Tag: jetpack

Fun with WP.me and Twitter Cards

I was trying to figure out why my Twitter Cards weren’t working when I was tinkering with someone else’s WordPress install.

Turns out at some point Twitter decided to follow the WP.me redirect and grab the page behind is differently.

So, now you need to whitelist your domain rather than WP.me.

To do that pop along to The Card Validator with one of your none WP.me Blog Post URL’s in hand and pop it in the validator box.

twitter_card_validation

Click request approval, fill in the little form and wack submit! It might throw an error but retest your page and all should be good!

pending

Give it a few minutes:

waiting

And Finally:

finally

A working Tweet!

Updated like so:

Barry_Carlyon_on_Twitter___Fun_with_WP_me_and_Twitter_Cards_http___t_co_WYcrgwtMgG_

Annual Report

2012inblogging-2

It’s that time of year again where WordPress posts out the Annual JetPack Stats Annual Report, and here’s my report!

Shame it only tracks Posts and not Pages, since there have been a fair few comments and views on the WordPress Plugins category of pages!

My CV and some other Updates

Just a quick post to say hello.

I’ve updated my CV and tidied it up a little.
So any feedback on it would be useful! (Drop Me a Line rather than a Comment please)
Link in the SideBar on the right!

I should really write on my blog some more, but not a lot to write about of late.
JetPack Extras is doing OK, but JetPack core decided to implement the main feature I added, that being Pinterest but, Extras has evolved, it still of course has the ability to control button placement and has the extra Twitter Via/Related options, and the ability to share the WP.me shortened URL, makes a nice Twitter Card, embedding a short Preview of the Post with the Tweet, (check this Meta Tweet for an example) works with any wp.me url you share on Twitter by the way!

Most useful, mainly updated to keep up with JetPack core and use the new shiny hooks they have.
You can check it out on extend. Feedback/request are always Welcome!

Made a couple of tweaks and updates to the Blog in the background, added a better 404 page and updated the .htaccess rules, I have all subdomains pointing to the here, (unless their is a separate to show), so its a good idea to redirect non sites to here, rather than duplicating the content.
Also tweaked the Root .htaccess to have a Error Document (404) since it was just standard Apache Error, bit nasty, but now better, LOLCATS TO THE RESCUE! 😀

Heres a extract of the rules, if you find it useful/handy:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^barrycarlyon.co.uk  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://barrycarlyon.co.uk/%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
ErrorDocument 404 http://barrycarlyon.co.uk/wordpress/404-2/
ErrorDocument 403 http://barrycarlyon.co.uk/wordpress/404-2/

Next thing to do, is probably update and replace the MineCraft Server Site probably using Twitter Bootstrap as a new basis. It’s now a whitelisted server for Armchair Heroes or on Facebook, but of late I’ve been getting my MineCraft fix playing over at PhantomCraft, like a lot of open Servers I tend to get robbed/cleaned out and griefed a lot, but then again I am a little close to spawn. It’s a fun server to play on and the regulars are quite nice.

Hopefully moving further away when I get a chance to play some more, thinks are pretty busy at the moment between Magento fun at Day Job and Freshers Fun at the Union.

Then I really should get the Portfolio page on the Blog fixed up to showcase what I’ve done before, since I am a Freelance Web Developer (you got any work going or want a quote for? (Drop me a line)

So a couple more weeks and we’ll be back to the usual grind.
Hopefully I will have more to write about soon!

Extra Jetpack!

So recently I’ve been mucking about with JetPack, for various bits and pieces.

Mainly the first thing done is just to make the sharing buttons appear above and below a post.

But from browsing the JetPack Support Forum over on extend I thought I’d make my changes available.

So, attached to this post, is my modified version of JetPack 1.4.2.

Which includes the following additions:

  • Ability to control button placement, above, below, or both of the post content
  • A Pinterest PinIt Button as requested on the forum, it will attempt to use the Post/Page Featured Image as the Image to Pin
  • Additional Twitter button elements/arguments, for recommended Twitter account following (via and related)
  • Ability to turn on/off the DNT Twitter button mode: see the docs, about what this is and does

    • Hope you find it useful.

    If using JetPack 1.6.1 use the Extend Version
    [download#4] Pre JetPack 1.6
    [download#3]

    Feedback and requests in the comments please 😀 or hit me up on Twitter: @BarryCarlyon

    (On a side note, I need to fix some theme glitches on here, hence a double featured image on the home page….)

    Update: Make sure your theme is using a recent version of jQuery. As otherwise the [+ Share] won’t pop up (for extra hidden sharing buttons)

    Update: Created a new Plugin, that doesn’t replace JetPack, it extends and runs as a separate plugin.
    So more Core JetPack update friendly. Upload and activate like a normal plugin.
    Includes a suggestion from @SkipTweets Option to use the WP.me link instead of the permalink for Twitter Sharing

    Update: The plugin is now available on extend!

    Update: JetPack Core has now updated to 1.6.1 which adds a Pinterest Button to Core. They also updated the entire ShareDaddy plugin. It looks like they are adding Twitter Via Support to.
    I’ve just released a Maintenance Fix as if you Update JetPack, it WhitePages, due to conflicting Pinterest Buttons.

    Update: Check out the Special Plugin Page

JetPack Summary 2011

So popped open my emails on January 1st to find an email from JetPack. JetPack being a collection of plugins from WordPress to install on Self hosted blogs, that among other things includes a stat tracker.

The email in question was something that JetPack had automatically generated as an Annual Report on views of my blog.

You can see mine here.

Quite an interesting read, and I’m not really surprised that my some of my most popular posts are from 2010, really just means I need to blog more. (Hence really the reason for writing a blog entry about it, since I do aim to post more now)

But the most interesting thing of all, is the little Fireworks jQuery plugin, which WordPress have also released as open source for others to use and play with. Included on the review page includes a nice little stats/current plugin output to show you how effective/how well its all running.

My Google Chrome is currently scoring 4%, but my iPad safari clocks in at 30% (but then I do have a lot of tabs open right now).

It’s a nice way to review your blog from the year, so it you are running JetPack, its worth a read.

But it is really just a bit of a sales gimmick when you get to the bottom and see what WordPress has planned.
Looks like its going a bit more Tumblr-y. We shall see