Greetings everyone,

I wanted to share this news long ago, but lacked the time. *Blogging takes up lot of my time * but anyways, most of you might have noticed a new page on my nav bar named “Proposal”, actually that was my proposal for this years Google Summer of Code. You won`t believe it, I wrote that my proposal in an hour and posted it to google just 2minutes before the deadline… phew. So much for last minute submissions…. For aspiring GSoCers, it is one tip you should not follow Wanna find out what happened next ?!

But the good news is, I have been selected for this year’s GSoC and I`ll be working for WORDPRESS !, thats right, I`ll be developing a Theme Framework/Builder/Scratchpad (whatever you wanna call it) along with my mentor Andrew Ozz (One of the lead devs @ wordpress and he is a javascript expert). Hes awesome

Along with me there were 7 other students selected with WordPress, details about them and what they`ll be working on are given here http://wordpress.org/development/.

I would like to thank all my readers for thier support. Thanks a lot guys. I`ll be writing more regarding this soon.

By the way, alot of readers told me regarding the problems they faced in the previous design of this site. So I have worked on a new one. This theme is very simple and has a list of features. The most notable feature would be support for Comment Threading. I would love to hear more comments from everyone of you. They mean a lot

Most of you who have blogs/website might be aware of FeedBurner. Its a service which provides custom RSS Management tools like Analysing Web-Traffic, the number of readers subscribed to you blog etc. I too use Feedburner to help me keep track of my feeds and its readers. Although I love their service, I always found the FeedBurner Chicklet (It displays the number of readers subscribed to your RSS) to be a constraint, it isn`t that flexible i.e We can modify the color of the chicklet but not the chicklet it self. So I decided to create my own Chicklet to help me display the number of readers subscribed to my blog. (Although the number isn`t that big )

It Starts ! Feedburner API

Hmm..so where did I start…. Ahh ! The Feedburner API ofcourse. I wanted to know how to retrieve the number of Readers of a particular RSS feed as simple text.
http://code.google.com/apis/feedburner/awareness_api.html had the answer to my problem !

Current Basic Feed Awareness Data
https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=<feeduri>

where <feeduri> = your feedname i.e vmdtuts in my case

Sample Response
circulation – An approximate measure of the number of individuals for whom your feed has been requested in the 24 hour period described by date.

Thats what I was looking for !!. Now Since I have a way to access information about my RSS feeds, I had to think of a method to request the API url and retrieve the result using PHP (ofcourse).
Note : If you try to access the above URL with your feed address, you`ll see an XML output with all the relevant details about your feed !.

Thank You CURL – Here is the Code

We`ll use CURL to make a request to the above URL and retrieve the XML output.

$my_feed_url = "https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=yourfeedurl"; // yourfeedurl = vmdtuts in my case

$s_ch = curl_init(); //Initialize Curl
curl_setopt($s_ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);//Set curl to return the data instead of printing it to the browser.
curl_setopt($s_ch, CURLOPT_URL, $my_feed_url); //Set the URL
$data = curl_exec($s_ch); //Execute the fetch
curl_close($s_ch); //Close the connection
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
$no_of_readers = $xml->feed->entry['circulation'];

echo $no_of_readers."Readers"; //Will display no of Readers

Voila There you have it. A Simple method to retrieve the number of readers who have subscribed to your RSS.

Tip : If you want to display the number of Readers in your WordPress Blog. Just open up sidebar.php and insert the code anywhere where you want to display the number of readers.

For all those users having trouble setting up MyADManager to display ADS, things just got easier.

Please Update MyADManager directly via WordPress Automatic Plugin updater. Since, the new version carries out some database tweaks.
If you haven`t updated via the WordPress Automatic Plugin Updater, then

1. Deactivate the plugin
2. Upload the latest version to the server. Overwrite if necessary.
3. Re-activate Plugin

The latest fixed version is 0.9.3

1. Widgetized : Those of you who always found adding code here and there is tough and boring, things got easier to display ADs on your website without you directly adding any code. MyADManager is widgetized, you can directly go and add the MyADManager Widget to your sidebar.
2. Margins : Instead of editing CSS files, now you can directly edit the margins for each AD via the MyADManager Admin Panel->Options Page.

More Information regarding the same can be found Here.

Download Here

Regards

Hey Guys,

MyADManager 0.9 was just released. There are a couple of changes

1. Performance Issues & Security : These were addressed, and the new version is also much faster than the previous version.
2. Template System : The template system has been redesigned. It is much simpler to design you Buy Now Form and the Confirmation form with easy template tags. Level of abstraction is raised.
3. No Follow Tags : no follow tags fixed and properly added to hyperlinks
4. Compatibility Issues with PHP4 were addressed.

More Information regarding the same can be found Here.

There is still a huge To-Do list to make this plugin the ultimate AD-Management Addon to WordPress Blogs. If you wish to be a part of developing this project, you can always contact me.

Regards

Today I am releasing my first plugin for wordpress MyADManager 0.8beta.

Features

• The USP of this plugin is that it allows Users to buy ad-space directly off your site. Payment is made via paypal and when the transaction is confirmed, it automatically adds ADs to the database and displays them immediately.
• Ads can be bought for a particular duration. As of now, there are 2 options, either for a duration of 7 days or 30days.
• Ability to manage ads via the Administrative console.
• All Transactions are logged
• Custom Templates for the buy form
• and many more.

For more details visit, MyADManager 0.8beta

Download MyADManager 0.8beta from WordPress.org

Regards

Its been ages since I updated my blog last. Really sorry about that readers, I have been hell busy with my college. I had to submit a VB.net Project today (it was the most lamest program I have done ever) to get graded, instead I showed something I have been working on for the past 2 WEEKS ! I really hope it is worth it. Allow me to introduce

The Beginning

Problem…

For all those people who use WordPress and wish to manage their 125x125px adverts, this plugin is for you. Visionmasterdesigns.com is up from the past 2.5 months. To be frank, I have tried numerous ways to advertise on my website. I have registered with Performancingads.com, buysellads.com, adonion.com to manage my 125x125px ADS and I have found out that, these sites end up making money. For one, Performancingads.com takes 40% of your share.

So my problem here was,

• There were no proper services to help me manage my 125x125px adverts
• Secondly I was paying a lot of commission even though the service was not upto the mark
• I wanted a service/piece of code which’ll help me manage 125x125px ADs on my website automatically. i.e Run the ads for a particular period of time, Take them down when required.
• I wanted something which will automatically add the ads on realization of payment through PayPal. So that I don`t need to pay any of my share to the websites providing me this service.

Inspiration…

No offence, but I felt it was a lot for the service they provide. Anyways, so I decided to do a lil search on the wordpress.org site for plugins to manage my ADS at the same time automatically add new ads as well. I couldn`t find any plugin that managed to do what I required, so being the person I am, I decided to venture into coding a plugin for wordpress to solve my problem.

About MyAdManager

This plugin is a one in all plugin to manage ADS of 125x125px.
The most innovative feature here is, the ability accept payments VIA PayPal and automatically add the ADS to the inventory to display… !!.

For More Information, Visit MyADMananger – A Complete AD Management Plugin for WordPress