This is, however, not without its flaws. One the most common problem with excerpts is WordPress that WordPress shortcodes don’t work in excerpts.

When one of the most commonly utilized plugins for WordPress is Alex Rabe’s NextGEN Gallery plugin, which heavily relies upon shortcodes, this is a problem.

Fortunately, WordPress’ Shortcode API has within it the capability of easily and quickly fixing this issue.

Below is the default PHP statement to display a post’s excerpt in WordPress:

< ? php the_excerpt(); ?>

The problem with the_excerpt() function is that it echoes the excerpt directly to the screen without interpretation. This causes the shortcode itself to display in the excerpt rather than the code it was calling.

In order to have NextGen Gallery entries appear in the post excerpts, simply replace that line wherever it occurs in your blog’s theme files with the following:

< ? php echo do_shortcode(get_the_excerpt()); ?>

The do_shortcode() function actually runs the shortcodes and returns their results as a string. Hence, it will allow your NextGEN Galleries – and anything other shortcodes – to display properly within post excerpts.

This will increase loop iterations, data retrieval, and page loading time.

Periodic deletion of these post revision and all their associated metadata should be considered part of your normal maintenance routine. This can be accomplished with a simple SQL statement:

DELETE a,b,c FROM wp_posts a
LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships b ON (a.ID = b.object_id)
LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta c ON (a.ID = c.post_id)
WHERE a.post_type = 'revision'

NOTE: Depending on exactly how WordPress was installed, the table names (wp_posts, wp_term_relationships, & wp_postmeta) may need to be modified to include the blog name, e.g., wp_yourblogposts.

It enables any web page to become an object in a social graph that can plot users’ activities and to function much as if it was a Facebook page.

The Facebook Developers’ first integration features are called Social Plugins. This is currently a set of eight (8) plugins which can easily be added to any web page or application in order to connect it more closely to Facebook, offer a set of  features from Facebook, and take advantage of the Semantic Web that Facebook is developing.

• Like Button:
  Show a “Like” button on your site which replaces the older “Fan” button. The is currently most commonly used Social Plugin.
• Recommendations:
  Show users personalized suggestions for pages on your site they might like based upon their history as recorded via the Open Graph Protocol and API.
• Login with Faces:
  Allow the users to sign up to your site with their Facebook account. it also shows a list of the user’s friends who have also signed up for your site.
• Comments:
  Allow users to comment on your site. The comments will also be posted back to the users Facebook wall.
• Activity Feed:
  shows users what their friends are doing on your site through likes and comments.
• Like Box:
  This is previously known as the Fan box.
• Facepile:
  Shows profile pictures of the user’s friends who have already signed up for your site.
• Live Stream:
  Lets your users share activity and comments in real-time as they interact during a live event.

These social plugins allow website developers to create websites that have all or most of the social media functions of Facebook pages. In theory this would not only drive more traffic to Open Graph enabled websites, but also reduce the “bounce rate” by enabling greater interaction with the sites in question.

It is called the Open Graph Protocol.

From the Facebook Developers:

We shared an update last week about the products launched at f8 and that over 50,000 websites have already implemented the new social plugins to become more personalized. We created the Open Graph protocol in support of social plugins as part of our efforts to help realize the vision of the Open Graph.

Any website can implement the Open Graph protocol. It allows any web page to become a rich object in any social graph, making it easy to find what people are liking across the Web — from a movie to a blog. To start integrating the Open Graph protocol into your Web pages, read our documentation.

The Open Graph Protocol is essentially a replacement for- and an extension of Facebook Connect that makes it easier to share information.

Facebook has based the first version of the Open Graph Protocol on Resource Description Framework (RDFa) produced jointly by the W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the W3C XHTML2 Working Group in 2008. As such it based upon adding extended META tags to web pages and HTTP-based applications.

Define the XML Namespace

<html xmlns:og=”http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/”
xmlns:fb=”http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml”>

Define the Node

<meta property=”og:title” content=”[TITLE]“/>
<meta property=”og:type” content=”[TYPE]“/>
<meta property=”og:site_name” content=”SITE NAME” />
<meta property=”og:url” content=”[URL]“/>
<meta property=”og:image” content=”[IMAGE URL]“/>
<meta property=”og:description” content=”[DESCRIPTION]“/>

Initially this will enable, through use of Facebook’s new Social Plugins users interact with websites and have their interactions posted to their live streams / walls on Facebook. In addition to this the Open Graph Protocol allows Facebook to categorize that interaction for the purpose of delivering more targeted ad on the users’ Facebook pages.

Later, but not too much later, many other sites will be able to utilize the Graph API to harvest this data for similar purposes, turning Facebook into the online identity management hub for its more than 400 million active users, 50% of whom login to Facebook every day.

One of my wives, Eve aka jmochagrrl, sent me this solution to the US’ ongoing war on terror and terrorism, specifically the dangers arising out of the Middle-east.

The War On Terror

As viewed from the Bourne shell

$ cd /middle_east
$ ls
Afghanistan Iraq Libya Saudi_Arabia UAE
Algeria Israel Morocco Sudan Yemen
Bahrain Jordan Oman Syria
Egypt Kuwait Palestine Tunisia
Iran Lebanon Qatar Turkey

$ cd Afghanistan
$ ls
bin Taliban
$ rm Taliban
rm: Taliban is a directory
$ cd Taliban
$ ls
soldiers
$ rm soldiers
$ cd ..
$ rmdir Taliban
rmdir: directory “Taliban”: Directory not empty
$ cd Taliban
$ ls -a
. .. .insurgents
$ chown -R USA .*
chown: .insurgents: Not owner
$ cd ..
$ su
Password: *******
# mv Taliban /tmp
# exit
$ ls
bin
$ cd bin
$ ls
laden
$ cd ..
$ rm -r bin/laden
bin/laden: No such file or directory
$ find / -name laden
$
$ su
Password: *******
# mv bin /tmp
# exit
$ pwd
/middle_east/Afghanistan
$ cd /opt/UN
$ ln -s /Bad_Guys/Al_Qaeda /middle_east/Iraq/.
ln: cannot create /middle_east/Iraq/Al_Qaeda:
Permission denied
$ su
Password:*******
# ln -s /Bad_Guys/Al_Qaeda /middle_east/Iraq/.
# cd /middle_east/Iraq/Al_Qaeda
Al_Qaeda: does not exist
# rm /middle_east/Iraq/Al_Qaeda
# mkfile 100g /middle_east/Iraq/Al_Qaeda
mkfile: No space left on device
# rm /middle_east/Iraq/Al_Qaeda
# cd /opt/Coalition/Willing
# mkfile 1b /middle_east/Iraq/Al_Qaeda
# chown -R USA:Proof /middle_east/Iraq/Al_Qaeda
#exit
$ cd /middle_east/Iraq
$ ls
saddam
$ ls
saddam
$ ls
saddam
$ ls -a
. .. saddam
$ find / -name [Ww][Mm][Dd]
/Korea/North/wMd
$ wall Propaganda.txt
Broadcast Message from USA (pts/1) on USS_Abraham_Lincoln Th May 1st
Mission Accomplished!
$ rm saddam
saddam: No such file or directory
$ find / -name saddam
/var/opt/dictators/spiderhole/saddam
$ wall NewsWorthy.txt
Broadcast Message from USA (pts/1) on Time.Magazine Sat Dec 13
We Got Him!
$ mv /var/opt/dictators/spiderhole/saddam /opt/jail
$ cd /opt/USA
$ cp -Rp Democracy /middle_east/Iraq
$ cd /middle_east/Iraq/Democracy
$ ./install
Install Error: Install failed. See install_log for details.
$ more install_log
Installed failed!
Prerequisite packages missing
Conflicting package Wahhabism found in /midde_east/Saudi_Arabia
Packages Church and State must be installed separately
File System /PeakOil nearing capacity
Please read the install guide to properly plan your installation.
$

Eve got this from The S Word Blog over at Sun Microsystems.

Of course there are still some issues with the “operating system” used in the above example; as has been pointed out, everything in /bin should be “executable.”

Also note that this must be done from the Bourne shell. Using the slowly deprecated Bourne Again shell ($bash) will accomplish the goals faster, but may result in the destruction of all files in /middle-east.