Self hosted? Not a Photoshop warrior? No way to add charts to your posts? Well, Jeffrey Kishner has created a plugin to do just this for you. The best part is that this plugin is free!
You can grab this plugin at Jeffrey’s page, where he displays the different options in how you can present the chart by making little changes to the shortcode. While the charts default ascendant is 0 degrees Aries you can add the ascendant degree to the shortcode to get the correct ascendant for the chart you display. Jeffrey explains all this on his page, so I won’t reinvent the (chart) wheel here.
Unfortunately for you Blogspot bloggers, this nifty item is only available in for WordPress. Bummer.
Self hosted WordPress users can experience a little bit of a let down when migrating off WordPress.com. Where are all the little nifty features? Well those were just for the .com folks, but there is a new plugin under the aegis of WordPress.com allows you to access the best of the best features in the plugin package called Jetpack.
Features include:
Simple, concise stats with no additional load on your server. Previously provided by WordPress.com Stats. These stats are a beautiful thing. I just might give up my Sitemeter subscription.
The WP.me URL shortener.
Hovercard popups for your commenters via Gravatar.
Easily embedded media from popular sites like YouTube, Digg, and Vimeo.
For the Math geeks, a simple way to include beautiful mathematical expressions on your site.
A widget for displaying recent tweets. Previously provided by Wickett Twitter Widget
Your readers can easily share your posts via email or their favorite social networks. Previously provided by the Sharedaddy WordPress plugin.
Your writing will improve thanks to After the Deadline, an artificial intelligence based spell, style, and grammar checker. Previously provided by the After the Deadline WordPress plugin.
The hitch is that you need your WordPress.com account to activate this plugin. And it is true that you can gather up the individual plugins separately, but this package works, simply, neatly, and with no stress on the installer (you).
You can install the plugin directly by searching “Jetpack” in the “Add New” portion of your plugin section and click install. Nothing is easier. You can find more information here.
Another plugin that looked promising but has only presented problems in installation is Bookshelf. Bookshelf promises a free interface to upload, and sell through PayPal, sell your e-books. Oh, it looked beautiful and people who worked through the problems say it works great, but I haven’t gotten the thing to work yet. Too bad, because it would have played a part in my plan to conquer the world. Maybe it still will, if I can get the developer to respond to my request for assistance. We’ll see. If he does and it works, I’ll let you know.
Update: My friends at Hostgator helped to resolve the issue with the plugin, so kudos to them. We’ll roll out the page the plug is is on when Mercury goes direct, because only an astrologer who doesn’t know her craft would launch a new product when Mercury is retrograde!
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Beth Turnage authors Astrology Explored as well as being publisher of Astrology Media Press. Beth is available for private consultations. You can contact Beth at starrynightastro@aol.com.
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