I've finally had a chance to finish off what was my first WordPress plugin – What Others Are Saying. This went from just a basic PHP include file to my first plugin, and now, after much reading of the WordPress Codex, in particular the wpdb Class to interact with the database, the plugin is much improved, without the need for an additional text file, as everything is dealt with by the options table.

I've also written my WordPress standard readme.txt file for the plugin, and it's been accepted into the WordPress Plugin Repository, I'm just still working out how to actually add it into the assigned folder! (I'm getting there slowly!).

Anyway, if you've used the plugin on your site then I recommend you upgrade to the latest version (1.3), and you can remove the cachetime.txt file that was needed before. The plugin file itself is smaller too, so that's always a bonus.

I've also got another plugin halfway finished, used on a couple of sites running WordPress as a CMS, so once that's finished I'll be releasing that too

We're still a bit ill but slowly starting to feel better. I've spent the week doing virtually no work at all, taking up residence on the sofa watching TV and DVDs all day. I did go to the doctors on Monday but was just given standard antibiotics as my temperature had been a bit irratic but otherwise there wasn't much they could offer. It's just one of those bugs that needs to work itself out of your system. I'm feeling a fair bit better now, apart from when I cough.

So we've not really done much this past week at all! Yesterday was the only day that anything of interest happened, going out in the morning to feed Dave's sister's cats, popping into town to pick up some gift vouchers for his neice's birthdays, and going round to another sister's to drop the vouchers off. Real exciting stuff!

Still, it's Easter next weekend so we're off down to my parents for a few days away from here. In the meantime I need to catch up on my work that's starting to build up

I've been pretty ill recently and haven't worked for about 10 days now. Obviously that's not great as I don't get sick pay (I'm sure I could get some state sick pay but it's not worth the money to worry about it!). Luckily I've had a couple of AIS boosts, sold a few text links, made a couple of product sales etc. Nothing ground breaking but it all adds up.nnI haven't been able to sit at a computer for a continued period but I have taken a couple of days to finally upgrade osCommerce site, update the prices and add a couple more products that had become available. The site runs on WordPress with a static front page. It did have the additional, dynamic pages as separate pages, but since setting that up over a year ago I've learnt how to create page templates, so I've moved everything over so that it's all within the WordPress set up. Thanks to a free template the site has also had a facelift and cleanup.nnSo that's one job done. I've also set another blog up on a subject I have plenty to write about which also seems quite popular with text links so hopefully I can get that into their marketplace once I've got a bit more content on the site. Depends whether they still go for PageRank of 4+ or whether they'll look at the merits of the site content.nnThis being ill malarky gives you plenty of time for other things!

I feel awful. I've not been this ill for a couple of years at least. This all started on Wednesday, I noticed that when I coughed I sounded like a 50 a day smoker. However, this went up to a 100 a day by the evening, and on Thursday I had a headache and backache from coughing. Dave had also come out with a cold so he wasn't feeling too great either. Now I just feel worn out.

The start of the week seemed promising. I've sorted out my contract hours to work 8am until 1pm every day, giving me a reason to stop at 1pm for lunch (rather than working through until 3pm!), plus it means I have every afternoon free from contract work which is then there for my other business work, personal work or taking the afternoon off out somewhere. It was going well and I was feeling pretty motivated by it all until this illness hit! Tuesday, pre-illness, we went out to the cinema to see Jumper. Not a bad film but a bit of a naff ending. I guess it's been left open for a second film if they want it.

It was Dave's birthday on Saturday but with us both ill we didn't do much at all. Luckily we have plenty of unwatched DVDs plus saved up TV series to watch on the cable box. On Sunday we were meant to be going to Chester Zoo to take Dave's nieces for their birthdays. However Sunday morning I felt absolutely rotten so Dave went on his own, leaving me at home to lay on the couch and feel sorry for myself. Actually I opened up a jigsaw and started on that (it's been years since I did a jigsaw!).

So appetites have gone completely, we're buying shares in Kleenex, and everytime I cough or sneeze it feels like my lungs have ripped apart inside. Yeah it's all good here!

For those of you who use the Top Commentators plugin, beware of name hijacking. Jalaj first wrote about this last month at Top Commentators List Hijack, and recently I've been suffering from this myself.

To briefly explain, the plugin creates the top commentators list by counting the number of comments made per name which is easily forged, by accident or on purpose. It then links the name using the last URL given on that name's comment. So all you need is someone to forge someone else's name and use a different URL and they get a nice little, usually no followed, link from your site.

I'd forgotten about this (my heads pretty fuzzy right now with this cold!) but this morning suddenly twigged about comments sitting in my moderation queue, plus one that I'd actually allowed through. So a quick line change later in the plugin and it's all working again, instead it counts the number of comments made per email not per name, the email address being the one thing no one else can copy.

So big thanks to Jalaj for making me realise this, and if you want the modified plugin you can grab it here – Show Top Commentators Modified.