The cell phone I currently have is not exactly what you can call a “smart phone”, but every so often I like to check and see how my websites and blogs look on my phone. According to Google Analytics, I am not the only one to try and access my blog on my cell phone. During last year there were 83 attempts to access Go Beyond MLS using number of mobile devices:

While the above numbers are not something to brag about, I still was surprised to learn that there were attempts to view this blog on mobile devices.
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I may have inspired Andy Beal to start using TweetMeme plugin on Marketing Piligrim, but he certainly inspired me more. Every time I come across a great plugin I promise myself to give credit to the plugin’s author as well as share with my readers how a particular plugin helped. Of course day passes by, then another and after a few days my desire to write about particular plugin slowly withers out. “It just a plugin”, I tell myself -”some one has already written about it anyway.” The truth is however that many of the plugins I use on my blogs make my life so much easier.

So here are some 20+ plugins that help this blog tick….
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Having tried a dozen of different ad managing systems, ranging from WordPress Plugins to Google Ad Manager I am giving BuySellAds.com a spin.

BuySellAds.com is an advertising marketplace for small to medium sized website owners and publishers. Once approved, which takes about 24 hours, you can create adzones for your website or blog and add them to your website by simply copying and pasting code. If you blog or website is powered by WordPress, you may also consider using BuySellAds WordPress Plugin by Thaya Kareeson of Omninoggin.com. I personally have not tried the plugin myself yet, however I am considering using it in the future. The plugin includes ati-adblock measures to prevent AdBlock as well as other similar software from blocking advertisements from Buy Sell Ads.

The user interface on BuySellAds.com is rather straight forward and it took me no more than 20 minutes to create and implements ad zones for this blog. Visit Go Beyond MLS ad listing page on BuySellAds.com to see more details about ads available on this blog. The listing page provides some useful information for potential advertisers, such as Alexa Traffic Rank, Compete Rank, Twitter Subscribers etc.

One of the reasons I have decided to try BuySellAds.com is that they have decent marketplace which is very easy to use by potential advertisers to find and purchase ads on desired websites and blogs.

Should you decide to give BuySellAds.com your payout will be 75%. For example if the cost of your ad is $10 ($10 is the minimum you can price your ads by the way) your pay out will be $7.50. You can choose the payment option to be PayPal, Check or Wire Transfer.

If you have used the BuySellAds.com for your website as well I would love to know your experience with them, so don’t be shy – leave a comment!

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Photo Ceredit:
The Harriman Team of Wallingford, CT
Besides branding themselves with a watermarks on pictures they never took, your local MLS is probably resizing the images you upload to accompany your listing, messing them up in the process or at least greatly affecting the quality of your pictures. Fortunately many agents today have their own website and at least one place where they have control how the photos will appear.

If you are operating a WordPress powered website, you might want to take a closer look at NextGEN WordPress Gallery Plugin by Alex Rabe. This plugin has already been integrated into variety of WordPress themes and even other plugins. There is a learning curve in in figuring out how to use this plugin effectively. But it is well worth the trouble.

Possible Problems With Installing and Configuring NextGEN Plugin.

Not sure if any one else experienced the similar problems, but when I attempted to install NextGEN plugin uploading it via FTP client, it would never work properly. I believe it may had something to do with file permissions (CHMOD) configuration of the particular files withing the plugin folder. Apparently my FTP client messes them up. If you come across the same problem, consider installing the plugin through the user interface of your WordPress (presuming your are using WordPress 2.7 or later). Installing the pluging through the WordPress interface fixed my issue and as you can see in the upper left corner of this post, NexGEN plugin is working well.

The NextGEN also requires JW Image Rotator – an important component for the sideshow function of the plugin. You should follow carefully the instructions on how to tell NextGEN plugin where to find JW Image Rotator- another problem I ran into trying to configure the NextGEN plugin properly.

Have you used this plugin? What do you think about it?

Ever since I saw the implementation of Facebook Connect on TechCrunch, I wanted to look into implementing it on my blogs as well. However since I was not very active on Facebook, I did not start digging into it until a few days ago. There are are number of solutions available for bloggers today should they decide to take advantage of Facebook Connect.

For now I have settled with the Facebook Connect WordPress plugin by Sociable. The Sociable plugin requires Facebook API so before you start using it, make sure to create new application in Facebook developer section of your account. You may also want to hack this plugin- see in the bottom of the post where described how I did it.

Once installed and configured the Facebook Connect plugin will allow your visitors to logging into your blog using their Facebook credentials. They choose to allow the Facebook Connect application (your blog), to post the comments they leave on your blog to their Facebook account as well.

The Facebook Connect plugin by sociable has a widged that you can place in the sidebar of your blog where the visitors can login as Facebook users. Once logged in, they will also have an option to invite their friends to visit your website without actually leaving your blog.

Another unique feature the plugin provides is the community page, which is hosted right on your blog.

There is however one huge downside wit the plugin. It does not word that well with WP Super Cache plugin. Unless of course you can hack WP Super Cache plugin in such a way that it would serve dynamic pages to Facebook users once they’ve logged in on your blog. If you come across such a hack, please let me know.

Hacking the plugin to display the facebook login button somewhere around your comment box.- do this at your own risk.

Another shortcoming of the Facebook Connect plugin by Sociable is that the sidebar widget is the only place where the login button is displayed. Unfortunately the sidebar is not exactly the first place your visitors might examine when visiting your blog. They many leave a comment without realizing they could have shared it on Facebook. Placing the Facebook Connect login button in vicinity of the comment box can serve as a reminder that they could use their Facebook ID to comment on your blog. Unfortunately I had to come up with my own hack to accomplish that- copy and paste to code below into your comments.php file:

This is how my comment box looks now with the code above inserted:

For the list of other Facebook Connect plugins and solutions for other blogging and content management platforms make sure to visit Facebook Connect Plugin Directory.