Credits

Thank you all!

Travel/Photo blogging using WordPress

Before switching to WordPress in 2005, I used few other blogging platforms to power this blog. Now WordPress has become sort of the de-facto blogging platform for people who are looking for a better control over their websites. I like it a lot.

Installation of wordpress is very easy and I run two installations of it on my website. This one for my travel blog and another one for my personal blog. If you need any help with setup, I’ll be glad to assist.

Theme development

Since I am a geek, I love designing webpages using the limited knowledge I have (which is often dogmatic and dangerous). Still, one of the most frustrating and passionate things to do is to develop a theme. There are lots of free themes that provided me inspiration to design this current theme. In particular, I would like to thank the following:

1. Brightness Theme by Sorel Mihai
2. Ocular Professor by A. Mignolo

My previous theme design can be seen in action on my personal blog. And there were many designs prior to that (obviously hinting at the restlessness in my personality).

WordPress plugins used to enhance this blog

I have used a number of plugins to improve how the website works and how I manage the data. Here is a complete list of the tools deployed. Thanks to all these wonderful programmers and developers who make it easy for us to run our websites.

User interface plugins:

1. Fast Secure Contact Form: I use this form to power my Contact page and I love how straightforward it is. [By Mike Challis | Visit plugin site]
2. Lightbox 2: You might have noticed the neat effect when you clicked a on a picture. This plugin is used to display that overlay. [By Rupert Morris | Visit plugin site]
3. NextGEN gallery: I am a fan of this photo gallery plugin. Before this, I tried numerous photo gallery plugins to better organise, display and post my pictures and albums, but none of them were as comprehensive and easy at the same time. [By Alex Rabe | Visit plugin site]
4. Simple Tags: I’ve been using this plugin to tag my posts prior to that functionality being added to WordPress 3. This just made blogging easy. [By Amaury BALMER | Visit plugin site]
5. Subscribe2: This plugin is used for email subscriptions. I no longer use it since now I have outsourced this to Feedburner. However, several visitors are still subscribed using this plugin. [By Matthew Robinson | Visit plugin site ]
6. Subscribe to comments: This plugin adds the facility for commentators to subscribe to comments. So you get an email when a new comment or response to your comment is posted. [By Mark Jaquith | Visit plugin site]
7. Tweet this: Handy plugin to post several social media links (including Twitter) on each post. [By Richard X. Thripp | Visit plugin site]
8. W3 total cache: I use this plugin to not only cache blog pages but also to optimise how the objects (html, css, js) are served. [By Frederick Townes | Visit plugin site]
9. WP Paginate: To add pagination. [By Eric Martin | Visit plugin site]

Admin plugins

1. Akismet: Comes to my rescue and filters spam beautifully. [By Automattic | Visit plugin site]
2. Google Analytics for WordPress: So far I haven’t used this plugin’s unique features such as custom variables. [By Joost de Valk | Visit plugin site]
3. Login Lockdown: Security feature to restrict the number of login attempts from a particular address. [By Michael VanDeMar | Visit plugin site]
4. Move comments: Every once in a while visitors leave comments in various places. For example they write a comment about a particular post on my contact page… things like that. [By Apostolos Dountsis | Visit plugin site]
5. WordPress editorial calendar: This plugin makes it easier to manage future posts and see their schedule at a glance. Its so much better than updating everything in a spreadsheet. [By Colin Vernon, Justin Evans, Mary Vogt, and Zack Grossbart | Visit plugin site]
6. WordPress SEO: To make pages SEO friendly and generate sitemap. [ By Joost de Valk | Visit plugin site]
7. WP Maintenance mode: Cute little tool to customise and force a “maintenance mode” page – very useful when you are updating live (e.g. a theme) and want to keep visitors away. [By Frank Bültge | Visit plugin site]