Pallian Creative

If you’ve ever used Wordpress before to run a blog, you would know by now how many thousands of plugins exists out there to make your blogging experience better. What you may not know is that about half of them are poorly coded and almost surely slows down your site and/or exposes security flaws. I’ve been researching and testing a whole bunch of new plugins for the new upcoming TIM sites and thought maybe I should share some of the plugins we’re using. We use Wordpress MU over the original Wordpress - so this presents a little challenge by itself. But with a little trial and error and some code tweaking, I’ve managed to install the following 10 plugins successfully. If you run Wordpress, try installing these plugins if you haven’t already done so. It’ll go a long way in making your blog a little bit more efficient.

WP eCommerce

With our growing list of products for sale (alerts, dvd, book etc) and with the introduction of five additional products planned for fall, we needed an e-commerce site that could make shopping a little easier - and WP eCommerce is just the perfect plugin for that. Its Ajax powered and super easy to setup - and it integrates effortlessly with our new payment processing system. Download HERE.

AntiLeech

Ever did a google search and notice that your exact same blog post is on another ghost site competing for traffic hits with yours? AntiLeech helps prevent content theft by sploggers. It’s a clever little plugin that produces a fake set of content especially for sploggers that includes links back to your site. A must have to stay on top of google. Download HERE.

iWPhone

Here’s a neat plugin that automatically reformats the blog’s content for optimized viewing on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. Just tested it on my iPhone and it works like a charm. TIMAlerts members using iPhones will especially love it. Download HERE.

Sabre

Sabre - an acronym for Simple Anti Bot Registration Engine is a lifesaver plugin that helps us manage our subscribers and prevents spambots from signing up. If you’ve ever tried registering for TIMalerts and had to answer a math question, it is Sabre doing it’s thing. Download HERE.
Read & Discuss

My business partner TIM is heading out to Japan today on a little business/holiday trip for the next 10 days, so I thought what better excuse to showcase some of my favorite Japanese designers and all things Japan (besides the insane street signs, which will be a post on its own):

PingMag - Great Japanese design mag, a must read if you want to keep up with the latest underground design culture in Japan.

Tokyo Cube - If you love Japan, you will love Tokyo Cube. It’s probably the only store outside of Japan where you can buy some of the coolest toys and tees straight from Tokyo.

Window Shopping In Tokyo - This is one of the neatest projects I’ve ever seen. Updated weekly, this website showcases some of the fascinating and shifting trends in Japanese high-end fashion.

Sexy Subaru - Not sure how many of you have seen these ad spots for Subaru - they air quite a bit in Canada. Check out their website to win a really neat Canon + Apple + Adobe prize pack for taking pics of Sumo wrestlers! Click HERE to view the ad on Youtube. Read & Discuss