Thanks to wordpress for providing a very simple solution to this.

You just need to include the file called “wp-load.php” in the non-wordpress file before calling any WP functions and then you can run wordpress queries or call any wordpress function in that page.

wp-load.php is located in the root folder of your wordpress installation.

eg. if you have installed wordpress in your domains root folder, wp-load.php will be there in your public_html or httpdocs folder as applicable.
if you have installed wordpress in a folder say wp in your domain root, the wp-load.php shall be located in public_html/wp/ folder.

Include this file in your non-wordpress file using a require statement at the very beginning of the file.

require('../wp-load.php');

1. Rewrite all your urls WITHOUT www to WITH www

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^euttaranchal.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

2. Redirect all your index.php and index.html files to homepage or directory root

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

#rewrite your index.html to homepage
#eg:  http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html to http://www.yourdomain.com/

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.html
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.html$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

#rewrite your index.php to homepage
#eg: http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php to http://www.yourdomain.com/
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

** you can do this for default.html or other pages too depending on your default page name.

Here is the quick hack to this.

1. Open the wp-config.php file (this will be located in the root of your wordpress installation)

2. Add the following line of code just after define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);

/* FTP login settings */
define('FTP_HOST', 'localhost');
define('FTP_USER', 'yourftpusername');
define('FTP_PASS', 'yourftppassword');

Note: Be sure to replace yourftpusername to your website’s FTP user name and yourftppassword to your website’s FTP password.

3. Upload the updated file. It works!

I recommend the following wordpress plugin to customize, add custom fields, manage user registration, moderate user registration and edit the default email sent to the new registered users.

1. Cimy User Extra Fields
This plugin gives you the power to add custom fields to your wordpress registration form. You also get the choice to add different data types like text box, select box, radio button, text area etc with quite a few validation options.

Cimy User Extra Fields also unleashes the hidden registration fields that come with wordpress default registration form.

Download

2. Approve New Users

You can moderate New User Registration with this plugin. It adds another option “Approve New Users” under “Users” settings menu.

Download

3. New User Email Setup

New User Email Setup plugin lets you customize the default email sent to the new users upon registration. You can customize the email text, sender name, sender email and subject too. What’s more, you can even send HTML email!

Download

Problem: Add New Custom Field Doesn’t Work at all. When you click on “Add Custom Field” nothing happens!

Solution: Refer to your Theme’s Function file (functions.php) located in your theme directory. Remove any blank lines from the file functions.php

It works!

Thank you Cory for sharing the plugin hack to make it work.

Bug: The Thumbnail for Excerpt plugin showing the same thumbnail image with all the posts (with WordPress 2.8.2+)

Solution: Edit the plugin in plugin editor. Replace lines 28 & 29 with this:

global $wp_query, $wpdb, $post;
$id = $post->ID;

The actual lines of code look like this

global $wp_query, $wpdb;
$id = $wp_query->post->ID;

Replace these lines with

global $wp_query, $wpdb, $post;
$id = $post->ID;

#menu_id li.current_page_item a{
    background:#2E8DE6;
}

Note: Be sure to replace #menu_id with the id of your navigation bar. In this case, the list of my pages is contained in a div with id menu_id

A simple tweak below can fix this bug and make the Featured Content Gallery on the Yamidoo Theme sliding

Open the Main Index File: /wp-content/themes/yamidoo/index.php
(assuming that you have uploaded the theme under yamidoo folder)

Search for these 2 lines (somewhere near line number 36 on index.php file):

Right BEFORE these two lines, add this line:

If you want to control the autoslider, in your header.php file, there is one such line:
autorotateconfig: [1000, 0]

The first value (default: 1000) controls the speed (in miliseconds). 1000 = 1 second.
The second value (default: 0) controls how many cycles the slider should have. If you leave it 0 – it will autoslide over and over again, an infinite amount of times.

It require a small tweak in wp_trim_excerpt function.

Open your wordpress file /wp-includes/formatting.php

Go to line number 1482. The wp_trim_excerpt function would read like this

BEFORE

function wp_trim_excerpt($text) {
if ( '' == $text ) {
$text = get_the_content('');

$text = strip_shortcodes( $text );

$text = apply_filters(‘the_content’, $text);
$text = str_replace(‘]]>’, ‘]]>’, $text);
$text = strip_tags($text);
$excerpt_length = apply_filters(‘excerpt_length’, 55);
$words = explode(‘ ‘, $text, $excerpt_length + 1);
if (count($words) > $excerpt_length) {
array_pop($words);
array_push($words, [...]);
$text = implode(‘ ‘, $words);
}
}
return $text;
}

AFTER (refer to the modified text in red)

function wp_trim_excerpt($text) {
if ( ” == $text ) {
$text = get_the_content(”);
$read_link=’<a href=”‘. get_permalink().’”>’;
$end_read_link=”</a>”;
$text = strip_shortcodes( $text );

$text = apply_filters(‘the_content’, $text);
$text = str_replace(‘]]>’, ‘]]&gt;’, $text);
$text = strip_tags($text);
$excerpt_length = apply_filters(‘excerpt_length’, 55);
$words = explode(‘ ‘, $text, $excerpt_length + 1);
if (count($words) > $excerpt_length) {
array_pop($words);
array_push($words, ‘…’.$read_link.’[read more]‘.$end_read_link);
$text = implode(‘ ‘, $words);
}
}
return $text;
}

Cheers…you are done!

The list of great WordPress Plugins is countless but still I have tried to collect a list of “Some” of the BEST WordPress Plugins I have used so far

1. WP-TREE
This Widget-enabled plugin is highly configurable and can show the Categories, Links, Pages in a Tree menu structure.

Download Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dtree-30/

2. Featured Content Gallery
This plugin can fetch images from your specified post categories and display them nicely as an image gallery with rollover text.
Demo: http://www.featuredcontentgallery.com
Download Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/featured-content-gallery/