A Few Changes to The Incidental Cyclist

As I get to learn more about the WordPress software and the capabilities to extend the software through plugins, there may be a few changes to the site. Some of them will be obvious, some will be “under the hood” types of improvements.

One of the first things I have implemented is a way to help others promote their web sites. If you are familiar with Google and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you will be pleased to know that The Incidental Cyclist is running the NoFollow Free plugin. Comments and Trackbacks will have the nofollow tag removed after a certain number of posts and all registered users will have the nofollow tag removed from all their comments. For more information on the nofollow HTML attribute visit the nofollow Wiki page.

At the top of the left sidebar, you may or may not have noticed the addition of a bicycle related quote. The quote is randomly displayed and should not repeat the same one too often. Random Quotes is the plugin responsible for the display of those quotes and the quote database table is within the WordPress database. You can see a complete list of quotes here. As I acquire more quotes I will be sure to add them to the site.

You may have already noticed the poll on the left sidebar. That particular plugin is WP-Polls. I will try to change out the poll every 6 to 8 weeks so that there is always something new to vote about. You will always be able to see a summary of poll results in the Polls Archive post.

The weather widget provides the weather forecast for my town, Stallings, NC. The weather data is provided by weather.com and is displayed using WP-Weather.

Also on the right sidebar is a replacement calendar widget, Event Calendar. The event calendar is more than simply a tool to see what was posted on what day. Events can be put into the calendar and they will display directly on screen by hovering over one of the colored days. If you click on a colored day it will take you to all the posts for that day including the events that are scheduled. There is also an Events link at the top of the page so that you can see what is coming within the next 60 days. I will try to keep the calendar as accurate as possible, but I need your help. Please, if you have an event coming up or know of one, contact me on the form provided. You should also see a small calendar page icon just under the month. If you press that icon it will download the complete calendar of events in an .ICS file for importing into your favorite calendar application.

In the background and to make my life easier I have implemented a few spam fighting tools including but not limited to the following plugins:

• Askimet
• Simple Trackback Validation
• WP-Ban
• Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form

Over the next few weeks other things will be tried, some will work and some won’t. It is all in the effort to make sure that my readers get the most out of the things they read here. One of those things that will more than likely be dropped is the associated forum. I was running the Simple Machines Forum software and it is fine, but until traffic warrants there is no need to add this to my workload. A few things I will try to experiment with are ways to link articles with social networking sites. I would also like to add the ability to email directly from a post.

All in all, if there is anything that you would like to see please contact me or leave me a comment here. I will try to respond to every comment left, but sometimes it is just not possible to get a personal response. Regardless, I do read each and every email and comment that I get and consider them carefully. After all, it is for you that The Incidental Cyclist exists.