Verse-O-Matic Plugin

Posted on August 31, 2005 | Filed Under Verse-O-Matic

Awhile back I created a plugin to display a random verse on the sidebar of this site. I usually do things like this mainly for the tinkering.

Anyway, I’ve packaged this up for download if anyone needs a random verse display on their site. It is fairly straighforward and simple.

  1. Download the .zip file and extract it.
  2. Copy the files (except install.txt) to your wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  3. Figure out where you want the verse to display.
  4. Call it with the function verse_o_matic()
  5. Go to the plugins area of your WP admin
  6. Activate Verse-O-Matic in the menu

That’s it.

You can edit the list of verses from within WordPress by clicking the link in the plugin menu, or by editing the file verse-o-matic-list.txt directly. Just make sure that you put the entire verse on one line.

Also, I put a link to an online tract around the function call, so all verses go to the same link. But you could probably put links into the txt file as well if you wanted to send things to different places. That might be something I work on in the next version.

[Download verse-o-matic]

Most Wanted Plugin

Posted on August 27, 2005 | Filed Under WordPress

Yesterday I added a new plugin to the side bar. It is “Most Wanted” from Richard Boakes.

This plugin works in conjunction with StatTraq and shows the number of unique views for a given number of posts. I have set it to show the top ten.

It is an easy to install plugin, and adding it to the sidebar was straightforward. You just have a single function call to put in.

Thanks Richard!

StatTraq Site Statistics Plugin and Adding It to the Admin Menu

Posted on August 18, 2005 | Filed Under WordPress

In my previous blog, I was used a plugin called StatTraq for getting site statistics. It was fairly easy to set up as it was a WordPress plugin. So it was logical that, now that Randy Peterman has updated his plugin for WordPress 1.5, that I install StatTraq for this blog as well.

You can download the beta (1.0b) here.

Also, here’s a little trick. Once you get it installed, if you want to add a link to your admin menu to jump over to StatTraq, follow the steps below.

  1. Go to /wp-admin/ and find “menu.php”
  2. Make a copy of the original file as a backup (just in case)
  3. At line 14 you should see the following line:

    $menu[40] = array(__(‘Options’), 6, ‘options-general.php’);

  4. Insert the following as a new line after this line:

    $menu[45] = array(__(‘StatTraq’), 8, ‘../wp-stattraq/’);

  5. Upload your new menu.php file

That’s it, you’re done! Go to your admin panel, and you should see the link for StatTraq in your menu.

e-Tract in the Verse Randomizer

Posted on August 17, 2005 | Filed Under WordPress

I added a general link to the “verse randomizer” that goes to an e-tract from Good News & Crossway Publishing. As for the verse randomizer itself, when I was looking for one as a WordPress plugin, but couldn’t really find one that did what I wanted. So, I ended up building it myself. I’ve got a little more work to do on it and I may release it as a plugin.

Urban Legend?

Posted on August 17, 2005 | Filed Under Editorial

So there is some kind of rumor circulating that, on certain elevators, if you push “Door Close” and your floor at the same time, it puts the elevator into “express mode” and will go right to the floor without stopping. I viewed this information with a certain sense of skepticsm, but nevertheless, it sounded good to me and was worth checking out. I felt it deserved special attention in my building since, a few floors below me, there is a company that occupies several floors. Their employees are constantly “interrupting” my trips to and from the lobby with their single floor “jaunts.” What better way to avoid these extra stops than with my own personal express elevator.

So I had been pushing “Door Close” in combination with my floor or the lobby (depending on my direction) and experiencing some success. I wasn’t making any stops along the way. Since this is unusual, especially during “rush hour,” I thought things were working out rather well.

However (you saw that one coming, didn’t you?), yesterday, after pushing the combination for the lobby, I made several stops along the way. Well, that shoots that idea. So it is either “urban legend” or my elevator isn’t one of those equipped with such fancy features. Personally, I think I’m storing this one in the “urban legend” category.