Create a Widget as easy as 1,2,3…

This morning I was reading in a small article about and I decided to take a test over it. Created a user account and tested to see if creating the widget would be as easy as 1,2,3 as they say in the site.

I was impressed, with very few steps I could create a full Feed Widget, all customizable to display in many plataforms such as WordPress, Facebook and iGoogle.

The question now is what else this can do. More testing to come, but so far so good.

Bellow is the example Feed Widget that I have created using their system.

WordPress Usability test

I was reading a news article from WordPress about the usability test done with WordPress 2.5 and I was impressed with the detail of the report.

If you are, just like me, an applications developer, you will find this usefull even if the application in the report is not yours. You will see common usuability mistakes and most important the point of view of the users.

Check it out. It is a very interesting read: http://wordpress.org/development/2008/10/usability-testing-report-25-and-crazyhorse/

P.S. Check out the PDF on the end of the article ( is far more interesting )

WordPress + GoodAdsense + Feedburner = Money 4 You

If you have, just like me, a WordPress blog and want to get a little bit more from it than you are getting now, I might have an exit for you. It took time, but I could finally figure out how to set up Google Adsense for feeds to work with Feedburner and display ads at my feeds. Supposedly it should be working as it is since Feedburner was bought by Google, but it still is a bit complicated to set up.

Here is how it works:

Set up an Adsense account with Google and create a new Adsense for Feeds. Adsense will ask you for a bunch stuff, but the important point is that you let adsense burn a feed for you. You will give adsense your blog feed link (usually http://yourblogname.wordpress.com/feed) and it will burn a new feed for you with feedburner.

After your Ad is saved, go back to it and see what was the channel name that it has created and take a note on that.

Now go to the manage channels, look for that channel and copy that id (save some place, you will need it).

Now go to your account details and look for your publisher id. For the feed publisher it should be something like ca-feed-pub#################. Copy everything from feed through the last number.

Go back to manage feeds and you will see a “View Feed Stats” link. Hit on that you will be redirected to the Feedburner control panel. At this control panel go to monetize.

At this tab you will see 3 textboxes to enter information.

The first you will enter your publisher id (the feed-pub#######) and on the second you will enter the channel id (only numbers).

Save it and wait about 15 minutes. Go to the “Optmize” tab and hit “View your feed”. You should see your blog posts with ads at the 1st, 3rd and last posts (not all of them).

With everything set up, your ads will be displayed at feed readers and, just like any other Adsense campaign, you will earn for each valid click on your ad, so more subscribers, more chance you will have to get some money out of it.

Advantage:

• You can really make money with your WordPress Blog

Disadvantages:

• Is a complicated setup
• Your ads will only be seen on feed readers (like Google Feed Reader) but not all of them will display the ads (like Omea Reader) and some you will see the ad but it will not work properly (like News Gator)
• If you have set up your sidebar to display the same feed, the ads will be removed (witch kind that make sense)

Want to see this working, just ad this feed link to a feed reader of yours (like the Google Feed Reader): http://feedproxy.google.com/McloidesResourcesLibrary

Have fun.

Do you have a WordPress Blog or Blog about PHP?

If that’s your case, just post a comment back here with the url of your blog. I’m going to create a list with all PHP related Blogs and put it in the right menu.

This is a PHP Resources blog, so any blog that talks about PHP is a valid resources.