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.

SideBlog – makes it easy and painless for you to add “Asides” to your blog. For an example of “Asides” – you can see an example on my personal blog. On the right side of the site, you’ll see a green area with the title “On the side…snippets of stuff” – - kind of a nice way to have a ‘side blog’ on your main blog to post small snippets of info that don’t necessarily require a full-blown blog post. Good for announcements and such.

Post Notification – a plugin that sends out notifications to registered users of your blog whenever you update with a new post.

Smilies Themer – a fun plugin that allows you to use smilies (emoticons) themes (or packs) to replace the wordpress default ones.

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.

So, say you run a tech blog and you have a Blogroll category for Windows and another category for Macintosh. And you want to display the Windows blogroll in the left sidebar, and want to display the Macintosh category in the right sidebar. You can’t split the widget (unless you have the coding know-how to edit the actual widgets.php file)!

You can, however, insert a template tag in your sidebar.php template to display the blogroll categories wherever you want them to display:

Where the 1 equals the category ID number (which you can find listed to the left of the bookmark category in your WP administration panel under Blogroll / Categories. Just change the ID number to match the category of links you’d like to display.

Likewise, you can list the blogrolls by category name by using:

Having to insert the code into the template kind of defeats the purpose of using Sidebar Widgets in the first place, but until WordPress updates the Links Widget – there’s no real getting around having to do it this way in order to split up those Blogroll Categories.

Or - to make it MUCH easier – you can use Breukies Links Widget by widget author Arnold Breukhoven – a WordPress links widget, to replace the standard links widget by Automattic. This widget displays links using the wp_list_bookmarks function, utilizes most available parameters for wp_list_bookmarks. You can also set up to 9 intances of this widget in your sidebar(s).

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.

Now, there are some folks who are concerned about the privacy issues surrounding this particular feature. In order for this feature to work – there is a bit of code in the core WordPress files that need to ‘call home’ to the WordPress servers. It makes sense – in order for your WordPress Dashboard to notify you that you’re out of date with your version – there needs to be a call to a central server at WordPress.org – - it sends information like your version, your domain and your blog name – and returns the message back that you’re out of date.

Likewise, there is another update notification system in place for your WordPress plugins. It’s a nice feature you’ll see under the Plugins tab that will tell you if you are using an old version of a particular plugin – - it’s really nice to know if there is a new version of your favorite plugin, isn’t it? That notifcation looks something like this:

Same type of call home – - same privacy concerns, for some.

Due to privacy concerns surrounding this (some people just aren’t comfortable with that call back to WordPress.org) – there have been some plugins developed to disable this feature. Just know – if you use any of these plugins, you will need to keep yourself informed about WordPress update releases as they come out! Here’s a few plugins to disable the software and plugin update notification feature in WordPress:

Disable WordPress Core Update by John Blackbourn

Disable WordPress Plugin Updates by John Blackbourn

Anonymous WordPress Plugin Updates by Hannes Hofmann (this plugin allows the updates but anonymizes the plugin update checking system)