Amy over at informing MUVEs is trying out a WP plugin called Photo Dropper, and it looked like it might simplify my inclusion of photos on ye olde blog, so I thought I’d give it a try as well. Honestly, I’m not sure what I think of it. Up until now, my current process for posting photos has been to: a.) Find a photo on Flickr, I try to use my own photos whenever possible; b.) download the photo to my desktop; c.) resize the photo so that WP can display it at actual size; d.) upload the photo using WP’s file upload function; e.) insert the photo into my post at full size with a link to the photo creator.
It’s not the most straightforward process, but it has the benefit of hosting the photos on my site, so that I’ll know as long as the blog is here then the photos will be here too. Photo Dropper turns my five-step process into a two-step process: a.) enter something into the search bar; b.) insert a picture using a given size. Simpler, sure, but the photo remains hosted over at Flickr, and if the user ever deletes it, or their pro account expires, or for any other reason the link degrades, my post is all of a sudden minus its visual element. In certain cases this could really damage the function of the post, assuming the content revolved around the photo itself.
Also, and feel free to call me Web 1.0 for this, I still like going to my content. I like reading blogs on their native sites when possible, instead of aggregating them, likewise webcomics, and I like looking at Flickr photos on Flickr. Surely I’m not the only one?
Time will tell if I stick with Photo Dropper, but right now I’m thinking I probably won’t. It’s just not that tough to open a new tab over to Flickr and find a quick image, a process which has a lot of benefits. Since I’m on the topic, though, I thought I’d mention some of the WP plugins and Firefox add-ons that I do like and use.
I tend to be a minimalist when it comes to WordPress. I abhor the WYSIWYG editor, and I try to keep my plugins to a minimum. That said, I find the following essential:
- Akismet: Spam blocker extraordinaire. Essential!
- Audio Player: Super easy audio cuts with a simple interface.
- Feedburner FeedSmith: RSS simplification and some cool backend features.
- Google XML Sitemaps: If you want to be searchable, Google has to like you.
- StatPress: Visits, referrers, etc. All that good stuff!
- WordPress Database Backup: Not essential, but nice for peace of mind.
- WP-Cache: I have a love/hate relationships with this plugin, but when it works it’s really nice.
I’m a Firefox minimalist too, but I couldn’t live without FireFTP for my file transfers, and I find ColorZilla super useful from time to time.
Are there any that I’m missing? What WordPress plugins / Firefox add-ons can you simply not live without?
There is a nice, fresh feeling that comes of destroying something (after making the necessary backups, of course), and starting anew. Today I deleted all my ahniwa.com WordPress files, as well as their accompanying databases, and started fresh. Aside from the whole “freshness” of it all, this means that comments are working again (I’ve no idea why or how they got broken), and that I can upload images from within WordPress again (also no idea why this stopped working).
