the Mind’s Chew Toy

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This week, we decided to share some of the best plugins we use on our site, and the ones we think should be included in any WordPress install.

So, you’ve read Tip #2: Adding IFilm Video To Your SideBar - The Easy Way and you’ve got a question: But what if I want to add my own videos too? Don’t worry, we’ve got your answer right here…
Converting Your Videos
First off, to keep from using too many different types of files - and [...]

The Mind’s Chew Toy - now available in 11 languages, all thanks to a little WordPress Plugin called - appropriately enough - Language Translator.

I’ve been a big fan of the IFilm.com website since I first ran across it, and wanted a way to add it to the sidebar. Of course, I had a few goals in mind:

1. It has to be easy. I don’t want to be messing around with code every time I want to add a trailer to the site.
2. It has to be foolproof. I don’t want to have to worry about typos.
3. There should be a message if there is no video, rather than just a blank.

With those rules in mind, I came up with the following 2 step process…

When I first was looking to update the site to it’s current snazzy look, I definitely had a few changes in mind. The first and foremost was to provide some sort of “Update” section to let visitors know what had been recently changed/added, etc. Thanks to the new tabs in the sidebar, I had a spot for these updates…now the only question was how to get the changes to show.

As Heather pointed out to me the other day, I always seem to decide to start a site redesign at the most inopportune times. The last one, back in July, kicked off just a few weeks before our wedding. This time around, it’s close to the holidays, and we are busy finishing up the last of our shopping, sending a whole ton of presents via those friendly folks at our neighborhood UPS store, and preparing for a visit from relatives. What can I say? When the urge to redesign overtakes me, I can’t seem to stop it.

After having so much trouble connecting my PHP Links Directory installation with my Wordpress-powered site (see PHP Links Directory and WordPress), I pretty much gave up on the connection for awhile, instead focusing on re-designing the site (again).

Recently, I switched servers, and, while checking the site over recently, noticed I hadn’t added PHPLD back to the site yet. Once I uploaded the files to the server, I figured I’d give the integration thing another try…and got it to work (sort of).

Want to know how? Read on…

With it’s impressive Akismet application, Automattic, Inc. (who also make a little blogging platform known as WordPress), have pretty much cornered the market in terms of website spam filtering. So, when a new product is introduced, do they go the Microsoft way and try to block any and all attempts at that product to gain a foothold in their “house”? No. Instead, they welcome the competition, saying “it’s hard to have a market with one player”.

Kudos!

As of today, the old PezXPress has now officially become The Mind’s Chew Toy. We’ve still got a little updating to do (mostly on external sites), but thanks to WordPress.org, we were able to move all of our information from PezXPress to The Mind’s Chew Toy fairly easily.

We’ve also switched away from what seemed to be a rather slow godaddy.com to try out a new host, hostgator.com. Hopefully this new host will help us keep the site moving a bit quicker than the old PezXPress.

I was feeling pretty happy with myself after updating the site to a personalized blog, which was based on bits and pieces I liked about other free themes out there. Unfortunately, since I’m still learning this thing called WordPress, the code didn’t come out so well and there were all sorts of problems.

As more and more problems kept popping up (and the upcoming wedding prevented me from having the time to really sit down and go through all of them), I started to get the ol’ bloggin’ blues. Plus, I began to realize that the green I had used predominantly for the blog - while fresh at the start - got a little irritating as time went by.