On one of my other blogs, I use the Max Stripe Ad to remind readers to subscribe to my RSS Feed. It is an easy way to add an advertisement or reminder for your readers. Now MaxBlogPress has come out with a new plugin called Max Banner Ads and I thought I would give it a try.

The plugin installed easily and it took me only 20 minutes to get five ads up on my site. The set up is so easy! You can add advertisements in four places - top of first post, sidebar, bottom of last post and within the post. I have added all except the one within the post. The best thing is that you can add as many banners or boxes as you want - each add will rotate in order.

I also love that Max Banner Ads includes stats. Here are my stats from the recently added banners. The stats included impressions and clicks. This will help me decide if an advertisement is working well or not.

You can download Max Banner Ads as ReviewWare right now. This means you can download it and use it for free but they are asking that you provide a review of the product or let others now about it. You can also purchase the Pro Edition. This edition removes the words “Powered by MaxBlogPress” and the price is $47.

Are you always looking for the perfect picture to add to your blog to enhance your post? Do you search Google images and hope that you find an image that is not copyrighted? I do!

Now there is a new plugin that will do all the work for you - Photo Dropper. Photo Dropper is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add Flickr photos to your posts. Follow these simple steps to install Photo Dropper on your WordPress blog:

1. Download and unzip the plugin. This will create a directory - /photo_dropper
2. FTP the the folder to your /wp-content/plugins directory for your blog.
3. In your WordPress admin panel, click on Plugins and Activate the Photo Dropper plugin.
4. Next, click on Options at the top of your WordPress admin panel and then click on Photo Dropper.
5. Set your blog preferences. Note: If you have a commercial blog you must check “Show only photos that can be used commercially” in the preferences.
6. When you start to write a new post, you will notice a new section under the editor entitled “Photo Dropper Browse Photos”.
7. Type in a keyword and click on “Search”. Photo Dropper will bring up related pictures for your blog.
8. Click on the size (S, M or L) under the photo that you want to display and the photo is automatically inserted in your blog.
9. Credits are automatically added to the photo.

I decided that I would try and see if I could add photos that I had uploaded to Flickr. Your photos will only show up if you have a Pro account and if you choose the right Creative Commons license. I choose the license: Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons. This means that the photo can be shared and remixed, only if the owner is given credit even if the image is altered.

If you are planning to use your own photos, make sure you give them at least three tags and use those tags for your keyword search. Here is the photo I took with the proper credit:

photo credit: cmpryor

I have just discovered two new WordPress plugins that will help you show comment love to your commentators. The first is the Show Top Commentators Plugin.  This plugin will show the Top Commentators on your blog with a link back to their website or blog.  Upload the plugin to wp-content/plugins directory and activate it.  If you are NOT using widgets, you are finished!  If you do use widgets, you will also need to download and install the Exec-PHP plugin and activate it as well.  This plugin will place a PHP Code 1 box in your Available Widgets.  Drag the PHP Code 1 box where you would like it on your sidebar and then edit it.  Include the following code:

<?php if(function_exists('ns_show_top_commentators')) { ?>
<li>
<ul><?php ns_show_top_commentators(); ?></ul>
</li>
<?php } ?>

Name the Widget “Top Commentators” and save changes.  Finished!

The second Plugin is called Comment Relish written by Justin Shattuck. This plugin will send an email message to a commentator the first time they leave a comment. After uploading the plugin to your wp-content/plugins directory, activate the plugin. To configure the plugin, click on the Plugins tab and then choose Comment Relish. The cool thing about this plugin is that you can add the article name, your RSS Feed, the comment that was posted as well as other items to the thank you note.

NOTE:  If you have problems with Comment Relish, there is a new optimized version as well.

My sister-in-law wanted to add a section to her new blog that would enable her to post a poll. After some searching, I came across a WordPress Plugin, WP-Polls that was written by Lester Chan. I downloaded the plugin, unzipped it and uploaded the polls folder that was created to my wp-content/plugins directory.

Activate the WP-Polls plugin. If you are using widgets, make sure you activate the WP-Polls Widget plugin as well.  Since I am using widgets, I just dragged the WP-Polls widget to my sidebar.

It was very easy to add a new poll.  You will have a new tab on your menu called Polls.  There you can manage your polls and create new ones as well.  I have added a poll to the side of my blog so you can see what it looks like.

Lester Chan has created a forum for support for the plugin.  If you have any problems, visit the forum, it is extremely helpful!

I want to be able to submit my posts to social media services such as Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon and now I have found just the plugin to help me (and my readers) do so easily. The plugin is called “I Love Social Bookmarking” and was created by Aaron Russell. Verison 0.2.2 was recently released on October 28, 2007 and the following social media services sites are supported: Blinklist, Blogmarks, Digg, del.icio.us, Furl, Ma.gnolia, NewsVine, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Technorati.

Here is exactly how I installed and configured the plugin (you can see it working at the bottom of each post - “Share the Love”):

• Download and unzip file on local computer.
• FTP i-love-social-bookmarking folder (in its entirety) to wp-content/plugins/ directory on my server.
• In the WordPress menu, click on Plugins and then Activate the I Love Social Bookmarking plugin.
• In the WordPress menu, click on Options and you will see a new tab for I Love Social Bookmarking. All you customization can be done here.
• Choose automatic, if you want the plugin to automatically insert the drop down menu. Choose manual if you want to add the code to your template. I choose automatic.
• If you choose automatic and you want the menu to appear on each post, make sure that Home Page, Single Blog Post and Single Page are checked.
• Choose the services you want.
• Choose your display options.  I choose the sites to be listed horizontally, you can also choose vertically.  Plus, you can change the name of the title and colors as well.

It was easy and fun!  If I run into any problems with it, I will let you know!