Category Archives: Wordpress

All about Wordpress, the first choice for blogging

WordPress: Displaying Google Adsense on Sidebar without a Widget

Few years ago, I developed a WordPress plugin named Amikelive Adsense Widget. I was enthralled to see thousands of downloads for the plugin despite its simplicity. This post is not an announcement about a new release of the plugin despite the absence of simple-yet-powerful Google Adsense widget in the plugin repository. It’s rather a guide on how to display Google Adsense on the WordPress blog sidebar without using any Adsense plugin or widget. The steps are fairly simple, without any coding experience needed.

If you happen to be using Amikelive Adsense widget, it can be necessary to note that the plugin is not actively developed anymore and I don’t have any plan to release newer version anytime soon or sometimes later. Such widget functionality is now built into WordPress, which we can simply take advantage of without reinventing the wheel.

Now on to the ad configuration part.

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Quick Update: Working on the Next Release of Amikelive Adsense Widget

I have been away for a while from posting contents on this blog. I was a little bit occupied with exciting things at work. However, don’t worry. I don’t abandon the projects I started and am always trying to find some spare time to update them.

As you notice, there are errors with Amikelive Adsense Widget. It seems that the plugin has stopped working since Google updated their Adsense interface. I am now working on the fix and also complete some new features that I was working on but had to be temporarily stopped because of other activities. I hope I can post a new release at WordPress plugin repository this week.

Stay tune!

Sidebar Adsense Widget is Now on WordPress

I have some good news for those who have been using adsense sidebar widget from Amikelive Tech. Starting from today, the plugin will be available for download at WordPress.org website. The widget has also been officially renamed to Amikelive Adsense Widget. Since I have a plan to improve its features over the time, you are welcome to post feature requests in the previous releases and report code malfunction so that I can improve the quality. Please write comment about your experience using the widget in this post along with malfunction report and suggestion or idea for improvement.

The most up-to-date version of the widget for download will be available only at WordPress plugin repository. However, you can still see some posts related to the development of the plugin in this blog.

Visit the plugin homepage at WordPress to download: Amikelive Adsense Widget on WordPress

Quick Notes On Google Adsense Sidebar Widget for WordPress

Adsense on WordPressIn my earlier post, I contributed my updated version to Google Adsense Sidebar Widget on WordPress based on  previous work by Mike Smullin. I received some comments about errors in implementing the widget. This weekend, as I mentioned earlier, I decided to take further investigation to know the root cause of the malfunction.

I compared two references i could find. The first is right from the dashboard of my Google Adsense publisher account and the later is Google’s documentation for Adsense API. There should be another reference from Mike Smullin’s own work but since he’s now charging for the plugin, I’d better have someone send me the plugin to be analyzed and synchronized with my update.

After reading the documentation and  toying with my account, I’d like to provide some notes regarding google adsense implementation:

1. Google Adsense API

This API provides programmatical way to modify and manage the ads. It uses SOAP web service with available callbacks listed in its published WSDL. The API will enable a user to manage his adsense account without logging in into his Google Adsense account. Instead, the third party application communicates with Google server to update the modification executed by user while utilizing the application.

However, WordPress widget expects simple configuration values for each of the widget. Rearchitecting existing widget to support SOAP communication is a bit out-of-boundary and redundant. I’ll explain this in the subsequent point. Continue reading

Adsense Widget For WordPress Sidebar: Updated Version

I use Adsense widget for WordPress Sidebar from Mike Smullin in this technology blog. It’s a simple widgetized plugin and I really like its simplicity. I was never bugged by this plugin until today when I found strange behavior when using this plugin for WordPress > 2.3.1. If I updated other widget positions and then tried to click configuration values for this plugin, I got empty form. Initially, I thought the configuration values were not saved properly and somehow missing (although later I found out that the data was still saved in the database, it was just not displayed). Hence, I decided to do further investigation and spend some time to provide bug fixes.

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