Ok so the only person that I know of to be “long awaiting” this plugin is myself. I’ve had it on the drawing board for over a year now.

I worked on a commercial project a few years back that built and utilized a database of events throughout history to display “Today in History” results. That venture slowly went belly-up so here I was with this database of Tens of Thousands of events that had been so painstakingly added to this database, so what could I do with them.

Well today is the answer and fulfillment of that question. I give you the Today In History Widget so that you can display interesting facts and figures for your readers. So I hope you will enjoy this plugin, and if you do feel free to send us your questions or comments, and if it is working well for you I hope you would consider donating to help further the development.

I know, I know the last three or four posts have been about updates to our Social Crowd wordpress plugin… Don’t worry there will be more of them as we have been pretty active in it’s development over the last several days/weeks.

This release fixes a minor bug in the plugin’s admin UI as well as providing some additional functionality to address some confusion. The confusion being caused because the Profile ID fields for each social network were built to receive the actual Profile ID or Unique Identifier for the given social network. The example under each field showed an example url from each social network that had the ID you should enter bolded. But after receiving some feedback from users, it became apparent that some if not many users were inserting the whole URL rather than just the ID. So some code was added to accept either the ID or the full URL.

I hope this makes the plugin easier to use.

On the heels of a major Social Crowd plugin update last week we have a new release to increase the capabilities of this remarkable little plugin.

One of the most frequently requested networks for addition to Social Crowd, was the Linked In Business Social Network. And after reviewing copious amounts of documentation we found an easy way to add support for that network.

So that’s about it folks, you can now show off the number of Connections that you have made with the Linked In Network right on your WordPress homepage or sidebar. But we should note that the nature of this addition (like the Google+ integration) is in a BETA state, and should perform for you, but if you have any problems please feel free to Contact Us and let us know so we can address the issue.

On the heels of the maintanance release of our Browser Blocker Plugin, we announce the major and long awaited update to our Social Crowd plugin.

After many months and numerous requests from Social Crowd users, we have worked hard to make this amazing plugin even easier to use for everyone out there.

When we initially designed this plugin it was aimed at theme designers or advanced developers that would integrate the social crowd stats into their designs, so it came with no default styling or graphics. But after several emails from clients it was apparent that there were many users that wanted to use the stats, but not have to worry about learning how to integrate the php functions with their theme/site.

Additionally there have been many requests for additional social networks, and although we have not thus far been able to fulfill all of the requested social network integrations, this release is our first effort at expanding the initial set of social networks available with this plugin.

Social Crowd 0.5 enter stage right.

New Features:

Google+ Stats (Beta Support) – This will allow you to display the number of people that you have in your circles, as well as the number of people that have you in their circles. It is beta support because Google doesn’t officially provide a way to capture this data, so if they decide to change the main page layout it could break this feature.

Social Crowd Stats Widget – Lots of questions have come in asking why the stats and icons didn’t show up once the plugin was installed. Well as noted above the plugin was initially for theme developers that could utilize the plugins php functions directly. But it became increasingly evident that this was not the core group that wanted to use this plugin.

So with this release there are included two separate plugins, a basic and an advanced plugin, the basic plugin is straight forward, with very few options to configure. The advanced plugin gives the user a much deeper level of control over the content of the widget.

Short Code Support – Yes a shortcode has been created that will allow the user to display the stats they want anywhere on any post or page that they create inside wordpress. Anywhere that you can use a Short Code you can use this code to simplify your life.

Well there you have it, the major changes to the Social Crowd Plugin. Get it today to start growing your Social Crowd.

Additionally some comments and FAQ’s were added to the Readme file that should help with the usage of the Browser Blocker Plugin.

Have fun, and enjoy blocking browsers.

Download Browser Blocker

Get Additional Info

I know what you’re thinking, why should I care about Regular Expressions? I failed in math and don’t like Simple or Advance expressions, so why would I care about regular ones? Well now is your chance to learn something, and it doesn’t really have anything that you will recognize that deals with math… well maybe.

Anyhoo, Regular Expressions or Regex for short, are snippets of symbols that represent the type of content you would like to find within a given body of text or string. They can be very handy, and are extremely useful for developers that are trying to parse content out of a mass of other content. But while they are useful (at least for me) they could be a pain to try and figure out what expression will get to your specific content so you can get on with conquering the world. I’ve used a myriad of online tools to help me with this process, but it is always a seeming inconvienience to have to remember where “that” website is to work out my regex statement.

But no more, a great little app is available called Reggy, this little app gives you the ability to insert a segment of content and then play with your regular expression until you get it to grab exactly what you are looking for. Brilliant if you ask me, I just don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. hehe. So take a look at this very simple but powerful tool that should speed up your development workflow.

Reggy Project Homepage

Download Reggy

When I say Lightbox the word may conjour up many different images in your mind, possibly a white highly lit background to photograph objects on, perhaps even a literal box with a light in it like those pictured to the left (Gus Modern Lightbox), or as in the context of this post, a website feature that brings the chosen content front and center before the user.

Lightboxes are all the rage, and most web designers find some use for them on their websites so that they can make effective usage of available pixels, get clients to interact more effectively, or just plain make their site pop with some engaging effects. Whatever your usage may be, lightboxes are definitely a ubiquitous part of the Web 2.0 experience.

With that in mind there are also a myriad of different options out there, and it can be very difficult to find the right one that works just right for your situation. I have been very grateful for the hard work that was put in over at planetozh.com for their creation of the very useful Lightbox Clones Matrix, but unfortunately that resource has not kept up with all the changes that have happened in the Lightbox world, so I have taken it upon myself to find and review many of the Lightboxes that have been updated or newly released since the publishing of that great matrix.

So with that let’s get to it, so in no specific order, other then the order that I add them let’s take a look at the top 49+ Lightbox Clones and what makes them tick.

Top 10 jQuery Lightbox Clones

Top 10 MooTools Lightbox Clones

Top 10 Prototype Lightbox Clones

Top 10 Lightboxes that use their own Javascript Effects Library

Top 9 YUI (Yahoo) Lightbox Clones

WordPress 3.3 has just recently been released, and with that release comes the ability to make your content a little more… timeless. For years the basic permalink structure on wordpress contained the year and month, or possibly even the day of your blog posts. But not all blog posts are time dependent. Unless you are a News organization or have a very specific reason for having information on your site that is specifically tied to a date, you probably don’t want your information to be tied to a date. And research shows that when people see dates in urls on google or other search engines, regardless of how relevant the content may be (because it’s timeless info) the users tend to pick other options that don’t look so… well… old.

But with the advent of wordpress 3.3 you now have the ability to have just the post name/title as the permalink structure element.

But obviously you can’t just make the change without loosing all the incoming links that are pointed at posts using the old permalink structure. Well fortunately for all of us Joost de Valk over at Yoast.com has built a quick and easy solution for you.

Use this tool that he has built to generate a 301 redirect line to add to your .htaccess file, after adding it to your .htaccess file Login to your backend and change the permalink settings to the “Post Name” option, and you are all set. Timeless content is now YOURS!!

Original Post on Yoast.com

One very interesting item that we discovered about the YUI Lightbox selection was that unlike the other javascript libraries, developers using the YUI library (for the most part) seem to be oblivious to the thought that other developers may have implemented lightbox functionality for the library already. This has led to an amazing lack of variety in the names of these different Lightbox Clones. So when you see several items with the same name…. it’s not my fault.

 1: Awesome Box

Awesome Box starts off our top 10 list, not only for it’s slick effects and overall finesse. But that this amazingly awesome little lightbox clone has a sweet name. Awesome Box leverages some unique effects to give a unique feel that other Lightbox Clones fail to achieve. So although it lacks the ability to display content other than images, Awesome Box makes images look really good.

Awesome Box supports:  Images, Image Sets

2: YUI Lightbox

YUI Lightbox is a simple image viewer script that sports some fairly standard functionality as far as lightboxes are concerned, one unique feature is that the lightbox will only close by clicking on the “close” icon in the upper right corner of the window.

YUI Lightbox Supports: Images

3: YUI Gallery Lightbox

YUI Gallery Lightbox, like the rest of the YUI lineup thus far in that it only supports images, but it does that very well. It is a complete port of the Lightbox 2 project to the YUI Library.

YUI Gallery Lightbox Supports: Images, Image Sets

4: PhotoViewer 

PhotoViewer, with its sweet effects and unique capability, offers some stiff competition to many of the other Lightbox Clones that pepper the interwebs. Some of the unique features that PhotoViewer has are the ability to load a Flickr RSS feed or run a timed slideshow.

PhotoViewer supports: Images, Image Sets

5: Lightbox with the help of YUI 2

Lightbox with the help of YUI 2 (LBWTHOY2) is a simple lightbox with some unique features and design. LBWTHOY2 has the ability (I assume given the image above) to load a Flickr feed (or single images), or to load AJAX Content and Inline Elements.

Slidewindow supports: Images, Inline Elements, AJAX Content

6: YUI Simple Lightbox

YUI Simple Lightbox appears to have borrowed some of it’s functionality and styling from YUI Lightbox (#2 above). Although it has been extended to allow for image sets, and does have a nice simple interface.

YUI Simple Lightbox supports:  Images, Image Sets

7: ShadowBox

ShadowBox is another unique lightbox, unlike most other lightboxes this script uses not just the YUI Library, but rather has the ability to run on many different javascript libraries, jQuery, Mootools, Prototype, and others. It also sports some great features and customizability.

ShadowBox supports: Images, Image Sets, Inline Elements, Iframes, AJAX Content, Flash, Video

8: Another YUI Lightbox 

Another YUI Lightbox, Yes I added “Another” to it’s name to hopefully distinguish it from all the other “YUI Lightbox’s”. Like most of the rest of the YUI crowd this Lightbox Clone only supports images, but it does offer a unique design over the other contenders.

Another YUI Lightbox supports:  Images

9: Lightbox for YUI 3

Lightbox for YUI 3 in true YUI from only supports images, and image sets. Nothing very different or standoutish here, just a good solid script

Lightbox for YUI 3 supports: Images, Image Sets

 You may ask, “Where is number 10″? Well, from our research this appears to be the sum of it. We would love to add a 10 to the list, so if you find one that we have missed please drop us a note and we will get it added to the list. 

Thanks for joining us for this rundown on Lightbox clones that use their own Javascript libraries. And a big thanks to planetozh.com for publishing The Lightbox Clones Matrix which helped considerably with our research on previous posts…. but not so much on this one.

 1: Slimbox

Slimbox is a lightweight lightbox that is an exact copy of Lightbox 2 but for mootools, both lightboxes being authored by Lokesh Dhakar. Slimbox is known for being small, effective, and fully customizable. Being only 4 Kb in size, it is a very quick and convenient method to feature your images.

Slimbox supports:  Images, and Image Sets

2: Multibox

Multibox is an amazing and multi-featured lightbox that can do some pretty sweet stuff. Phatfusion, alsoknown as “Made By Jam”, created Multibox to be completely full-featured, usable and accessible. They include several methods in navigating galleries and content, even keyboard shortcuts making the viewing experience that much more pleasurable.

Multibox Supports: Images, Image Sets, Inline Elements, Iframes, AJAX Content, Flash, Various Video Objects

3: Mediaboxadvanced

Mediaboxadvanced, created by John Einselen boasts to be an all in one solution, being capable of displaying your content how you want to. Now with their release of version 1.3.4 they also provide support for HTML5 players and compatibility with mobile devices. For beginners they also supply plenty of examples to implement Mediaboxadvanced.

Easybox Supports: Images, Image Sets, Inline Elements, Iframes, Video, Flash

4: CeraBox

CeraBox is the alternative lightbox, doing everything you need it to and being your alternative to any other. It has a large feature set, and with the release of their newest version, they now have added support for mobile devices even including finger gestures.

CeraBox supports: Images, Image Sets, Inline Elements, Iframes, AJAX Content, Video, and Flash

5: Milkbox

Milkbox is another lightbox clone but expanded. It does everything you would expect a normal lightbox to do and with style. Luca Reghellin, Milkbox Creator, provides us an easily customizable, user-friendly and HTML5 ready option to handle your basic lightbox tasks.

Milkbox supports: Images, Image Sets, Flash

6: Bumpbox

Although Bumpbox may not be the sexiest lightbox out there, it definitely competes for the most simple to implement. Not only is it quick to get set up, but it uses an auto-detection method to determine what content is being displayed. This is a great feature, especially for those of us who are considered noobs.

Bumpbox supports:  Images, Iframes, Video, Flash

7: ImageZoom

Have you ever wanted to view content both from inside of a lightbox and out at the same time, but got frustrated because you couldn’t? Well Bert Ramakers is here to change that all around with a new lightbox called ImageZoom. This clone allows you to view several images at once, also allowing you to drag the image out of the way so you can view whatever content may be underneath. Definitely makes for a cool user experience.

ImageZoom supports: Images, Image Sets

8: Litebox

The goal of Tyler Mulligan in developing this lightbox was size reduction. Weighing in at only 3 Kb Litebox is one of the smallest and “Lite” lightboxes around.

Fancybox supports:  Images, Image Sets

9: Smoothbox

Smoothbox is a beloved and well established lightbox clone. It is very easy to setup and very customizable to fit with any site. I have used it many times and it is a personal favorite of mine, hope you enjoy it as well.

Smoothbox supports: Images, Image Sets, Inline Elements, Iframes, AJAX Content

10: Quickbox

Quickbox finishes up our list of Mootools Lightbox Clones with its unique ability to quickly jump from one image to the next. Andrew Plummer has done a great job at making this one of the quicker more stable lightboxes here.

Quickbox supports: Images, Image Sets

Thanks for joining us for this rundown on Lightbox clones that use the Mootools Javascript Framework. Also a big thanks to planetozh.com for publishing The Lightbox Clones Matrix which helped considerably with our research.