WordPress is the most widely used Content Management System (CMS) in the world. Powered by PHP and MySQL, it is the preferred publishing platform for small and medium businesses (SMB’s) since it provides an easy-to-use interface to post and edit content. The latest major version 3.0, released in June 2010, was downloaded over 12.5 million times within an 8 week period. The core WordPress platform offers good functionality out of the box, and it can be further customized and enhanced by adding plug-ins and changing themes.
While needs may differ, one of the most useful extensions is the W3 Total Cache plug-in. When fully configured to take advantage of gzip, a software application used to compress files, the plug-in helps to improve overall site performance up to 10 times. The "instant second page view" helps to reduce page load times by utilizing the browsers cache and improves overall web server performance. Version 0.9.1.3 is compatible with WordPress 3.0.1 and available for download here.
WordPress administrators can optimize and repair databases with the WP-DBManager plug-in. The extension allows users to backup and restore databases, empty and drop tables and run selected queries. Since the extension supports automatic scheduling, administrators have one task they don’t have to worry about. The current version 2.6 can be downloaded here.
The WP-Optimize plug-in is designed for users that don’t want to become experts in PHP admin. The extension allows administrators to remove old WordPress revisions and comments in the spam queue. The default admin user name can be renamed and MySQL commands can be applied to tables without using phpMyAdmin. Statistics show how much space can be optimized and has been cleared after performing a cleanup. Users can download WP-Optimize here.
1,262 free themes are currently listed in the WordPress Themes directory. The selection ranges from lightweight to contemporary. While this can be overwhelming at first, users need to check if a chosen theme offers the functionality needed to run the website or blog. The Themes Directory can be found here, and a new filter and tag interface lets users preselect themes by color, columns, features, width and subject.
The latest stable release of WordPress is available for download here.
Recent Comments