Happy New Year - here’s a listing of some of the plugins I added to my blog in recent months and have fast become some of my favorites to recommend to WordPress users:

Different Posts Per Page - Set default value for each different page in WordPress. For example, without this plugin, if you have 1 post set to be viewed on your front page - then only 1 post will show on your archives, search, categories and tags pages. But, you may want more of a listing on those internal pages. With this plugin - you can set values for each of those pages, completely bypassing the setting in Options/Reading in your WordPress administration panel.

Single Click Plugin Updater - A very handy plugin that extends the plugin notification system, introduced in WordPress version 2.3. This plugin also provides an ‘update automatically’ link that, when clicked, will automatically download and install the new version on your blog.

One of the more limiting features of the Widgets in WordPress is the inability to disperse your different blogroll link lists to different areas of your template. By using the Links Widget packaged within WordPress, your blogrolls will all appear in the same spot. This is a fine thing, if you only have one blogroll category. But what about those sites that have more than one… or even several, blogroll categories??

Further, what if that particular person doesn’t want all the blogrolls to appear in the same spot, listed one after another? Using the Links Widget, you have no choice really - at least not at this time. You place the Blogroll Widget in your sidebar and all your link lists appear in the same spot.

Please update now.

What am I speaking of?? The version update feature that is packaged in the new 2.3.+ version of WordPress. I heard about it in the buzz about the new version in the weeks prior to it being released. Now that WordPress 2.3.1 is out - I’m seeing it in my WordPress Dashboard and it looks like this:

This nifty feature tells you when your WordPress software is out of date and a new version has been released. This is really nice, especially for those who don’t keep updated on such information on a regular basis.