Kontera Control for WP 2.3:
Feel Free To Test!

An updated version of Kontera Control for WP 2.3 is working on my two test blogs, my diet blog and here:

1. Test blog 1: uses WP 2.2.3. I activated widgets on the sidebar, and it’s currently displaying the “Raindrops” theme.
2. Test blog 2: uses WP 2.3; it’s currently displaying a weird version of my normal theme. (The oddities have nothing to do with the plugin.)
3. Neglected diet blog: uses 2.1.2, with no widgets.

Notes:
Tricia had trouble with the version I emailed her. Maybe I attached something other than what I thought was the final version? (I sometimes click “save” and end up with extra copies in odd folders on my mac.) So to avoid issues with email snafus, I zipped the version that is actually running right here on my blog. You can down load by clicking Kontera Control for WP 2.3

To use: Download Kontera Control for WP 2.3, unzip. Upload to plugins. Deactivate old version of Kontera control. Activate this version. If you like, visit the Options page and adjust options. Look at blog to see if the plugin is working.

I think there should be no problems. However, until at least a few people other than me have tested, ya’ never know. If you experience any problems, please copy the error message and send it to me. The precise words in the gooble-dy-gook message help me. (Knowing there are no words helps too.)

After that, just deactivate this version and reactivate the old one.

Changes

Changes compared to old version:

1. Fixed a bug that occurred when widgets were used. That bug made Kontera Control think posts were comments.
2. Found a few formatting issues on the control page.

Tags:blog Kontera Kontera Control My Plugins widgets WordPress

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No Old Spam Links Plugin Updated:
Can it salvage PR?

Today brings a flood of announcements that Google has knocked down many blog Page Ranks. This is thought to be due to a number of factors including excess numbers of paid posts. So, it is natural that I should hurry up and update “No Old Spam Links”, the plugin that lets you automatically “nofollow” sponsored posts after your contractual obligation to “follow” has expired.

In principle, this plugin may help protect your PR. In practice? Matt Cutts’ has never commented on “No Old Spam Links” and is likely unaware of it. So, who knows?

That said, here are the recent changes to the plugin:

1. I discovered and fixed a bug that sometimes when widgets were used. I fixed the bug.
2. I discovered and fixed a bug that sometimes occurs when you have no specific people in your “nofollow” list. Unfortunately, this bug was affecting my knitting blog so I was giving out way more followed paid links than I intended! Way more.)(Yes, my knitting blog’s page rank dropped; I’ll elaborate on this in a separate post.)
3. I tested the new version with WP 2.3. It works fine.

So, if your worried about excess followed paid links, I suggest you install No Old Spam Links. If you aren’t worried about Google, or you are waiting for them to announce the plugin helps, then don’t use it.

Other plugin news:

1. Tricia is testing the new version of Kontera Control at her WP 2.2 blog. I’m testing at my test blog. She was the one who alerted me to the general issue of plugins going buggy when widgets are used.
2. I updated “Hide No Sponsored Categories” but I’m letting it sit a few days so I can do a better job detecting any bugs. The future version should work for WP 2.3, be compatible with widgets (in fact, it is widgetized) and hopefully work for all versions of WP 2.2 and above. I also coded to detect problems with early version of WP and inform the user why the options page doesn’t display. (This was, btw, the update from hell because my favorite WP category hook vanished!)

Tags:Link Building My Plugins NoOldSpamLinks paid links sponsored posts WordPress

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Kontera Control Being Updated:
Would you like me to test with your theme?

I’m updating Kontera Control to work with Wordpress 2.3 and address pesky issues that Tricia of Feverish Thoughts and Loren of Today’s Gizmo’s alerted me to. Guess what? You can help me.

If you use Kontera Control and have experienced any problems or observed any strangeness, please:

1. Describe the problem.
2. Tell me the name of your theme.
3. Describe any widgets or other plugins you use — comments and categories widgets and plugins are usually the most crucial ones for me to know about. (If you don’t know your plugins and widgets off hand, I’ll ask you by email.)

Why will this information help me? Consider what happened with Tricia’s Theme.

Tricia had an issue with Kontera ads appearing in posts in the ‘Sponsored Category’ after she widgetized her site using the Raindrops theme — the plugin had worked before widgetizing.

Deactivating the widgets did not cause the error to go away. (It’s odd the error doesn’t go away when you de-widgetize … but… whatever.)

By testing Kontera Control using Tricia’s theme on my test blog, I discovered the precise incompatibility which is: The Rainbows widget somehow fills the global “comment variable” (called $comment) in a way that causes it to be “true” even outside comments.

This is a bit pesky, and caused my Kontera Control to fail, because I anticipated that “$comment” would be “false” outside comments. Silly me.

(Turns out it’s very, very easy to work around this. But, I need to figure out precisely what went wrong first.)

Anyway, if you are having an issue, give me as much detail, and as soon as possible. That way, I can get the fixed version of KC out by Friday, (which will make Tricia very happy!)

Tags:Kontera Control My Plugins WordPress

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