New Development Push

October 13th, 2007
After looking into the technologies involved in developing fully dynamic websites I have come to realise that learning the skills in involved in developing such a site would take too much time for me to develop on my own. In addition to the time involved in learning all of the necessary programming languages and disciplines, I also have to consider that I am in full time employment and not studying on the PGDip in New Media Publishing as I had envisaged over the summertime. At first I tried to find myself a PHP developer, as PHP is the primary driver behind dynamic (database driven) sites. However, it appears that PHP developers are in short supply and the ones that do exist are likely to already be in high paid employment. I did use the list of contacts that I had collected whilst searching for web developers whilst studying the Business Enterprise (BA) undergraduate course at DeMontfort University. This development then led me to reconsider an alternative suggested to me Simon Mills, a lecturer from the DMU media department. What he suggested was that I use the open source WordPress publishing software to generate my articles/posts and then use CSS to style the whole site. Whilst I knkow very little CSS myself I have managed to find myself a CSS programmer, based in Nottingham, to help work with sites development. At this point we have successfully managed to adapt a theme to more closely match the design of the WIARD FM site and have also managed to find a wealth of plug-ins that will help to content manage the site effectively. From the list below I will have to determine which ones are most suited to the sites needs.

Word Press 2.3 Compatible Plugin

Multimedia

Audio Player (http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/) 1.2.3

NextGEN Gallery (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/) 0.64

Fotobook (http://www.aaronharp.com/dev/wp-fotobook/) 2.1

Lightbox JS v2.03.3 Plugin (http://www.4mj.it/lightbox-js-v20-wordpress/) 1.7

Embed Video with Link (http://www.jovelstefan.de/embedded-video/) 3.4

PodPress (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/podpress/) 8.2

Kimili Flash Embed (http://kimili.com/plugins/kml_flashembed/wp/) 1.3.1

Genki YouTube Comments (http://ericulous.com/2007/05/16/wp-plugin-genki-youtube-comments/) 1.0

Last.Fm Records (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lastfm-records/) 1.2.2

wordTube by Alex Rabe (http://alexrabe.boelinger.com/?page_id=20/) 1.52

Layout/Design

DropCap First Character (http://www.rc.au.net/blog/2006/07/27/dropcap-first-character-wordpress-plugin/) 1.0.1

DashBoard

Lighter Admin Drop Menus (http://www.italyisfalling.com/lighter-admin-drop-menus-wordpress-plugin) 2.3

Yet Another PhotoBlog (http://johannes.jarolim.com/yapb) beta 1.6

Publishing

All-in-One SEO Pack (http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/03/24/all-in-one-seo-pack/) 1.2.7.3

Twitter Tools (http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress) 1.0

Category LiveBookmarks Plus (http://perishablepress.com/press/2006/08/07/category-livebookmarks-plus/) 2.3.0

WP-WAP (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 2.10

WordBook (http://www.tsaiberspace.net/blog/2007/07/29/wordbook/) 0.10.4

Administration

Admin Drop-Down Menus (http://www.stuff.yellowswordfish.com/admin-drop-down-menus/) 2.1

Lighter Admin Drop Menus (http://www.italyisfalling.com/lighter-admin-drop-menus-wordpress-plugin) 2.3

WP-ServerInfo (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 1.00

Social Bookmarking Reloaded (http://www.valent-blog.eu/social-bookmarking-reloaded/) 2.6

WP-Stats (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 2.20

Google Analyticator (http://cavemonkey50.com/code/google-analyticator/) 1.54

Google Sitemap Generator (http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/) 3.0b9 and better, 3.0 (final) recommended (Support Thread (http://wordpress.org/support/topic/135160))

Maintenance Mode (http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/maintenance-mode/) 3.1

Upload+ (http://pixline.net/wordpress-plugins/upload-plus/_

Sitemap Generator (http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/sitemap-generator-plugin-for-wordpress/) 3.12

WP-Cache (http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/wp-cache-2/) 2.1+

Simple Trackback Validation Plugin (http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/simple-trackback-validation/) 2.1

Data Capture

cForms (http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin) 5.4

Cimy User Extra Fields (http://www.cimatti.it/blog/cimy-wordpress-plugins/cimy-user-extra-fields/) 0.9.9

TDO Mini Forms (http://thedeadone.net/software/tdo-mini-forms-wordpress-plugin/) 0.6 Maybe

Fresh Page (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/fresh-page/)

AJAX Comments (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ajax-comments-208/) 2.08

Exec-PHP 2.0

Communication

PXS Mail Form (http://www.phrixus.co.uk/pxsmail/) 2.6

Secure Form Mailer (http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/secure-form-mailer-plugin-for-wordpress/) 5.33

E-Commerce

e-Commerce shopping cart plugin (http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/) 3.5.1

Community

Social Bookmarking Reloaded (http://www.valent-blog.eu/social-bookmarking-reloaded/) 2.6

MBLA (http://code.google.com/p/mbla/) 0.27

Democracy (http://blog.jalenack.com/archives/democracy/) 2.0.1

Subscribe2 (http://subscribe2.wordpress.com) 4.0

This Day (http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/wordpress-plugin-this-day/) 1.4

Event Calendar (http://wpcal.firetree.net/) 3.1.1.rc2

Upcoming Events (http://jacob.steenhagen.us/blog/upcoming-events) 0.4

WP-Email (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 2.20

WP-Forum (http://www.fahlstad.se/wp-plugins/wp-forum) 1.7.4

WP-Polls (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 2.21

WP-PostRatings (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 1.20

WP-Print (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 2.20

WP-RelativeDate (http://www.lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php) 1.20

WP Movie Ratings (http://paulgoscicki.com/projects/wp-movie-ratings/) 1.4

Google Maps Plugin (http://avi.alkalay.net/2006/11/google-maps-plugin-for-wordpress.html)

ESV Plugin 3.1

Accessibility

SEO Alt Tag Optimizer and Font Resizer Tool (http://www.indiana-loans.co.uk/wordpress-plugin-seo-alt-tag-optimzer-font-resizer-tool/) 1.1

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