If you haven’t already noticed, this site is running on Wordpress 2.2. I’ve tried a lot of other solutions (drupal, blog:CMS) and this one is by far the best. The templating ability along with the HUGE list of available functions make this a no brainer.

As I develop this site I’ll be continually updating this page to share with you what I think about Wordpress, and whatever headaches it has caused me. Below is some more information that might help you with your own implementation of Wordpress.

myRecent is a simple plugin that I had to develop for my index.php left sidebar. For some reason, another plugin was interfering with my page navigations. Instead of trying to fix the problem, I decided to try my hand at making one.
Syntax: myRecent([returnLimit]) returns: <ul> of all the most recent entries that are NOT static pages (archives, etc.). Defaults to a limit of 10 if not defined.

I had to edit this plugin so that the defined Next would become my Previous, and the defined Previous would become my Next. I want my readers to go backwards in time and not feel like they are working their way up. There’s probably a paginator that does that, but I liked the simplicity and CSS options of this one.

• Addicted to Live Search - That nifty AJAX search box I use in this site. Pretty incredible. The only thing with the redoable template is that you must download a copy of rollingarchive.php . I have no idea why it wasn’t in my download.
• Akismet - Comes with Wordpress and is by far the best way to hold back spammers from your post. Give it a try.
• Dean’s FCKeditor for Wordpress - I’m not a big fan of the default Wordpress WYSIWYG so I installed this. It gives you TONS of control and is extremely good at adding images to posts. With it’s built in file manager, there’s nothing even close.
  You must be careful when uploading pictures though. One that is too large will ruin your layout. My solution was to tweak the .js code to only allow a picture that is 450px wide so it doesn’t ruin anything. If you need help, or want to know how I did that, shoot me an email at matt@truCubed.com.
• Digg This - This plugin adds Digg detection to your posts. Great way to gain popularity one the best social bookmarking sites. You get to the front page of that site, you better have a nice server setup.
• Easy Tube - Simple way to add google and YouTube video’s to your posts. Just a filter that replaces a [tag] with a flash object. I really don’t need this though, since FCKEditor has built in Flash embedding tools.
• Facebook Photos - WOW! WOW! WOW! This is by far the best plugin I have running. When you goto write a post, you can drag and drop images from you Facebook account. WOW! Did I say it yet…WOW! Fully AJAX and works amazing! Must get!
• FeedSmith - Plugin that handles all your RSS Syndication through FeedBurner.
• Google Analytics - Duh.
• Google Sitemaps - This one is pretty cool. Every time you update or add a post, it updates your sitemaps.
• Gregarious - Plugin that allows your users to easily submit your posts to almost all the social sites. I only use it for the DIGG functionality. But too cluttery for me.
• Recent Entries - MY PLUGIN! Its above! Download it…do it…do it….do it….
• Related Posts - Based on keywords, it shows you a list of related articles. Great way to get readers to digg deeper into your site.
• Search Meter - Admin tool that shows you what people are looking for on your site. Can’t ever have enough information.
• Ultimate Tag Warrior - The best plugin for a tag cloud. Check mine out..pretty cool huh.
• WordCount - Displays the number of words in each of my posts. I’m a big fan of statistics, so the more I can find the better. 
• Wp-Cache - If you want a plugin that could save you money and hosting time, this is the solution. Let speak of a theoretical situation when you page makes it to the front of any major social bookmarking site. Your visits are going to go through the roof! More than likely, your hosting server’s aren’t going to be able to handle it. This plugin could save you from a total meltdown. It caches a version of each viewed page for a specified time period. After that period, it gets a new one. So instead of hitting your MySQL server and running all kinds of Wordpress queries, it just runs one to get the entire cached version of the page. Great Plugin!
• WP-DBManager - Being the database guru I am, I figured I should have some DB Admin tools from my Wordpress dashboard right?! Automatic backup features, ability to run SQL Queries, plus much much more. Great tool.
• WP-PageNavi - Pagination instead of links on the bottom of your pages. Pretty cool.
• WP-PostRatings - Rate each of your post using those stars. AJAX and simple to implement…although you might want to create your own stars like I did. The prepackaged ones are a bit rough on the edges and unless your theme involves neon green, it’s not going to match.
• WP-PostViews - Shows how many times a post is viewed. By default it only counts people that are NOT logged into your site. It’s simple to disable with deleting exactly 2 lines of code.

If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email or leave a comment! I will answer them ALL! I promise. Thanks for reading, and I hope this will help you in your future Wordpress endeavors.