t include a paragraph tag automatically with the post content.

MATRIX GALLERY
With this plugin you can create 3D photo galleries or menus from the images in a folder. To display the plugin in your Posts type [matrix_gallery ID], where ID is the carousel ID.

WordPress Plugin - Matrix Gallery

BuddyPress Friends On-line (FOL)
Will display on your Friends page in a widget under the search field currently on-line friends. Data is dynamically updated.

My Live Signature
Adds a real, true and personal signature to your posts, pages and content. This plugin allows you to easily use your free or animated live personal signature on your blog.

The plugin is extremely easy to use and allows a lot of option to integrate your signature into your blog. You can choose the signature location (i.e. at the end of each post, at the end of a page or anywhere in your posts), you can choose a different signature to each area and much more!

Static Toolbar
Static Toolbar displays a static toolbar in the bottom of the page, which may contain last posts, rss feed, search engine, social network and sharing links.

WordPress Plugin - Static Toolbar

Random Post Link
Unlike the Random Redirect plugin, this plugin ensures that a user will not see the same post twice.

It does this by keeping a list of single posts that the user has seen and then checking that list when redirecting.

WoW Blockquotes
Add a Warcraft forum blue post blockquote to your selected text by easily adding tags and changing font color.

WordPress Plugin - WoW Blockquotes

Final Thought

I hope you enjoyed this weeks plugins and that you maybe try a few out. I would like to know any feedback you have concerning these plugins.

Well, October is over and a new month is upon us, one step closer to Christmas. It’s time to reflect on what happened in the month of October and hope to give you guys a better perspective on Serradinho Blog. Whats happening and how are statistics and all, hope you all enjoy

Posts from the Month:

Well, if you are not new here, then you know I do weekly roundups of posts on a Monday. They have posts published on this blog as well as great reads from other bloggers.

• Serious Monday Roundup #12
• Serious Monday Roundup #13
• Serious Monday Roundup #14

Or you can view our monthly round up of posts  Serious Monthly Roundup – October 2009.

Usage:

I know my site usage is not hectic and still has lots to increase by, but I am trying my best and I know it will get better.

• Visits: 4,679 (Previous – 4,420)
• Pages: 11,803 (Previous – 13,325)
• Pages/Visit: 2.52 (Previous – 3.01)
• Bounce: 66.08% (Previous – 59.57%)
• Average time: 3:49 (Previous – 5:12)
• New visits: 63.20% (Previous – 62.22%)

Banner ads:

These are banners in my sidebar and at the footer. The banner ads range from 125×125, 120×240 and 115×30. I put back Google Adsense on posts, lets see if my adsense increases or not

• Thesis: 197
• StudioPress theme: 145
• Free Pixel site: 131
• Elegant theme: 114
• OIO Publisher: 111

Traffic:

1. Google / Organic: 43.39%
2. Direct: 21.86%
3. yahoo / Organic: 2.49%
4. stumbleupon referal: 1.99%
5. diythemes.com referal: 2.49%

Browsers:

It’s funny to see that Chrome and Safari are catching up to IE. I would like to see it some time next year. Please remember that this is for my blog.

1. Firefox: 62.83%
2. IE: 17.27%
3. Chrome: 10.47%
4. Safari: 6.24%
5. Opera: 1.26%

Free Downloads

As some of you already know, I have many free downloads available ranging from ebooks, plr articles, images and graphics and WordPress. Below are a few stats that might interest you.

Overall Totals:

• Total Hits: 76,851 (Previuos – 70,171)

Category Totals:

• eBook Hits: 27,169 (Previuos -25,052)
• PLR Articles Hits: 20,598 (Previuos -18,101)
• Images and Graphics Hits: 7,333 (Previuos -6,909)
• WordPress Hits: 21,652 (Previous – 20,109)

So make sure you stop by and never miss any new dowmloads, use them or share them. It’s cool

Income:

• Google Adsense: $3
• Services Rendered: $96

That makes my total income for Otoberber 2009, a minimum of only  $99. This is very low, but I have one project that should make it up. Lets just say that it’s a due payment

Anyways, my traffic from search engines is doing well for me, thanks to you all

So, here is another theme by Elegant themes. This one is called Glow and seems to have a nice clean look packed with many features for the users.

My previous post about Elegant themes shows others themes that they offer. Go have a look as there might be a theme that you can use.

With its bright colours, bold text and flashy design, Glow is a great theme for anyone looking to make an impact!

I really like the featured posts on top as well as the tabs for recent posts, popular posts and recent comments. The rest of the theme is straight forward and very simple to use and follow, this should help out many users thinking of adding another theme to their collection.

Preview of Elegant Glow theme and see it in action.

Feature list:

• Opera compatible
• Netscape compatible
• Safari compatible
• Wordpress 2.8 compatible
• Four Color Schemes (purple, red, blue and green)
• Threaded Comments
• Optional Blog-style Structure
• Gravatar ready
• Firefox compatible
• IE8 + IE7 + IE6 compatible
• Advertisement Ready
• Widget ready sidebars
• Theme Options Page
• Custom thumbnail images
• PSD files
• Valid XHTML + CSS
• Smooth tabless design

Final Thought

I think the theme is really well worked and it could work for some users out there. Go have a look and let me know what you think of it. What you like and dislike, all feedback welcomed.

If you have missed any of October’s great posts, then this post will help you identify popular posts from last month. October was a very slow month for me.

Blog Updates

Layout and Design changes for Serradinho
Some might have noticed the changes to the layout and design of Serradinho. I have been busy with last few days with it and trying my best to make my blog as unique as possible.

Monday Roundups

Serious Monday Roundup #12
Serious Monday roundup #12 ending 4th October 2009. A roundup of previous weeks posts as well as great reads that I would like to share with you.

Serious Monday Roundup #13
Serious Monday roundup #13 ending 11th October 2009. A roundup of previous weeks posts as well as great reads that I would like to share with you.

Serious Monday Roundup #14
Serious Monday roundup #14 ending 25th October 2009. A roundup of previous weeks posts as well as great reads that I would like to share with you.

WordPress

Plugin Review: Cute Profiles
I am going to be doing another review of a WordPress plugin. This plugin is Cute Profiles. A plugin that allows you to bring all your Social Profiles at one location.

WordPress 2.8.5 is Out – Protection Upgrade
I woke this morning to a notification about a new version of WordPress. Yes, that’s right. We are now at version 2.8.5 and this version is for protection purposes so upgrade ASAP.

Newest WordPress Plugins 08/10
Here are this weeks WordPress plugins 08/10. I tried to get some screen shots of the plugins, but not all had. They are in no particular order, just listed.

Plugin Review: WP Portfolio
I am going to be doing another review of a WordPress plugin. This plugin is WP Portfolio. A plugin that allows you to show off your portfolio through a single page on your wordpress blog with automatically generated thumbnails.

Does your blog have a Contact Form?
This seems to be a straight forward question and it should have a straight forward answer, but I have seen some blogs not having a way to contact the webmaster/owner.

Newest WordPress Plugins 29/10
Here are this weeks WordPress plugins 29/10. I tried to get some screen shots of the plugins, but not all had. They are in no particular order, just listed.

Guest Posts

EasyComment to assist you in Commenting
If you are on Firefox, you can make use of the EasyComment extension. This extension helps you to easily complete this task with a click. Post by John Samuel and has +25 comments.

How Much Promotion Does Your Blog Require?
Come and read about how much blog promotion and marketing tips one needs to make it in the internet world. Post by Anand Srinivasan and has +10 comments.

Thesis Theme

Thesis Tutorial – Styling of Note, Alert and other boxes in posts
The boxes don’t normally have images in and this post will show you how to add an image on the left and have the wording displayed on the right hand side. The two examples I’m showing are the note and alert boxes, but you could create other boxes for any other reason.

Downloads

eBooks – Help you with your Business
Another 4 free downloads for you to try out. eBooks are Profit 13 Ways, AdSwap Master Class, Confessions of a Joint-Venture Broker and 10 Ways to Enhance Your Business.

eBooks – 4 Exciting Free Downloads
Some new ebooks for you to download. eBooks covered are GPS for Newbies, Auto Sound System, The Art of Buying a Car and Home Chef Kitchen Management.

eBooks – 5 More Mixed Free Downloads
Some new ebooks for you to download. eBooks covered are Flipping Content for Profits, Top 10 Google Ranking, Zero to Fifty in 30 Days, 500 Questions That Sell Like Crazy and Free Blogging for Profits.

eBooks – Backyard Play Ideas for Children & Get Rid of Stretch Marks
Some new ebooks for you to download. eBooks covered are Backyard Play Ideas for Children and Get Rid of Stretch Marks. Come and download them now!

eBooks – Halloween and Self Help Tips & Tactics
I have 3 more eBooks for you download and try. They are History about Halloween & 350 Powerful Self Help Tips & Tactics. Come and get them today.

Personal

It’s my birthday and I just hit the BIG 30
I thought it would be nice if I wrote a post to say Happy Birthday to myself as I have just reached the big milestone of 30. Can you believe it, 30 down and at least another 30 is on the cards for me.

So, I received an email from a user asking how I did the full width header image and menu on the blog. I have set up this post especially for this purpose and I will try and explain what to do.

For this tutorial, I have manually set the top and bottom menu items that must be displayed. One could use the normal thesis menu if you really wanted to. One would have to edit the CSS styling then for menu.

You will have to set your site to be full width. You can go to ‘Thesis Design‘ and change ‘Framework Options‘.

So, what’s with my menu’s:

1. Top menu (pages) – show page links and a search form to the right. When hovering over link, show line underneath.
2. Bottom menu (categories) – show certain category links. When hovering over link, highlight background colour.

Please remember to backup your original custom_functions.php and custom.css file.

The CSS details below are for the header and title area as well as for the two menu bars that appear (above and below the the header). This must be copied to your custom.css file. You can change the font and background colours to match up with your site.

.custom #header_area {display:none;}
.custom #header #logo, .custom #header #tagline {text-indent: -9999px;}
.custom #header #tagline {height: 0;}
.custom #header {padding: 0;}
.custom #title_area {background: #7BAAD9; padding:0 0 0; border-bottom:0px solid #c55;}
.custom #title_area2 {background: #444343; padding:0 0 0; border-bottom:0px solid #c55;}

/* TOP MENU BY THE HEADER */
#top_menu_container {height: 30px;background: #444343; margin-top:0px;}
#top_menu_container input, textarea {background:#EEEEEE none repeat scroll 0 0; border-color:#AAAAAA #DDDDDD #DDDDDD #AAAAAA; border-style:solid; border-width:1px; width: 19.5em; height:1.6em; color:#444444; font-size:1.1em;}
#top_menu {height: 30px;}
#top_menu , #top_menu ul {padding: 0; margin: 0; list-style: none; line-height: 1;}
#top_menu ul {float: left; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;}
#top_menu li {float: left; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;}
#top_menu ul li {list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;}
#top_menu li a {color: #FFFFFF; display: block; margin: 3px 3px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
#top_menu li a:hover {color: #FFFFFF; display: block; margin: 3px 3px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; text-decoration: underline;}

/* CATEGORY MENU BY THE HEADER */
#category_menu_container {height: 30px;background: #444343; margin-top:0px;}
#category_menu_container input, textarea {background:#EEEEEE none repeat scroll 0 0; border-color:#AAAAAA #DDDDDD #DDDDDD #AAAAAA; border-style:solid; border-width:1px; width: 19.5em; height:1.6em; color:#444444; font-size:1.1em;}
#category_menu {height: 30px;}
#category_menu, #category_menu ul {padding: 0; margin: 0; list-style: none; line-height: 1;}
#category_menu ul {float: left; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;}
#category_menu li {float: left; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;}
#category_menu ul li {list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;}
#category_menu li p {color: #fff; display: block; margin: 3px 3px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
#category_menu li a, #category_menu li a:link {color: #fff; display: block; margin: 3px 3px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
#category_menu li a:hover {background: #7BAAD9; color: #FFFFFF; display: block; margin: 3px 3px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; text-decoration: none; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:4px; -moz-border-radius-bottomright:4px; -moz-border-radius-topleft:4px; -moz-border-radius-topright:4px; -webkit-border-top-left-radius:4px; -webkit-border-top-right-radius:4px; -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:4px; -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:4px;}

The following is the function that I used in the custom_functions.php file. This is a very simple function. You will see I removed the normal thesis navigation menu as I have created the menu within the function.

remove_action('thesis_hook_before_header', 'thesis_nav_menu');
add_action('thesis_hook_before_html', 'full_width_header');

function full_width_header() { ?>

 <div id="title_area2" class="full_width">
    <div class="page">
       <div id="top_menu_container">
       <ul id="top_menu">
       <li class="page_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/" title="Home" rel="nofollow">Home</a></li>
       <li class="page_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/blog" title="About Us">About Us</a></li>
       <li class="page_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/contact" title="Contact Us">Contact Us</a></li>
       <li class="page_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/advertise" title="Advertise">Advertise</a></li>
       <li class="page_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/submit-guest-post" title="Submit Guest Post">Submit Guest Post</a></li>
       <li class="page_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/services" title="Services">Services</a></li>
       <li class="page_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/blog/archives" title="Archives">Archives</a></li>
       </ul>
       <?php thesis_search_form(); ?>
       </div>
    </div>
 </div>

 <div id="title_area" class="full_width">
    <div class="page">
	<div id="header">
             <a href="http://www.serradinho.com/" alt="<?php bloginfo('name') ?>" /><img src="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/serradinho_logo_full4.png"></a>
	</div>
    </div>
 </div>

 <div id="title_area2" class="full_width">
    <div class="page">
       <div id="category_menu_container">
       <ul id="category_menu">
       <li class="cat-item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/thesis" title="Thesis">Thesis</a></li>
       <li class="cat-item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/themes" title="Themes">Themes</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/wordpress" title="WordPress">WordPress</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/downloads" title="Downloads">Downloads</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/featured" title="Featured">Featured</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/tutorials" title="Tutorials">Tutorials</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/guest-posts" title="Guest Posts" >Guest Posts</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/blogging-tips" title="Blog Tips">Blog Tips</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/link-love" title="Link Love">Link Love</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/reviews" title="Reviews">Reviews</a></li>
       <li class="cat_item"><a href="http://www.serradinho.com/Blog/category/personal" title="Personal">Personal</a></li>
       </ul>
       </div>
    </div>
 </div>

<?php }

Thesis Tutorials

I have a few other thesis theme tutorials that you could have a look at to help you make your site/blog as unique as possible. I know there are many posts by other sites also explaining what one can do, so make sure to do a search via Google.

Final Thought

I hope this tutorial has helped you understand what to do and how easy it is to make changes. Let me know if you need any additional help, I’m here to help.

Well, October is over now and we are in a new month. This is just a recap of last weeks posts. I hope you enjoyed some of them. So lets down to business and start listing them.

Best posts on Serradinho ending 2nd November 2009

Layout and Design changes for Serradinho
Some might have noticed the changes to the layout and design of Serradinho. I have been busy with last few days with it and trying my best to make my blog as unique as possible.

Plugin Review: Cute Profiles
I am going to be doing another review of a WordPress plugin. This plugin is Cute Profiles. A plugin that allows you to bring all your Social Profiles at one location.

Books – Halloween and Self Help Tips & Tactics
I have 3 more eBooks for you download and try. They are History about Halloween & 350 Powerful Self Help Tips & Tactics. Come and get them today.

Newest WordPress Plugins 29/10
Here are this weeks WordPress plugins 29/10. I tried to get some screen shots of the plugins, but not all had. They are in no particular order, just listed.

Great reads ending 2nd November 2009

1. 25 Top Blogs About Blogging – Once you get into the groove and start regularly reading articles on these sites, you will pick up on other best-practice bloggers via recommendations, advertisements, reviews, comments, forums and news alerts.
2. 3 Reasons a Small Business Should Blog – I think the points made in this document are relevant to all small business bloggers. It should also be food for thought for bloggers who want to grow into being professional.
3. Sponsored Tweets or Ad.ly – what is better for making money on Twitter? – Ad.ly is a new service that places in stream ads in your Twitter posts. Sponsored Tweets is very similiar to ad.ly but the major difference is that you get payed per tweet not by campaign.
4. 16 Reasons Commenting on Your Blog Sucks – Leaving comments is a big part of blogging, networking and generating fresh traffic to your blog, I highly suggest that every blogger comment on other blogs.
5. Bloggers With Authority Are Made For Success - You might be knowing many bloggers with authority; we have seen how efficiently they manage their blogs & how successfully they run their blogs and receive massive amount of traffic.
6. 7 Basic Tips For Improving Your Blog’s Alexa Rank – Now in this article I’ll share some tips to improve the Alexa rank of your blog.
7. Is This Where You Waste Your Time? – Because of this it is important to always have a todo-list so you know what you should be doing. Another important thing is to get rid of all distractions, which can be a bit tricky if you do not know what is distracting you.
8. The Definitive List of Thesis Theme Tutorials – The Thesis Theme Community of users has rallied together to create some fantastic tutorials for newbie Thesis Theme users and experienced website coders alike.
9. 10 Reasons You Should Do a Weekly Recap on Your Blog – Basically my weekly recap includes some of the most popular posts on Extreme John as well as links to some of my favorite blog articles that I read throughout the week on other blogs, I often leave comments on those blogs as well.

Final Thought

I hope you enjoyed last weeks details and that you have some kind of feedback for me. There were so many great reads by other bloggers, I had a tough time eliminating some.

I have 2 more eBooks for you download and try. The one would help many of us. You could also view the rest of my free downloads to see what else you could need or use.

The History of Halloween

Discover the True history of Halloween. If you never knew and were curious, then this will enlighten you with the facts of Halloween based on history.

When you think of Halloween, what springs to mind? For most of us in America, Halloween night is a time of fun and frolic for both young and old alike. People of all ages come out and dress up in unique costumes as whoever, or, whatever they desire one night of the year.

A moment to forget about the everyday grind and stresses that await the morning after, or is it an evil, outlandish ritual that should never be participated in being avoided at all costs.

Learn:

• The ancient roots of Halloween
• Bringing Halloween to America
• Early Halloween celebration customs
• Today’s’ Halloween Customs

350 Powerful Self Help Tips & Tactics

In this unique package, you’ll receive a set 7 reports in 7 different topics, all targeted to helping YOU improve your life. Just imagine having a more happier life where you’re attracting more of the things you want in your life.

Each report details 50 tips and tactics you can use right now.

• Wealth Tactics
• Better Health Tactics
• Time Management Tactics
• Relationship Improvement Tactics
• Vision Board Tactics
• Spiritual Tips
• The Law of Attraction Tactics

Final Thought

Try them out and let me know what you think, you could even distribute them to your own readers. I’m dying to hear your feedback.

Here are this weeks newest WordPress plugins. Have a look and let me know if you are using them or trying them out.

BP Paginated Posts
If you’re using BuddyPress and displaying site wide posts, this plugin is a necessary replacement for the one that comes packaged with BuddyPress. The widget options include title, posts per page, and previous and next link titles.

WordPress Plugin - BP Paginated Posts

WP-Drag2Share
Is a simple tool to share a post easily by drag and drop, this plugin supports social networks like Twitter, Delicious and Facebook.

WordPress Plugin - WP-Drag2Share

Custom Login Page
With the Custom Login Page, you can change the background image of your login page, the background image/colo of your login form div, the main logo image of your login page, and add custom CSS. All through a simple interface. Remember to view the Help tab at the top of the settings page for the plugin.

WordPress Plugin - Custom Login Page

TwitterPad
Is an automatic RSS-to-page plugin designed to integrate with twitter. This plugin allows the user to add a number of custom search strings from search.twitter.com specifying which page new tweets should be added to. For example, using ‘from:{yourtwittername} #tp’ I can collect all of my tweets which have been tagged #tp.

You are also not just limited to collecting your own tweets, any search string will work. The plugin was designed to automatically collect tweets I wanted to save for future reference (a tweet pad) and the page you collect tweets to doesn’t have to be public. The plugin allows you to update any page in your blog, even if it is private.

UnShorten
When you use tweets in your blog, you will probably have loads of shortened urls like me – bit.ly, su.pr is.gd… But your blog readers would probably rather see the real address. Me too. While this feature is integrated in loads of twitter clients, it’s not yet in Wordpress.

Oh, hold on, now it is! UnShorten will look at any link that has the link text the same as the URL and will try to expand the URL. The hyperlink URL will stay the same but the link text will change to the real, un-shortened link.

MightyReach for WordPress
Displays your Feedburner and Twitter stats on your dashboard.

eCSStender
This plugin uses the eCSStender javascript Library. This library is a parser that takes your CSS after the browser. The library re-interprets the css using the plugins and adds new abilities to the browsers.

You can for example add CSS3 Selectors support to IE6. It will be less a Pain to develop a theme for IE6 or other browsers now.

Final Thought

I hope you enjoyed this weeks plugins and that you maybe try a few out. I would like to know any feedback you have concerning these plugins.

Some might have noticed the changes to the layout and design of Serradinho. I have been busy with last few days with it and trying my best to make my blog as unique as possible.

This will be a short post just to note down what I have done and I hope you all like the new look.

Ok, so have I done the following:

1. Changed the top menu to have a few links and search box on the right.
2. Added a background image to the blog – let me know what you think of it.
3. Added extra links on homepage, archive, category and posts pages (opinions, add opinion, etc).
4. Changed links when hovering over them to be dark blue with white font.
5. Changed my footer to have minimal links and no widgets.
6. Added posts tags at the bottom of posts.
7. Sidebar widget styling – changed the background and small things within the widget area.
8. Updated author bio to include link to author posts as well as a link to their website.
9. Added small banner ads below the comment form.
10. Changed the styling of trackbacks from other sites – background and font colour.

Final Thought

Although I have not posted much, I have been busy with the layout of the blog. I hope the changes are liked by both the readers and new comers. Your feedback would be appreciated, so be sure to leave your opinion below.

Well, here I am doing another WordPress plugin review and this time it’s a cool feature which could bring something different to your site. I have written a post about how to have floating icons for Thesis theme, which is similar in a way.

The plugin today is called Cute Profiles by clickonf5.org. It’s a free Wordpress Plugin which will bring all your Social Profiles at one location i.e. either left or right side of your blog pages in a well decent floating manner, saving your sidebar or footer space for ads or other important data and widgets.

WP Plugin Review - Cute Pofiles Example

Below are the details related to this plugin, by clicking on each tab you can see that particular detail as well.

Some of the important features:

• Choice for Themes and Sizes for the Icons – so select as per your blog theme.
• Fully customizable CSS
• No jQuery or any javascript library. Fully CSS based design and implementation. So no header load.
• Directly enter the URL of the profile page on the Cute Profiles settings page
• Setting to change the Profile links to dofollow or nofollow
• Currently 50 different Social Profiles covered, will definitely increase in the future.
• And the most important, we try to provide the best of our support!

Installation

This plugin is easy to install like other plug-ins of Wordpress as you need to just follow the below mentioned steps:

• Copy Folder ‘cute-profiles’ from the downloaded and extracted file.
• Paste it in ‘wp-Content/plugins’ folder on your Wordpress Installation
• Activate the plugin from Dashboard / Plugins window.
• Now Plugin is Activated, Go to the Usage section to see how to use Cute Profiles.

WP Plugin Review - Cute Pofiles Admin Example

WP Plugin Review - Cute Pofiles Admin Example

Final Thought

I like the plugin and think it would help many out that need to share their social profiles with others. Are you using this plugin? Have you heard of it before? Would you use it now? Let me know what you think of it, your feedback is always welcomed.

The forth Monday of October and this means that we are almost finished with October. This is just a recap of last weeks posts. I hope you enjoyed some of them.

Although my posting has slowed down a lot, I have had two guest posts here and I’m happy that it’s starting to take off.

Best posts on Serradinho ending 25th October 2009

eBooks – Help you with your Business
Another 4 free downloads for you to try out. eBooks are Profit 13 Ways, AdSwap Master Class, Confessions of a Joint-Venture Broker and 10 Ways to Enhance Your Business.

WordPress 2.8.5 is Out – Protection Upgrade
I woke this morning to a notification about a new version of WordPress. Yes, that’s right. We are now at version 2.8.5 and this version is for protection purposes so upgrade ASAP.

Does your blog have a Contact Form?
This seems to be a straight forward question and it should have a straight forward answer, but I have seen some blogs not having a way to contact the webmaster/owner.

EasyComment to assist you in Commenting
In Essential Blogging Tips Part 2, Serradinho pointed out the importance of interacting with commentators and the building up of a community. Wordpress plugins like CommentLuv encourages commentators to comment in your blogs. Guest post by John Samuel.

Great reads ending 25th October 2009

1. Optimize And Cleanup Your Wordpress Database Easily – WP-Optmize is a great plugin for wordpress blogs that is a database cleanup and optimization tool. It allows you t cleanup your database by removing post revisions, comments in the spam queue, un-approved comments within few clicks. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to optimize your database tables.
2. The 5 Best Blogs to Improve Your Writing – If you’ve been around the internet for any period of time then you’ve probably heard it repeated: Content is King.  In fact, many of us have heard it so many times that it probably sounds redundant.  Yet there are so many people who still don’t get it.
3. How To Promote Your Blog Offline – Here are a few efficient offline marketing tactics to promote your blog.
4. What Dwarf are you? – Think about it. If you were one of Disney’s Seven Dwarfs which of the Seven Dwarfs would you be?
5. 7 Great Tips For Writing A Killer Blog Article – Killer blog post is a key to traffic on a blog that could be written so well and it should contain all the flavors that are needed by the general audience.
6. Quick Tip – Where Not To Display Adsense Ads – When selling your own product or promoting affiliate products, DON’T put ads for your competition on the same pages you are trying to promote those products on.
7. Question : How to Start with Professional Blogging? – Is  it possible to Migrate from Wordpress.com to Self hosted Wordpress blog?
8. How Much Are The Ads On Your Blog Worth? – So how do we determine the real value of our ad placements on our sites?  Check out these four factors to determine your ad values.
9. 6 Best Free WordPress Plugins for Advertising – I have listed below the top 6 free WordPress Plugins according to me that can be used for advertising in websites.
10. Wamp not Starting in Windows Problem – Last time when I wrote about How to Install wordpress locally many people reported that they have done every thing right, but wamp is not starting for them. When they click on Start all service under Wamp, nothing happens.
11. How I got started with my Google Wave Preview! – When you first log into Google Wave, you may wonder, what do I do next?
12. A to E of Blogging Tips And Tricks – Now that you intend becoming a professional blogger, you will need to remember some basic tips and tricks to make life easier. Glossary of blogging tips and tricksWhether you are just starting out or are a seasoned blogger, you need to make sure you don’t become complacent and go into ‘auto-pilot’ – acting without thinking – too often!
13. Why do all the blog ad networks suck? – The top three blog ad networks out there right know are Entrecard, Adgitize and CMF Ads.  They all are getting worse over time and I am not happy with any of them right now.

Final Thought

I hope you enjoyed last weeks details and that you have some kind of feedback for me. There were so many great reads by other bloggers, I had a tough time eliminating some.

In Essential Blogging Tips – Part 2, Serradinho pointed out the importance of interacting with commentators and the building up of a community. Wordpress plugins like CommentLuv encourages commentators to comment in your blogs.

Now that is with respect to attracting comments on your blogs. But now the ball is in your court and you have to make a choice of blogs to comment on. You should not randomly choose some blogs for commenting; rather look for blogs of your niche. You can even choose blogs of your interest unrelated to your blogging area. Once you have made your choice, it’s time to start commenting.

The first step (some may feel this as an hindrance) in commenting is to give your contact details like your Name, Email address and Website. This is a repetitive step before commenting on any blog.

What if your browser does this step? Yes, you read it right. If you are on Firefox, you can make use of the EasyComment extension. This extension helps you to easily complete this task with a click.

After installation of the extension, it appears on the right side of the status bar.

Right click and Open ‘Manage Profiles’. Fill in the details like Name, Website and Email. Give a name to your profile.

And you are done. Go to any blog and reading a post. If you want to post a comment, click easyComment on the status bar. And you will see your contact details filled up. Write your comment and submit.

Some other unique features of easyComment is that you can manage multiple profiles. If you write blogs on different topics, you want to give some other contact details. Repeat the above step of creating a profile to make one more profile.

Now choose the relevant profile (this time right clicking easyComment on the status bar) based on blog profile.

easyComment allows you to even enter a default comment. Though this is a great feature, since it helps you to comment “Great Post” on posts. I personally feel this should not be misused.

easyComment helps you in building the Community by assisting you in commenting. Make the most of it without abusing the benefits.

Some new ebooks for you to download, try them out and let me know what you think. I’m sure you can use them or even share them with your readers/friends.

10 Ways to Enhance Your Business

This report is going to discuss 10 important, and possible crucial facts/ideas that if implemented, will increase your business as well as your profits.

Here they are:

• PRIORITIZE
• ADD A NEW MARKETING TECHNIQUE TO YOUR ROUTINE
• START OUTSOURCING
• GET INVOLVED WITH VIDEO MARKETING!
• GOING OFFLINE
• ADD A NEW INCOME STREAM TO YOUR BUSINESS (NEW NICHE)
• PROSPECT
• THE ‘DOUBLE’ EFFECT
• GET WITH THE TIMES!
• LEARN A NEW SKILL THIS YEAR

Confessions of a Joint-Venture Broker

Here Are Some Of The Joint-Venture Secrets You’ll Discover In This Exclusive Audio!

• The secret to using leverage to develop killer joint ventures (This is something most newbie marketers don’t realize that could catapult your chances of making HUGE money with joint-ventures!)
• How Russell’s Dad made over $6000 in a single month as a joint-venture broker – the BEST way to get into internet marketing if you have NO experience!
• The secret to pitting other marketers against each other when promoting a product (you’d be surprised at how competitive some marketers are and how it can make your wallet fatter!)
• The 3 levels you need to classify potential joint-venture broker partners (This is something almost ALL JV searchers fail to do!)
• How to develop killer relationships with potential marketers (Relationships are the #1 Key to making a huge joint-venture deal!)

AdSwap Master Class

Killer FREE, but highly powerful content that explains the insides and outs of Adswapping and how it willl transform your income…

• Your VERY OWN Product Worth $77 To Give Away To Attract Massive Subscriber Rates
• A Google 110 Page #1 product, currently selling ONLINE TODAY for $77, that you give away to build your list and “get known” for giving astonishing value (your subscribers will hang on every word you say)..
• Your VERY OWN Professionally Designed Custom Squeeze Page Temaplate That Sucks Up subscribers Like A Sponge!
• My in-house graphics guy has bust his n***s for you (I’m not kiddng!) This 40% conversion custom squeezepage will tempt almost anyone to give you their name and email… and thank you for doing it!

Profit 13 Ways

When I first started out in the IM niche back in June 2007 I was complete newbie and I didn’t have a clue.

During my first month I made $7,230.95 in online profits but I did more things wrong than I did right. My sales copy was atrocious. The emails I sent were disjointed and full of hype. And my sales funnel was non-existent.

Back then even the most basic technical tasks escaped me and people laugh when I tell the story that it was January 2008 before I learnt how to do FTP (I wish I was joking). If someone would have suggested I need a new ‘backend’ I would have slapped them for suggesting my bum was too big! I didn’t understand the terminology and I had only the most basic grasp of marketing too.

Final Thought

I hope you enjoyed these 4 free downloads. I have a few more scheduled that will be published soon, so make sure to come back and download them.