Vladimir Prelovac is the author of WordPress Plugin Development: Beginner’s Guide and popular articles about WordPress optimization, security and maintenance. He is @vprelovac on Twitter.
WordPress has become one of the most widely spread blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet today. With the huge number of existing WordPress powered sites, from personal blogs to corporate solutions, the demand for WordPress plugin developers has increased largely over the past year and is still strong despite the economic crisis.
So for all WordPress plugin developers out there, from newbies to professionals, here are the top 10 tips to make your job easier.
1. Speed up development using the Ubiquity Firefox add-on
Ubiquity is a cutting edge add-on for Firefox, developed by Mozilla Labs. Ubiquity allows you to search WordPress and PHP documentation in an instant using these two plugins: PHP Search and WP Codex Search.
Ubiquity is also a mashup of a growing number of creative ideas, and some of them could be interesting to transform into a new WordPress plugin.
2. Need a plugin idea? Use the official Ideas forum
It is important for a plugin developer to keep creating plugins, just as it is important for theme developers to produce new themes. Sometimes you will have trouble thinking of new ideas for plugins and this is where WordPress plugin ideas forum comes in. With thousands of plugin ideas posted at this moment, you will have no problem finding a few for your new plugin.
3. Use the WordPress Plugin Directory
WordPress provides a free home for any plugin at the WordPress Plugin Directory.
Hosting a plugin at the plugin directory has several advantages:
- You do not pay for hosting and bandwidth
- You get SVN repository to manage your plugin versions
- You get free download statistics
- You get free promotion for your plugins
The best thing is that setting it up does not take more than half an hour. You can find detailed instructions in the Developer Center.
4. Invest time in making a proper readme.txt file
A readme.txt file should be a part of every plugin distribution. Time invested in creating one will be well worth it in the long run.
The most obvious advantage of a good readme.txt is that the plugin will have more downloads, as users are inclined to download plugins with good descriptions, installation instructions and screenshots. The second advantage is not so obvious. If your plugin becomes popular you will start getting a lot of support questions which with time you won’t be able to handle - having a good readme file will to a certain extent help you avoid this situation.
The WordPress Developer Center offers a standard readme.txt file which is a good base to build your own on.
5. Promote Your Plugin
Once you are done with your plugin you want to ensure maximum exposure and downloads. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Head to the WordPress Plugins and Hacks forums.
2. Create a new topic, for example: [New plugin: Insights]
3. Use a simple but informative template to describe your plugin release: Plugin Name: Insights
Plugin URL: http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/insights
Description: Insights brings a powerful new way to write your blog posts. It increases productivity and at the same time the appeal of your posts.4. Visit the Weblog Tools Collection forum and create a topic there as well, using the same template. After the Weblog Tools Collection team reviews the topic, it should be added to their regular plugin news post, which appears on the dashboard of every WordPress user.
5. Add your plugin to wp-plugins.net. This is another place where users will look for a plugin.
6. Add your plugin to the WordPress Plugin Compatibility list. You need to register before you can add changes to the list.
7. Announce the plugin on your blog.
6. Enhance plugin security by using nonces
Nonce stands for number used once and is a very effective way of securing your plugin against a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) hacking attack.
Luckily, implementing nonces in your plugins is a matter of a few minutes of work. To get started, check WordPress documentation, which has examples of implementation.
7. Mind your database queries
Make sure you use functions provided by WordPress to create database queries and insert/update information. These functions are $wpdb->prepare(), $wpdb->insert() and $wpdb->update(). This will ensure your queries are properly escaped.
Also check out a nifty slideshow presentation on WordPress security by Mark Jaquith presented at WordCamp SF 2008.
8. Don’t forget the optimization
WordPress plugins can sometimes be a real resource hog. To make sure your plugin isn’t, you need to localize the usage of resources, by loading them only when you need them.
You can use the following example to execute certain code (like declare additional actions and filters) only when WordPress is loading plugins.php page (list of installed plugins in the backend):
$local_pages=array(’plugins.php’); // define pages we want the plugin to be activated on
if (in_array($pagenow, $local_pages))
{
// do stuff here
}
Similar to this, you should pay attention to load JavaScript files only when you need them.
9. Properly load JavaScript with wp_enqueue_script
If you are using external JavaScript files, these should be invoked using wp_enqueue_script() function. If you want to pass variables to your JavaScript from your plugin, you should use wp_localize_script() function. It not only makes it easier to handle and change but also ensures maximum compatibility for your plugin in the future.
Read the official function reference.
10. How to handle freelance work
The best way to start getting work is to create a couple of free plugins, publish them in the WordPress directory and promote them.
After some time, you may be approached by parties interested in custom development. When that happens and a deal is made, do not be afraid to ask for part of the payment upfront. In fact that will signal to the client you mean business, and if they agree it will signal to you that they mean business too. Make sure to pick your hourly rate, considering the market and your ambitions, and stick to it. Be consistent and honest about it and the clients will appreciate it.
Vladimir Prelovac is the founder of Cleveritics.com, author of WordPress Plugin Development: Beginner’s Guide book and popular articles about WordPress SEO, website optimization, customization, security and maintenance. He actively uses WordPress platform as a base for Internet enterprise strategy for small & mid-sized businesses. If you wish to contact Vladimir, you can find him at his blog or at @vprelovac.
Reviews: Firefox, PHP, Twitter, Ubiquity, WordPress
PollDaddy is already serving up about 200 million impressions per month with its polling widget, most of which actually come from external applications that have privately been using the company’s API. Today, that API is going public, so that any developer can integrate polls into their apps.
As you might remember, we used PollDaddy on Mashable for the Open Web Awards. After voting in a poll on our site, you were given the option to post your vote to Twitter. That’s the type of application made possible with PollDaddy’s API, since both the creation of the poll and the results are yours to play with.
Other companies already using the PollDaddy API include SproutBuilder, Seesmic, and another company under the Automattic umbrella - IntenseDebate. We mentioned IntenseDebate’s integration last week, when the comment system rolled out a development platform of its own that includes a PollDaddy plugin that lets blog readers create a poll in the comments.
Further leveraging its relationship with Automattic, there is also a PollDaddy plugin for WordPress that lets you create polls from the Dashboard.
Developers that want to try out the platform can register for an API key here.
Additional WordPress Resources
- WORDPRESS GOD: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog
Most of us have thrown ourselves into the micro-blogging craze with a full-steam ahead mentality, and some of us have let our blogs suffer as a result. I know I’m guilty as charged.
Crafty WordPress bloggers, however, can take back their blog and keep it fresh with their activity from Twitter or FriendFeed with the new Fresh From FriendFeed and Twitter plugin. The plugin uses a “magical” formula to pull recent content from Twitter or FriendFeed, enhances it with relevant video or images, and creates a nice looking - no effort required - blog post.
It’s simple to get started, but once you install the add-on, you’ll want to tweak the features to work for you. On setup, select whether or not you want to show fresh content for FriendFeed or Twitter, enter your username (no passwords needed), select total number of posts, determine how fresh the content needs to be, and definitely select to show images from Twitpic and videos from YouTube.
Next, you’ll want to adjust a few more settings. For example, when dealing with FriendFeed, you can tell the plugin to pull content from the specific feeds you have configured, have it ignore certain services completely, and set maximum limits.
The add-on is not immediately self-explanatory, so we’ll spell a few key things you need to know. The total posts is not on a per day basis, it’s the maximum posts the plugin will add to your blog. We advise you to start slow to see what you think by including only 1 total post. If you do nothing else, “Fresh From” will automatically refresh the same post when there’s new activity.
If you want to keep a particular item you will need to edit the post within the WordPress dashboard and delete the custom Fresh From field (see image). Still have questions? Check out the FriendFeed FAQ room for help.
We really like the idea of keeping our personal blogs fresh with little to no effort, and we love that the final result includes video, images, and links back to the original entries. We hope to see a few more options included in the future, like the ability to have new items saved as drafts, but for now we’re fans and we’d love to know what you think. Will you be installing the plugin for your blog? Tell us in the comments.
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We recently compiled a list of 10 of the best WordPress 2.7 compatible themes, but it left some commenters asking, “Where are the free ones?”
We’ve gathered up 20 great free WordPress 2.7 compatible themes that are ready for you to download. These themes cover a wide variety of needs, layouts and customization, so this small sampling could provide you with hours of fun!
What are some of your favorite free WordPress themes?
2-Column WordPress 2.7 Themes
AdsPress - A Google AdSense friendly theme in a clean, fixed width design that has two banner placements and a text area for the ads. Has two columns and is widgetized and gravatar ready.
Artificial Intelligence - Fixed width, gravatar and widget ready, this theme changes it up a bit by putting the widget column on the left side of the content column with a header area for informational text.
Connections Reloaded - One of the best known WordPress themes out there as it has been around forever, Connections has been “reloaded” to work with 2.7, but is compatible with every version of the blogging platform since 1.5.
Deep Red - A very narrow fixed width theme, but has a really large emphasis on the categories by allowing them to take up a huge amount of the right column.
Google Chrome - Google Chrome has certainly become a popular web browser, and now you can carry that look and feel over to your blog with this Chrome inspired 2-column theme. A nice clean design, but probably not a good idea to load it up with a lot of flashy widgets in the sidebar.
Internet Sharing - While a fairly standard 2-column theme on its main page, the individual post pages is where it’s a bit different with a nicely contained and highlighted area for information about the post, social links and other information.
NewBlue - A fixed width theme with a clear, open design and a very unobtrusive blue motif. Has full Feedburner integration and really clear typography.
Premium News - A 2-column theme with a featured article panel at the top, two locations for 125X125 ads, slide out area for categories and archives. A fairly involved theme available for free.
Retrospective - A very open 2-column theme that has no visible boundaries between columns giving you the illusion of complete openness.
Typebased - A free 2-column theme with large, readable areas, four 125X125 ad spots, Flickr photo stream integration and other various goodies.
3-Column WordPress 2.7 Themes
AquaBlue - A 3-column with a bit of 2-column feel by the placement of four 125X125 ads in the top right corner, above the 2 sidebar columns.
Blog Oh Blog - While there has been a lot of debate if 3-columns is still a good idea, this one still has a feeling of some openness without overwhelming you. Widget-ready and includes a PSD file for changing the header.
Blue Grace - A nice wide-open content column is complimented by the two side columns that, while holding a lot of information, don’t overwhelm you. Colors can be customized by playing around with a PSD file, and it is released under the GPL license.
ClearPress - ClearPress may be the most unconventional 3-column I’ve ever seen. Not only is it bright, but the posts are divided over all three columns with widgets such as categories and recent posts being in a dropdown pullout that fully retracts into the header when not in use.
Fashionista - A fluid width 3-column which is unusual in this day and age of so many fixed width themes popping up around the web.
GenkiTheme - A 3-column theme that has a mix of fluid width for the content column, but both widgetized columns are fixed width. On the far left you have a sliding tab menu that is static when Javascript is turned off.
Limau Orange - When you think “orange,” you don’t always think of the most pleasing of web themes, but this one keeps it as a nice accent that never gets on your nerves. The two sidebars sandwich the content column on both sides, but it is still very readable.
Royale - Black themes aren’t always easy to carry out, but the Royale theme does it while still being very readable. The content column is fluid width while the sidebars are fixed, and highlight colors are easily changed. Overall, a lot of customizable features.
Miscellaneous WordPress 2.7 Layouts
Mandigo - Available in seven colors, 38 languages, customizable as 1-column, 2-columns and 3-columns, optional layouts of 800 wide or 1024 wide and several other options.
Wicked Lemon - While Wicked Lemon appears like your standard 2-column theme, which it is, it allows the reader to switch the color of the background using the colored boxes in the top right corner without any page reloading.
Interested in more WordPress resources? Check these out:
WordPress Themes: “Top 12 Stunning WordPress Themes“, “30+ WordPress 3 Column Themes,” “20 WordPress 4-Column Themes,” “30+ WordPress 1-Column Themes,” “10 Unusual & Original WordPress Themes,” “10 of the Best WordPress 2.7 Compatible Themes”
Plugins: “20+ Great WordPress 2.7 Compatible Plugins,” “50+ WordPress Plugins for Multimedia,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Statistics,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Comments,” “30+ WordPress Plugins to Get More Blog Readers”
Miscellaneous: “WordPress God: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog,” “The 7 Weirdest and Wackiest Uses for WordPress“
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WordPress 2.7 has finally hit, and the first thought on most people’s minds might be, “Will my favorite plugin work with it?” What follows is a list of over 20 great plugins that have already shown to work with 2.7 without any problems.
Some of these you are sure to have heard of, others may be new to you, and that shouldn’t stop you from trying them out. This is the perfect opportunity for you to explore new plugins that may improve your audience’s experience on your site.
What 2.7 compatible plugins are your favorite?
Add to Any - Social bookmarking, saving and subscription buttons optimized for WordPress, featuring Google Analytics integration, automatic updating and more.
Akismet - The most well known of the anti-spam plugins always comes packed with the latest version of WordPress, so it is always a given it is ready to go.
cforms II - An easy tool for creating submission forms on your site that can be inserted into posts and pages alike by just inserting a line of code.
Entries On Page X - Adds a link on your posts to the archive page so that people can look through your blog in a more chronological order.
FeedBurner FeedSmith - The essential plugin for anyone who wants to use FeedBurner to monitor their number of RSS subscribers.
Google Analyticator - Google Analyticator takes all the work out of adding Google Analytics to your site. Install the plugin, enter your tracking code in the settings, and this handy plugin will place the code where it needs to be no matter which theme you switch to.
jQuery Lightbox - A lightbox plugin that enlarges the image while darkening the background so you can see the picture better.
Google XML Sitemap - An essential plugin for bloggers to generate XML enabled sitemaps to aid with indexing by search engines like Google, MSN, Ask and more. This plugin has said 2.1 compatible for ages now, but it continues to work with the various updates.
MyAdsense - Allows you to manage your AdSense placement in your theme or posts from a centralized settings page.
Peter’s Case Insensitive Usernames - Tired of remembering if you created your account with Sean or sean? This plugin will let you sign in any way you want once it is installed.
PHP Code Widget - This plugin will allow you to post PHP snippets in your post and execute them.
Smart YouTube - Allows you to easily insert YouTube videos into posts, comments, RSS feeds, and gives you numerous options for customizing their display.
Podcasting - Gives you full podcasting support inside of WordPress with tools such as iTunes distribution, support for multiple formats, a built-in player and more.
@Reply \w comment preview -This plugin gives your comments a Twitter-like “@” reply system so that you can see with ease who is talking to who.
SendFeed - SendFeed reads your RSS feed and converts your posts into text and HTML emails to be sent out to your mailing list.
SEO Friendly Images - Assists with the automatic adding of ALT and TITLE tags to your images for better search engine placement.
WP Super Edit - Allows you to add even more features to the WordPress visual editor so you can have an easier time inserting even more HTML code into your posts.
Share This - ShareThis still leads the way in social media sharing, and while the little green button does not yet say it is 2.7 compatible, it is working none the less.
Site Maintenance -A handy plugin that puts up an “Under Construction” notice while you’re undergoing site maintenance or getting ready to release a new theme.
SMS Text Message - You can add a widget to your sidebar where users can enter their cell number to receive infrequent text message updates about what is new on your blog.
WebComic - Ever had a desire to create your own Web comic, but didn’t know how to build a site for it? WebComic will turn a WordPress site into your perfect answer complete with strip directory, character pages and more.
Interested in more WordPress resources? Check these out:
WordPress Themes: “Top 12 Stunning WordPress Themes“, “30+ WordPress 3 Column Themes,” “20 WordPress 4-Column Themes,” “30+ WordPress 1-Column Themes,” “10 Unusual & Original WordPress Themes”
Plugins: “50+ WordPress Plugins for Multimedia,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Statistics,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Comments,” “30+ WordPress Plugins to Get More Blog Readers.”
Miscellaneous: “WordPress God: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog,” “The 7 Weirdest and Wackiest Uses for WordPress“
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The new version of Wordpress - version 2.7, codenamed “Coltrane” - is now available, and I’ll skip to the part I think users will like the most: no more manual updates. That’s right, the new Wordpress now has an automatic update system which will notify you of new versions and let you upgrade your blog with a single click.
Of course, this won’t help much if you’ve messed with the code (like I always do), but at least you don’t have to go through the process of manually updating your blog every time a new version is out, which intimidates many users.
Other important changes are speed (Wordpress should now be all-around faster) and the ability to customize every screen. If you never use a certain option, you can now click on “Screen Options” and remove it, move it around, or turn it into an icon if your screen estate is limited.
For an introduction to new Wordpress features check out the video below, and you can download the new version here.
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The new version of Wordpress - version 2.7, codenamed “Coltrane” - is now available, and I’ll skip to the part I think users will like the most: no more manual updates. That’s right, the new Wordpress now has an automatic update system which will notify you of new versions and let you upgrade your blog with a single click.
Of course, this won’t help much if you’ve messed with the code (like I always do), but at least you don’t have to go through the process of manually updating your blog every time a new version is out, which intimidates many users.
Other important changes are speed (Wordpress should now be all-around faster) and the ability to customize every screen. If you never use a certain option, you can now click on “Screen Options” and remove it, move it around, or turn it into an icon if your screen estate is limited.
For an introduction to new Wordpress features check out the video below, and you can download the new version here.
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WordPress is quickly becoming the standard software for the majority of blogs. This fact makes every major release of the software seem like a huge event, but the thing is that this time it is. WordPress 2.7 comes with a huge number of changes, a good chunk of them making some older plugins redundant. This will be a huge upgrade for all blog owners.
The following lists 20 of the biggest changes coming, but all together there have been over 400 changes to the program this time around. Any way you slice it, there is a little bit of something for everyone in this release. Take a look through and you’re sure to find something that appeals to you.
Unfortunately this is only available for the blogs on WordPress.com for now, but it will be released for self-hosted blogs on December 10th.
What are the changes you are most excited about?
Comments
Close Comments On Old Posts - Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to continue letting comments come in on an old post, and it is a favorite trick of spammers anyway. WordPress 2.7 will allow you to close comments on older posts, eliminating the need for yet another plugin.
Comment Paging - Comments broken into pages instead of being a never ending bottom to your post.
Comment Replies From the Admin Section - A feature that has long been needed is the ability to reply to comments from your admin section without having to go to the front end of your blog.
Comment Threading - It’s not just admin comment replies that are getting love, but all comments will now be in a threaded format. Great for those long debates you get into about what “sux” or why someone is a “newb,” at last no one will be confused about to whom you are referring!
XMLRPC Comments API -Support for the XML-RPC protocol which is a simplified API that encodes your comments in XML and transports them via HTTP.
Keyboard Shortcuts For Comments -Once you’re in your comments, you can use the keys j and k to navigate through the comments. Once selected, some of the keys you can use will be “a” to approve, “s” to mark as spam and “d” to delete.
Theme & Plugin Related
One-Click Plugin Installs - Another long time plugin favorite is going the way of the dinosaurs with the introduction of the ability to install plugins from the dashboard.
Plugin Browser - Browsing for plugins, one of the favorite pastimes of many bloggers, will be made easier by being able to do it without ever leaving your WordPress install.
Sticky Posts - There have been numerous WordPress plugins over the years to make a post “sticky” so that it stays as the top post on your front page no matter how many posts you publish after it. The feature has now been built in to the core program.
Updating the Core WordPress - Yet another WordPress plugin finds its way into the core WordPress program. For those users who haven’t used something like Fantastico or Simple Scripts to install their blog, there will now be a more automated way for you to keep up with all of those pesky security updates.
Theme Update API Notices - You will receive updates when your installed themes are updated just like WordPress does now with plugins.
Greater Controls
Batch Editing for Posts - Ever needed to edit the tags for several posts, but couldn’t do it because of the work involved? Batch editing will now allow you to do mass edits of your posts so that you can make as many changes as you want to your blog no matter how old it is.
Column Control - On any management page that shows columns, you will now be able to choose which columns are shown and how.
Ping & Trackback Moderation - With the ever increasing wave of “splogs” trackbacking your blog, there will finally be moderation of them in a more manageable, frame-like format.
QuickPress - Ever wanted to just do a quick post without having to load the entire write page? Now you can directly from the Dashboard page with QuickPress.
Recent Drafts - There will now be a module on your dashboard to get to your most recent drafts so you can quickly get access to your posts that are in progress.
Other Tweaks
Dashboard and Write Rearrangements - There have been significant redesigns to navigation and general layouts of the dashboard and write pages.
PHPXref - Ever go slightly loopy trying to make sense of PHP files? PHPXref will help you by making PHP into easy to digest documents that you can read through. All of this will be hosted on WordPress.org.
Image Size Tweaks - Thumbnail and Medium commands will stay the same, but Large will now be restricted to 1024 pixels, or the constraints of your theme. If you want no restrictions and post insane sized pictures, you will now be able to select “Full Size” which will post your image at its original size. You will also now see the dimensions for each size next to the radio buttons.
Redundant Coding - Theme authors will be happy to see some changes to the wp_page_menu wrapper that will simplify their coding and add conveniences like making “Home” part of the list.
Interested in more WordPress resources? Check these out:
WordPress Themes: “Top 12 Stunning WordPress Themes“, “30+ WordPress 3 Column Themes,” “20 WordPress 4-Column Themes,” “30+ WordPress 1-Column Themes,” “10 Unusual & Original WordPress Themes”
Plugins: “50+ WordPress Plugins for Multimedia,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Statistics,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Comments,” “30+ WordPress Plugins to Get More Blog Readers.”
Miscellaneous: “WordPress God: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog,” “The 7 Weirdest and Wackiest Uses for WordPress“
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Bloggers can now add text-to-speech capabilities to their site with new tools such as Odiogo, allowing readers to actually listen to blog posts on the website, and even on iTunes (as well as iPods and iPhones) as a podcast.
While this is a cool feature for readers, it could be a very valuable tool for the visually impaired. These tools also provide benefits to readers with learning disabilities like Dyslexia.
As a demonstration of how easy it is to setup this text-to-speech technology, we’ve actually gone ahead and helped Rachel from Why Not Rachel setup Odiogo for her blog. Why Rachel? Well, she’s legally blind and truly needed something like this so she and many of her subscribers could experience her posts in an audible manner. This means less strain and fatigue for the eyes and more accessibility as the posts can now be heard from mobile devices.
Easy 10-Step Setup Guide for Text-to-Speech Conversion
1. Join Odiogo.
2. Download the player button plugin that you will need depending on the blogging platform that you’re using. Odiogo will work with several popular blogging platforms such as: WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, BlogEngine.NET and Terapad. Note: In this example, we will use a WordPress blog.
3. Upload the directory odiogo_listen_button to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory via FTP.
4. Login to your WordPress admin account.
5. Click menu Plugins and Activate the Odiogo Listen Button plugin.
6. Click menu Setting > Odiogo Listen Button.
7. Enter your Odiogo Feed ID and click Save. (You’ll receive this feed ID in email after joining)
8. Click menu Presentation > Widgets (or Sidebar Widgets depending on your WP version).
9. Drag and drop Odiogo Subscribe Button from Available Widgets to Sidebar.
10. Click Save Changes.
Within minutes, your blog posts can be heard online and on iTunes or mobile devices such as iPods and iPhones. Here’s a post from WhyNotRachel with the Odiogo Listen button clearly visible within each and every post just under the post title.
The other important thing to point out is the Odiogo subscription button which appears on the home page in the location that you place the widget. In this sample, it’s located above the Twitter Badge.
Clicking the Odiogo button will take you to the newly created Odiogo feed page for the blog. The impressive thing is that there are several different types of feeds, such as HTML, xHTML (for mobile devices) and XML/RSS feed.
As you will notice, there’s a plethora of ways for subscribers to listen to your blog now. They can select to subscribe to your new podcast from iTunes and play it on their mobile device of choice or they can subscribe with Juice. They can also elect to use their web readers such as Google Reader, Newsgator, etc. There are also options to share the feed with friends on social networks.
Also worth noting is that all of the posts can be played with the “Stream All Articles” link or played individually with the player located next to each post title. Every blog post can be downloaded individually as an mp3 file.
Other Text-to-Speech Tools
iSpeech - Another text-to-speech conversion service similar to Odiogo but not quite as feature-rich. For example, you can embed a widget to play back the entire blog or convert chunks of text but there isn’t a way to embed a player in each blog post for easy playback. However, they do offer a choice of male or female voice, which is lacking from Odiogo at this time.
Jott - Can convert blog feeds to audio and let you listen to them on your cell phone, which in essense becomes an audio Google Reader of sorts.
AT&T Labs - Provides a free TTS service that converts whatever you type to speech and lets you download it as a wav file as well.
NextUp - Offers a line of commercial products such as TextAloud, NewsAloud, and StocksAloud that can convert text to audio.
GhostReader - Does text to speech for the Mac platform.
FlameReader - Reads text or even letters as you type, which is good for those with learning disabilities.
Expressivo - Offers a commercial product as well as a free online version that lets you convert text to speech in different voices as well as share them on a blog, email or IM.
Conclusion
Providing greater accessibility to your content makes a great deal of sense for several reasons. It not only gives your readers more ways to experience your blog, but it also allows many others to enjoy your work that otherwise couldn’t do so. Text-to-speech technology continues to improve with time, so look for this feature to spread across the blogosphere, slowly but surely as people realize that the Web isn’t just for viewing but for hearing too.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, bunhill
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With the shape of the economy and ever changing gas prices, online shopping may end up growing even faster than some have predicted. If your business hasn’t added an online shopping cart yet, why not? The technology has been around for years now, and there are solutions for just about every skill level: you can do it yourself, outsource the work, pay companies for hosting, or even turn a WordPress blog into a simple shopping cart using plugins. Here are over 35 shopping cart solutions for your business.
Does your company already use a shopping cart solution? Tell us about your experience with it in the comments.
Hosted Carts
AAcart.com - Offers three levels of pricing plans that come with hosting included. Also offers customized solutions and design.
eCrater.com - A free online store builder that also allows you to enter your products into their marketplace for free, while also entering them into the Google Product Search.
Etsy.com - An online store builder and marketplace that restricts itself to products that you make. This include all sorts of arts & crafts, buttons, clothes and so on.
GoEmerchant.com - GoEmerchant offers both fully hosted options and the ability to just add buttons to your already existing site.
Merchandizer.com - Merchandizer offers hosted packages from extremely basic all the way up to your own fully dedicated hosting. Also offers design and logo services if you need them.
NetworkSolutions.com - The well-known domain registration company also offers online storefront hosting and setup.
SmallBusiness.Yahoo.com - While Yahoo offers you the ability to use their shopping cart on a site you build yourself, their wizard powered store is by far their most popular product. It offers you pre-built templates for the look, but uses their own brand of HTML, which makes hiring a designer for a unique look almost a necessity.
StoreFront.net - Focuses on customized solutions that vary by store size, hosting needs and so on.
Stores.eBay.com - eBay stopped being just an auction site a long time ago and offers you the chance to set up your own storefront on their popular site.
Free Self-Hosted Carts
CubeCart - CubeCart offers version 3 of their software for free, but charges for version 4 after a free 30 day trial. Offers bulk upload, inventory management, shipping modules and everything else you would expect from a fully operational online store.
Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software - A fairly new free shopping cart that puts a heavy emphasis on not having to know how to code, run databases or anything else.
IdeaCart - A free cart still in its Alpha phase, features fraud detection, newsletter support and more.
JadaSite - JadaSite is a bit unusual in that it’s Java based, as well as fully integrated with a content management system.
Magento - Launched in 2008, Magento is one the newest open source shopping carts on the market.
OpenCart - An open source PHP shopping cart. It’s been a while since it has been updated, but everything appears to still be up and running.
osCommerce - One of the best known shopping carts out there, this open source cart enjoys a large community of plugin creators. It has been quite a while since their last major release, v2.2 RC 2a, but they are in active development of version 3.0, which promises some major administration upgrades.
PrestaShop - An extremely new open source shopping cart that already seems fairly full-featured, and promises more to come with an area for expansion modules to be opened in the near future.
Quick.Cart.Lite - Quick.Cart.Lite is the free version of the Quick.Cart software and will allow you to build a simple online store. Offers two more robust levels of the same program with more features.
Satchmo - Built on the Django framework, Satchmo offers highly customizable shop building with a long list of built in features such as Google Analytics incorporation, PDF invoice generation and more.
Ubercart - Ubercart is a full-featured shopping cart that also integrates with a Drupal site so that you can build a community around your store or featured products.
VirtueMart - A shopping cart built specifically for integration with the Joomla! and Mambo content management system.
Zen Cart - Zen Cart is an off branch of osCommerce that comes with several of the most popular modules built into it.
Purchasable Self-Hosted Carts
1ShoppingCart - 1ShoppingCart offers you the ability to add “Buy Now” buttons to your already existing site, while offering you many of the features you expect from complete shopping carts.
Actinic - Actinic offers multiple shopping cart solutions based on your budget. Packages range from $499 to $3499 depending on your needs.
CS-Cart - Gives you full access to the source code so that you can customize your online store as you see fit. Makes heavy use of AJAX to reduce server load as customers change only a portion of a product’s page.
Interspire - Offers three versions of their software, all with numerous addons. However, if your store is of any substantial size (over 500 different items), you have no choice but to go for the ultimate $1800 version.
JShop Server - A UK-focused online shopping cart system with all of the usual bells and whistles.
JustAddCommerce - A “buy button” system that will work with HTML editors such as Dreamweaver and Frontpage to add an online store to any site.
Lite Commerce - A direct competitor to X-Cart, they have a lower initial price, but charge for numerous add-ons for extra functions.
Miva Merchant - One of the oldest purchasable shopping carts seeing as it has existed since 1995. Offers QuickBooks sync, all of the usual bells and whistles, and the company offers unique designs.
ShopSite - ShopSite offers a free starter version, but it is extremely limited. Paid versions range from $495 to $1295, and they also offer hosting if needed.
VP-ASP - VP-ASP offers three levels of their shopping cart software, all of which include 12 free months of updates in their purchase price. In addition to US shipping, offers options for Australian and Canadian post shipping.
WebMasterCart - Cart has been around since 1998 and has been continually upgraded. Offers licenses for 1 site for $199 or unlimited domains for $995. Price is a one time licensing fee with 1 year of updates.
X-Cart - X-Cart offers both single merchant installations and versions capable of handling multiple merchants checking out through the same shopping cart. Offers numerous payment and shipping module integrations.
WordPress Shopping Carts
eShop - Gives you the ability to add a PayPal powered store to your site. Allows one item per post or page.
Quick Shop - A shopping cart for your WordPress blog’s sidebar.
WP e-Commerce - A popular shopping cart option for WordPress blogs which makes it easy to sell things like ebooks, mp3s, clothing, crafts and more.
YAK for WordPress - A simple shopping cart for WordPress that turns posts and pages into product codes and the item description.
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