So I have deleted the Twitter posts and some of the older posts that I don’t like too much.

What I might do is to rarely update this blog and create a front page that links through to my social media profiles and other sites. I may even change the site over to Drupal, which I have been doing a lot of work with recently and quite like how it’s put together.

As of version 2.0 this plugin will be moved over to my coding site at #! code, the full link is here:

Social Media Page Plugin at #! code

I hope to release this plugin by the end of the month (as in June), but if any of you are interested in helping with testing then download the beta version and let me know if you see any issues.

My plan is to move all of the resources over to that site once version 2.0 has gone live, probably before.

Rather than getting you to enter all of your social media profiles as URLs the plugin gets you to enter your username, and works out the rest. Some exceptions (like Facebook) require some extra information, which has been accounted for. There are over 100 different social media sites to select from so it should cover anything you happen to be a member of.

When the links are displayed on the page it will use a keyword of your choice as the text for the link.

With this plugin you can create a central base for any social media strategy.

Download

Download the Social Media Page Plugin at WordPress.org.

Instillation

To install the plugin just drop the folder social-media-page into your WordPress plugins folder (located at wp-content/plugins/). Log into WordPress and go to your Plugins section and activate the social media page plugin.

When the plugin is activated for the first time it checks to see if a table exists called wp_socialmediaprofiles. If it doesn’t then it creates it and adds lots of social media sites that will be used by the plugin.

The plugin also creates a WordPress option called smp_keyword. This option is used to store the keyword that will be used to link to the profiles entered.

Administration

The administration section for this plugin is under Settings->Social Media Page.

Social media page administration section.

Enter your keyword in the input box at the top. You can now start filling in your social media profile usernames, following the template to the right of the input box on each line. Taking StumbleUpon as an example, the template is http://{username}.stumbleupon.com/, the username tag will be replaced by whatever you enter into the username field. My StumbleUpon username is philipnorton42, so I would put this into the username box.

Social media page - entering information.

There are some sites that do things differently, and one of these is Facebook. This site has two input boxes, one for your name and your profile ID, both of which can be found out from the URL on Facebook. Just to clarify, the name field in Facebook is your name, but with spaces replaced by “_”. So my own name being Philip Norton, would be written as Philip_Norton.

Only those profiles that you fill in will be displayed on the front end of the site.

If you see a star next to a profile then this means that you should enable public viewing on those profiles before you link to them.

If you see two stars you will need to enter some information that will allow you to link to your profile with a username.

It is also possible to change the order in which the sites appear. Just click anywhere on the grey bar of the site and drag it up and down to move it into a different position.

Social media page - changing the position of two sites.

Social media page - position changed.

To remove a social media page from the list just delete the username in the box and update. Any fields with blank usernames will not be displayed.

Embed The List Into A Page/Post

After setting up the needed fields in your administration section you can display the list on any page or post by using the following tag:

<!-- social-media-page -->

With the keyword and the two sites in the previous images entered, the output would look something like this.

Social media page - page output.

The look of the list depends on the stylesheet that you have in your template. It consists of a simple unordered list wrapped in a div with the id of “smp-wrapper”.

Make sure you add this tag in HTML mode as the visual editor will convert the characters into HTML and display the tag instead of the list of social media profiles.

Comments?

If you notice any bugs or feel that this plugin can be improved in any way then let me know! Also, the list is far from complete, so if you feel that I have left any sites out then I will create an update and add those sites in.

Note that I have created this plugin in my own time so although I will try to fix any problems quickly, that might not always be the case.

Changes in version 1.3

• Added a fix for a typo in the Friendfeed profile.
• Added an option to add rel=”nofollow” to the links created by this plugin.
• Tidied up widget code to incorporate widget options from theme.

Changes to Version 1.2

• This plugin can now be used as a widget.
• Plugin output tweaked to have normal output for pages and smaller output when printing widget.
• Added option to allow blog admin to decide if credit should be given to plugin author.
• Noticed bug when updating plugin causing no images to be displayed. This was due to file permissions. Added a function that sets file permissions properly at install.

Changes to Version 1.1

• Fixed some incorrect information in some of the profile information.

Donate!

If you like this plugin then you can help with development through a donation.

I just found this rather nice social networking site called Think Atheist. Definitely worth a look if you are in any way interested.

Or even if you are not!

Phoneing up the camp site before hand we heard that it was very water-logged and that they had even shut down some of the site due to it being so wet. The weather forcast said that it would rain on the Thursday, but that it should be better on the Friday, and Saturday should be much better.

When we got there it was wet, and due to the activity of people walking about it was also very muddy. We booked until Sunday just in case the rain didn’t stop. Not being perturbed we set up our tents and hoped that there would be no more rain for a couple of days. It was muddy enough that some people went into town and bought wellington boots just so that they didn’t have to stand ankle deep in mud. I stayed in my trusty walking boots, which now need a good wash!

No such luck on hoping it wasn’t going to rain! It was sunny for just long enough on Friday night and Saturday to lull us into a false sense of security. By dinner time on Saturday it was raining quite steadily and any drying out that had been done was basically wasted. The ground just got wetter and wetter until everything we did or owned was just caked in mud.

Anyway, I had the plan that we would go Hay-on-Wye at some point during the weekend, so we went there on Saturday. We eventually decided that Mandy and I should go and Matthew would stay behind and go to the Rhyader “fun day”. Apparently the fun day wasn’t all that fun, and consisted of a few giant games (like a large connect four) and was very “small town” if you know what I mean.

For those of you who don’t know Hay-on-Wye is a town that has more book shops (mainly second hand) per mile than just about anywhere else on the face of the Earth. Just walking around it for a while you are hit by the amount of books that are present in the town. There are millions! Mandy and I went there with a certain number of authors in mind, but unfortunately found nothing. I was a little disapointed, but I realised that there are a few reasons why I didn’t find what I was looking for.

1. There are a lot of books. So therefore asking if anything is there just gets you blank looks. Most shop owners don’t know what they have in their stock, just due to the numbers of books there, but also due to the fact that lots of books also come in.
2. Looking through each bookstore takes a while and different stores have different ways of stocking and categorising books. I didn’t have all week to look through every store, but you could easily do that.
3. I assume that, although there are books coming in to the shops, there are a lot of people walking around and buying them. So the good and popular books go quite quickly and so finding them can be a little tricky.

I am back home now, and drying off. Everything in and around the tent is wet and muddy and I will probably spend tomorrow cleaning everything 50 times over as it is all caked with mud. Joy…

It would be nice to go camping and it not rain and spoil things. I’m thinking that we should just book ourselves into a hotel next time.

My how things have changed. We got there and the admission charge was really cheap, only £1.50 for Mandy and I, with an additional £1 each for the 3D cinema. Matthew, being under 4, went in free with everything. All of the brilliant stuff I remember as a boy, the cool hands-on experiments, the neat model of the main radio telescope control system, even the planetarium was all gone. All they had left were 2 touch screen monitors and the black hole simulator where you rolled a ball around a funnel, but that didn’t have any of the information that used to be there to tell you what it represented. Everything was contained within one room, with a small other bit consisting of the 3D cinema, which was pretty good. You get given a pair of glasses as you walk in, and Matthew even sat through the performance with his glasses on (which was a trip to Mars) and said things like "space ship" and "space rock".

The telescope itself was very impressive, and they were using it whilst we where there, but all in all a very disappointing trip, especially as I had told everyone that it would be brilliant and then it wasn’t. They did have a guy working there who was totally into everything and even got on the PA system and let you know what the telescope was doing. The enthusiasm of this guy kind of saved it, but they really need to do more to get my vote.

James (my manager) is a Mac enthusiast and he has already started to convert me by putting a Mac Mini on my desk. This will eventually be a testing platform, but I don’t really know what to do with it at the moment. It doesn’t look THAT good really. I don’t know what the fuss is about…

All my life I had trouble breathing through my nose and I have never thought anything of it. However, after my grandad, mum and sister have all had operations on their noses I went to see a doctor in Aberystwyth for a check up. He wrote a letter to a consultant at the local hospital and gave me some nasal spray.

That nasal spray was great. For the first time in years I could spell stuff, and food actually tasted of something.

When we moved to Cheshire I had to start the whole thing over again (despite waiting 6 weeks for an appointment in Aberystwyth), and so I went to see the doctor. He sprayed some liquid into my nose and stuck a 6 inch rod up their before saying what was wrong. Apparently I have a bent nose on the inside which is making breathing difficult, especially on the right hand side. To fix this I will have to undergo a proceedure called a SEPTOPLASTY.

They will basically be breaking my nose on the inside and resetting it. Everything will be internal so there shouldn’t be any facial bruising or black eyes. Which is good to know.

The risks are minimal (I might get a small dimple on the outside of my nose – which can be fixed) and it will mean that my breathing should get at least 50% better. I have signed the consent form and am now waiting for a date, but it should be about 6-8 weeks.

I know one thing and that is that I’m going to have a great time. It’s all about playing with code, making bespoke tools for clients and writing a new intranet system using AJAX. Should be a lot of fun!