Evan, 3.5 years: "I want a cookie."
Dad: "Eat two more bites of meat and I will give you a cookie."
Evan: "Close your eyes and I eat my food."
Day: April 6, 2009
ShareThis WordPress Plugin Broken – Easy Fix!
I recently added a ShareThis link 
to each of my posts. I chose ShareThis.com because it seems to be very robust while leaving a relatively small footprint on the blog and appears relatively unintrusiveness and benign. Of course, some folks will be quick to point out that the tracking features and having the icon linked back to sharethis.com is very intrusive and anything but benign. In this instance, I don’t see it as that big a deal. One of the attractions to ShareThis.com was its WordPress plugin making setup as easy as going to the website to generate the widget code, then inserting that code in the settings box on the admin screen in your WordPress blog. But it didn’t work.
At ShareThis.com, a publisher generates a script that looks like this:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=abcdefgh-ijkl-mnop-qrst-uvwxyz012345&type=wordpress&embeds=true&post_services=facebook%2Cdigg%2Cdelicious%2Cybuzz%2Ctwitter%2Cstumbleupon%2Creddit%2Ctechnorati%2Cmixx%2Cblogger%2Ctypepad%2Cwordpress%2Cgoogle_bmarks%2Cwindows_live%2Cmyspace%2Cfark%2Cbus_exchange%2Cpropeller%2Cnewsvine%2Clinkedin%2Cfriendfeed&headerTitle=Thank%20you%20for%20sharing!"></script>
After updating, the code will have a 2nd publisher id appended to the end. With two publisher ids, ShareThis will not register your site nor collect statistics.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=abcdefgh-ijkl-mnop-qrst-uvwxyz012345&type=wordpress&embeds=true&post_services=facebook%2Cdigg%2Cdelicious%2Cybuzz%2Ctwitter%2Cstumbleupon%2Creddit%2Ctechnorati%2Cmixx%2Cblogger%2Ctypepad%2Cwordpress%2Cgoogle_bmarks%2Cwindows_live%2Cmyspace%2Cfark%2Cbus_exchange%2Cpropeller%2Cnewsvine%2Clinkedin%2Cfriendfeed&headerTitle=Thank%20you%20for%20sharing!&publisher=a1b2c3d4-ijkl-mnop-qrst-u4w2y10a2r4d"></script>
After reviewing the plugin code, I realized the way ShareThis generates the script must have changed overtime. Crowd Favorite wrote a great plug-in but it expects the publisher=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx to be at very end and if it does not find a publisher id at the end, it puts one there which is why you will end up with two publisher ids. To fix this, simply move the publisher id to the end of the script before pasting the code into the ShareThis settings box in the WordPress admin:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#type=wordpress&embeds=true&post_services=facebook%2Cdigg%2Cdelicious%2Cybuzz%2Ctwitter%2Cstumbleupon%2Creddit%2Ctechnorati%2Cmixx%2Cblogger%2Ctypepad%2Cwordpress%2Cgoogle_bmarks%2Cwindows_live%2Cmyspace%2Cfark%2Cbus_exchange%2Cpropeller%2Cnewsvine%2Clinkedin%2Cfriendfeed&headerTitle=Thank%20you%20for%20sharing!&publisher=abcdefgh-ijkl-mnop-qrst-uvwxyz012345"></script>
Note: In the settings box, the & will be converted to just & but the code correctly uses & with the post. Your code will still be xhtml compliant.
Questions from a wanna be Buddhist
When the day is spinning out of control, would stopping for 15 minutes of Daimoku help or make you feel 15 minutes more behind?
Buddhism is about revitalizing humanity, and transforming the world we live in from one dominated by greed, anger, and stupidity into one of peace and happiness. [Source, Jason Jarrett of A Buddhist Podcast, A Buddhist Podcast – Bodhisattvas of the Earth, 2:46-2:58]
I need my batcave!
I love telecommuting! I’m a huge advocate of telecommuting. I think we will find great societal benefit to having a group paradigm shift and having at least half our workforce work from home. Imagine if suddenly companies only needed half (or less) of their existing infrastructure needs. Less electricity spent heating, cooling and lighting them. Fewer monolithic roads needed since fewer people are commuting. Who can telecommute? Accountants, lawyers, sales people, technical people, IT people, customer service, technical support, and so many more. Basically if you work from a desk, all your collaboration can be done online or in weekly onsite meetings. If you have to lay hands on materials like at an assembly line, then unfortunately that is more difficult to do remotely. Barack Obama encourages telecommuting and so does the US Patent Office. Ask your employer to let you work from home to save the environment, make you a happier more productive employee, save the company money, and spend more quality time with the family while simultaneously getting more work hours in for the boss.
Now, the downside! To be a successful telecommuter, you need a batcave; complete with a secret passage. The kids and animals cannot know about your batcave. Nor can the wife! It must be impossible to find. Now where’s my butler?!
