I love wordpress.org and all the functionality various plugins can provide. I am always experimenting with new ones. My latest discovery (it’s new to me, anyway) is a plugin for creating an author resource box at the top or bottom of my posts. (you can add it to pages too.)
I like the nice clean lines and simple structure. It gives the post the polished look you often see on large magazine sites and sites with multiple writers.
The plugin pulls an image from gravatar.com (http://en.gravatar.com/ ) so you want to set up a free account there with your author photo. It takes the bio, social media profile and website links from the profile page built into your wordpress site. You can easily change the copy in the author bio box to add a timely call to action, etc.
I am using the free version currently. There is also a paid “Pro” version for a one-time fee of 10-dollars for a single site that has a bolder look and additional features.
Note: The free version is called Fancier Author Box. The name of the paid version is Fanciest Author Box.
Here are links for both plugins:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/fancier-author-box/
This blog post from kpcube.com shows you how to set it up:
How to Add Fancy Author Box to your blog
Since I play around with plugins a lot, I sometimes run into a conflict with one of my essential plugins and the new one has to go. So far author box and my other plugins play nice together.
What do you think and what are some of your favorites?