Here's how to fix the problem:

(1) With a text editor, open "democracy.php" – it's located in the democracy subfolder in the plugin folder.

(2) Locate the line below (around line number 331):

return preg_replace('/{democracy[\w\W\s^}]*?}/', '\n<div>\\0</div>', $content);

(3) Change the last set of single quotes into double quotes:

return preg_replace('/{democracy[\w\W\s^}]*?}/', "\n<div>\\0</div>", $content);

That's it. That should take care of the Democracy Plugin's extra n problem.

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As I mentioned previously, I upgraded to WordPress 2.3.1 (from WP 2.2.2) recently using my WordPress upgrade process. After upgrading, all of my plugins worked except for the Crawl Page and Brian's Threaded Comments plugins. One of my readers mentioned that CoolPlayer did not work with WordPress 2.3.1. I can assure you that is not the case. Both CoolPlayer 9.0 and 9.3 worked with WordPress 2.3.1. However, I had to hit the browser reload button after I upgraded from CoolPlayer 9.0 to 9.3 before the plugin worked correctly.

I could never get the Crawl Page 1.00 plugin to work, but I did get Brian's Threaded Comments plugin to work with WordPress 2.3.1. After upgrading to WP 2.3.1, I got a 404 error whenever I tried to leave a comment. The fix for this problem is actually fairly simple. You just need to enter "wp-comments-post.php" in the custom box on the threaded comments admin page (Options => Threaded Comments):

WordPress 2.3.1 breaks a lot of plugins. You should check around to be sure your plugins work before upgrading. At the bottom of this post, I listed plugins that I use that work with WordPress 2.3.1. If you are using an older version of the Google XML Sitemaps plugin (I was using 2.7.1), you should upgrade to the latest version (currently 3.0.2.1). The new version works with WP 2.1+ and has a bunch of new features. It's a big improvement on already nice plugin.

Plugins that work with WordPress 2.3.1:

• Akismet 2.0.2
• Audio player 1.2.3
• Better Feed 1.1
• Brian's Threaded Comments 1.5.12
• Contact Form ][ 2.0.13
• CoolPlayer 9.3 (CoolPlayer 9.0 also works)
• Democracy 2.0.1
• FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.3
• Google XML Sitemaps 3.0.2.1
• Head META Description R1.1.2
• Related Posts 2.02
• Similar Posts 2.3.6
• Simple Recent Comments 0.1.2
• Smart Update Pinger 2.0
• Spam Karma 2 2.3 rc3
• Unfancy Quote 2.0
• WordPress Database Backup 2.1.5

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You will need to find the following line in the Better Feed plugin (if you have not added a footer or modified the plugin, it's around line #101):

$content .= wp_ozh_betterfeed_detokenize($wp_ozh_betterfeed['footer']);

I'm going to call it the "footer" line. Once you have found the "footer" line, you will need to add a block of code above that line. Something like:

[block of code]
$content .= wp_ozh_betterfeed_detokenize($wp_ozh_betterfeed['footer']);

I have put together three sets of block codes that you can use. Select the one that best suits your needs.

Block 1 – Alternate ads
This code block is for alternating ads in your feed. For instance, post #1 will show "Ad-B", post #2 will show "Ad-A", post #3 will show "Ad-B" again, post #4 will show "Ad-A" again, etc. Here's the block to insert above the "footer" line:

if ($id % 2 == 0 ) {
  $ad = "Ad-A";
} else {
  $ad = "Ad-B";
}
$content .= $ad;

Block 2a – Rotate between four ads
[2007.03.10 note: The random number generator used in this block can cause old posts to show up as "updated" in Bloglines. If you don't want this to happen, use Block 2b instead.]
This code block is for displaying one of four ads in your feed. For instance, post #1 will show either "Ad-C" or "Ad-D", post #2 will show either "Ad-A" or "Ad-B", post #3 will show either "Ad-C" or "Ad-D" again, post #4 will show either "Ad-A" or "Ad-B" again, etc. Here's the block to insert above the "footer" line:

if ($id % 2 == 0) {
  $num = rand(1,2);
  if ($num == 1) {
    $ad = "Ad-A";
  } else {
    $ad = "Ad-B";
  }
} else {
  $num = rand(1,2);
  if ($num == 1) {
    $ad = "Ad-C";
  } else {
    $ad = "Ad-D";
  }
}
$content .= $ad;

Block 2b – Rotate between four ads
[Added on 2007.03.10]
This code block is for displaying one of four ads. It's like the block of code above, but it uses the timestamp of the post instead of a random number generator. It shouldn't change an old post to "updated" in Bloglines. Here's the block to insert above the "footer" line:

$num = get_post_time('s');
if ($id % 2 == 0) {
  if ($num < 30) {
    $ad = "Ad-A";
  } else {
    $ad = "Ad-B";
  }
} else {
  if ($num < 30) {
    $ad = "Ad-C";
  } else {
    $ad = "Ad-D";
  }
}
$content .= $ad;

Block 3 – Display an ad for every 3rd, 6th, and 9th post
I use this code block for my news site. I write over 20 posts a day on that site and it would look too commercial if I ran a RSS ad in every post. This block of code will display an ad for every 3rd, 6th, and 9th post. Here's the block to insert above the "footer" line:

$ad3 = "Ad-A";
$ad6 = "Ad-B";
$ad9 = "Ad-C";
$num = substr ($id, -1);
switch ($num)
{
  case 3:
    $content .= $ad3;
    break;
  case 6:
    $content .= $ad6;
    break;
  case 9:
    $content .= $ad9;
    break;
}

You will need to replace "Ad-A", "Ad-B", "Ad-C", and "Ad-D" with the html code for your ads. Keep in mind that the code is already using double quotes. So, you will either need to use single quotes or omit the quotes in your html code for your ads. For instance:

$ad = "<p align=center><a href=http://www.embeddedstar.com/careers/><img src=http://edageek.com/adimages/jobs468.gif border=0></a></p>";

As you can see, I didn't use any quotes between the double quotes above.

One other note. WordPress assigns post id numbers in the order you saved them. The id numbers can get out of order if you don't publish your posts in the same order you saved them. This may cause the ads to appear to display out of sequence (ie – the same ad displaying two times in a roll). That is not the case.

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If you look at the WordPress upgrade instructions, it'll tell you to delete certain files and don't delete certain files. Seems kinda of messy to me. Below are the steps I took. Keep in mind my situation will be different from your setup, so you will need to modify the steps to suit your needs.

1. Download and extract WP 2.1 to a new directory named wordpress2.1
2. Back up the database by using the WordPress backup plugin or phpMyAdmin
3. I made a change to template-functions-post.php in the old version of WordPress to alter the behavior of the more tag, so I had to make the change in the new version. In WP 2.1, I had to make the change in a new file called post-template.php.
4. Copy the following files from the old WordPress directory to the new directory:
   • wp-config.php (it's in the root wordpress directory)
   • plugins (except Akismet because WP 2.1 comes with a new version of Akismet)
   • theme files
5. Deactivate the plugins (don't forget to write down special codes, like the Akismet api key, in case you need to re-enter them after you re-activate the plugins)
6. Rename the old wordpress directory (ie: wordpress –> wordpress2.07)
7. Rename the new wordpress directory (ie: wordpress2.1 –> wordpress)
8. Run the upgrade script (load …/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php in the browser)
9. Reactive the plugin one by one

Remember, the above steps are for my situation. You will need to look at the WordPress upgrade instructions and modify the above steps for your setup.

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Read FeedFlares for RSS Text Ads (370 words)

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Read Showing Posts When There's No Related Posts (396 words)

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However, when readers click on the more link, they are shown the post starting from the cut-off point on down. That means they don't see the top part of the post unless they scroll up. It makes sense from a reader's point of view. Why see something you already read? However, from my point of view, it would be better to show the reader the page starting from the top. Keep in mind that I normally set the cut-off between the first and second paragraph. So I'm not forcing readers to re-read half the post. Just the first paragraph.

So what do I gain from all of this? Well, potentially more money. By showing the page from the top, readers can see my top Adsense ad. My top ads pay better than my bottom ads. When WordPress shows the post from the cut-off point down, readers don't see the top ad unless they scroll back up.

Now the tricky part, how do we get WordPress to display the page from the top on down? I looked around the WordPress Codex, but I could not find any parameters for the <!–more–> or the_content tags that would do the trick. So I had to hack one of the WordPress function (it's a simple hack). Follow the steps below if you want to change the behavior of WordPress.

Locate the file "template-functions-post.php" and make a back-up copy of the file. It's located in the "wp-includes" sub-folder where your WordPress files are installed.

Locate this line (it should be line 92 – the line wrap below is not intentional):

$output .= ' <a href="'. get_permalink() . "#more-$id\">$more_link_text</a>";

[Note: In WordPress 2.1, you will need to modify line #102 in a file called post-template.php]

$output .= ' <a href="'. get_permalink() . "\">$more_link_text</a>";

That's it. WordPress will now show the page starting with the top.

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Read Excluding Categories from the Related Posts Plugin (760 words)

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Don't let the name fool you. The plugin does not create or direct visitors to a landing page. Instead, the plugin displays related links when visitors come to your site via a search engine. The idea is that when visitors are referred to your site from a search engine, they are looking for something specific – often they quickly check the page they land on and then leave if what they are looking for isn't there. This plugin creates additional links for your search engine visitors to increase the stickiness of your site.

Read How to Fix Landing Sites Plugin (551 words)

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I looked on the Wasabi site (home of the Related Posts plugin), but didn't find anything other than a comment from someone with the same problem. The question was posted three months ago and it was never answered. So, I looked at the plugin code and came up with a quick solution.

To disable pages in your related results, just follow these five steps:

1. Log into the admin area of your WordPress blog.
2. Click on Plugins, then click on Plugin Editor.
3. On the right is a list of your plugin files. Click on Related Posts.

4. In the Editing related-posts.php text window, scroll down until you find this line:

   . "AND (post_status IN ( 'publish', 'static' ) && ID != '$post->ID') ";

   Its almost half way down (its a few line below // Primary SQL query). If you are using Windows, you can do a search by hitting ctrl-F and searching for static. It's line 92 if you are using a text editor on your computer.

   Change 'publish', 'static' to just 'publish'
   Static refers to pages and publish refers to posts. The new line should read:

   . "AND (post_status IN ( 'publish' ) && ID != '$post->ID') ";

5. Click the Update File button and you are done.

That's it. Your pages will no longer be listed as related to any of your posts.

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Next, I looked in the WordPress Codex. If the info was there, someone did a great job of hiding it because I could not find it. Then I searched on the web via Google. I couldn't find it there either. Obviously, if Google can't find it, then it doesn't exist. So, I gave up until a few days ago. That's when I was working on a non-WordPress site — a site that uses relative addressing. That's when it hitted me. I was using absolute addresses when I linked internally on my WordPress blogs. I was using something like, http://izachy.com/link/ instead of /link/.

In my next post, I used a relative address to link to another post. Result? I didn't ping myself. This discovery might be obvious to some people, but if you're a little dense like me, you might appreciate this helpful hint. Remember, don't use the full URL unless you want to ping yourself.

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Read Five Steps to Selecting the Right Newsletter Solution for You (638 words)

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Now that I'm using WordPress to run some of my sites, I've pretty much stuck with one side bar for all my pages. Sure I could put in a bunch of if statements to pull in different nav bars, but that could get really messy fast. So, I've come up with two methods that I could use to alter the side nav bar and the layout for single posts and pages. This will come in handle for showing more ads on a long page and disabling ads for a short page.

Read Show More Adsense Ads on Long Posts (608 words)

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