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WP-DBManager

Speaking of the WordPress database, the useful WP-DBManager plugin allows you to create backups, restore from a backup, optimize the database, run SQL queries against the WP database, and manage saved backups.

Yes, WordPress comes with a plugin that allows you to make backups, but WP-DBManager also allows you to restore directly from the backup and delete old backups. It basically provides a one-stop shop for fiddling with your database from the WP2 admin menu.

It also provides information on the tables in your WP database, so you can see exactly how many records are in each table and how large each table is. I did a few test restores with the plugin, and it worked just fine. If you're using the Admin Drop Down Menu, you'll need to disable it to get to all of WP-DBManager's menu options. That's a bit of an inconvenience, but not too bad.

Jerome's Keywords Plugin

By default, WordPress posts are associated with one or more categories. However, a lot of folks want to be able to associate tags with their posts as well. For example, I have a Linux category on Dissociated Press, but I might want to tag a post with Ubuntu or Debian to further specify what it's about. If categories alone just don't do it for you, several WordPress plugins give you the ability to add tags (in one form or another) to your blog.

After testing several of the tag-enabling plugins, I settled on Jerome's Keywords Plugin because it offers several useful tag-related features. In its simplest usage, it adds a field to the post-editing page for tags that relate to each post. To show the tags related to each post, you need to add some code to your templates to actually display the tags and links, but that's a relatively simple operation. Once you've added them, readers click on a link for any tag that interests them and see all posts that are tagged with a specific keyword.

Another nifty use of Jerome's Keyword Plugin is that you can create a keyword cosmos, which displays some or all of your tags and visually indicates which ones are used more often. For example, if you have 50 tags, and you've used tags like Debian or Ubuntu more often than GPL or FreeBSD, the Debian and Ubuntu tags will be displayed in a larger font to indicate they are associated with more posts than other tags.

Search and replace

The search and replace plugin can come in handy if you need to make changes throughout multiple posts on your blog. This plugin searches through posts, titles, excerpts, and comments to find a text string and replace it with whatever you like. You can limit it as well -- for example, say you want to replace a string only in post titles but not in comments. It is case-sensitive, by the way, so searching for foo won't turn up Foo or FOO.

This plugin is easy to use, but use it with caution -- it doesn't include the ability to undo a change, and it doesn't give you the opportunity to preview its work before it makes the changes.

Post levels

Maintaining a blog can be a good way of keeping your friends and family apprised of things going on in your life. Unfortunately, it's also a good way of sharing too much information with other parties who might find your blog.

WordPress allows you to password-protect posts, but this is a bit clunky. The post still shows up on your blog, but just has a message indicating that it's password-protected. I've never liked this system -- it's like taunting readers, waving a password-protected post in their face. Even LiveJournal users have the ability to restrict posts to only their friends -- unless you're logged in and on the friends list, the posts are invisible.

The Post Levels plugin prevents the post from showing up unless a user is already authenticated. The post also doesn't show up in the default RSS feed, so it's virtually invisible to any users that aren't logged in to your blog. The plugin also allows you to define the default level for posts and users, and to modify the title for protected posts.

The plugin is easy to use. Once you place it in the plugins directory and enable it, you can simply set a post's level from public to 10, with 10 being the highest level of restriction. This way, it's possible to have some posts that are public, some that are visible to all registered users (say, family), and some that are visible only to a select handful of users -- like your best buddies from college who already know all your deepest and darkest secrets and have photos to prove it.

This plugin could also be useful in a work environment, where some posts could be visible to everyone, while other posts could be visible only to staff or management.

This plugin might not be very useful if you're using WordPress to power a multiauthor blog. However, I strongly recommend it for personal blogs. It's not unusual these days for employers to go searching Google for information on potential or current employees. It might be a good idea to limit what you share with the world at large.

CG-Samecat

The CG-Samecat plugin is part of the CG-PowerPack set of plugins. This plugin lists posts from similar categories, or the same category, as the post being read. This is useful if you want to let readers check out similar posts.

After enabling this plugin, you need to add a code snippet to your index.php, my-hacks.php, or another file in your WordPress theme. The PowerPack set comes with a readme on customizing the list of posts that are returned. It might take a little fiddling to get exactly the result you want, but it's pretty easy to use.

AdSense-Deluxe

A lot of bloggers use Google's AdSense or Yahoo!'s Publisher Network to try to defray the costs of hosting, or even to make a profit. If you're using WordPress with AdSense, the AdSense-Deluxe plugin might be worth a look.

This plugin lets you embed AdSense or Publisher Network ads in WordPress posts, and it gives you a "sandbox" to preview ads and see what might be displayed for a given post using a test account. You can click on ads to see where they lead without counting as an impression or going against the terms of service. Note that this preview is not always accurate as to what actually appears on your blog, but it does seem to have a pretty good hit/miss ratio.

You can configure everything through the AdSense-Deluxe option menu. Just copy the AdSense code from Google into the AdSense Code box and create an AdSense block. You can display it in any post by adding the code in the text of the post. For example, if you create a block with the name "banner," you'll add <!--adsense#banner--> into the body of the post.

You're not limited to a single block, either. You can create as many blocks as you wish and simply paste in the code for the appropriate ad. It's also possible to use AdSense-Deluxe to place ads on your blog outside your posts, though I haven't spent any time trying to configure any in that fashion.

Finding more plugins

This is only a small sampling of WordPress plugins that are worth checking out. The WordPress Plugin Directory and WordPress Plugin Database are good places to start searching for useful plugins.

Some plugins don't work with WP2, so it's a good idea to check the plugin compatibility list first. I'd also suggest that you back up your WP database before enabling a plugin -- particularly one that adds tables or makes other changes to the WP database.

WordPress is both very popular and very extensible, so with a little bit of searching and testing, you'll probably be able to find plugins to add almost any functionality you can think of.

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