I’d heard that renaming the comments script would help stop most of this automated spamming, but it proved not to be true in my case, the spam was still flowing. Of course I could limit comments to registered users only, but I found that greatly limits the number of people willing to comment. So, I decided I needed to install a challenge system that can tell if you are human.

I looked at the captcha methods (a graphic of a distorted word that the user has to type in) that were available for WordPress, but didn’t like the requirements for special graphics software on the server. Then I found Math Comment Spam Protection Plugin. This lightweight plugin challenges the user with a simple math problem to prove that they are real. It simply adds an extra field for the user to fill out, and asks for the answer to a question such as ‘Sum of 1 + 4?’. I customized mine to say ‘What is 1 + 4?’, which seemed even easier (some may not understand the word sum, say that 10 times fast!).

How does it work?

This plugin does not require JavaScript or cookies. It uses a special encryption function; the result of the question is being passed via a hidden field. The result is being compared with the value entered by the visitor – after encrypring this value as well.

It’s easy to install, just copy the file, activate it, and then be sure to go to the option page and save the options. I didn’t do the save options thing the first time on my ITsVISTA site and their was an error message on my pages. The options page allows you to specifies what numbers to include in the challenge, and if you want the number written out, or in numerical format. If you’re concerned about the math capabilities of your audience, you can even remove the higher numbers and keep the problems as simple as possible (maybe just have problems that use 1, 2 and 3). Once activated, their is some code you place in your comments form that ads the extra line. It’s easy and the instructions are clearly laid out.

Since installing this plugin on my two sites, I have recieved NO SPAM. I haven’t yet had problems with trackback spam, so for now I am disabling Akismet so I don’t have to worry about it catching my legitimate trackbacks. I’m sure if someone wants to hack around this, it’s possible, and of course it doesn’t stop annoying comments from real people, but for sites that just get automated spam, this is an excellent way to stop it dead in its tracks.

I used class_http.php to grab the information from Technorati, and it caches the info for 1 day (the plugin only polls Technorati once per day, if it polled on every page load, a busy site would probably end up getting banned). The rank that is displayed is linked back to the Technorati page for the URL that is being ranked.

Installation
To install the plugin, create a directory called ‘jpf_rank’ in your plugins folder. Extract jpf_technorati_rank.zip and copy all of the files to the jpf_rank directory. If you’ve already installed any of my other ranking plugins, then you only need to copy the jpf_technorati_rank.php file to the jpf_rank directory. Go to your Manage Plugins page and activate the plugin and you’re ready to go.

Configuration
To display your Technorati rank, insert the following code wherever you want to see the rank:

<?php jpf_technorati_rank(); ?>

The default settings assume you’re putting this in your sidebar, so it wraps the result in <li> and </li> which will display like this:
{note that I’m not running the plugin anymore, so it’s not displaying here}
If you’d like it formatted differently, here are the available parameters:

• $before = what you want to appear before the rank number. The default is ‘<li>Technorati: ‘.
• $blog = the URL to get the rank for. By default, the ‘home’ setting that you set in your WordPress general settings page is used. You can enter a different one if you prefer (eg. http://sojoe.info/downloads).
• $after = what you want to appear after the rank number. The default is ‘</li>’.

Examples
If you just want to display the rank number inline with other text, like this: {not displaying anymore}, use the following:

<?php jpf_technorati_rank (”,”,”); ?>

Download JPF Technorati Rank WordPress Plugin

I used class_http.php to grab the information from Alexa, and it caches the info for 1 day (the plugin only polls Alexa once per day, if it polled on every page load, a busy site would probably end up getting banned). The rank that is displayed is linked back to the Alexa page for the URL that is being ranked.

Installation
To install the plugin, create a directory called ‘jpf_rank’ in your plugins folder. Extract jpf_alexa_rank.zip and copy all of the files to the jpf_rank directory. If you’ve already installed any of my other ranking plugins, then you only need to copy the jpf_alexa_rank.php file to the jpf_rank directory. Go to your Manage Plugins page and activate the plugin and you’re ready to go.

Configuration
To display your Alexa rank, insert the following code wherever you want to see the rank:

<?php jpf_alexa_rank(); ?>

The default settings assume you’re putting this in your sidebar, so it wraps the result in <li> and </li> which will display like this:
{Note that I’m not running this plugin anymore, so there is no display here}
If you’d like it formatted differently, here are the available parameters:

• $before = what you want to appear before the rank number. The default is ‘<li>Alexa: ‘.
• $blog = the URL to get the rank for. By default, the ‘home’ setting that you set in your WordPress general settings page is used. You can enter a different one if you prefer (eg. http://sojoe.info/downloads).
• $after = what you want to appear after the rank number. The default is ‘</li>’.

Examples
If you just want to display the rank number inline with other text, like this: {Note that I’m not running this plugin anymore, so there is no display here}, use the following:

<?php jpf_alexa_rank (”,”,”); ?>

Once the plugin is activated, include the following somewhere in ‘the loop’, most likely in one of your templates:
<?php jpf_yahoo(); ?>
This will display text that says ‘Add to Yahoo’ which links to the Yahoo.com submit page. If you want more control over the appearance, you can add a few parameters:
<?php jpf_yahoo({before}, {Link Text}, {after}); ?>
Here’s how I use it. I first copy the included yahoo.gif file to my image folder, in my case /wp-images/icons. I then include the following in my template:
<?php jpf_yahoo(”,’<img src=”/wp-images/icons/yahoo.gif” alt=”Yahoo” /> Add to Yahoo’,”); ?>
That’s it!

Once the plugin is activated, include the following somewhere in ‘the loop’, most likely in one of your templates:
<?php jpf_reddit(); ?>
This will display text that says ‘Add to Reddit’ which links to the Reddit.com submit page. If you want more control over the appearance, you can add a few parameters:
<?php jpf_reddit({before}, {Link Text}, {after}); ?>
Here’s how I use it. I first copy the included reddit.gif file to my image folder, in my case /wp-images/icons. I then include the following in my template:
<?php jpf_reddit(”,’<img src=”/wp-images/icons/reddit.gif” alt=”Reddit” /> Add to Reddit’,”); ?>
That’s it!

Once the plugin is activated, include the following somewhere in ‘the loop’, most likely in one of your templates:
<?php jpf_newsvine(); ?>
This will display text that says ‘Seed Newsvine’ which links to the Newsvine.com submit page. If you want more control over the appearance, you can add a few parameters:
<?php jpf_newsvine({before}, {Link Text}, {after}); ?>
Here’s how I use it. I first copy the included newsvine.gif file to my image folder, in my case /wp-images/icons. I then include the following in my template:
<?php jpf_newsvine(”,’<img src=”/wp-images/icons/newsvine.gif” alt=”Newsvine” /> Seed Newsvine’,”); ?>
That’s it!

• Image is the path to an image that will preceed the list. The image is not linked to anything, it is simply decorative.
• Images is an image that will preceed each category link, the image is included as part of the link.
• Before is anything you want to preceed each category link, commonly this would be used to define each category as a line item in a list, or to define CSS, but could also be brackets or other symbols.
• After would typically be used to close a tag that was opened with Before
• Separator is the text you want to separate the category links, most commonly a comma and space, or a vertical bar.
• And defines if you want the word ‘and’ followed by a space to separate the last two items, generally used if you are listing the categories in a sentence format. Set to true if you wish to use.

If you simply include <?php jpf_catfeed(); ?> you will get a line of your categories separated by a vertical bar (eg. “category1|category2|category3″).

Here are some examples of it’s use:

In this example, wrapping the function in an unordered list, and specifying $before = ‘<li>’ and $after = ‘</li>’ will give you a simple unordered list of your categories.

<ul><?php jpf_catfeed(”,”, ‘<li>’, ‘</li>’); ?></ul>

category1
category2
category3

Here an icon is included before each link. The icon is part of the hyperlink to that category.

<?php jpf_catfeed(”,’/wp-images/icons/rss.gif’, ”, ”, ‘, ‘); ?>

category1, category2, category3

Here the separator is changed to a vertical bar with a space on each side instead of a comma followed by a space.

<?php jpf_catfeed(”,’/wp-images/icons/rss.gif’, ”, ”, ‘ | ‘); ?>

category1 | category2 | category3

Here an icon is included before the first category, a comma and space is used to separate the items, and the last category is preceeded by ‘and’ instead of a comma.

<?php jpf_catfeed(‘/wp-images/icons/rss.gif’,”, ”, ”, ‘, ‘, true); ?>

category1, category2 and category3

Once the plugin is activated, include the following somewhere in ‘the loop’, most likely in one of your templates:
<?php jpf_netscape(); ?>
This will display text that says ‘Submit to Netscape’ which links to the Netscape.com submit page. If you want more control over the appearance, you can add a few parameters:
<?php jpf_netscape({before}, {Link Text}, {after}); ?>
Here’s how I use it. I first copy the included netscape.gif file to my image folder, in my case /wp-images/icons. I then include the following in my template:
<?php jpf_netscape(”,’<img src=”/wp-images/icons/netscape.gif” alt=”Netscape” /> Submit to Netscape’,”); ?>
That’s it!

Once the plugin is activated, include the following somewhere in ‘the loop’, most likely in one of your templates:
<?php jpf_hugg(); ?>
This will display text that says ‘Hugg this’ which links to the Hugg.com submit page. If you want more control over the appearance, you can add a few parameters:
<?php jpf_hugg({before}, {Link Text}, {after}); ?>
Here’s how I use it. I first copy the included hugg.gif file to my image folder, in my case /wp-images/icons. I then include the following in my template:

<?php jpf_hugg('','<img src="/wp-images/icons/hugg.gif" alt="Hugg" /> Hugg This',''); ?>

That’s it!

I am not here for rage. I’m here for revenge.

I’m a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.

It can look many ways as you can change the formatting, I’m using it with the default settings here.

Note: Tested with WordPress versions up to and including 2.3

Install is easy.

1. Download and expand jpf_quotes.zip.
2. Copy the entire jpf_quotes folder to your WordPress plugins folder.
3. Enable the plugin in your WordPress Plugins admin page.
4. Choose how you’d like the plugin configured on the JPF Quotes configuration page in your WordPress Options admin page.
5. Add <?php jpf_quotes(); ?> to your sidebar, or wherever you’d like the quotes to appear.

The default download includes the following files for the Simpson’s Quotes package:

• Bart.gif
• Burns.gif
• Homer.gif
• Lisa.gif
• Marge.gif
• Moe.gif
• Ralph.gif
• Simpsons.txt

If you don’t want Simpon’s quotes displayed, delete these files. Adding quotes is easy. Simply download one of the expanding list of quotes packages:

• Arthur C Clarke (contributed by Ted Schober)
• Baruch Spinoza (contributed by Ted Schober)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• George W. Bush
• Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey (contributed by Phil Scoville)
• Family Guy
• Friends
• Futurama
• How I Met Your Mother
• The King James Bible
• Lazarus Long (contributed by Ted Schober)
• Lewis Carroll (contributed by Ted Schober)
• Mark Twain
• My Name is Earl
• Seinfeld
• Spike Milligan (contributed by Brad Levin)
• Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (contributed by EncGuano)
• Simpsons
• Star Trek
• Thomas Paine
• William James (contributed by Ted Schober)
• Rodger W. Hancock (contributed by Rodger W. Hancock)

Expand the zip file and copy the files into the jpf_quotes folder. That’s all their is to it. If you’d like to make your own, simply create a text file with the name of character, then a tab, then the quote text. One quote per line. Then create a picture, GIF or JPG with the exact same name as the character name in the text file. See some of the available quotes packages as an example. If you create your own, consider submitting it here so others can benefit from your efforts as well. Just e-mail it to jpfieber@gmail.com.