6 WordPress Plugins I think Are Cool

We have been reading about WordPress and Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s book, WordPress for Dummies, has given us one of the best overview of WordPress I’ve seen. I’ve been using the platform for a few years now. I think the first version I used was back in 2004, way before the wonders of version 2.7. So, in honor of this great new feature, I’d like to give you a listing of 6 plugins that I use and that I think are pretty cool. My suggestions are not as productivity oriented as Lisa’s top 10, but I think you’ll enjoy them anyway.  All of these plugins can be easily installed just by clickong on “add a new” plugin via your WordPress Dashboard.  Simply use the search feature and you’ll be able to install the plugin within seconds.  Enjoy!

1. Twitter Tools

I think this is one of the easiest ways to incorporate Twitter into your page. All you really need to do is put in your login credentials and then choose how many tweets you to show on your blog at a time. You can also choose to make “tweets” from the sidebar of your blog or to have an automatic tweet posted whenever you publish a new post. There are other glamorous ways to bring Twitter to your sidebar. This just happens to be a really easy one.

2. Run for Cover

If you use last.fm then this is the plugin for you! (and if you don’t, you should). Run for Cover displays the album covers of the most recently scrobbled songs to the sidebar of your blog. When you listend to music, for example through iTunes, and you are a last.fm user, then the song data (title, artist, album) is sent to the last.fm database and they keep a log of what you have listened to. This is called scrobbleing.  This plugin pulls this data and displays it as album art right on your blog.

3. Picturegrid

This plugin allows you to display pictures from your flickr account. You can choose how many photos you want to display at once. It’s very easy to configure in your flickr account settings. You’ll need to use the next plugin on the list to make this one work with special features.

4. jQuery lightbox

Have you ever wondered how some sites display photos in a gallery format with a black screen? You know, the ones that once you click on the photo to enlarge it, a nice black screen shows like a shadow and the picture appears in the center? Well know you can do that on your own blog. When you use the lightbox plugin with Picturegrid (see #3) then you can make your lackluster photos appear high-tech and professional. All you have to do is have both plugins install.

5. del.icio.us for WordPress

One of the easist ways to share your collection of bookmarks is via this simple plugin. All you need to do is input your login credentials for del.icio.us and there are your bookmarks. A nice feature is that you can do multiple lists, by filtering by tag(s). This is a good tool for showing links on professional or personal blogs.

6. Quotes Collection

This is a personal favorite of mine. I like to collect quotes and share them with others. This plugs allows you to do just that. You can publish a new quote just like you publish a new post. The plugin selects a new quote at random at every page load. Very simple way to add personalization to your blog.