I finally got around to installing some WordPress plug-ins. Here’s what I’m running at the moment:

Akismet 2.1.8

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin. By Matt Mullenweg.

Category Selector Back to the Sidebar (MOD) 0.7

Puts the category selector section back to the sidebar of the Post page. Now you can write at a WordPress v2.5 blog without hating v2.5. By Baris Unver.

FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.3.1

Originally authored by Steve Smith, this plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. By FeedBurner.

Fluency Admin 1.2.1

WordPress 2.5+ only. A rethink of the WordPress admin interface giving it a slightly more modern application-esque feel, inspired by Steve Smith’s Tiger Admin. Firefox, Safari and IE8 only. By Dean Robinson.

No Self Pings 0.2

Keeps WordPress from sending pings to your own site. By Michael D. Adams.

Wiki Dashboard 0.1

Mini-Wiki on the wordpress dashboard, for multiple autors [sic] collaboration. By Dzamir.

WordPress Admin Bar 3.0.2

Creates an admin bar inspired by the one at WordPress.com. Credits for the look of this plugin go to them. By Viper007Bond.

WordPress.com Stats 1.3.2

Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key. By Andy Skelton.

WP Ajax Edit Comments 2.1.2.0

Allows users and admin to edit their comments inline. Admin and editors can edit all comments. By Ronald Huereca.

I’ve also edited the stylesheet so that the body text is sized in points rather than pixels, and I tweaked some colors and margins and such.

Photo: Oh. by Adam Smith; some rights reserved.

This week’s assignment:

• Install WordPress on your ITP account or create a blog in ITP’s multiuser environment. Document this process in your blog.
• Transfer first week’s assignment to your blog
• Find three blogs you like and create links to them in your sidebar
• Document your process as an entry in your blog.

As I mentioned last week, I’d already tried ITP’s built-in multiuser blog and found it frustrating. So it was with great joy that I set up a standalone version in my Web space.

I’ve installed WordPress once before, for my mom’s website. Setting up that just the way I wanted it took me several days, interleaved with real work tasks. So this install was quick and painless, though I’m still sorting out some permissions things and trying to decide which plugins I want. And it took hours to find a template that did roughly what I want; I’ll tweak it from here.

Photo: Oblivious by Vicki’s Pics / Vicki Ashton; some rights reserved.