Version 1.3 bring the following additions:

• added ability to control RSS feeds. Feeds can be disabled, enabled, limited to headlines, or limited to a predefined number of characters
• added ability to allow non-logged in users to view specific pages
• added ability to redirect non-logged in users to the login screen OR any page or post
• added ability to customize email notification messages
• minor bug fixes
• full compatibility with WordPress v2.9

Download it at the official WordPress plugin repository, or read more at its homepage here.

Note: This article is about a development version of WordPress (3.0 alpha). Although the techniques presented here are likely to be valid in the publicly released version, please test this on a development site first.

For this project, I needed each new site to automatically have an additional table created that would hold information for the plugin I’m working on. The key is to tap into the wpmu_new_blog action, which fires directly after a new site is created.

The wpmu_new_blog action runs at the end of wpmu_create_blog(), a function located in /wp-includes/ms-functions.php which creates the new site. The action is passed two variables: $blog_id, which is the ID of the newly created site, and $user_id, which is the ID of the administrator of the site.

Here’s my finished code:

function nt_installTables($blog_id){
	global $wpdb;

	$table_name = $wpdb->get_blog_prefix($blog_id) . 'mytable';

		$sql = "CREATE TABLE ". $table_name ."  (
                    ID bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
                    table_id varchar(20) NOT NULL,
                    page_id text NOT NULL,
                    html text NOT NULL,
                    snippet bigint(20) NOT NULL,
					UNIQUE KEY ID (ID)) CHARSET=utf8;
                    ";

		require_once ABSPATH . '/wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php';

		dbDelta($sql); //do it

}

add_action('wpmu_new_blog', 'nt_installTables');

Don’t forget you can also pass $user_id to your function.

If you’d like to change how often the trashed information is removed, simply open up wp-config.php and define the following constant:

define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 15 );  // 15 days

Just change 15 to the frequency in days that you want WordPress to empty the trash. It’s that simple!

What is MammothApps? From the about page:

“MammothApps is a WordPress development studio owned and operated by John Kolbert. Based out of Minneapolis, MN, MammothApps’ typical clients are looking for medium to large scale custom plugins or websites that require advanced functionality (such as e-commerce, or social networking). However, MammothApps offers a wide range of WordPress-related services.”

Why, you may ask?

Put simply: growth. I’ve been blessed to be much busier then I expected with client projects. So much so, in fact, that I haven’t updated this website in four entire months. With MammothApps, I’m branching out. I’m officially declaring: I mean business. I’ve networked with several other talented developers who will be providing support and skills on larger scale projects overseen by MammothApps. We’ll be focusing primarily on larger scale (maybe even, mammoth?), custom plugins and applications, all built on WordPress. All of my WordPress-related developing will occur through the MammothApps studio.

JohnKolbert.com will become entirely my personal blog. All references to my former freelance consulting services have been removed or redirected to the MammothApps homepage.

I’ll hope you join me over at MammothApps. In addition to client work, we’ll be publishing a series of  advanced WordPress tutorials, called MammothTips each month, as well as releasing some pretty awesome WordPress based web applications (details forthcoming).

This update was mainly to fix an XML-RPC authentication issue that prevented remote publishing apps (like the iPhone WordPress app) from communicating with private blogs. I tested the iPhone app on a blog running 2.8.2 with no problems. I haven’t tested other remote applications, so your feedback would be appreciated.

I also added the ability to prevent blog subscribers from accessing any admin pages. Normally they have access to a profile page and a dumbed-down dashboard. If enabled, they’ll now be redirected to the main blog page if trying to reach any admin page.

And finally, some users running WordPress 2.8 were permission errors when clicking the link to approve users. Version 1.2 fixes this issue.

Visit the Absolute Privacy homepage to read more and download. Don’t forget to donate if you found this update useful.

Note: An important aside about this script is that by default WordPress caches the feed for 1 hour. This means your Tweet on your website will be updated at that frequency. This is great because it saves your server a lot of overhead, especially on busy website. However, if you’re an avid Twitterer and want your very latest Tweet shown for every page refresh for every visitor, I recommend using this method.

function wp_echoTwitter($username){
     include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php');
     $tweet = fetch_rss("http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from:" . $username . "&rpp=1");
     echo $tweet->items[0]['atom_content'];
}

Past the above in your functions.php file. Now just paste the following in your theme file where you want your Twitter post to appear:

<?php wp_echoTwitter('johnkolbert'); ?>

Obviously replace my username with yours. Now you’re done! Style it however you like with HTML and CSS.

Update:

If you’d like to show more then one tweet, here is an updated version of this function: http://jhnk.pastebin.com/5A4aXYTW

What’s Smart Ads, you ask? Smart Ads is an intelligent advertising plugin for WordPress. It lets you insert ads based on category, wordcount, member status, post age, and more.

Well I’m happy to say that in just over a year, Smart Ads has been downloaded over 10,000 from WordPress.org! It’s quite a milestone for Smart Ads and myself personally, as it is my most popular plugin. I told my wife today and her response was “Why didn’t you just charge $1 for it!” You can tell she has more business sense then I do!

If you’d like to give Smart Ads a try, check out it’s homepage. It’s fully compatible with WordPress 2.8 and absolutely free.

What is Absolute Privacy, you ask? It is a WordPress plugin which turns your blog into the ultimate private blog.

• Force registrants to enter first and last name
• Allow registrants to choose their own passwords
• Moderate users: new registrants cannot login until approved
• Get emailed every time an approval is waiting (with a link for quick approval)
• Lock out all non-logged in views from your website (configurable)
• Perfect for family blogs, personal sites, and private communities!

To download or read more, please visit the Absolute Privacy homepage.

What is Smart Ads?

Smart Ads automatically, yet intelligently inserts advertisements like Google’s Adsense above and below your post content. These advertisements are only visible when viewing a single post (single.php). Since it doesn’t make sense to fill small posts with ads, users can set a “Wordcount” minimum for their advertisements. Smart Ads will only insert advertisements into posts that meet or exceed the desired Wordcount. Do you start your posts with an image? You can chose to disable the top ad if your post has an image tag in the first number of characters (you set the limit)!

Also, to ensure that new content remains fresh, users can chose to only place ads on posts that are over a certain amount of days old. Advertisements can be manually disabled on a post-by-post basis while writing a post, for entire categories, or for registered blog members.

You can also insert custom ads anywhere in your post text using the built in shortcode. Custom ads are not affected by the Wordcount or date minimum requirements and can toggled to be shown on the index page or only shown when in single post view.