This can be an especially difficult issue with wordpress. Since wordpress is a completely dynamic content management system (CMS)/blogging platform, every time a visitor comes to your website, the contents have to be loaded, calculated, computed, digested, and then finally displayed. On some sites this can take an especially long time, for which there can be a lot of different factors. But regardless of many of the different factors, if you are simply able to cut out  many of the time consuming steps involved with loading and computing the end result that the visitor has requested, you can display the content in much less time, and your server can handle a much larger load.

The benefits of caching can be compounded when we realize that all the plugins that we use to extend our wordpress experience  and capability each add a small (or large) performance hit to our wordpress site, because each time the site is visited the code for all the plugins are essentially loaded and considered, wether they are used or not.

There are advantages and disadvantages to caching your web content, just do a google search and you will find some more in depth discussions on this topic, but since the topic of this article is the top 3 best wordpress plugins for website caching, lets get to the plugins.

WordPress Caching Plugins:

Quick Cache (Speed Without Compromise)

Quick Cache is a relatively new guy on the block compared with the other 2 we will discuss today, but what it lacks in refinement it makes up for in simplicity. The quick cache interface is very easy to manage overall. With so many different caching options available it can be overwhelming to manage and understand the caching for your site, but Quick Cache simplifies the options down to just the most important settings, and offers valuable descriptions/help for each option. It is a good place to start for wordpress administrators that have never worked with caching before, or are inexperienced.

Pros:

• Easy Interface
• Lots of Useful Help

Cons:

• Missing some valuable caching features

Plugin Page

WP Super Cache

Super Cache is the next one in our lineup, as probably the most popular caching plugin listed on wordpress.org, WP Super Cache is a pretty amazing and well supported plugin. It provides many additional features that Quick Cache doesn’t have, but the additional features come with additional complexity. Although the plugin is more complex, it also sports some decent helps to allow you to make your way around and start to learn/understand just what you are setting up.

Pros:

• Lots of caching features
• Great support
• Large user base

Cons:

• Difficult to setup
• Significant learning curve for optimal configuration

Plugin Page

W3 Total Cache

Our final contestant is my personal favorite. I have worked with both of the above plugins, and they have done a good job overall, but although it doesn’t have the same install base as WP Super Cache, or the more simple interface of Quick Cache, W3 Total Cache has the right combination of features and simplicity to make it do an amazing job without taking two years to configure.

Now that is not saying that it won’t take any time for you to set it up… it will take some time, there are lots of different caching features to work through, but first and foremost is that the end result is a lightning fast website.

Pros:

• The right mix of features and simplicity
• Cache type feature sections, so you can play with the settings in one feature section at a time
• Cache Preview lets you view the resulting cached pages without breaking your website

Cons:

• Takes longer to setup than Quick Cache

Plugin Page

All in all caching is a very important element for any website, especially high traffic websites. So do your research, test these plugins out, and make your website lightning fast!

There are a few utilities that I count as must haves on the mac. And Perian is one of them, whenever I start using a new mac it is one of the first utilities that I ensure is loaded on and available for use.

So what is Perian? Well the short answer is that it is an indispensable tool for viewing and listening to different audio and video codecs, many of which are not natively supported on the mac. But this quicktime component ads some more efficient codecs that make virtually any video file “sing”.

What formats does Perian support? Here’s a short list:

• File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
• Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
• Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
• AVI support for AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, VBR MP3 and more
• Subtitle support for SSA/ASS, SRT, SAMI

Super simple to install, just download the install package, double click on the preference pane and bob’s your uncle.

Download Perian today and give it a whirl, I promise it won’t disappoint.

Perian Website

Download

So you probably thought that the last post with Skype Emoticons was the only one that you would see from macnative… not so. I found a few more that although may not be as cool as the last list may still be a fun and usable. So here they are.

(flag:AF) Afghanistan
(flag:AL) Albania, People’s Socialist Republic of
(flag:DZ) Algeria, People’s Democratic Republic of
(flag:AS) American Samoa
(flag:AD) Andorra, Principality of
(flag:AO) Angola, Republic of
(flag:AI) Anguilla
(flag:AQ) Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S)
(flag:AG) Antigua and Barbuda
(flag:AR) Argentina, Argentine Republic
(flag:AM) Armenia
(flag:AW) Aruba
(flag:AU) Australia, Commonwealth of
(flag:AT) Austria, Republic of
(flag:AZ) Azerbaijan, Republic of
(flag:BS) Bahamas, Commonwealth of the
(flag:BH) Bahrain, Kingdom of
(flag:BD) Bangladesh, People’s Republic of
(flag:BB) Barbados
(flag:BY) Belarus
(flag:BE) Belgium, Kingdom of
(flag:BZ) Belize
(flag:BJ) Benin (was Dahomey), People’s Republic of
(flag:BM) Bermuda
(flag:BT) Bhutan, Kingdom of
(flag:BO) Bolivia, Republic of
(flag:BA) Bosnia and Herzegovina
(flag:BW) Botswana, Republic of
(flag:BR) Brazil, Federative Republic of
(flag:IO) British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago)
(flag:VG) British Virgin Islands
(flag:BN) Brunei Darussalam
(flag:BG) Bulgaria, People’s Republic of
(flag:BF) Burkina Faso (was Upper Volta)
(flag:BI) Burundi, Republic of
(flag:KH) Cambodia, Kingdom of (was Khmer Republic/Kampuchea, Democratic)
(flag:CM) Cameroon, United Republic of
(flag:CA) Canada
(flag:CV) Cape Verde, Republic of
(flag:KY) Cayman Islands
(flag:CF) Central African Republic
(flag:TD) Chad, Republic of
(flag:CL) Chile, Republic of
(flag:CN) China, People’s Republic of
(flag:CX) Christmas Island
(flag:CC) Cocos (Keeling) Islands
(flag:CO) Colombia, Republic of
(flag:KM) Comoros, Union of the
(flag:CD) Congo, Democratic Republic of (was Zaire)
(flag:CG) Congo, People’s Republic of
(flag:CK) Cook Islands
(flag:CR) Costa Rica, Republic of
(flag:CI) Cote D’Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the
(flag:CU) Cuba, Republic of
(flag:CY) Cyprus, Republic of
(flag:CZ) Czech Republic
(flag:DK) Denmark, Kingdom of
(flag:DJ) Djibouti, Republic of (was French Afars and Issas)
(flag:DM) Dominica, Commonwealth of
(flag:DO) Dominican Republic
(flag:EC) Ecuador, Republic of
(flag:EG) Egypt, Arab Republic of
(flag:SV) El Salvador, Republic of
(flag:GQ) Equatorial Guinea, Republic of
(flag:ER) Eritrea
(flag:EE) Estonia
(flag:ET) Ethiopia
(flag:FO) Faeroe Islands
(flag:FK) Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
(flag:FJ) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands
(flag:FI) Finland, Republic of
(flag:FR) France, French Republic
(flag:GF) French Guiana
(flag:PF) French Polynesia
(flag:TF) French Southern Territories
(flag:GA) Gabon, Gabonese Republic
(flag:GM) Gambia, Republic of the
(flag:GE) Georgia
(flag:DE) Germany
(flag:GH) Ghana, Republic of
(flag:GI) Gibraltar
(flag:GR) Greece, Hellenic Republic
(flag:GL) Greenland
(flag:GD) Grenada
(flag:GP) Guadaloupe
(flag:GU) Guam
(flag:GT) Guatemala, Republic of
(flag:GN) Guinea, Revolutionary People’s Rep’c of
(flag:GW) Guinea-Bissau, Republic of (was Portuguese Guinea)
(flag:GY) Guyana, Republic of
(flag:HT) Haiti, Republic of
(flag:HM) Heard and McDonald Islands
(flag:VA) Holy See (Vatican City State)
(flag:HN) Honduras, Republic of
(flag:HK) Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China
(flag:HR) Hrvatska (Croatia)
(flag:HU) Hungary, Hungarian People’s Republic
(flag:IS) Iceland, Republic of
(flag:IN) India, Republic of
(flag:ID) Indonesia, Republic of
(flag:IR) Iran, Islamic Republic of
(flag:IQ) Iraq, Republic of
(flag:IE) Ireland
(flag:IL) Israel, State of
(flag:IT) Italy, Italian Republic
(flag:JM) Jamaica
(flag:JP) apan
(flag:JO) Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of
(flag:KZ) Kazakhstan, Republic of
(flag:KE) Kenya, Republic of
(flag:KI) Kiribati, Republic of (was Gilbert Islands)
(flag:KP) Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of
(flag:KR) Korea, Republic of
(flag:KW) uwait, State of
(flag:KG) Kyrgyz Republic
(flag:LA) Lao People’s Democratic Republic
(flag:LV) Latvia
(flag:LB) Lebanon, Lebanese Republic
(flag:LS) Lesotho, Kingdom of
(flag:LR) Liberia, Republic of
(flag:LY) Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
(flag:LI) Liechtenstein, Principality of
(flag:LT) Lithuania
(flag:LU) Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of
(flag:MO) Macao, Special Administrative Region of China
(flag:MK) Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of
(flag:MG) Madagascar, Republic of
(flag:MW) Malawi, Republic of
(flag:MY) Malaysia
(flag:MV) Maldives, Republic of
(flag:ML) Mali, Republic of
(flag:MT) Malta, Republic of
(flag:MH) Marshall Islands
(flag:MQ) Martinique
(flag:MR) Mauritania, Islamic Republic of
(flag:MU) Mauritius
(flag:YT) Mayotte
(flag:MX) Mexico, United Mexican States
(flag:FM) Micronesia, Federated States of
(flag:MD) Moldova, Republic of
(flag:MC) Monaco, Principality of
(flag:MN) Mongolia, Mongolian People’s Republic
(flag:MS) Montserrat
(flag:MA) Morocco, Kingdom of
(flag:MZ) Mozambique, People’s Republic of
(flag:MM) Myanmar (was Burma)
(flag:NA) Namibia
(flag:NR) Nauru, Republic of
(flag:NP) Nepal, Kingdom of
(flag:AN) Netherlands Antilles
(flag:NL) Netherlands, Kingdom of the
(flag:NC) New Caledonia
(flag:NZ) New Zealand
(flag:NI) Nicaragua, Republic of
(flag:NE) Niger, Republic of the
(flag:NG) Nigeria, Federal Republic of
(flag:NU) Niue, Republic of
(flag:NF) Norfolk Island
(flag:MP) Northern Mariana Islands
(flag:NO) Norway, Kingdom of
(flag:OM) Oman, Sultanate of (was Muscat and Oman)
(flag:PK) Pakistan, Islamic Republic of
(flag:PW) Palau
(flag:PS) Palestinian Territory, Occupied
(flag:PA) Panama, Republic of
(flag:PG) Papua New Guinea
(flag:PY) Paraguay, Republic of
(flag:PE) Peru, Republic of
(flag:PH) Philippines, Republic of the
(flag:PN) Pitcairn Island
(flag:PL) Poland, Polish People’s Republic
(flag:PT) Portugal, Portuguese Republic
(flag:PR) Puerto Rico
(flag:QA) Qatar, State of
(flag:RE) Reunion
(flag:RO) Romania, Socialist Republic of
(flag:RU) Russian Federation
(flag:RW) Rwanda, Rwandese Republic
(flag:SH) St. Helena
(flag:KN) St. Kitts and Nevis
(flag:LC) St. Lucia
(flag:PM) St. Pierre and Miquelon
(flag:VC) St. Vincent and the Grenadines
(flag:WS) Samoa, Independent State of (was Western Samoa)
(flag:SM) San Marino, Republic of
(flag:ST) Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of
(flag:SA) Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of
(flag:SN) Senegal, Republic of
(flag:CS) Serbia and Montenegro
(flag:SC) Seychelles, Republic of
(flag:SL) Sierra Leone, Republic of
(flag:SG) Singapore, Republic of
(flag:SK) Slovakia (Slovak Republic)
(flag:SI) Slovenia
(flag:SB) Solomon Islands (was British Solomon Islands)
(flag:SO) Somalia, Somali Republic
(flag:ZA) South Africa, Republic of
(flag:GS) South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
(flag:ES) Spain, Spanish State
(flag:LK) Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of (was Ceylon)
(flag:SD) Sudan, Democratic Republic of the
(flag:SR) Suriname, Republic of
(flag:SZ) Swaziland, Kingdom of
(flag:SE) Sweden, Kingdom of
(flag:CH) Switzerland, Swiss Confederation
(flag:SY) Syrian Arab Republic
(flag:TW) Taiwan, Province of China
(flag:TJ) Tajikistan
(flag:TZ) Tanzania, United Republic of
(flag:TH) Thailand, Kingdom of
(flag:TL) Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of
(flag:TG) Togo, Togolese Republic
(flag:TK) Tokelau (Tokelau Islands)
(flag:TO) Tonga, Kingdom of
(flag:TT) Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of
(flag:TN) Tunisia, Republic of
(flag:TR) Turkey, Republic of
(flag:TM) Turkmenistan
(flag:TC) Turks and Caicos Islands
(flag:TV) Tuvalu (was part of Gilbert & Ellice Islands)
(flag:VI) US Virgin Islands
(flag:UG) Uganda, Republic of
(flag:UA) Ukraine
(flag:AE) United Arab Emirates (was Trucial States)
(flag:GB) United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland
(flag:UM) United States Minor Outlying Islands
(flag:US) United States of America
(flag:UY) Uruguay, Eastern Republic of
(flag:UZ) Uzbekistan
(flag:VU) Vanuatu (was New Hebrides)
(flag:VE) Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
(flag:VN) Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of (was Democratic Republic of & Republic of)
(flag:WF) Wallis and Futuna Islands
(flag:EH) Western Sahara (was Spanish Sahara)
(flag:YE) Yemen
(flag:ZM) Zambia, Republic of
(flag:ZW) Zimbabwe (was Southern Rhodesia)

I decided that there must be a list of “Secret Skype Emoticons” somewhere out in the interwebs. I began my quest to hut down those elusive Secret Skype Emoticons and after some intense searching I found what I was looking for.

So I have decided to post this list of Secret Emoticons here for you so you can benefit from them as much as I have.

	(mooning)	Mooning emoticon, perfect…
	(finger)	Middle finger emoticon, a very rude emoticon to express yourself.
	(swear)	Swearing smiley, his words are just too rude to show!
	(rock)	Rocking smiley, making a hand gesture and enjoying his music.
	(smoking)	Smoking emoticon, this hidden smiley is one bad dude!
	(drunk)	Drunk emoticon, this Skype smiley’s had a bit too much to drink
	(poolparty)	Pool party emoticon, this guy just can’t wait to jump in!
	(toivo)	A guy and his dog, not sure what this emoticon is about, but Toivo was a Skype engineer.
	(bandit)	Masked bandit emoticon, quite unique. Good for when some stealth is required.
	(headbang)	Angry smiley banging his head against a wall, we’ve all felt this way sometime.
	(fubar)	FUBAR emoticon, for times when things just won’t work.
	(tmi)	Too Much Information (TMI) emoticon, good for when you’ve heard more than enough!
	(bug)	Bug emoticon, a black
	(heidy)	Squirrel emoticon, a cute little critter and his nut. Heidi is a Skype staff member.

So there you have it  just type the Secret Skype Emoticon including the parenthesies like so “(code)” and you to can confuse your friends with all the amazing Skype Secrets that you know.

Thanks to Ajunkyard for posting the list so I could find it.

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

Punctuality, one of the most often praised qualities in individuals, is also one of those that most of us lack. But when trying to give a good impression and make things happen, it is probably best to be on ones best behavior, put the best foot forward, and not miss your appointment with your dream client, or that great job interview. Anyway you slice it, it’s better to be on time for things, than apologizing because you showed up late.

Well Pester is a nice little Mac Utility that attempts to help you make the best first impression possible. This app has a single purpose, to remind you about a single event (what ever that event may be) and then it is left up to you to make the most of that information.

Once you have entered in the event and when you want to be reminded about it Pester sits nicely in your dock, but always has a reminder of how long you have remaining until the anticipated time.

Then when the appointed moment arrives Pester can do a number of assorted actions to GET YOUR ATTENTION and make sure you don’t blow this.

It can jump in the dock, notify you with Growl, play an alert sound, display an alert dialog box, or speak a message using OS X’s built in text to speech engine.

Needless to say Pester takes away your excuses for your lateness. So download it today and arrive on time.

Download Pester