lupka

This plugin allows you to create a widget that will display the title/date/excerpt from random posts in a specified(or open-ended) date range. It can also be used outside of a widget to create custom loops of random posts within a date range. The following can be specified:
<ul>
<li>Number of posts to display</li>
<li>Whether or not to show dates</li>
<li>Whether or not to show excerpts</li>
<li>Excerpt length (number of words)</li>
<li>Start date and End date of posts to randomize</li>
<li>Whether or not to always use current date as end. (Allows you to include new posts without editing settings every day)</li>
<li>Option to use relative time instead (To chose from random posts from last week, year, etc.)</li>
<li>Category to choose posts from. (Example: Random posts from sports category in the past week. This is the original reason I needed a plugin like this. Comes in handy for the newspaper site I run.)</li>
</ul>
Please contact me if you run into any issues, either via email (lupka31@gmail.com) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/lupka) 
For latest FAQs/info visit: http://alexchalupka.com/projects/wordpress/random-posts-widget/

Random Posts Within Date Range Widget

Widget that displays the title(w/ link), date(optional), and excerpt(optional) of random posts within a selected date range.

James Harrison

macardam

The shortcode [arandomnumber] can be added to any post, page, or widget as many times as needed to display a random number. The number has a default range of 1 – 100, but can be changed using the min and max attributes, like so:
[arandomnumber min=1 max=10000]: This will output a random number between 1 and 10,000. (Like this: 8,014) 
[arandomnumber min=-500 max=-1]: This will output a random number between -500 and -1. (Like this: -232) 
[arandomnumber min=50000000 max=60000000]: This will output a random number between 50,000,000 and 60,000,000. (Like this: 56,449,060)
etc.
If you wish to disable commas, use the comma=no attribute, like so: [arandomnumber min=100000 max=999999 comma=no]. This will output a random number within the range without the commas, like this: 456245.

A Random Number

A WordPress plugin that displays a random number on each page load via shortcode. It truly is magic.

Random Posts Within Date Range Widget vs A Random Number