To our retainer clients: please email for a complementary installation.
What is Jetpack?
Jetpack is a plugin put out by the makers of WordPress. It is comprised of features that have been on WordPress.com blogs for some time but were not available (like this) for self-hosted versions. (see the bottom half of this article for the list of current features) Jetpack brings the cloud support of the big Automattic company, with all the cool new features, to our own self-hosted WordPress websites.
Installation Instructions
Since this particular plugin is so helpful – and will become even more so – I’ve written the baby-steps for installing it. Even if you’ve never installed a plugin before, you can do it by following these instructions:
1. Go to Plugins tab, Add New. Type “Jetpack” into the search field. Press “Search Plugins” button.
2. Select the Jetpack by WordPress.com plugin and click “Install Now”
3. Once the plugin has installed, you will be taken to this screen (below). Click “Activate Plugin”.
4. Once activated, you will be taken to this screen. Click on “connect to WordPress.com”.
5. In this screen, enter your login details to WordPress.com. And click on Authorize Jetpack.
6. Lastly, the screen below will appear. You’ll have activated Jetpack and will have the following features available to you. You can click “learn more” or “configure” on each to view and activate each one. Or read below for the simple run down on usage and activation.
Jetpack Modules available today
WordPress.com Stats
- creates a Site Stats tab under JetPack tab
- view stats exactly like those available to WordPress.com blogs
- you select who can view stats by their roles
- FREE
Twitter Widget
- drag the new JetPack Twitter widget into your sidebar
- configure it to show your recent tweets in your sidebar
- FREE
HoverCards
- these will display the hovercards of your commenters if they are available.
- to view a hovercard, hover your mouse over the commenter’s gravatar, if they have a hovercard enabled, it will appear
- to turn this off, click “deactivate”
- to edit your hovercard, log into your gravatar account and edit the details there
- FREE
WP.me Shortlinks
- next to your link in a post/page will now appear a “Get Shortlink” button which will… get the shortlink!
- copy and paste this link into your social media or anywhere you wish to save characters while sharing the link
- FREE
ShareDaddy
- go to settings>ShareDaddy to drag the social networks into order, and place on the bottom of posts/pages
- love, LOVE these buttons
- FREE
LaTeX
- for math geeks who wish to write math equations in their posts. You need to use the short tags outlined in the “learn more” section.
- FREE
After The Deadline
- spell check, grammar check, style suggestions
- FREE
ShortCodes
- finally we can embed videos and other non-text without special plugins!
- Available shortcodes are: [ archives], [ audio], [ blip.tv], [ dailymotion], [ digg], [ flickr], [ googlevideo], [ scribd], [ slide], [ slideshare], [ soundcloud], [ vimeo], [ youtube], and [ polldaddy]. (follow the links to learn more)
- general rule of thumb is to insert the shortcode [shortcode] this is my image or text link [/shortcode]
- FREE
And finally, by the looks of the empty little ‘jetpacks’ we could be seeing more cool things coming from Automattic in the future. We’ll keep you posted as we hear about ‘em!
If you’re interested in our retainer service, click here. If you’d like a hand installing Jetpack, click .
