With half of 2008 over I thought I would check to see how the blog stats are doing.

327 posts made
130 RSS subscribers
678 comments
52,862 unique visitors
990,770 pages views

Based on these numbers I believe we should hit our 2008 Blog Goals.

Our top 5 commentators for 2008 are…

1. Matt
2. Webkinz
3. Nick
4. Hosting Blog
5. Dr. Cossack

Check your own goal posts you made for 2008 and see if your on task at the half way point.

 

Up until now the easiest way to add a job board to your blog was to use a service like JobCoin but your visitors had to pay to post jobs. If you were a ProBlogger you could have a custom job board script built for you. Thanks to our staff now you will not need to worry about that. You can add a job board to your site now just by installing our BlueFur WordPress Job Board script.

Installation

1. Download the zip file.
2. Unzip the files and upload them to a folder where you want the job board.
3. Create a MySQL database, a user for the database and add the user to the database.
4. Open the jobs.mysql using notepad and do a Find & Replace for jobs.bluefur.com with your own domain where the job board will end up. Be sure to save the file before proceeding to the next step.
5. Using PHPmyadmin import the jobs.mysql file into the database you just created.
6. Edit your wp-config.php file to use the database name, database user and database password that you created above.
7. Login to to the wp-admin (yourdomain.com/somefolder/wp-amin/) with username: admin and password: password.
8. Update your admin login details and change any settings you require.

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We’ve decided to make this script Open Source and release under the GNU General Public License version 3. This means you can download the script and use it how you want.

Future Releases

I am thinking that an ecommerce version would be a good add-on for this script. You could then charge people through PayPal to post a job.

Problems?

Post any problems you have in the comments.

This download is no longer available.

Last week we started building a very basic Hello World WordPress plugin. This week we will expand on that tutorial by adding the ability to change some of the content in the admin area of WordPress.

To being open the helloword.php file that we used last week.

Modify your hello_world function to look like this…

function hello_world() {
        $hello = get_option(‘hello_global’);
        Print(“$hello”);
}

The above change allows for a variable to be set in the admin area. Next we will need to add functions so that we can add an admin setting page. Add the following…

function modify_menu() {
        add_options_page(
                ‘Hello World’,
                ‘Hello World’,
                ‘manage_options’,
                _File_,
                ‘admin_hello_options’
        );
}

add_action(‘admin_menu’,'modify_menu’);

The above code will add a page to the admin area but it will be blank. Next add the following code…

function admin_hello_options(){
Print(“<h2>Hello World Plugin</h2>”);
if ($_REQUEST['submit']){
        upate_hello_options();
}
print_hello_form();
}

The above code creates the admin settings page. Now we need to add content…

function upate_hello_options(){
if ($_REQUEST['hello_global']) {
update_option(‘hello_global’,$_REQUEST['hello_global']);
}
}

function print_hello_form() {
$default_greeting = get_option(‘hello_global’);
Print (“<form method=’post’><label for=’hello_global’>Greeting:
<input type=’text’ name=’hello_global’ value=’$default_greeting’>
</label>
<br />
<input type=’submit’ name=’submit’ value=’Submit’ >
</form>”);
}

Be sure to upload these changes to your plugin folder. You may need to deactivate and activate again. You will then be able to enter your own text which will show up on your main page.

If you get stuck let me know in the comments.

I know that some of you use Google Apps for either personal or business use.

This gave me an idea! With each new customer we could create an automatic sub domain to point to their own Google Apps. I found out you can create an API to generate an account for Google Apps as long as you are a Google Apps Small Business Solution Provider.

For current customers we will setup a Customer Resource Center form to request the setup if we decided to move forward.

Last week we were accepted as a Google Apps Small Business Solution Provider.

Time to hear your opinion on the direction.

Should we create an API to add Google accounts for new users and have a standard sub domain to point to it? If so, what sub domain would you use?

Learning to develop a WordPress plugin can be both fun and rewarding. In this Tutorial we will go over how to make a simple Hello World plugin that you can create. This will give you a very basic understanding of how to create a simple WordPress plugin that we can build on in future tutorials.

To begin with create a folder in your wp-content/plugins/ folder called helloworld.

Next create a file in a text editor called helloword.php.

Add the following lines of code to the helloword.php file…

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Hello World
Plugin URI: http://www.yourdomain.ca
Description: A simple Hello Word Plugin
Version: 1
Author: John Doe
Author URI: http://www.yourdomain.ca
*/

The above code creates the information pulled in to the Plugins page of your WordPress admin. Plugin URI should point to the site where you will provide updates and install details for a plugin. The other information above you can edit to be your own details.

Now add the following code to the bottom of the helloworld.php file…

function hello_world() {

        Print(“Hello World”);

}

?>

The above code will output Hello World when the plugin is called from one of your pages. Upload the helloworld.php file to your helloworld folder and activate the Hello World plugin in your WordPress admin.

Last step is to add the plugin to a page so you can see the plugin. To do that add the following code to the bottom of your index.php file in your theme…

<?php

        if(function_exists(‘hello_world’))

                {

                hello_world();

                }

?>

Be sure to upload the change to your index.php file and refresh your main page. If you placed it at the bottom of your page you should see it now if you scroll to the bottom of your page. You can remove the plugin from your page by deactivating it.

Although this example may not be exciting it is a good start to the understanding of how to create plugin. In our next example we will build of this so you can learn how to make more advanced WordPress plugins.

If you get stuck let me know in the comments.

We asked if a Job Board would be a good added feature to our site. You spoke and we listened. I wanted the Job Board to be built only with WordPress. Once the Job Board is 100% ready I will be releasing the code for free so that you and others can have a job board on your own blog.

After a few weeks of playing with various plugins and css in WordPress we have the beta of our job board online. You can test the beta of the job board at jobs.bluefur.com.

Please test it out and provide any feedback you have in the comments.