Best WordPress Modifications: WP-Database-Backup
WP-Database-Backup (plugin) – This amazing little plugin takes care of backing up your mysql database, allowing instant or scheduled backups to automate the process and ensure that this important task actually gets completed with regularity. WP-Database-Backup only takes care of the database content (the backup is in the format of an sql dump) so you’ll have to take care of images, themes, plugins, etc. with a different method, but it allows you to sleep peacefully knowing that your clients’ content is safe!
You can find WP-Database-Backup here. Thanks to Austin Matzko for such a great modification to WordPress!
WordPress Custom Fields
Using WordPress custom fields is a great way to add meta data to your posts that you can manipulate easily. Say, for instance, that you would like to include a picture with all of your posts, but you would like to be able to access it from outside of the standard the_content() or the_excerpt() functions. By using custom fields you can simply define a key and a value that can be accessed at any point with the get_post_meta() function.
Say you define a custom field key called Image-Slice, with a value that creates a link to the blog post using an image tag:
Wordpress Custom Field
You can then access that field from within the loop by using a simple php snippet:
<?php $key="Image-Slice"; echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true); ?>
I’ve found this technique very useful to create websites that use a custom field as a design element.
