Wordpress Judge

Reviews, Tips, Tricks, Etc. On Wordpress Stuff & More

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WP-FB-AutoConnect Vs. Simple Facebook Connect

March 20th, 2010 · All Plugins, Wordpress MU Plugins

I will go into detail when WP-FB-Autoconnect has a release that doesn’t have so many bugs. This is what is said in the plugin repository for Justin Klein’s plugin:

Although many “Facebook Connect” plugins do exist, most of them are either overly complex and difficult to customize, or fail to provide a seamless experience for new visitors. I wrote this plugin to provide what the others didn’t.

One of the features he has is an easy integration into Buddypress. It seems though this was the issue where people had the most problems. There were many, many, many questions about configuring this plugin, and it still seems to be a lot of work to get it going in WPMU.

My judgement is that:

  • Justin has worked to fix the issues on his website and in the Buddypress forums.
  • This plugin is fairly new, his next version will probably be very good.
  • It works for Buddypress, and MU support may not matter once 3.0 comes around.

I was able to install it on a single Wordpress install, but as of yet no WPMU or Buddypress. But the March 19th 2010 update; the next update will probably show off the best of what this plugin can offer.

When that happens, we can see how it matches up against Otto’s FB plugin. The only current con I have with it is the many plugins that have to be installed. The module-based approach is good there isn’t a need for all the plugins, but it would’ve been nice to have an option of an all-in-one plugin as well.

If you have comments/judgments on either plugins, please let us know.


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Create Your Own ChatRoulette Website: An Easy How-To Guide

March 18th, 2010 · All Plugins, Editorials and Features, Uncategorized

Chat Roulette has blown up to become one of the hottest sites in the 21st century. Developed by a genius teenager who wanted to bring others together on the internet, the video site has brought together millions, and its popularity doesn’t seem to be stopping.

Many people are now encouraged by sites like ChatRoulette and Ustream to make their own video sites. But how easy can it be? How much would it cost? And how much work will it take to manage a website? We have made a guide on how to make your own Chatroulette video webiste.

1. Requirements.

  • Hosting: You need a host that can provide an RTMP (Real-Time Message Protocol) program. We have a list of recommended hosts you can use. You can also use non-RTMP hosting, but we will talk more about it later.
  • PHP/Web Developer: You will need to know a tiny bit of PHP, or find a web-developer who can help you out. This is optional, but it could save a lot of time.
  • Money: You will need it since most of what we recommend cost money. There are “free” Chatroulette apps out there, as well as free/cheap hosting. 99.9% sure your website won’t survive with either.
  • Marketing/Adsapce Mojo: You need to know how to spread the word about your site through social media, flyers, and networking. .01% of sites, even the good ones, thrive just off word-of-mouth. You also need to know how to make money off the people that come to your site. If you don’t, you will lose money very quickly.

2.  The ChatRoulette Program

WhisperVideo has a 2-Way Video Application that allows you to make your own ChatRoulette website. This application, and also others on the internet, uses Peer-2-Peer (P2P) as the primary function of the program. What this means, is that the only thing your website does is connect to people together to video chat. So you don’t have to pay for a lot of bandwidth.

There are other scripts that are out there, but we picked this application because it is customizable, and you can set-up your own site on WhisperVideo’s servers with the Chatroulette application for just $80 per month. This is the cheapest you will find to be able to get a video site, installation, and hosting without weeks of work, stress, and forking out money for the program.

But if you want to, you can get the application, find your own host, an set it up as well. Make sure to use the trial version first; if it is something you don’t like, it won’t make sense to fork over the money. You can take a look at the demo here.

We half-recommend this Chatroulette Clone Theme script; it seems to work wonders for those using it, and you can host this on ANY host. But the con is that is uses Adobe Stratus, which is a free hosting service that manages video applications. Since so many people are downloading Chatroulette Clone scripts, the service is up&down. But it is a much cheaper way to go if you don’t want to use a RTMP host.

Also, the Chatroulette Clone Theme is planning to make it’s application compatible for Red5 hosting ( a type of RTMP server ). So this could be very good.

3. PHP Knowledge/Web Designer

The scripts above, if you follow directions and there are no bugs, are easy to install. But it would be safe to find someone who knows a little about PHP/MySQL who can help you out.

You can download the trial version and take it for a spin. But if you don’t know much about computers, you will need a web designer to help you out.

Most of these Video Chat plugins can be installed in a few minutes, regardless of how much web knowledge you have. But some people might also want to “customize” their website to look different, or better. You will need a developer to do this ( maybe we can help? )

4. Flash Media Servers / RTMP Servers

In order for this to work, you need to have this application installed on a RTMP server. These are servers that serve flash media (such as videos, streaming videos etc.), You CANNOT use normal shared hosting like Hostgator or GoDaddy since these hosts don’t have those types of servers. They usually don’t even carry these types of servers, and will charge you to install RTMP software. It is easier to go to a RTMP hosting company that provides these servers.

RTMP hosting can be cheap or expensive. If you plan to have a nice little site with about 200-400 people per day video chatting, You can be safe with hosting plans around $20-40. But if you want to make that next “big” site, you will need to utilize something more expensive. Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) seems to be the most superior server software out there, so hosting isn’t cheap. Other RTMP software that are still good are Wowza Flash Servers and Red5 Servers.

Think of the cost of the hosting like the cost of a party. If you don’t buy enough food, drink, and entertaining, the more likely your party is going to suck. So make sure you have a good server ( preferably a dedicated server) that can keep your site running smoothly.

Some recommended RTMP hosts:

5. Install and you are Ready to Party!

Not yet. Once you have a site out there, regardless if it’s the next greatest video site, make sure you take time to learn how to build an audience to come to your site, and how you can advertise to them when they get there.

Ways to advertise is to use press releases, speak with local and web businesses, post on blogs and connect with people in social forums. Once you have some way to spread the word, make sure to keep up on the best ways to make money on your site once you have a decent audience.

If you need recommendations on getting an audience, making money off of your new site, or web customizations, feel free to contact me at contact AT wpjudge DOT com.

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Comprehensive Guide To RTMP, Flash Servers, HTML5, & Streaming Hosts

March 18th, 2010 · Uncategorized

These are just some articles and information I picked up over the last two weeks discussing RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol), RTMP servers, HTML5 vs. Flash, and Streaming Hosting. The reason is that there has been a huge pick-up in interest for people wanting to make their own video streaming sites, similar to sites like Ustream or Chatroulette. We hope this information is informative to help you on your way.

RTMP

From Wikipedia:

Currently, the only full implementation RTMP servers are:

  • Adobe Flash Media Server,
  • Onlinelib VCS Video Communication Server (including iPhone Support)
  • Wowza Media Server
  • WebORB Integration Server (available for .NET, Java, PHP, and Rails) both commercial and free (some open source) implementations.
  • haXeVideo is a multithread FLV streaming server entirely written using the haXe programming language.
  • Red5 Media Server

There is a reverse engineered open source project called Red5 which aims to produce a feature-complete implementation written in Java. As of October 2007, the majority of the functionality is implemented, although the project is still in the beta stage. OneTeam Media Server has also been announced by ProcessOne[7]. C++ implementation is also available. It is called crtmpserver and is located here. There is Erlang implementation erlyvideo which has rather wide functionality: not only file streaming, but restreaming of MPEG-TS or Shoutcast to flash clients by RTMP.”

RTMP Servers


This online IT class streaming company gave a detailed article on what they chose for their media server for their streaming video, and why they chose Adobe Flash Media Server.

Adobe Stratus/RTMFP

If you are planning to build/utilize an application around Adobe Stratus, you are wasting your time if you think there is a long-term plan for it. Adobe is already having load issues, and will probably get worse as more people jump on the RTMFP wagon.

HTML5 V Flash 10(.1)

In the HTML5 Vs. Flash 10 battle, this blogger apologizes for the setbacks of Flash and its future with mobile and internet=to-tv utilities. But he does make a point that Flash 10.1 may be the HTML5 killer, not the other way around.

In this article at the Guardian, Charles Arthur discusses some of the history of Adobe vs. HTML5, the open-source community, and internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee. It is a very worth-while read ( as well as a furious comments section).

“Overall, it’s inaccurate to conclude that Flash is inherently inefficient. Rather, Flash is efficient on platforms where it can access hardware acceleration and less efficient where it can’t. With Flash Player 10.1, Flash has the opportunity for a true leap in video playback performance on all platforms that enable hardware acceleration.”

Chatroulette Clones

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Wordpress Wiki Index: Anyone Want to Join?

March 17th, 2010 · All Plugins, Editorials and Features, Feature, Uncategorized, Unfinished Review, Wordpress MU, Wordpress MU Plugins, Wordpress Themes

I am working on a Wordpress site that aims to “index” information pertaining to all things Wordpress. One of the main reasons is that much of the useful information is mucked up around many,many websites.  Another reason is that resolved issues and tips in Wordpress are not easy to find. This leads to many people in the forums asking redundant questions that could be answered if the resolved issues were more organized.

The goal of the index is to organize simple Wordpress information more, and try to consolidate issues into a format where they can be found a lot more quickly than doing a Google or Wordpress forum search. This is an information site, so you don’t have to be an expert to become a part.

You just need to have a passion for Wordpress, and the ability to find information so that we can organize it better for the community. The site will be called wordpressindex.com. The function of the main page will utilize an auto-suggest method fetching pages within the site and throughout the web, making it easy for the user to find what they need.

If you want to become a part, please email me at contact AT wpjudge DOT com. I do plan to have some type of ad revenue or donation method on the site; an incentive for people if they want to help out.

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Google Fact: You Can Add A Canonical URL to Your Source Page

February 9th, 2010 · Editorials and Features

I didn’t know if anyone needed this information, but found it in the Google Webmaster forums about the canonical URL:

“Yes, it’s absolutely okay to have a self-referential rel=”canonical”. It won’t harm the system and additionally, by including a self-reference you better ensure that your mirrors have a rel=”canonical” to you.”

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Compress CSS/JS Files with This Incredible Plugin!

January 30th, 2010 · All Plugins

But… I would say wait a month before you put it on your site.
Scripts Gzip seems like a great plugin, but there have already been issues in the forums about it having installation and directory problems.

Since this guy got placed in the Wordpress plugin rss, I am guessing the script is legit, but would wait until he can get the bugs out. People, help this man test the plugin!

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Adding CSS ( Change the Look ) of a Specific Post or Page

January 30th, 2010 · All Plugins

This plugin allows you upload css, javascript, and even php for a specific page or post. Instead of add if…then statements in the theme, you can use this plugin.

What is better, if you want to dabble with multiple themes in different posts, this plugin will let you do it. Haven’t heard of many bugs yet, and it doesn’t seem to have a lot of popularity in the WP community.

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W3 Total Cache, DB Cache/Reloaded, WP SuperCache Information

January 30th, 2010 · All Plugins

This isn’t a review; I haven’t had time to review these plugins. But I have done a lot of Googling and have found a lot of information to help people understand each plugin and decipher which ones they need. This is written in Jan. 2010, so if you see this post a year later, these plugins may have been upgraded, and a lot better/worse than the time of this writing.

  • This is a forum for W3 Total Cache. From people’s comments, it seems to have problems with dynamic sidebar content ( such as rotating banners ) and adding comments on different themes.
  • For the forum above, this plugin seems to also have a lot of issues with distorting themes. Probably should wait until there is an upgrade from its current version ( give the man some money!)*-see below for updated info on W3 Total Cache.
  • This guy says that DB Cache reloaded is better than WP Super-Cache. But this blogger puts it in perspective: WP Super Cache helps more for sites where some posts get a lot of traffic, and DB Cache helps sites that get a lot of traffic for many posts ( ie: Craigslist = DB Cache. Maxim.com = WP Super Cache ).
  • Donncha’s WP Super Cache forum: He will answer them in a timely manner.
  • Remember that DB cache stores db requests, and super cache stores html pages ( if you didn’t read the post above. ).
  • Anyone know about this plugin Object Cache?

The creator of the W3 Total Cache plugin has a rebuttal to my comments:

- Fragment caching is coming in the next W3TC release, making the few users that don’t have ideal implementations for (some) widgets happy.
- W3TC doesn’t break site layouts, minify is tricky and many users use settings that are unsafe for their particular themes because themes are all of varying quality and complexity. Minifcation is not something that can be automated although some try and those plugins actually break sites.
- Please use these forums for W3TC here, not on my site: http://wordpress.org/tags/w3-total-cache or http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/tags/w3-total-cache
- Database caching reduces the execution time for generating new pages, but nothing will ever be faster than providing apache an .html file to serve a page until there are changes to the way operating systems work. So add a database cache to your site if you want to reduce page generation time.
- Object caching at that site is basically using opcode caching to store the contents of wp_options table required to answer various requests and also reusing the memory storage for the finalize objects like pages or queries.

At the moment, W3TC is the only plugin to optimize, browser, front-end and backend performance for WordPress and there’s far more to come before release.

This is good to hear. Frederick Townes means business, and the W3 Total Cache plugin could be a popular and dominant script for Wordpress for times to come. Thanks; I will add you to my blog roll.

UPDATE: Donncha has some input on the Object Cache:

The Object Cache has nothing to do with an opcode cache though. It’s simply a cache (using your desired storage mechanism – memory as in memcached, xcache etc, or disk) for options and high level objects in WordPress.

For example, the in-development version of wp-super-cache can use the object cache to store cached pages. If your object cache uses memcached, it caches to RAM, and doesn’t even have to be on the same server as the web server.
Batcache does this too.

Related information: Opcode Cache for Dummies

Thanks guys for giving some input on my post. If someone wants to do some benchmarking and/or extra comparison with these plugins, I will more than welcome it ( and link it here ). I am not good with time these days, but understand the importance of this topic.

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Your Wordpress MU 2.9.1 Upgrade/Update Failed? Some Helpful Tips.

January 27th, 2010 · Wordpress MU

Just going through some stuff I have found when I was helping a friend upgrade his Wordpress MU to 2.9.1 and it failed. Look over these suggestions first before making your decision:

Donncha’s comment-meta solution: link

This ended up working since his was 2.8.2: link

Any other solutions for WPMU 2.9.1 upgrade? Let us know!

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The Best Iframe Embed Plugin On Wordpress To Date

January 13th, 2010 · All Plugins, Editorials and Features, Wordpress MU Plugins

So today, there were two things that I had to prepare a couple of blogs for. One was the litany of quality video content that has been hitting the web lately ( ie: the Conan O’Brien tirade against NBC ), and some of these websites require flash or Iframe embedding in order to post these videos on your blog.

DISCLAIMER: This is for people who use Wordpress for their blogs, not people who have received blogs from Wordpress.com

I looked through the repository and found some plugins that were either outdated or were a little too complicated in terms of restructuring the embed codes ( ME likey cut and paste. ME no likey cut, paste, change bracket symbol, add an equal sign, and video size dimensions etc. )

But without showcasing the contenders, the best Iframe plugin that allowed me to embed videos was:

EMBEDIT WORDPRESS PLUGIN

If The Website Doesn’t Work, Download Here:

I didn’t find this in the Wordpress plugin repository, but it looks legit, and works like a charm.

How to use the plugin:

  1. Once you have installed it, all you have to do is go get the IFRAME/EMBED code.
  2. In the post, write the shortcode in the visual section “HTML1″ —> instead of quotes, use brackets []. If I put brackets around HTML1, you won’t see it.
  3. In custom fields, add the name “HTML1″ —–> no quotes, no brackets
  4. In the value section, add the embed code.
  5. Publish the darn thing!
  6. If you have a second video, you can write the shortcode and add HTML2 in the custom field along with the video embed code.
  7. You can do this for up to 9 embeds per post! ( eg: ["HTML1"], ["HTML2]“, ["HTML3"], ["HTML4"], etc. )
  8. Not sure if it is supposed to be capitalized, but I do it since the plugin has it capitalized.

Try it out. If anyone has any issues, or has a better Embed plugin ( or other plugins that are related ), let me know.

Here is an exmaple of an embed for you. Great song. Enjoy!

The Future Of Music in The 20th Century by thewham

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