WordPress Stats broken? Grab yourself a Jetpack!

Last week one of my favourite WordPress plug-ins broke: WordPress Stats. For anyone who doesn’t use this fantastic plug-in it’s a very clean and simple way of viewing visitor statistics directly on your dashboard. It isn’t as extensive as Google Analytics and for that I’m grateful as it doesn’t need to be. I first thought it was a hosting issue but that turned out to be incorrect. The plug-in, in it’s current form has been discontinued as it has been rolled into a compilation of useful WordPress tools called Jetpack.

So what do you get in Jetpack? Well here are three of my favourites:

• WordPress.com Stats – exactly what it says on the tin…
• Shortcode Embeds – easily add media from YouTube, Vimeo and Slideshare.
• LaTeX – need equations in a blog post? This ones for you then.

There are eight plug-ins currently available with more coming soon.

The last plug-in I mentioned, LaTeX may sound like it’s come straight from a .xxx domain name but bare with me; under that slightly suspect name is a powerful tool for anyone who needs to format equations in a post. Here’s a small demonstration:

Note: LaTeX support now disabled since moving to Jekyll. See here for information on how to enable it.

LaTeX has allowed me to embed one of the most beautiful equations in all of mathematics; Euler’s Equation directly into my blog post. It links Real Numbers, Euler’s Number, Imaginary Numbers and Pi in a staggeringly simple equation. There’s a mass of information on LaTeX here with everything you’d ever need pretty much covered.

So if you’re looking to give your WordPress blog a bit of a boost (horrible pun I know), give Jetpack a whirl!