Plugging In

I added the following three plug-ins to this blog:

Quotes Collection.
http://srinig.com/wordpress/plugins/quotes-collection/ .

You will see a randomly displayed quotation on the sidebar of the blog. After installing the plug-in, I can enter favorite quotations into a form. Then a randomly selected quotation is displayed whenever you open the blog. You can also click “next quote” to see a new quotation. So far I have entered seven different quotations and will add more as time permits. Please enjoy the “Thought for the Day”!

Daily Dilbert.
http://www.greftek.net/blog/software/grf-dilbert/ .

I also added the “Daily Dilbert” comic as the second item in the sidebar. It displays a graphic and a link where you can view today’s current Dilbert comic strip. It was fairly easy to install. With this and the other plug-ins, I noticed that the installation instructions are not up-to-date with the current WordPress interface. So, for example, when instructed to go to the “Presentation” section of the Dashboard, I had to figure out that it is now named the “Design” section.

On this and the Random Quote widget, I customized them by replacing the default title with my own title.

As an aside, while I sometimes think Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams is losing his edge and getting too far out from reality, the strip for October 5, 2008 is. so. true.

About Me
http://samdevol.com/about-me-widget-for-wordpress/

Lastly, I added the About Me widget. It is the third item in the sidebar. That seemed useful to to give a face to the blogger. I had a problem with this widget in that the instructions show an editing screen with features to format the text and add images and links. All I got was a plain text entry field. I will leave it that way for now and investigate further if time permits.

Now that I have done this three times, I feel fairly confident with the process of adding plug-ins. The first time was scary, but it became easier with each practice. I actually feel comfortable with FileZilla and PuTTY. Now I just have to learn the intricacies of the various plug-ins I may wish to add.