September 7th in Premium Plug-ins by Wordpress Jedi . 
Have you ever wondered how some people keep posting to their blogs each and everyday without getting overwhelmed by the amount of work that is needed to keep multiple blogs up-to-date. For a long time, I wondered about the very same fact, and I always thought that there got to be a WordPress plugin/script out there that could help automate the process. I got to admit that I have tried many free scripts and plugins but none has come close to Autoblogged as far as the features and flexibility offered by this plugin. Not only can you import your RSS feeds to your blog, you can also take advantage of the template provided to make each and every post unique. What does this mean for your WordPress blog? Simple. If you have enough combination of words and phrases in your template, you can make your blog look as if it’s being updated personally by you each and everyday (For me that was a big deal as I did not want my readers to know that I am actually taking time off).
So here is how autoblogged work. You can add your feeds individually to your Autoblogging center through WordPress Dashboard. You then get a chance to define how the tags are going to work out for your feed and what category you want your posts to show up under.
You also get to choose a different author name for each feed or choose a random author for each post. Now I don’t recommend using multiple author names to deceive your users, but it is certainly possible. You can also post vidoes from YouTube to your blog, if you are running a video heavy Wordpres blog.
The template feature is my favorite. It simply sets this WordPress theme apart from any other I have seen. It’s one thing to have the ability to import RSS to your blog. It’s another to have the ability to actually modify each and every post and make them unique.
You can use the template to rotate sentences before and after each RSS post. In addition, you can define where you want the video/image to show up with each post. If you are a bit more advanced, you can use the built in regular expression search and replace feature to take the post optimization feature to the next level (keep in mind that the system automatically recognizes duplicate posts and avoids them. So you can import then RSS feeds from different sites, and just set it and forget it).
This plugin has been a life saver to me. I run over 35 blogs and unlike this one, a lot of them run on autopilot. It is certainly helpful for me to have the ability to automate some of my tasks without having to put hours of time researching for new posts. The price is affordable too. You can get the single server version for only $59. If you are really hardcore, you can get the developer version for only $129, which is a steal really.
Continue Reading August 29th in Photo Plugins, Premium Plug-ins by Wordpress Jedi . 
Have you seen these new Web 2.0 sites that come out with all kinds of cool features? You have probably seen the photo sites that have pictures that literally pop out when you take your cursor over them. If you are running a photo blog or you tend to have a lot of picture on your personal or business blog, I know you would love to have that feature too. I literally spent weeks searching for a programmer to implement that feature for me but guys at rentacoder were asking for $200 to get that done for me. I got lucky when I found Viva Carousel. on the very same page, I found Viva Zoom.
Viva Zoom is surprisingly easy to use. You basically upload your photos and the plugin automatically creates thumbnail for each image, and then your images pop out on your pages when clicked (see an example below).
That’s pretty much why it’s called Viva Zoom. You can Zoom in on your images. You can also move the thumbnails and open multiple ones. Now I am going to be honest with you. I don’t run a heavy photo blog per se’. But whatever kind of blog you run is going to look more professional with this plugin. It’s just more attractive.
Price: You can currently get this for a single site for $19.95 (usually retails for $24.95), but the developer license can get expensive. I personally can’t handle more than a couple of blogs, but if you want to use this plugin on all your sites, then you should consider the more expensive licenses.
Verdict: 4.75/5. The plugin is simple to use in general and does what it’s supposed to do magnificently. It does not however support external images (linking to images hosting on let’s say CNN). But if you upload the images to your server, it works like a charm. Best of all it’s very affordable.
Continue Reading August 21st in Premium Plug-ins by Wordpress Jedi . 
I have always wondered why WordPress doesn’t come with a functionality to import 1000 links instantly to my WordPress blogs. The fact is if you are running an affiliate business from your WordPress blog, copying pasting and editing HTML could take a while. The first lesson they teach you in business school is to value your time. If you value your time more than $10 an hour, you want to find a way to do valueless things done more quickly. Wp Affiliate Pro is the plugin for business really. It comes with a dashboard interface that allows you to add links fast to your blog. Also, you have ever thought about hiding your affilite links, then WP Affiliate Pro is your plugin. You don’t need to go to TinyURL to hide your links anymore. With Affiliate URL, you define what you want your link to look like, and that’s how it will be.
The fun thing about WP Affiliate Pro is that you don’t even need to install it yourself. The programmer will install it for you, so you can be sure that you are getting everything you paid for without having to learn a new programming language.
Continue Reading August 15th in Premium Plug-ins by Wordpress Jedi . Have your ever wanted to add a carousel to your blog. You know, having the ability to allow people to go through a bunch of your WordPress blog photos with no problem? I have a tech deal blog that was stagnent for a while due to lack of graphics. So I searched extensively for a plugin that would allow me to get the photos of the latest deals (you know laptops, PCs, and things like that) and display them at the top of my home page. That’s when I found Viva Carousels! Viva basically has a bunch of plugins that are great, but for my need, Viva Carousel was perfect:
Not only you get the pictures that you have added to your post automatically added to this plugin, you can also set a refresh time (having these pictures move to the left every x seconds). Best of all, this version of the plugin is designed for bloggers, so these images link to your blog posts. For what I had in mind (my tech deal site), this was perfect.
Keep in mind that Viva Carousel is a premium wordpress plug-in, and it does cost something. Having said that, if you have the need it for it’s well worth it. I couldn’t be happier with mine.
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