There are many plugins for WordPress that will help you embed mp3 or other music files onto WordPress pages. There are even others that would let you show music playlists as widgets and that plays your favorite music to your site visitors.

But when it comes to playing a Background music, site-wide with auto-resume across page loads, it becomes a little tricky. I was playing with some plugins today and here is what I did to make it work.

Auto-Resume Tracks Across Page Loads

I got the Audio Playlist Manager with Auto Resume plugin that this guy Ameen built out of the original Audio Playlist Manager plugin. What this plugin does is add a nice widget (or embed on any page using shortcodes) an audio player. The audio player can be configured to auto-play on page load and resume playing on page-loads, both these features makes it the plugin of choice for our need.

Here is how we do it. Install the plugin first.

Go ahead and download a soothing free music track from here, they have color coding for different moods, which make them awesome! Of course, you can have any track you like, make sure you compress it to a smaller size (under 500kb) using a software like this one here.

Now in the plugin settings, create a playlist. Then upload the Audio File using the uploader and Add it to the playlist you created. Click on Preview Player. Make sure you tick the following:

• Begin playing automatically
• Resume playing on page changes
• Repeat when playlist ends
• Set an initial volume to something around 30 if your track is too loud. You don’t want to startle your visitors, or do you?

Audio Player Options

Now you will have a shortcode that looks something like this:

[ti_audio name="Play on Load" autoplay="1" autoresume="1" repeat="1" randomize="1" volume="30"]

Next, I added it to the footer.php (which is called on every page) using the do_shortcode function. But that showed the player on the footer for every page, like this:

So I added some css to hide it and lo! We have background music on all pages that plays on and on as long as the user is on the site. Here is the final code that I added to footer.php

<div style="visibility: hidden; margin-top: -32px;"><?php echo do_shortcode('[ti_audio name="Play on Load" autoplay="1" autoresume="1" repeat="1" randomize="1" volume="30"]'); ?></div>

Have fun!

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WordPress has obviously grown from a personal blogging tool to a collaborative blogging environment with multiple authors and multiple blogs in a network with the WordPress multisite.

This sometimes call for styling not only your front end for your visitors, but also the backend of your WordPress admin. Well, if you are looking for fully fledged admin themes, Go google for WordPress admin themes and you will end up with many plugins that do that. And if you are looking at completely revamping your backend, complete with your own branding and custom stuff, the Easy Blogging Plugin is made for you.

If that’s not what you are looking for, but instead some tweaks here and there, like hiding some stuff using display:none or something of that sort, here is what you need to do.

Add the following snippet into the functions.php of your active theme:

// add admin css
add_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'load_custom_admin_css' );
function load_custom_admin_css()
{
wp_enqueue_style('my_style', WP_CONTENT_URL . '/themes/custom_admin.css');
}
//end admin css

Now create a custom_admin.css in your wp-content/themes/ folder and add all the custom css you want in there.

For instance, to hide the Plugins section from the Admin sidebar, you would add to your custom_admin.css:

#menu-plugins {
display:none !important;
}

Of course, this is a cosmetic change, like all things css. The plugins area would still be accessible via a direct link. If you wish to remove them or show them based on user-role, Admin Menu Editor can do that for you.

Have fun. Out.

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We are not talking about a pop-up or setting a page as the homepage of your WordPress site here. A real solid page that is shown to visitors when they enter your site from another site, or search engine (which again is another site) or by directly typing in your address.

Have you ever seen this sign “If you are below 18 leave now, else Enter here” (yeah, the smile on your face explains it)? You see that sign when you enter first and that’s that. Lets make one such page.

Making a “Enter Site” Page

Depending on your theme, your theme folder will have home.php or index.php or sometimes both in your theme folder. If you have home.php open it up, else go for index.php. Refer the template hierarchy if that interests you. I am assuming my theme has index.php only.

Add the following code snippet at the start of  index.php. Start as in, the very first line, before everything and everything. On line 1:

<?php if( (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], get_bloginfo('home')) === false) && !$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']) : ?>
<?php include ('http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/page-splash.php'); ?>
<?php else : ?>

Now you opened close the if else by adding the following to the end of index.php. End as in the last line:

<?php endif; ?>

That makes index.php in between those two codes.

What this does is, if the user is entering from anything but your own site, it will show: http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/page-splash.php

Go ahead and make a copy of page.php in your theme folder and name it page-splash.php . If hope you have figured that you have to replace http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/page-splash.php in the above snippet with the direct link to your page-splash.php .

You will have to hard-code your page-splash.php. The best way to do this is to look at the source code of a page on your site and imitate them into your page-splash.php. Well, I am thinking, if you just copy paste the code, that should also work.

Here is a little page-splash.php that I made for Twenty Ten default WordPress theme:

<?php
/**
* The Splash Page
*/

</div><!-- #content -->
</div><!-- #container -->
<?php get_footer(); ?>

To test the welcome page, open up a new tab and enter your site into the browser. Lo!

Hope you have fun creating the Welcome Page. Do let me know what you think.

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I have been bugged with some questions lately. Questions like:

• I upgraded WordPress to the latest version and now my Excerpts Box is missing.
• Post Tags have been removed from latests WordPress versions?
• I cannot find where to add custom fields, can you help?

I checked my WordPress installation and found everything in place and that bothered me at first. Then I looked into one of their installations and found the solution really simple.

Go to your Post Editor and Look for a drop down deck called Screen Options (towards right top corner). Check the following images.

Click that and the following Deck will open up. You can Hide or Un-hide the widgets you like using the check-boxes up there.

That settles everything. Peace!

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A guest post by Roger Elmore. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Just about every blogger receives spam now and then, and it can be quite a nuisance. Spam eats up precious time and resources that could be spent on other tasks, and let’s face it-spam is annoying! So how can you stop spam in its tracks? Read on, and we’ll explore a few of the most useful methods.

Install Akismet immediately. Mention a spam problem to anyone with WordPress, and you’ll likely get a one word answer: Akismet. This spam eater is a plugin for WordPress that simply blocks comment and trackback spam, so you don’t have to deal with it. For the average blog, this is enough to stop almost all of the spam you will receive, but blogs with more traffic may need additional help.

Get rid of spammy trackbacks. Spam comments are annoying, but spam trackbacks are a mess as well. Most trackback spammers will not set up valid pages to link to, so they are easily uncovered. Using a plugin like the Trackback Validator, you can avoid letting affiliate, pay per click, and other irrelevant trackbacks slip through the cracks. This will allow you to still let valid trackbacks be shared, while wiping out the ones that are troublesome.

Jump through a few hoops. Most commenters are used to having to fill out a few fields in order to leave a comment, and typically won’t mind. The Math Comment Spam Protection plugin asks your readers to do simple math for validation, and reCAPTCHA asks commenters to enter a couple words into a box. One or both of these plugins will usually keep the spam robots away.

Make some changes to your comment settings. In your Comment Moderation or Discussion panel, you’ll be able to do a number of adjustments that can make both spam fighting and moderation just a bit easier. You can specify the number of links permitted in a comment, blocking those who cram a couple dozen in. You’ll also be able to set a spam words list, a comment blacklist, and other restrictions. You can choose to moderate all comments, preapprove comments left by old commenters, or even restrict comments to registered users only.

Some day, some how, you may have to deal with spam on your WordPress blog, even if you take all the right precautions. But if you use these and other methods for canning spam, you can greatly reduce the amount that you have to drudge through, and free yourself up for more productive blogging activities.

The Author, Roger Elmore writes on the topics of hospitality management schools. He welcomes your comments at his email id: rogerelmore24 [at] gmail [dot] com.

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We see a lot of shortening services around and there are many free tools that will help you create one on your domain.

The logic is simple, there is a database, there is a long url and an associated short url. When someone access the short url, the long url is fetched from the database and the user is redirected.

If you are on WordPress you wont need any of those. Inherently, every post can be queried from the database using its post ID. For instance, this link and this link point to the same post.

Your short urls for all your WordPress post will be in the following format:

yourdomain.com/?p=POST_ID

To find the POST_ID of a post, just go to your Posts > Edit Page in WordPress Admin and hover over the title of the post and check the link on the status bar. The last number that you see is the POST_ID of the corresponding post. See the image:

Now with this knowledge you could create your own Retweet Button’s and use the link in Twitter

Related: Handy Bookmarklets for 7 Popular URL Shortners

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When WordPress 3.0 came out, Matt did something silly. He added some code into WordPress core that replaces all instances of WordPress with WordPress. See the difference? Look again, the P in second one is capital. Well, that is the way it is meant to be.

So what is the big deal?

At first look, its so silly. And if it was executed well, no one would have even noticed that. But that’s not how things are now. Apparently, this code even checks the permalinks and breaks them. Its that bad. I am pretty sure Matt didn’t see any of it coming.

There is a flame war going on in the community. Here is what you need to know:

The code literally breaks things like URLs on some sites. For example, suppose you installed WordPress in a /Wordpress directory. That would cause all kinds of trouble with things like images.

This function is effectively changing what people write, and WordPress should not have editorial control over the content of anyone’s blog.

The code was committed to WordPress without a Trac ticket, so it wasn’t left open to community discussion beforehand.

Matt’s responses seem to dismiss the very community of people that help make WordPress what it is.

Source: Lowercase p, dangit!

Checkout the above source if you need links to have a look at the flame war.

Fixing the Capital_P_Dangit()

Open up your functions.php in your theme folder and add the following lines anywhere in the php, i.e before the closing ?>

remove_filter( 'the_content', 'capital_P_dangit' );
remove_filter( 'the_title', 'capital_P_dangit' );
remove_filter( 'comment_text', 'capital_P_dangit' );

Source: Removing the Uppercase P Filter

Some Dangit Fun!

• Capitalp.org – P fo ‘Pure Evil’. Refresh this page for subtle funny quotes.
• No Comic Sans, Dangit -  A new WordPress plugin that will remove and replace all instance of Comic Sans. FYI, Comic Sans is a hated font.

Now we are talking!

Update: A new version of the fix is available here.

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A guest post by James Adams. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

One of the attractions of the WordPress blogging platform is its ability to be very easily monetized through advertising. Whether you use pay-per-click advertising, affiliate marketing, or your own system, there are many ways you can generate revenue from a WordPress blog.

Fortunately, the flexibility of the WordPress platform allows for the use of plugins that can make the implementation and management of advertising campaigns simple, and effective. Here nine of the best WordPress ad managing plugins that can successfully generate revenue from your website.

1. Float Ad

This WordPress plugin floats at the top of your blog pages and stays in place as you scroll down the page, making it constantly visible. The extra exposure of your ad will attract more clicks and convert more sales.

2. All in One Adsense and YPN

All in One Adsense and YPN works with Google’s Adsense ads and those from the Yahoo Publisher Network (which is soon to cease serving ads) to insert advertisements on the fly. No matter how many posts your blog contains, this plugin can handle advertising in them all. This plugin allows you to set where your ads are located on the page and customize them with HTML and CSS coding.

3. WP125

By allowing for the automatic scheduling of advertising starting and ending times, WP125 introduces a high level of automation for bloggers. This plugin also counts clicks and allows you to store old ads so they can be re-enabled when necessary. WP125 supports the use of 125×125 advertisements only.

4. Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix

This plugin lets you insert text, HTML, and CSS code before and after each blog post or page, letting you customize your advertising using text messages, links or image based messaging to drive traffic to your advertising partners.

5. Advertising Manager

For a full advertising solution that rotates AdSense advertising, as well as those from other networks, look no further than Advertising Manager. This plugin enforces the compliance with the pay-per-click rules while ensuring that all your ad campaigns are getting good exposure. Installing this plugin is a breeze with its import function and management for all the top advertising networks is built in. You can use Advertising Manager to place ads inside posts and pages or you can use its widget to insert ads into your WordPress sidebar.

6. Sponsor Ad Management

Sites that sell paid sponsorships will find Sponsor Ad Management to be a lifesaver. This plugin tracks performance and exposure of each ad. In fact, this plugin enables an entire framework for setting up and managing a sponsor ad campaign on one blog or across multiple blogs. You can configure advertising banners to operate in pay-per-click, pay-per-impression, or even pay-per day advertising models. This plugin features scheduling and many other customizable options that can make your advertising program a success.

7. WP Tag Ads

WP Tag Ads takes an innovative approach toward blog advertising by actually using your tags to promote eBay items (you must enroll in the eBay partner program for this to work). The plugin scans the content of your post or page and attempts to display relevant advertising from eBay’s network. This is a great way to implement and eBay sales campaign.

8. ISIS Ad Management

Add drag and drop functionality to your advertising efforts. With ISIS Ad Management you can order and reorder advertisements with your mouse, making the organization and maintenance of your advertising campaign an easy task. This is a widget-based plugin, so you can only use this if you have a widgetized WordPress theme in use.

9. OmniAds

OmniAds brings unprecedented flexibility to your WordPress advertising campaign. This plugin may be too complicated for some newbies, but moderate to advanced webmasters will appreciate the ability they have to use complicated syntax-based rules to fine tune their ads. This plugin allows admins to inject PHP and HTML snippets to govern the appearance of ads, while the plugin itself has powerful features such as referrer-based ad display that can enhance the revenue stream for any blog.

The All in One Solution (with Support) – OIOpublisher

If you are looking for a serious solution and need quality support you need not look any further – OIOpublisher is all you need. OIO automates all your ad management needs, like pricing your ad slots, designing banner and link ads, ad rotation, managing sale of ad and review spots. It is a complete package and comes with great support. Get it Now!

[Update] Million Clues readers get a flat $10 off when you purchase OIOpublisher, HURRY!! (coupon expires this month, on 31st May 2012) use the code: SHOGUN-MCOFF

The Guest Author is a blogger and designer working with a UK based specialist in office supplies such as the HP 338 ink cartridge. He is a contributor to the CreativeCloud where he enjoys writing about design and advertising.

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WordPress 3.0 is here! I know you guys probably know that already. I haven’t upgraded most of my blogs yet just because I don’t want to screw up anything.

(If you are upgrading, you would want to make your Theme WP 3.0 compatible, right? Here is what you would need.)

But today morning I just tried upgrading one of my BuddyPress installations since a plugin that I was trying out works only with WordPress 3.0. Back-ed up the database (you should too!), checked if the backup was working and did the automatic upgrade. Everything went smooth, I checked the homepage and boom! It reported a 404.

First idea on my mind was to roll back to WordPress 3.0. So I googled for some WordPress downgrading plugins. Fortunately or Unfortunately there are none. Any plugin developers reading this? You might want to make the First WordPress Downgrade Plugin.

Heck, I can code, I understand WordPress, why not fix the issue? And here it is, the work around.

Create a BuddyPress Page Template for the Activity Stream

You can create a BuddyPress page template on the theme just like we do it for WordPress. Here is an example of how to create and use a WordPress page template. Do the same, but with the code for the Activity Stream page. In the default theme the code for Activity Steam can be found under bp-default/activity/index.php.

Copy that code into the new page template. If you are using the default WordPress theme, here is the page template I created. Just upload this to the bp-default/ theme folder and use it.

Create a Activty Stream Page

Make sure the template is in the root folder. Create a new page. Name in Activity (name doesn’t matter). From the right sidebar of the new page editor, under Page Attributes, choose template as “Activity Page”.

Publish the page.

Make the Activity Stream as Front Page

Go to Settings > Reading Settings. Choose a Static Page to show on the front page and choose the page that we just created. (I named it Activity, so its listed there as Activity).

If everything was all right we would just have to choose the Activity Stream that you can see there.

Remove the Activity Page Listing from the Header Navbar.

Depending on your theme, your Navigation Menu would list pages or maybe not. The default theme lists pages, and the Activity Page we just created would be listed there as well. We don’t need that, right?

Open up header.php and you will see

<?php wp_list_pages( 'title_li=&depth=1' . bp_dtheme_page_on_front() ); ?>

Normally, adding en exclude (&exclude=10,73) parameter to wp_list_pages would work, but for some reason it didn’t work for me. I think its because that page is used as the front page. The exclude was working for other pages like the contact page etc. So I decided to hard code the pages (I only had two thankfully).


<li<?php if ( bp_is_page( 'about' ) ) : ?> class="selected"<?php endif; ?>>
<a href="http://ebtimes.org/about/" title="About">About</a>
</li>


Edit the above code as per your requirement and replace the wp_list_pages in header.php or use an exclude page plugin.

That’s it. Hopefully WP team would fix the issue soon. If you enjoyed the tutorial or need any clarification, let me know.

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A guest post by Melissa Tamura. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

If you have a blog and you’re like me, then you’re constantly looking for methods to both drive more traffic to your website and build your larger network of readers and subscribers. Odds are that you’ve come across social networking, and perhaps you even have several profiles on the different social media websites.

I’ve recently discovered that when you combine the power of social media websites with WordPress, it’s a guaranteed way to boost visits to your blog and increase your reader base.

Here’s a look at 10 of the best social media plugins I’ve found for WordPress that have been tested and proven to help immensely.

1. SocialGrid – SocialGrid is a widget that helps make it easy to include and manage links to your own range of social media profiles. After you enter in the details for each social network, it will display a list of them on your WordPress blog.

2. Social Media Page – This plugin will include a link list to your various social media profiles on a certain page or post of your preference by means of a simple tag. A widget is also available, which means that you can conveniently show this list of links wherever you choose on your blog.

3. TweetMeme Button – With this plugin you can add the retweet button to your blog to encourage your readers to promote your content on Twitter. The TweetMeme Button also displays a live count of the amount of times the post on your blog has been tweeted by others.

4. Twitter Tools – This plugin makes a link between your Twitter account and your WordPress blog. Twitter Tools makes it possible for you to integrate your tweets into your blog as both posts and digests, as well as make new tweets on blog posts directly from WordPress.

5. Twitter @Anywhere Plus – If you want to add Twitter @Anywhere to your blog, then this is the perfect plugin for you. You can easily enable the @Anywhere features, including Auto-linkification of @usernames, Hovercards, Follow button, Tweet Box, and Retweet button (Tweet Box with Lightbox effect).

6. AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Button – It’s important to make sure your readers can quickly share, save, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any social bookmarking and sharing service, and AddToAny helps them do exactly that. In addition, the plugin features a customizable Smart Menu that places the services visitors use at the top of the menu depending on their specific browsing and usage history.

7. Buzz Roll – Google Buzz is one of the latest social networks, and it’s an excellent idea to incorporate it in your WordPress blog so that your readers can quickly share your content. This plugin displays a Google Buzz Button with a comment count and comments on each blog post.

8. Facebook Social Widgets – This collection of widgets is hosted by Facebook, which means that the displayed content is personalized for all visitors to your blog that are currently logged into Facebook. The variety of customizable widgets consist of the Like Button, Activity Feed, Recommendations, Like Box, Facepile, and Live Stream.

9. Social Traffic Monitor – Social Traffic Monitor is a plugin for blogs that is designed to analyze your incoming traffic for any activity coming from social media websites. This is particularly useful if you are interested in knowing which social networks are the most popular with your readers.

10. Intense Debate – With this plugin you can easily boost and promote discussion on your WordPress blog. Intense Debate includes useful features such as comment threading, user reputations and accounts, reply-by-email, comment voting, and Twitter and Friendfeed integrations. These features greatly enhance the user experience, as well as increase traffic to your blog.

What are some of your favorite social media plugins for WordPress that you have found to be useful? Share with us in the comments!

The Author, Melissa Tamura writes for the Zen College Life online education directory. She most recently ranked psychology colleges in the USA.

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