Custom WordPress Theme Design

I know, I know, back to back WordPress plugin posts, but the incomparable Phil Gerbyshak turned me on to yet another WordPress plugin that I managed to overlook somehow.

ilfilosofo’s WordPress Database Backup Plugin is very cool - you can schedule WordPress to email your database to you, save it to your server, or download it to your computer. I know that you can backup your database yourself but you have to remember to do it - this plugin relieves you of that responsibility.

I used to use ilfilosofo homepage plugin before WordPress decided to make that a core function, but I missed this plugin, which makes me wonder, what other great WordPress plugins are out there that I have overlooked…

I was looking for a more reliable plugin to show You Tube videos inside of WordPress, what I found was a whole lot more:

Anarchy Media Player 2.0 for WordPress, WordPressMu and Standalone Javascript will play any simple href link to mp3, flv, Quicktime mov, mp4, m4v, m4a, m4b, 3gp as well as Windows wmv, avi and asf files, in the appropriate player on your web page. The WordPress versions also add buttons to the Rich Text Editor for embedding Flash swf and Director dcr movies as well as YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, DailyMotion, Revver, Metacafe, MySpace, Apple iTunes iMix, and GoEar players.

I am not sure how I overlooked this plugin for so long, but it seems to be damn good - and - it works with WordPress MU, and there is a stand alone javascript version for you WordPress impaired people. Yes, it is hacked together, but it is hacked together well…

Okay, yes, I know, there are alot of “best WordPress plugins” type posts out there and while I am adding another its because that I have come to rely on this small group of plugins. I am a WordPress professional, WordPress is what I do day in and day out - creating new themes, modifying code, and yes managing clients blogs for them.

One common demoninator in all of the blogs that I develop is that they all use plugins. That’s the way that WordPress was designed - to have a small core that can be easily expanded with plugins for specific needs. This list is my personal list of plugins that I trust and use every day.

• TubePress
  TubePress is a free, highly configurable WordPress plugin that displays YouTube videos in an embedded gallery in your posts and/or pages.
• Counterize II
  Simple counter-plugin with no external libs - saves IP, timestamp, visited URl, referring URl and browserinformation in database, and can display total hits, unique hits and other statistics in WordPress webpages. Admin-interface available with detailed information
• Google (XML) Sitemaps
  This generator will create a sitemaps.org compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported By Google, MSN Search and YAHOO
• Breadcrumb Navigation XT
  Adds a breadcrumb navigation showing the visitor’s path to their current location.
• Related Posts
  Returns a list of the related entries based on active/passive keyword matches
• Role Manager
  Role Management for registered users of WordPress 2.0.
• Spam Karma 2
  Spam Karma 2 (SK2) is an anti-spam plugin for the WordPress blogging platform. It is meant to stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters.
• WP e-Commerce Lite
  The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for WordPress is an elegant easy to use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.
• SRG Clean Archives
  A nice clean way to dislay your archives.