You can build a social network based on the power and flexibility of WordPress, but BuddyPress is not for the faint of heart – especially if you want to do extensive customization. It is not nearly as simple as creating a custom theme for a WordPress site – but it is very powerful indeed, and if you have a multi-user WordPress powered site it is definitively something that you should investigate.

And if you decide that you need help implementing a custom BuddyPress solution, just let me know – I have extensive experience with not only getting it all working but customizing the look and feel and getting a BuddyPress site bent to my ( and my clients ) will.

WordPress is fairly secure – much more so then many other freely available CMS’ out there – but the security of your platform can be compromised by not keeping up to date. When the WordPress developers identify and patch potentially vulnerable holes in their software they announce what they have done – which gives the hackers info about vulnerabilities in older installations that have not been upgraded.

WordPress 3.1.3 is the latest release and beyond the security issues alluded to above it offers many advantages to older versions. I have not run into too many problems while upgrading my or my clients WP installations, but sometimes there can be issues that crop up with incompatible plugins, theme peccadillos, etc. So – the first thing to do is back it all up! Back up your theme, your database, everything – so if you have to roll back you can do so with grace.

Once you are all backed up I suggest going with the one button upgrade through the WordPress admin – it works very well and is easy enough for even my most non-technical clients and will not interfere with installations created by third party tools like fantastico. Once you do this, you can move on to updating your plugins, but do this one at a time and be prepared for issues with plugin upgrades. I have had many more problems upgrading third party plugins then I have upgrading WordPress itself. If you have ftp access, fire up your ftp program and navigate to your plugin directory. If you encounter a problem while upgrading a plugin, and it horks your whole site, you can delete that plugin via ftp and your site will come back up normally.

The 3.1.3 release is mostly security focused – it fixes clickjacking, sniffing out user names of non-authors, and Media security fixes but also fixes the maddening left over file issues if an import does not finish. Beyond that, if you are still using a version less that 3.0 there is a whole new world of features that you are missing out on: Custom Post Types, Specific author templates, menu manager, and more – so, go and get it if you are still using a 2.x – you will be glad you did.

I am working on upgrading a theme and installation for a client right now, I can do the same for you – just get in touch with me and I will send you my very reasonable rates.

wp_get_archives(‘type=alpha’);

And you can do so without banging your head against the wall for an hour like I did.

You have exceeded my expectations with this project, your eye for designing with only an idea is spectacular! I will be coming to you for all of my future projects.

Great to hear Paul, you are awesome to work with and I appreciate the space you give me to create. Keep a lookout for for a post highlighting this new project soon – it’s not your average blog.

While I know that there are other lists of Twitter plugins out there – I wanted to publish my take on the issue of WordPress plugins for twitter because I have actually tried a large number of WordPress Twitter plugins and have experienced the excellent, passable, and just plain bad.

While I will spare the creators of the just plain bad plugins, I did want to share a simple list of good to great Twitter WordPress plugins:

• TweetSuite
  I suggest you start here if you use WordPress and Twitter. It features: TweetBacks, ReTweet-This buttons for each TweetBack, A digg-like Tweet-This Button, Automatic Tweeting of new posts, and a half a dozen more features without javascript or remote calls.
• Ping.fm Custom URL
  This is a feature rich wordpress plugin that works with Ping.fm’s Custom URL feature to collect blog entries, microblog entries, and status updates and post them to your blog.
• Twitturls
  On the other end of the spectrum there is the very simple Twitturls, a WordPress Widget that displays currently popular links that have been tweeted.
• Social Profiles WordPress Plugin
  This plugin is a bit more specialized but great if you run a multi author blog. Social Profiles allows you to add social network profile links to the comments of your registered users as specified by the user on their profile page
• Twitpress
  Twitpress is a wordpress plugin that accomplishes 1 popular task well, it submits a user definable tweet to your twitter account notifying any twitter followers or friends that a new blog entry has been published on your blog.
• Tweet Tweet
  Tweet Tweet is a plugin for WordPress that polls Twitter and archives your tweets and the tweets of those you follow so those insightful conversations you have at 1am are never lost.

So there you go, JTk’s favorite Twitter related WordPress plugins. Each accomplishes a slightly different task and comes at making the integration of your WordPress powered site and Twitter more effective from a different angle.

Sometimes I worry that I am doing myself and my other clients a dis-service by lingering too long helping clients with tasks well beyond what I have agreed to and what I have been paid for. And then I get an email like this:

“It’s evident in the quality and support that you provide, that you’re committed to building long term relationships with your clientele. Simply put; it has been a pleasure to work with you.”

That was written by David C. who I have worked with multiple times now.

The moral of this story is that if you are waiting on me to finish your WordPress project, hang in there and I will provide you with the same service that I did David.

So if you want a custom WordPress theme and and can wait 30 days, feel free to contact me. If you want to co-brand a creative commons WordPress theme by all means get in touch.

But if you need a new theme by Tuesday, need WordPress consulting right this minute, or any other service that puts my current time-line in jeopardy I’ll have to pass this time.

P.S. all baby gerts are lost…

Hey Now, I am happy to announce version 1.2 of the Blue Meanie free WordPress theme. Blue Meanie is a free theme that Conlan and I released about a year ago – and it needed some attention… It’s a variable width, liquid layout, stretchable type theme that I’ve always liked and judging by the number of support questions I get about it – it’s fairly popular.

Check it out here.

That’s exactly what Jeff over at People You’ll See in Hell did, he gave me some time and creative freedom and we created something that we both liked. His dedicated audience has been decidedly positive as well.