Improving The Web

I’m releasing my second plugin today, which I only started developing yesterday, after reading WPHacks.

Anyone who’s got an advertising page knows it’s tiresome to have to update that page every so often with the newest pagerank, alexa ranking, technorati ranking and feedburner RSS suscriber count.

This plugin comes to the rescue! It automatically updates all those values once a day, ensuring that you always have the most up to date statistics page.

To read what statistics are available, and for download instructions, go here.

I just wanted to clear up some confusion on what this blog will be about. There are three different areas I will focus on:

- The first is my collection of open source scripts. These range from wordpress plugins to entire website scripts that I will be releasing for free. And trust me, you’ll love them.

- Secondly, you will be seeing everything I do online. Every website I create, I will post to this blog. I’m also thinking about adding progress updates, traffic statistics, promotion methods, etc.. for each website.

- This will be spruced up by normal blog posts in between where I try to share some of my knowledge with you.

It is my hope that by showing you everything you can get some ideas for your own websites and start creating.

I couldn’t end the year without having at least 1 plugin ready for download, so I’m happy to report I made one just in time.

Improved Plugin Installation is an improvement to the current wordpress 2.7 plugin installation methods.

It allows you to install one or more plugins simply by typing the names of the plugins or the download URLs. This means you can install all your favorite wordpress plugins in one go!

Furthermore, a bookmarklet is included which lets you install plugins directly from an external site.

For more information and download instructions, check out the dedicated page.

It’s that time of the year again, when we inevitably go and set new goals. Listed below are my top 10 goals for 2009:

1. Blog at least once a week

I’m not the biggest of writers, and also don’t think you need to write daily to attain a following. Notice that I did say “at least”, hopefully I write more  blog posts than that, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of quality. I intend on perhaps making this a multi-author blog to bring in people with expertise in different areas than myself.

2. Average 2000 RSS subscribers

That’s a huge number for a new, unestablished blog. Considering I now have 7 RSS subscribers, 5 of which are search bots and 1 of which is myself, that’s a “pretty big” increase.

3. Have a twitter network of at least 1000 followers

I’m currently at zero, though I obviously haven’t started using/promoting it yet. Follow me now.

4. Create 12 new websites

 That amounts to 1 website per month, which sounds doable. I’ve already got a few in the works. 

5. Create at least 20 wordpress plugins

Considering I have 5 in development right now, and a document which lists at least 50 other plugin ideas, this should be pretty easy to accomplish. 

6. Learn a new programming language

Though I have learned Java and even Cobol during my school years, I’m currently only using PHP. I’m really interested in learning ruby and its coveted framework “ruby on rails”.

7. Be more organized

I’m very, very disorganized. I never find what I’m looking for, I forget to pay the bills, etc etc… This needs to change now.

8. Improve my English

Writing this blog is a great exercise. I’ll say it again, if you find a spelling or grammatical error in any of my posts, please do let me know.

9. Be active in online communities

This is part of trying to build a bit of a reputation. It will involve participating in forums and commenting on other blogs.

10. Work more, play less

Being online all day long can be very distracting, one thing I must learn to do is to focus more on my projects, and not get sidetracked.

There you have it, 10 goals, a nice round number. Check back in a year to see if I failed any of them.

You’re reading the very first post on Improving The Web. Consider yourself amongst one of the lucky few to have witnessed the birth of this website!

For more info on what this site is about, read the about page.

I’ll be launching a first wordpress plugin in a couple of days. It’s an enhancement to wordpress 2.7 only. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it already saved me some time.