Social sharing without plugins or java script

One of the plugin most frequently used across the web is the one that generates the shiny social media buttons that encourage readers to share the article on one of the dozen networks out there . Those buttons are almost always integrated on the plug with a help of a plugin or an external java script file – thus one more thing that your readers have to load each time when they access a page or an article where these buttons are placed . I wanted something more cleaner – a simple image ( there are variety of beautiful icon sets  on the web )  and a link to send the articles to the social medias.

I found some interesting tutorials on the web and after reading several here is the solution I cam out with :

For Twitter :

<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=%20%3C?%3Cspan%20class=">php the_title(); ?&gt; ?php the_permalink(); ? @Your Twitter Handle" title="Click to send this page to Twitter!" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;<img style="border-style: none;" src="Image%20URL%20Goes%20here" alt="Send to Twitter" /></a>

For Facebook

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.%3Cspan%20class=">php?u=<!--?php the_permalink(); ?-->&amp;title=<!--?php the_title(); ?-->" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" &gt;<img style="border-style: none;" src="Image%20URL%20goes%20here" alt="Send to Facebook" /></a>

For the other social networks the code is quite similar – just make sure you have the correct URL for :

My Space

http://www.myspace.com/Modules/PostTo/Pages/?u=<!--?php the_permalink(); ?-->&amp;t=<!--?php the_title(); ?-->

Stumble Upon

http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<!--?php the_permalink(); ?-->&amp;title=<!--?php the_title(); ?-->

Digg

http://www.digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=<!--?php the_permalink(); ?-->&amp;title=<!--?php the_title(); ?-->

If you need more examples visit this list at Pageafairs .com – b8ut remember that you have to use the WordPress custom PHP tags for the address of your article  and for the title

I have used this method to set sharing buttons on the articles on TheSkyKid.com . You would like to put these codes somewhere in the single.php file of your template which is the one that outputs your articles .

Page navigation using the build in WordPress functionality instead of a plugin

I spend quite a lot of time looking for a way to have page navigation without the need to use a plugin. I used ” Numbered Pagination Without a Plugin ” as a search term on Google and and found several web sites (1)(2) that suggested methods that involved  editing  the theme`s functions.php file – which never had any good results for me. Finally I managed to find good working solution on the Cats who code web blog . It is the following code :

<?php
global $wp_query;

$big = 999999999; // need an unlikely integer

echo paginate_links( array(
	'base' => str_replace( $big, '%#%', get_pagenum_link( $big ) ),
	'format' => '?paged=%#%',
	'current' => max( 1, get_query_var('paged') ),
	'total' => $wp_query->max_num_pages
) );
?>

 - coming straight from WordPress.org own codex . You may want to insert the code in your authors.php , archives.php and search.php and index.php files as appropriate . When I find out that method I
disabled the WP- Page Navi plugin I used until recently . I don`t have much knowledge of CSS as to make the display prettier – but if I found out how this can be achieved I will make sure to update this post.

Speed up your site with .htaccess caching

Another code that I found at Cats Who Code ( tested and proven working )

Paste the following into your.htaccess file.

# 1 YEAR
<FilesMatch ".(ico|pdf|flv)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=29030400, public"

# 1 WEEK
<filesmatch ".(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|swf)$"="">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800, public"

# 2 DAYS
<filesmatch ".(xml|txt|css|js)$"="">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=172800, proxy-revalidate"

# 1 MIN
<filesmatch ".(html|htm|php)$"="">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=60, private, proxy-revalidate"

Do you know other techniques to speed up a Worpress?  Let me know !

Check it out at : http://pocketlegends.com/

Skype video chats are fun – and if the quality is decent enough Skype is perfectly suited for conducting video interviews . For that one would need to use a software. Yesterday a friend of mine asked me to recommend him a free program simple enough to be used by everyone. We checked some options – including the trial versions of some paid programs ( VodBurner and Evaer ) – but none worked flawlessly . Yet we got lucky when I stumbled on Supertintin – while the free version of this software is limited to 5 minutes , it worked great just ” out of the box ” .

You can download the software at http://www.supertintin.com/

Do you know any other free Skype video recorder ?  Let me know !

Stumbled upon this amazing clip on Vimeo. Not only the kids rock those skates , but the camerawork is cool too – love the situate scenes at the begging. I have never learned to Skate – had a Skate one and tried inspired by movies and clips just like this one – but what seemed easy on films was not as easy in practice. So I learned some trick with the bike insted ( :

Upppssss….. / wrong image /

Now that`s better!

or better yet

Lol…same is true for most sites , not just for Facebook ( which I don`t use – not with a personal account anyway ). Let`s see if you won`t be too lazy ( “

Review of Son of Rambow

Do you know any good coming of age action movie ? Let me know !

An update :

Thanks to Twitter and some great pals I can add few titles :

@SkyKidi know one-i believe its called THE CLIENT-! i read the book-its about a kid who witnesses the killing of a mafia guy,gets a lawyer

— rj mendera (@rjmendera) December 23, 2011

That is actually an amazing movie . And it is just that – a real action with a young actor in it…and its the amazing Brad Renfro.

@SkyKid The Mist, Poseidon, Jurassic Park, Julia… What I can think of for now

— Victor B. (@victobou) December 23, 2011

So true !