2012年4月7日星期六

VaultPress Gets One-Click WordPress Database Restore

Vaultpress finally got the much desired one-click database restore feature for WordPress blogs. Vaultpress is a popular service by Automattic, makers of WordPress, which provides streamlined wordpress database backup, security and support.


vaultpress


Read our VaultPress review. We have been using Vaultpress for many months now as it quietly syncs our site database, themes, uploaded images and plugins in the background in real time providing a ready updated complete backup when needed.


VaultPress WordPress Database Restore


Previously you needed to download the files and restore them yourself, but the new feature of 1-click database restore makes it worth the money.


Vaultpress database restore


database backup


restore database confirm


There are many WordPress backup services, but we chose Vaultpress, and the $15 per month spent on this service is worth the money should the database just crash one day. All plans include Realtime Backups, Downloadable Archives for Restoring, Vitality Statistics, and the Activity Log. Our Basic plan provides access to disaster recovery and support services also. More expensive plans also include  site migration assistance, automated security scanning, security consulting and performance auditing.


See the video how database recovery works


Previously we used to keep daily database backups, but now we add Vaultpress to the daily cpanel backup and full VPS backups by our amazing webhosting service Knownhost - it all helps to secure backup copies of the whole site for easy restoration (Remember when our site was hacked!). I am sure many more people will find Vaultpress useful now.





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Best Facebook Games List 2011

Facebook released the list of top Facebook games 2011 and the best Facebook game was … not Zynga’s Farmville or Cityville,  but Gardens of Time by Playdom! We are so accustomed to playing Zynga Facebook social games that we fail to look beyond at some best Facebook games which the list brings out.

Best Facebook Games


Here is the list of  Most popular Facebook games in 2011

gardens of time


  1. Gardens of Time (By Playdom)

  2. The Sims Social (By EA)

  3. Cityville  (By Zynga)

  4. DoubleDown Casino (by DoubleDown Interactive)

  5. Indiana Jones Adventure World  (By Zynga)

  6. Words With Friends (By Zynga)

  7. Bingo Blitz (By Buffalo Studios)

  8. Empires & Allies (By Zynga)

  9. Slotomania-Slot Machines (By Playtika)

  10. Diamond Dash (By wooga)

So are these the Facebook games with the most players? Facebook says they considered top games with more than 100,000 monthly active users with priority to those with highest user satisfaction scores. So the list is bascially of Facebook games with most user recommendations in 2011.

Where is Farmville you wonder… Some of the games were a surprise to me and to you also I think. The surprise winner was Gardens of Time.




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How to Force Browsers to Refresh CSS for Your WordPress Blog

How can you force your reader’s browser to refresh CSS files when you change CSS stylesheets in WordPress blogs? Unless you force CSS refresh, the regular visitors browser continues to load the old cached CSS files and new changes to the CSS on your site are never visible till the user decided to refresh the page, wherein the browser clears the CSS from the cache and loads a fresh current CSS file.


If you made minor changes, old cached CSS files might not make a difference. But what it you made substantial structural changes, or introduced new classes… your site would appear totally broken to regular visitors.  How many readers would think that refreshing the page will fix your site?


css stylesheet


Force CSS Files Refresh


The answer is to force browsers to load the latest CSS file.


1. The way to do this is to change to a new CSS file name in the HEAD of the html, that will force the browser to load a new stylesheet file. But if you edit your CSS too frequently, its cumbersome to keep fixing new CSS files everytime and editing the source stylesheet name everytime.


I used to keep 3 CSS files like style1.css, style2.css, style3.css and keep cut pasting the latest code edits to the new one and updating the header.php file. An easier way is to add a so called version to your CSS file everytime like ?v=25122011, this will change the file name and force a refresh, but then again you have to change the file name everytime you edit WordPress stylesheets.


2. Then I came upon this nice trick suggested by WordPress developer Mark Jaquith, which suggests you use the function filetime which adds the server time the file was changed to the CSS url. Here is the code – cut and paste and try for yourself.


<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); echo '?' . filemtime( get_stylesheet_directory() . '/style.css'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />


So we used this code and now our stylesheet call code in the HEAD looks like this
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/wp-content/themes/qot/style.css?1324491378" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />


You note that the new code has made our stylesheet style.css?1324491378 – This number will change whenever we save a new version of the style.css and will force site visitors to load the fresh copy of the CSS file.


A smart trick which makes web designing easy for bloggers who like to tweak their site design every day…





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Download Facebook Messenger for Windows

Download Facebook Messenger for Windows as a standalone desktop app with which you can use without visiting the website facebook.com. Facebook released the new Facebook messenger as a trial app and you can download and try it right now

Download Facebook Messenger


Facebook MessengerAs you surf the web, you can use the Facebook Messenger for Facebook Chat with your Facebook friends, see the latest updates from your friends in ticker and get quick Facebook updates and notifications.

After installing Facebook Messenger, you can easily do Facebook login and logout by right-clicking the Facebook icon in Windows system tray. Once you open the app, the app is undocked by default so that you can move it around your computer screen, but you can dock the app and fix it on the screen also.

Choose the “Keep me logged in” option and Messenger will keep you logged in to Facebook even after you close your browser or navigate away from Facebook. Remember, choosing Exit will close the app but still keep you logged into Facebook; therefore choose Log out to completely logout of both the Messenger app and facebook.com, especially if your computer has multiple users or public use.

facebook logout

Facebook Messenger has some limitations – unlike the website login, you cannot perform Facebook Chat with multiple friends, video calling, limit chat availability and edit settings as of now. You will need to go to your browser and login for that.

Download Facebook Messenger (.exe file). This will download a small .exe file, click that and it will download and install Facebook Messenger. The app will automatically install updates in future. Since this is a trial app, be ready to expect outages and periods of instability at times. System requirement says you need  Windows 7 (but I was easily able to download on my Windows Vista). You can uninstall Facebook Messenger anytime from Windows Control Panel.

You can also download Facebook Messenger App for mobile phones (available for Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone)




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How to Optimize WordPress Database Easily

What is the best and easiest way to optimize WordPress database? It is a good idea to optimize your WordPress database tables as useless data “Overhead” piles up over the years and slows your database down.


Our WordPress admin was getting really slow and so were the increasing  number of resource alerts. Like most WordPress bloggers, we too were always hesitant to meddle with the database fearing irreversible loss of data. There are many powerful WordPress database plugins, but they all seem too powerful and capable of modifying so much data, that it seemed better in expert hands. So we were looking for something very simple, easy and trustworthy.


Optimize WordPress Database


The we found the amazing Optimize DB plugin by Yoast, who is a well known creator of some other amazing plugins too. We simply installed and activated the plugin and it automatically analyzed how much database overheads it could save instantly. Then we backed up the database, though Vaultpress saves our latest database files automatically.


This what a partial screenshot of what we got. The plugin was going to optimize our WordPress database and save it by 33%!


optimize database


Well there is only one button to click, and we clicked it. And in the next few seconds, it was all done.


WordPress Database tables optimized


The WordPress admin speed seems better, site resource alerts seem lower too.


Warning: Always back up your full database before attempting any database changes. This seems standard disclaimer, but is very essential to restore your database if something goes wrong (and sometimes things do go wrong).





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Find Your WordPress PHP, MySQL Versions Now

WordPress Bloggers must find the PHP version and MySQL version of their hosting server now.  The WordPress minimum requirements have changed and if your hosting server PHP and MySQL version is outdated, upon upgrade to WordPress 3.2, your site may not work.


PHP, MySQL Versions in WordPress


The minimum requirements for WordPress 3.1 (current version) are PHP 4.3 and MySQL 4.1.2. But the The minimum requirements for WordPress 3.2 (which is coming very soon) is PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. So though most web hosting services would have updated their server, you need to be sure and not get stuck during update.


The easiest way is to install the Health Check Plugin – Its a simple WordPress plugin which will check checks PHP and MySQL versions of your server and compare them with WordPress 3.2 requirements.


We installed it and got an this response.


php mysql check


The response suggests excellent –  we are running on PHP 5.2.16 which better than required 5.2.4.


I suggest you also check your PHP and MySQL version and contact your webhosting if your server falls short. Of course, if your hosting provider cannot upgrade your PHP and MySQL, its time to find a new web hosting for your WordPress blog.





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bbPress WordPress Plugin Installs Forum in One Click

The first integration of bbPress forums as a WordPress plugin enables bloggers to add forums in one click to increase reader engagement to their site.


bbPress forumsYou read our 10 best reasons to install bbPress and for long time bbPress has been one of the best free forum softwares out there, and now it is also the easiest forum software you could ever integrate with WordPress. Right now the latest bbPress 2.0 beta in active development and you should try it on a test wordpress installation. Download bbPress WordPress Plugin (in beta testing) to see the new features.


bbPress WordPress integration


bbPress


The new version will allow seamless integration with your WordPress site and theme, allowing integrated admin interface for forums, topics, and replies, splitting and merging topics within a single forum. Shortcodes will help you customize where your forums appear and there is the integrated child theme of TwentyTen for starters.


The power of WordPress will let you keep track of changes with topic and reply revisions, mark topics as favorites, receive emails when new replies are posted to topics you subscribe to, get forum widgets in sidebars and anonymous posting lets you open your community.


It will work with WordPress hooks, and Multisite application means that you can host unlimited bbPress forums. The important thing is there are no additional database tables and it promises to work in sync with BuddyPress Forums and WP caching plugins.


Something great is happening … I know a lot of bbPress forum owners are looking for the importer to migrate all their forums to the new WordPress integrated platform … and the time will come soon. I tried the beta and it is still buggy as of now, but I am sure the amazing WordPress community will make it better soon, and them all WordPress bloggers can get a one click forum of their own. Meanwhile there are many other WordPress Forum Plugins you can also try.





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How to Change WordPress Login Screen Logo

Do you want to change the WordPress Login screen logo to your own site logo for better branding? Its easy to change the WordPress logo to your logo and will give better branding, especially if you have multiple authors, or require commentors to sign in repeatedly from that page.


Change WordPress Login Logo


1. Modify your logo size to create a new image with following parameters



  • .GIF image

  • Transparent background

  • Size – 310px wide, 70px height

  • Name - logo-login.gif


2. Check your WordPress login screen which would be located on the url http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/ or if you host your WordPress in a folder, then it is at http://yoursite.com/folder/wp-admin/


wordpress login screen


3. Now login via FTP on your server and browse to the wp-admin/images folder


4. Find logo-login.gif image and back it up (rename to logo-login-back.gif or download it)


5. Upload your own logo image logo-login.gif to replace it


6. Check your WordPress login screen and your logo is live


wordpress login screen new logo


if you require people to login to your site, you must change your WordPress login screen logo to bet better brand value.





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Full Screen Distraction Free Writing in WordPress

The latest WordPress version has got full screen distraction free writing!  Finally you can write without any distraction from WordPress menu bars, browser toolbars and concentrate only on writing articles. I played with the new upcoming feature in WP 3.2 beta version and it is truly amazing.


Here is what my cluttered WP test screen looks like …


cluttered wordpress


WordPress Full Screen Writing


A new Full screen toggle button appears in the post screen.


wordpress full screen button


Click the full screen toggle button and the full screen mode goes live instantly with a few essential formatting buttons, save and exit links.


full screen wordpress


And as you start typing, whatever of the minimal WordPress menu is left … also magically disappears slowly (and comes back when you stop typing).


no distraction in wordpress writing


I am sure a lot of jouranlists, writers and bloggers will find this distraction free writing feature very useful. You can also learn how to test WordPress nightly builds and write in full screen right now.





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Best WordPress SEO Advice I Got in 30 Minutes [Video]

I spent 30 minutes and got the best WordPress SEO advice in a long time. Watch Jim Marks from Virtual Results present his rich SEO experiences at the Wordcamp Phoenix 2011.


Watch this video and I am sure you will get some useful WordPress SEO advice as he gives tips for Beginners SEO, Intermediate SEO and advanced SEO. It is well worth spending the 30 minutes to learn SEO. I got some good tips too.



Freshly uploaded on WordPress TV.





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How to Install WordPress Alpha, Beta Versions, Nightly Builds

How can you install and test Alpha, Beta, Nightly builds and versions of WordPress? Since the WordPress auto-upgrade feature only lets you upgrade to the latest public release, this seemed to be a tiresome manual FTP task everytime.


WordPress testers, developers and enthusiasts in general are always curious to test new upcoming features in WordPress, and this is also of use to WordPress as it taps a wider user base to detect bugs and security holes in upcoming WordPress versions.


NOTE: First it is recommended you install these versions on a test blog and NOT on your main blog, as some of these build may be unstable and can bring down your site. Also note that in upgrades involving database upgrades, you might be unable to downgrade to a previous version. Remember to keep database backups so that you can restore it if something goes wrong.


Install WordPress Alpha, Beta, Nightly Builds


First install WordPress Beta Tester plugin. It will let you upgrade your blog to the latest Beta or Release candidate easily in one click. By default it switches your blog onto the point release development track, with an option to choose bleeding updates.


In WP admin, go to Tools > Beta Testing > Choose Point release nightlies OR Bleeding edge nightlies


wordpress nightly builds


So lets say the current version right now is WP 3.1.2, and you want to upgrade and test WordPress 3.2 beta1 already released. I expected that Point release to do the trick. But as I tried, it offered to upgrade to a WP 3.1.2 alpha version!


I was surprised about this, but the plugin developer Peter Westwood points out “(Bleeding nightly) is equivalent to the beta at the moment. Once you install the beta (or any other development version of WordPress) you will be encouraged to keep up to date with the nightly builds so you benefit from fixes made.”


So choose Bleeding edge nightly builds instead. I got instantly updated to “development version (3.2-beta1-17916)” and can now keep on upgrading to get latest updates….


wordpress upgrade nightly build





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5 Best Dropbox WordPress Plugins

What are best Dropbox WordPress plugins to integrate Dropbox storage with your WordPress blog. Dropbox provides unique functionality which can be integrated very well into WordPress.


Dropbox WordPress Plugins


Dropbox WordPress1. Dropbox CDN – Use your Dropbox ‘Public’ folder as a free Content Delivery Network (or CDN). Allows you to upload your themes CSS, JavaScript, and Images into your Dropbox ‘Public’ folder and server these files from the Dropbox network, reducing the bandwidth of your server and allowing users to load your site faster.


2. WordPress Backup to Dropbox – Automatically creates a backup your blog and uploads it to Dropbox. Just choose when and how often to backup, and a zipped archive of your website files and database is uploaded to Dropbox! Other settings include the ability to set where you want your backups stored within Dropbox and on your server, whether you want to keep a copy of the backup on your server, and how many backups you wish to hold onto at any one time.


3. Dropbox Sync – Will allow you to sync all your images from your blog posts to Dropbox. All images will load from Dropbox decreasing bandwidth and increase loading times. It’s a great way to backup all your files too!


4. Pressbox – Integrates DropBox with your blog allowing you to post images and files directly from your DropBox. Requires PHP 5.2 and cURL. Adds a new tab to the Media Upload screen to insert images and files from Dropbox into your posts. The plugin also provides a shortcode to add links or display images anywhere on your blog.


5. Dropbox Upload Form – Will insert an upload form on your WordPress blog for visitors to upload files to a Dropbox account.


Note that many of these plugins seem to be under active development and the authors ask for feedback to make them better. Dropbox is one of the best productivity softwares out there which takes your files to the cloud and let you sync between multiple computers, laptops and smartphones. Now sync the power of WordPress with Dropbox.





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Download Google Webmasters Site Verification WordPress Plugin

Download and install the official Google Webmasters Site Verification WordPress Plugin, which makes it the easiest way to verify your WordPress.org self hosted blogs to Google Webmasters tools.


All sites added to the Google webmaster tools have to  be verified to make sure you have access and can confirm it is your site. This opens a whole lot of statistics and Google insider information about your site which is very valuable information for webmasters and site owners.


Until now the site verification options were – meta tags, links to Google Analytics or upload an html file to your server or as recommended add a DNS record to your domain name configuration.


verify site ownership


Now download the official Google Webmasters Site Verification WordPress Plugin and get the job done in minutes. This plugin needs WordPress 3.0 (or higher), PHP 5.2.0 (or higher), the JSON PHP extensions, and the CURL PHP extensions or it won’t activate.


Once activated, in the left sidebar of WP admin, click “Start Verification”, Follow authentication prompts and click “Grant access” when you are prompted to give your blog access to the Google Site Verification API. Its done. Google wants more webmasters to get verified and use the power of the webmaster tools they offer to help them improve their Google search engine results.





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Join WordPress Theme Review Team

Join WordPress Theme Review Team and review free WordPress Themes in the official WordPress themes directory. WordPress offers a unique opportunity for thousands of WordPress theme designers to share their WordPress designs with the WordPress community.


Everyday thousands of free WordPress themes are downloaded and now you can help them review these themes. Justin Tadlock invites new theme reviewers, to give back to the community and become a better WordPress theme developer in the process. They also encourage major theme companies and big-time theme developers to join in.


WordPress Theme Review Team


This will give you insights of how mailing lists, Trac, and other systems work and help you understand theme guidelines. Right now there are 12 theme reviewers busy with the job and they want more.


Initially you will need to attach your Theme review notes, and approval status, after which a Theme Reviewer will review your comments, and resolve/close the ticket. If you get really good at it, you can be promoted to the “Reviewers” group, and assign and close tickets yourself!


We also design wordpress themes, and have updated theme versions in review for some time, and they now take longer than earlier. I understand they must be getting a lot of  theme submissions and updates everyday, and if volunteers do the job, then they must really be overworked. Over the years, WordPress theme directory has put in some excellent automated theme checks and enhanced trac functionality.


I did not know it was possible for WordPress designers to join the review team, and this presents a unique opportunity. Here are the instructions on How to Join WordPress Theme review Team. We also plan to join in soon.





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Fix Duplicate Content: Remove WordPress replytocom Urls from Google

Remove ?replytocom Urls from Google. How to prevent ?replytocom Urls from being indexed by search engines and prevent duplicate content.


Remove ?replytocom Urls


Where do these ?replytocom parameter urls come from? These replytocom urls are created in WordPress blogs which have enabled reply to comments. If you hover over the Reply link below comments, the urls will show in the browser status bar.


I was not aware of this issue till Google Webmaster tools recently pointed duplicate title tags on pages. I have activated Canonical urls on each page, so I thought this should not be an issue, but here is what I saw.


Duplicate page titles


Why was Google indexing these replytocom urls? Upon looking around a little deeper under Site Configuration>Settings>Parameter Handling -  I found that Google Webmasters was tracking parameter handling which we had not observed earlier.


replytocom let google decide


Google was handling the replytocom parameter with the setting “Let Google decide” and obviously Google was deciding to index the links. Since Google themselves advise on the page that “Asking Google to ignore these parameters can reduce duplicate content in Google’s index and make the site more crawlable”, the best idea is to Click the Edit link beside this – and set the option to Ignore.


replytocom ignore urls


But what is strange is why was Google not indexing the canonical url in the page and indexing these parameters – wasn’t it the purpose of canonical urls to serve as a guide to the best single url. Now there are several other parameters there which you might decide to ignore and reduce duplicate content on your site.


Another way would be to add the following rule to your robots.txt file


Disallow: *?replytocom


And then there is the Replytocom redirector plugin that deals with bots that do not know how to handle the replytocom parameter as part of a wordpress url – it simply redirects such bots to the correct url, saving CPU  and network resources.


How do you handle WordPress replytocom urls?





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Fix WordPress Error: Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance

“Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check back in a minute.” This WordPress error got highlighted on all blog pages and WordPress admin as the site became unaccessible when I performed an automatic upgrade to WordPress to 3.1.1 right now.


Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance


As the WordPress upgrade started, the core update was not completed and the upgrade screen got stuck. The entire site hosted the same text “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check back in a minute.”. There was no way to access the site or WordPress Admin.


It was scary since I had recently fixed my automatic plugin upgrade errors, by switching to SuPHP. But I had encountered this once before, so I know this was not as serious as it appeared to be. But unless you know the solution, there is no way out.


When WordPress autoupgrades, it inserts a .maintenance file in the WordPress root directory, which displays the message, so people dont see the broken php codes as the site continues to upgrade. Once the WordPress core and database is upgraded, the .maintenance file is deleted and the site comes back online normally. This was an incorporation of WordPress Maintenance mode plugin into the WordPress core.


In some cases, the process gets stuck, and the .maintenence file fails to get deleted. So the same message “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check back in a minute.” keeps displaying.


Delete .Maintenance WordPress File


FTP into your server and login to the WordPress root installation.


maintainence-error


Delete the .maintenance file. And your site will come back online. In our case it was stuck pending a database upgrade. As soon as we tried to login to WP Admin, it asked for a database upgrade which completed in one click.





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How to Automatically Empty WordPress Trash Daily

Do you wish to delete and empty WordPress Trash daily? We delete many spam WordPress comments everyday and WordPress Trash fills up really fast. Often the Trash accumulates thousands of comments. How to empty Trash automatically?


Empty wordpress thrash


Does WordPress empty Trash ever? WordPress will permanently delete posts, pages or comments in the trash after 30 days automatically. So dont worry about accumulating thousands of Trash files.


How to empty WordPress Trash Daily


You can decide when to empty the WordPress trash by adding this code to the wp-config.php file in your WordPress root directory.


define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 1 );


The 1 in the code signifies you want to empty the trash everyday. If you use a value like 5, it will empty trash every 5 days. If you set to 0, the trash functionality will be disabled and the ‘Delete Permanently’ button will appear instead of ‘Trash’ button and then you can delete posts and comments permanently without any alert. Remember to always backup wp-config.php file before editing it or your blog function may be disrupted.


Now never click Empty Trash ever again.





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Update WordPress Secret Keys for Better WordPress Security

Over the years, WordPress secret keys have added to WordPress security. Update your WordPress secure keys and log out all users to enhance your WordPress security.


WordPress Security Keys


I had an opportunity to check some old WordPress blogs and they had outdated incomplete WordPress secret keys. WordPress Secret Keys was a WordPress security feature introduced 3 years back in WordPress 2.5 for better cookie security.


While earlier the WordPress secret key was one line of extra long random code, over the years it is now 8 lines of complex random code. This is what it looks like in current wp-config.php files.


wordpress secret keys


The 8 security keys are AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, LOGGED_IN_KEY, NONCE_KEY; with corresponding salts: AUTH_SALT, SECURE_AUTH_SALT, LOGGED_IN_SALT, and NONCE_SALT will ensure your site is harder to hack and crack by WordPress hackers.


WordPress Secret Key Generator


So how do you create that kind of random code? The old secret key generator created only 4 lines of code, but the new secret code generator will create 8 lines of code for you to cut and paste into your WordPress wp-config.php file.


Remember to use a simple text editor (I use Notepad++) else you might mess up your most important wp-config.php file.  Remember changing these values will invalidate all existing cookies and logout all WordPress users on your site.


Check your WordPress wp-config.php in your WordPress installation directory now and confirm if 8 lines of secret keys exist. Anyway it is a good idea to change it sometimes and logout all users, just incase some hacker is secretly logged in. Good luck.


NB – Edit wp-config.php only if you know what you are doing, else your site could go offline easily. Try at your own risk or seek professional WordPress help.





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Got VaultPress Secure WordPress Backup [Review]

Now QOT is backed up on VaultPress secure WordPress backup service. Vaultpress backs up your entire WordPress database and important site files in real time so that your blog can be backed up easily if hacked.


Why Vaultpress WordPress Backup?


There are many WordPress backup services available. Vaultpress is created by Automattic, the same people who brought you WordPress, which powers millions of blogs. So I trust them to best understand the technology which goes behind powering WordPress, and how to back it up.


Vaultpress Golden Ticket


Vaultpress is not available to public at large since it is in beta. First you need to apply for golden ticket. They are giving away 60 Vaultpress golden tickets per day, so if you have a reputed  blog, chances are you will get in 1-2 days.


Once you get a Vaultpress invite in your email, simply sign up. The Golden Ticket is your plugin.


Download Vaultpress


Download Vaultpress WordPress Plugin


Download Vaultpress plugin, a simple php file, and add to your WordPress plugin folder. Activate and you are done. Vaultpress will start to download all your Uploads, Themes, Plugins, and Database one by one automatically.


Vaultpress  Sync


We got impatient as our database was downloaded only 10% after a few hours. A frantic email to support revealed,  it is normal as they do not want to overload our server. Our entire site backup took nearly 1 full day, but then QOT has a large database. Most sites will upload much faster.


So now we have realtime backup of our site


Vaultpress panel


VaultPress Cost?


Vaultpress Beta does not come cheap at $15 per month. We opted for the basic plan which gives us comprehensive backup of entire WordPress installation.



  • Realtime Core Table Backup

  • Non Core Table Backups

  • Unlimited Snapshots

  • Downloadable Archives

  • Stats, Activity Log, Support


If you decide to get the Premium Vaultpress plan, it would cost you $40 per month, but will include Security Monitoring as well.


How Vaultpress Can Improve?


Vaultpress backs up all your files in realtime, which can cause considerable load on shared hosting, so you might want to think. We experienced some increase in server load, and they throttled from the backend, and advised we enable FTP /SSH access to take load off the server, but I am not happy entering my FTP /SSH passwords in a third party plugin.


Secondly, many bloggers would not be  interested in  hourly back up of blogs, once or twice a day would be enough, but there is no option to configure that – though many busy blogs would find a realtime back up very useful, to keep comments and latest blog posts safe.


Note Vaultpress backups up only the plugins, themes, uploads and database. So if you have files in the root directory, extra files, htaccess etc, they will not be backed up. Also note you can download these backup files, they will not restore them for you in one click if  your server crashes.


I have had a chance to contact Vaultpress support a few times, and it seems they are available US time as that is when replies occur. A fast response time will go a long way to enhance customer trust. Also an affiliate program will help bloggers recover the Vaultpress expenses and help the service grow. But then its still in beta.


Get VaultPress


Vaultpress is definitely not cheap at $15 per month. But if your blog makes decent advertising revenue, you can afford to spend a small fraction of your profits on backing up your blog in real time, so that you can restore it when you need it. Hackers are for real and servers do crash and your hosting backup might get corrupted. The earning blog is the lifeline and income resource for many full time bloggers, and spending a few dollars more will guarantee you a better sleep at night, so even if hackers strike, your blog is safely backed up at Vaultpress.





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How to Add Unique QR Code to All WordPress Blog Posts Easily

Want to add a unique QR Code to all WordPress blog posts? QR codes are a great way to let mobile users use QR code readers to visit urls and get custom experiences in a click.


Add QR Code


Use Google Chart API to generate unique QR codes for each WordPress blog post. Simply add the following code in the your single.php file where you want the QR code to appear.


<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=150x150&chld=L|4&chl=<?php the_permalink(); ?>" width="150" height="150" alt="QR code" />


QR Code Parameters


Here is the break up of the QR code parameters which you can change


http://chart.apis.google.com/chart? -  calls the Google Chart API


cht=qr chooses to display the QR code option


&chs=100x100 calls for the 100 px square size


&chld=L|4 – call for default error correction level and margin (in rows). So want more white border around the code, increase the 4


&chl=<?php the_permalink(); ?> call for the permalink of the single post. Use the url you want.


This will add QR codes of size 100px x 100px to your site. You can change the 100 to 200 or whatever pixel size you like as per your blog template. But remember that very small QR codes are difficult to read by many QR code readers.


So for the main page, I can use this
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=200×200&chld=L|1&chl=http://www.quickonlinetips.com


QOT QR CODE


Scan it with your QR code scanner and see if it works.





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How to Change / Shorten Excerpt Length in WordPress

Most index pages, archive pages in WordPress display excerpts of 55 words. How can you change, or shorten excerpt length (or even increase it) easily.


If you look inside your WordPress theme index.php or archive.php, you will find this excerpt tag coming beneath the post title, which displays post excerpt in the front page or archives, category pages.


<?php the_excerpt(); ?>


It will display 55 words by default and then end abruptly with [...]. So how can you change excerpt length?


Change excerpt length in WordPress


Edit your theme functions file functions.php and add the following code at the bottom just above the last line of the code ?>


function new_excerpt_length($length) {
return 20;
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'new_excerpt_length');

Remember to place it just above the last line of the code ?> or your functions.php file may become unusable. Change the 20 and use and number to specify the words you want to display in excerpts.


Its a good idea to backup your themes file before editing it, as any error will give major WordPress theme errors. And then you would have to FTP your site, and restore the functions.php to the previous one.





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How to Beef Up Your Wordpress Security

Guest post written by Thomas Frank. How can you increase your WordPress security. WordPress is a popular blog platform that has, in recent months, transformed into a great content management system.


As with any good CMS, WordPress has some security features built into its core. However, the default installation is still vulnerable to certain attacks. Fortunately, there are several easy steps you can take to harden WordPress against these attacks.


locked.


Common WordPress Attacks


Here is a listing of the most common types of WordPress attacks:



  • Brute-force login attempts – This is an attack where a bot or script continuously tries to login to your WordPress Dashboard as the admin in order to gain Administrator access to your blog.

  • SQL injection attacks – Attacks like these use input boxes on your site (login forms, comment forms, etc) to try to inject malicious SQL code into your WordPress database.

  • Spam comments – Many bots simply come to your website and post spam comments to build backlinks to their owners’ spam sites. Most of these comments are obviously spam, but some can be surprisingly legit-looking. Usually, though, you can tell spam comments apart from others by their very general nature and suspicious-looking username, even if the spelling is good.

  • Attacks against old versions of WordPress – As WordPress is open-source, its code is available for anyone to view. One downside of this is that hackers can easily exploit bugs in the code. The result of this situation is that old versions of WordPress are constantly under attack by scripts design to exploit bugs or flaws.

  • Attacks against vulnerabilities in plugins – Even if your WordPress installation is up to date, plugins can be a security issue as well. Many WordPress attacks are crafted specifically to exploit bugs or known vulnerabilities in plugins, so having a lot of plugins can potentially open up your site.


Fortunately, protecting WordPress against these attacks isn’t terribly difficult. Here is a listing of things you should do:


Keep WordPress and related files updated


Keep your WordPress installations updated to the latest version. As of right now (3/1/2011), the latest version is 3.1. 3.2 is set to release sometime this year. Make sure to update plugins as well. As noted above, out-of-date plugins can pose security risks.


If you have a bunch of plugins that are deactivated or unused, it’s best to delete them. Each plugin you have can pose a security risk if there is a flaw in it. If you have a plugin you plan on using later, store it outside of your WordPress installation until you need it.


Create security through obscurity


This security concept is based around the fact that most automated attacks will target default WordPress parameters. Therefore, make sure your installation doesn’t have these default parameters. Delete the user ’admin’. Brute force attacks will almost ALWAYS try to login with this username.



  • If you’re just setting up your WordPress installation, you should be able to change this name from the get-go when going through the configuration process.

  • If you already have an established installation, you can simply change the admin username via the command line. Find your installation’s database and enter the following SQL statement:


// Note that you should replace 'prefix' with your table prefix and 'newusername' with your desired admin username.
update table prefix_users set user_login='newusername' where user_login='admin';

Do not use the “wp_” table prefix for the tables in your MySQL database.



  • The database linked to your WordPress installation has a number of tables that drive the installation’s functions. For continuity’s sake, all the tables have the same prefix; some examples under the default prefix are wp_posts and wp_comments.

  • You should change the prefix to something other than “wp_” when first installing WordPress. Almost all SQL injection scripts out there will attempt to access tables with this prefix, so you’re unfathomably more well-protected by doing this.

  • Access your associated MySQL database (always good to make a backup first), and start renaming all the tables. If you haven’t installed WordPress yet and are on first time setup, you can skip this step. Example:


Rename table wp_comments to wangchung_comments;


  • You’ll also need to change the table prefix in wp-config.php, as shown here:


/**
* WordPress Database Table prefix.
*
* You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique
* prefix. Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!
*/
= 'wangchung_';

You may notice that doing this locks you out of you Administrator account. No worries! There’s just a couple more commands to issue at the MySQL command prompt:


UPDATE newPrefix_options SET option_name = REPLACE (option_name, ‘oldPrefix_’, ‘newPrefix_’);
UPDATE newPreifix_usermeta SET meta_key = REPLACE(meta_key, ‘oldPrefix_’, ‘newPrefix_’);

Blocking access to unneeded information


WordPress can give away too much information. Here’s a couple ways to prevent it from doing that: Prevent WordPress from giving specific error messages upon unsuccessful login attempts.



  • WordPress, by default, will tell you when you’ve entered a wrong username or password. If someone is trying to guess these things, these error messages can sure help them narrow down their choices! It’s best to make WordPress throw a generic error instead. Open up the functions.php file, which is in wp-content/themes/yourtheme and add this line to it (somewhere outside of a function):


// code to hide feedback upon unsuccessful logins
add_filter('login_errors',create_function('', "return 'Please try again.';"));

Move wp-config.php up one directory


Moving this file out of your public folder makes it less accessible. WordPress is built to check for this file one directory up if it can’t find it in the default location.


Prevent malicious modification of the GlOBALS and $_REQUEST variables


Many attacks will attempt to inject malicious scripts into your database. Prevent this by adding the following code to your .htaccess file:


Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (<|%3C).*script.*(>|%3E) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]

Back up, back up, back up


Regularly back up both your WordPress files and your database. The more you post content to your site, the more you should back up. This is not only to protect you from the bad guys, but also from yourself when you try new things



  • You can use an FTP program such as FileZilla to back up your files to your local computer.

  • Refer to the plugin list below for a great plugin that will help you regularly back up your database.


Essential security plugins



  • Akismet – Comes pre-installed with WordPress, although you’ll need to apply for an API key to use it. You can do this through Akismet’s options panel in the Dashboard.

  • AntiVirus – keeps your blog protected from spam and malicious scripts.

  • Capability Manager – Allows you to fine-tune the capabilities of each user role. For example, you could give Contributors the ability to publish posts.

  • IP Ban – Allows you to ban IPs from seeing your site. This can be useful, but I don’t recommend simply banning every IP that tries to log in as admin. Most of these are spoofed, and DHCP will make them change anyway.

  • Limit Login Attempts – limits the amount of times an IP can try to log in before locking it out for a specified amount of time. You can also configure it to lock out that IP for a much, much longer time upon a certain number of lockouts.

  • SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam – places a CAPTCHA on your login page. This, coupled with Limit Login Attempts, should keep out brute force bots forever.

  • WP-DBManager – part of good security is having backups, and this plugin does backups really well. It’ll back up your database upon schedule intervals, and you can even set it to email you the resulting .sql file.

  • WP Security Scan – scans your WordPress installation for vulnerabilities and alerts you to them. It can, in some cases, even fix them. I DO NOT recommend using this plugin to change your table prefix, however. That’s something you should do manually.


You can never be too careful these days when it comes to security. Luckily, these precautions will keep all but the most determined hackers out of your site. Happy blogging!


Guest author Thomas Frank is the founder of College Info Geek, a college success blog with a heavy focus on technology. He is a sophomore at Iowa State University studying management information systems and speech communication. Connect with him on Twitter. Licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Max Klingensmith.





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Easiest Way to Move Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org

So what is the easiest way to shift, migrate or move WordPress.com blog  to WordPress.org self hosted blog? Pay $99 for Guided Transfer and professional WordPress experts will migrate your blog error free.


Today WordPress introduced this much wanted feature, which will benefit many bloggers wanting to overcome wordpress.com limitations, and get their own standalone blog, on their own domain name, own hosting and own wordpress.org content.


WordPress.com to WordPress.org



Try WordPress Guided Transfers – wherein for $99 one-time fee, they will move your content, theme, domain, and everything else to your choice of  their recommended WordPress hosting – BlueHost, Dreamhost, Mediatemple, Network Solutions and Godaddy Hosting.


In addition, they will also install and configure Jetpack and a few other plugins to provide features that you have been using on WordPress.com. They will configure and test permissions so you get one-click installs and upgrades (its not configured on all hosts). and then finally switch your domain over.


For 2 weeks, they will also provide full support for your new WordPress installation. All this for $99 is not a bad deal to get your blog free to grow.





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Fix FTP Connection Information Error on WordPress Plugin Upgrades

Are you always required to input FTP Connection Information for WordPress Plugin Upgrades and WordPress upgrades? WordPress has made it actually a one click process, but still many bloggers are stuck with this.


wordpress upgrade error


We too have been experiencing this FTP Connection Information required alert everytime we want to upgrade WordPress or upgrade WordPress plugins or install WordPress plugins. And for some strange reason, even after entering the correct information, it would often simply time out. We had to do manual FTP upgrades everytime.


WordPress FTP Connection Information


But as I started to plan a few new sites on Hostgator, I realized how simple and efficiently WordPress one click upgrades work there. I realized it was some hosting related issue, and was a lot to do with WordPress file permissions and file ownership – so we contacted our excellent Knownhost VPS hosting, and as usual their excellent knowledgeable  support had the answers.


PHP on your server is running as DSO and hence the plugin installations or wordpress upgrade will be one under the apache user and this is why you will have to correct the permissions each time you are installing plugins.  To resolve the issue completely, suPHP should be enabled on the server. If suPHP is enabled on the server then the PHP scripts will be running under the ownership of the account user. So the php scripts will create the directories/files with the account ownership.


Well so they did a recompilation of Apache/PHP and enabled suPHP on the server. It took 1 hour, there was no downtime and the FTP Connection Information Errors were gone forever and WordPress one click installs and upgrades were working just fine. Now you can fix it too.





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How to Disable / Remove WordPress Admin Bar

How can you disable or remove WordPress Admin bar? WordPress 3.1 has launched this obtrusive WordPress Admin Bar to help WordPress bloggers easily access common blogging tasks via an easy drop down menu.


WordPress Admin Bar


wordpress admin bar


This is how it looks like when live on our site. I browsed around many WordPress  menus, but could eventually find a way to disable the WordPress admin bar.


Disable / Remove WordPress Admin Bar


I found the options are built in. Go to Users > Your Profile > Show Admin Bar


show admin bar


But I realized that this simply disables the admin bar in the users WordPress theme and many WordPress plugins have come up modify, minimize, relocate or disable the WordPress admin bar.



  • Admin Bar Removal (completely disable) 3.1 only – Completely disables Frontend and Backend Menu that now appears on the WordPress 3.1 based blogs, plus helps to remove code and get more free memory.

  • Global Hide/Remove Admin Bar Plugin – Easily add a global option to hide/remove the new Admin bar in WP 3.1+. Adds an option to the Settings Menu to globally turn off the Admin Bar and/or turn off the user option in the profile to show admin bar.

  • WP Custom Admin Bar – Added control of your Admin Bar. Disable it, show it to certian user levels and modify the styling. This gives you options to change who sees the Admin Bar based on their user role, change or override the default styling and remove the Admin Bar altogether.

  • Admin Bar Disabler – Disable the WP Admin Bar in 3.1+ entirely, or only for roles and capabilities which aren’t in the ‘whitelist’ or ‘blacklist’. This plugin supports both Per-Site and Per-Network (WordPress Multisite) settings, so you can fine tune your options based on your needs.

  • Hide Admin Bar Search – Small plugin to hide the search box in the admin bar in both dashboard and site views.


Minimize WordPress Admin Bar


Admin Bar Minimiser – an easy way to minimise the new WordPress 3.1 admin bar at the click of a button! The Plugin works by allowing you to minimise the admin bar from view via a single click! And you can bring it back just as easily. This also works for the admin bar displayed on the WordPress back end too.


Relocate WordPress Admin Bar


Stick Admin Bar To Bottom – Annoyed by the new Admin Bar that is covering the top 28 pixels of your website, but you don’t want it completely gone? This plugin sticks the Admin Bar to the bottom of your screen!





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How to Change Avatar Size in WordPress Comments

I wanted to increase avatar size (Gravatar) in my WordPress comments, but any amount of CSS tweaking for the avatar size would not work. I realized the avatar size was generated hard coded in html and there was no way to change that.


A quick view at your comments.php file would reveal that the comments are output by this code.


<ol class="commentlist">
<?php wp_list_comments(); ?>
</ol>


Note that we had set the type argument to show comments only (not pingbacks / trackbacks) so our code looks like this right now


<ol class="commentlist">
<?php wp_list_comments(array('type' => 'comment')); ?>
</ol>

So wp_list_comments is the target file which generates the hard coded avatar size of 32x32px. I wanted to increase the avatar size to 48x48px, so here is how I modified the code to look like this. Change the 48 to any size you like from 1-512.


<ol class="commentlist">
<?php wp_list_comments(array('avatar_size' => '48', 'type' => 'comment')); ?>
</ol>


Now we are showing comments with avatar size of 48x48px. Post a comment and try for yourself. (Obviously you have a gravatar by now with the same email address or your avatar would not show on any site).





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10 WordPress Plugins That Power QOT

Many of you have asked what wordpress plugins we use to power QOT. Well below are the 10 WordPress plugins that are active right now to power this site.



  1. Akismet –  this is the single most important plugin for any WordPress blog if you want to moderate comments in a sane manner. It effectively blocks all the spam which hundreds of bots keep posting everyday. We get thousands of spam comments each day, and without Akismet managing comments would be impossible.

  2. All in One SEO – claims to be an out of the box SEO plugin. It fixes all your titles and relevant meta tags to help your blog get higher search engine rankings. No wonder it is the most download wordpress plugin. WordPress expert can manually fix a lot of code themselves, but for most bloggers this does the SEO job in one click.

  3. Clean Archives Reloaded - is the easiest way to create an archives page for your site. Simply activate the plugin, create a page titles ‘archives’, then cut past a simple shortcode and your fresh archive is live. See our archives page.

  4. Evermore –  this is a simple way to abbreviate all posts when viewed on multiple post pages. This makes all posts behave as if there is a “<!–more–>” at an appropriate spot inside the content. See it live on our front page.

  5. Google XML Sitemaps –  This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog. It regularly updates your sitemap whenever your posts or pages changes and pings search engines.

  6. Grunion Contact Form –  this is the best contact form by Automatic itself, makers of WordPress. It will let you add a contact form to any post, page or text widget. Emails will be sent to the post’s author by default, or any email address you choose. You must have seem it on WordPress.com. See it live on our contact form.

  7. WordPress Stats -  this is a light weight analytics plugins (again as seen on WordPress.com) to track site statistics and monitor you site traffic, backlinks, and traffic charts right from the WordPress dashboard. Simple and easy.

  8. WordPress Data Backup – provides an automated  as well as on demand back up of your wordpress databases.  It is must have to back your database safely on your email, computer or server itself, to save you on a bad server day.

  9. Wp-Ban -  Sometimes you are stuck with a particularly spammy IP which despite getting in the spam queue, keeps posting thousands of comments on your site and overloading your server. Ban IP addresses easily and protect your blog. It works.

  10. Wp-supercache –  this is the must have plugin to keep your site up and running not only when you have the Digg traffic hitting you, but also routinely to cache all your content and reduce server load with all those PHP calls. Do not start a WordPress blog without it.


I shared my WordPress plugins. What plugins do you use besides these?





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Add Snow Falling Effect to Your WordPress Blogs

Its Christmas and greet the chilly winter by adding a snow falling effect to your WordPress blog. Every year around this time we add snowing effects to our blog and it is live right now also.


New Snow WordPress plugins turn up every year and the best we are trying out right now on the site is Snow, balloons and more by Nicolas Kuttler, with powerful custom options which can give you exactly the effect you desire.


You can choose from snowflakes, leaves, drops and even balloons that can float upwards. You can simply add more images in the pics folder and they will appear on the settings page. You can configure the number of snowflakes and limit the plugin to specific posts or pages. If you enter something into the URI field you will only see snow if the URI of your page matches the string.


snow plugin options screen


The best part is you can turn off the effect after lets say 20 seconds, so it does not interfere with reading the article, yet conveys the winter snowy feel. We had to darken the site background to make the snowing appear better, and darker background blogs will have a much better experience.


Post a comment if its snowing on your blog so our readers can visit your site. Which plugin are you using or have you created your own wintery effect.





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Buy WordPress Products at WordPress Swag Store

Buy cool WordPress products like Tshirts, mugs, jackets at the new WordPress Swag store. This is the first time you can buy genuine official WordPress merchandise outside of WordCamps, other WordPress meetups, geocaching events or generous patrons where WordPress schwag was given out free.


wordpress swag store


Buy WordPress Swag


So what schwag is on offer –  WordPress Tshirts, iphone skin, hoodies, fleece jackets (most expensive at $35), mugs,  embossed moleskins, water bottles (cheapest at $8), baby tees, and even a thumb drive.


They have flat shipping rate for US and also do international shipping. I thought of shipping the WordPress sports water bottle costing $8 – but the international shipping charges were more than the item cost at $13.50. I recently shipped Kindle to India and paid hefty import duties, and am now motivating myself to grab my first WordPress swag.


I remember the earlier WordPress shop was available at shop.wordpress.net, but that now redirects to this new store.





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Little-Known WordPress SEO Tips

Guest post by Jonathan Brealey
So you’ve installed WordPress, uploaded some SEO plugins and added keyword-rich content. What’s the next SEO step? Tweaking WordPress, making it work more efficiently and getting ahead of your competitors all at once. Check out our little-known tips…


Stop Google seeing months and days as keywords for your site


This is a surprisingly common problem, although many people aren’t aware they even have it. Sign up/log into Google’s Webmaster Tools and check out the top keywords list. If you’re seeing months of the year in that list, then it’s time to get rid of them. Even if you aren’t following a specific keyword strategy, it’s a good idea to minimise the date keywords that show up because, as a general rule, they are of no real value.


Tips for getting rid of date keywords:



  • Check your theme to see if each comment’s date is a link; if so, change it to just text.

  • Removing any bolding and H title tags from date terms (both within your entries and your comments).

  • Avoid using months and other date-related terms in your post titles, categories and tags.

  • Review your blog archive presentation. If you’re displaying a large list of links in months on every page of your site, think about an alternative solution for showing archives – perhaps just as a simple link ‘Archives’ through to your links that just appears on the homepage.

  • Try displaying your dates entirely in numerical form – but be aware that this may confuse international visitors.


Optimise your page titles


Again, duplicate content can be an issue here, particularly if you use the Post Title, Site Name structure which is so common with WordPress installations. All in One SEO Pack gives you the option to name your page titles accordingly, but you should also ensure that you use a variety of different keywords for best results.


It’s worth checking in Webmaster Tools, as if Google sees your site as having problematic page titles then it will be clearly flagged. You can also:



  • Manually write page titles to make sure they’re unique

  • Limit the length of titles, choosing the most important keywords

  • Avoid the temptation to keyword-stuff – remember that a page title is one of the main factors in a searcher deciding your page is relevant to them and use phrases that make sense rather than just lists of words

  • Support page titles with relevant content on the page, and include all the keywords you used in your title


Optimise your tags


Tags can be useful for both visitors and SEO as long as you use them carefully and consistently.



  • Make sure you have tags for all the keywords and phrases you want to target.

  • Try to restrict the number of tags you have – particularly if you display a tag cloud on your website – to narrow your focus.

  • Review your tags on a regular basis, and remove any which are unused or unsuccessful.

  • Check that you don’t unintentionally have any topic tags repeated due to plurals (e.g. ‘blog’ and ‘blogs’).


Increase the speed of your WordPress website


Since April 2010, Google has also started taking into account the speed of your website for search rankings. Improve your website’s speed by:



  • Using WP Super Cache to reduce the server’s workload.

  • Keeping your database optimised with Yoast’s Optimize DB plugin.

  • Reviewing your theme’s code, condensing where possible.

  • Make sure any images you use are optimised for the web.

  • Deleting anything you stop using, including images, themes and plugins. (Be careful though – make regular backups and think twice before deleting a well-ranked page).

  • Amalgamating all your theme’s CSS into one file, and all your JavaScript into another to reduce web server requests.

  • Going through your site thoroughly and removing the old lines of code, images and other bits and pieces that deleted themes and plugins may have left behind.


You can track how fast your pages perform using Webmaster Tools and Firefox’s Page Speed Plugin.


Avoid duplicate content being indexed


Once you factor in tags, categories and archives for a single post, that’s already several pages with duplicate content. To prevent this, you can use the nofollow attribute on internal links to categories, tags and your archives. Find out more with WP Hacks’s article: Is your WordPress blog wasting Google’s time?


Guest author Jonathan Brealey is a director and co-founder of Heart Internet web hosting, one of the UK’s leading hosting companies. You can also share your hosting tips and guestblog here.





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5 New and Notable WordPress Plugins

Guest post by Loir. The stream of new and excellent WordPress plugins is never-ending, with dozens of new plugins being released each week and countless talented plugin authors working on new creations constantly, there are simply too many plugins out there to try them all, even though sites such as Weblog Tools Collection can help.


With that in mind, here’s a list of relatively new plugins for WordPress that may be worth trying. By no means is this a complete list, even with its short time frame of being released in September, but they are definitely some of the more exciting plugins to have been released for the world’s most popular blogging platform.


1. Google Scrbe
Google Scribe is the new product from Google Labs designed to help make your typing faster by auto completing your words and sentences with Google’s prediction technology. Though not perfect, it’s become very popular in some circles and has spawned a simple but effective WordPress plugin that lets you use Google Scribe as you type out your posts.  You may also want to check out another Google Scribe plugin that adds the feature to your site’s comment box, letting your visitors take advantage of it.


2. Ozh’ Spam Magnet Checker
Ever wonder which of your posts are generating the most spam? Prolific WordPress plugin developer Ozh has released his Spam Magnet Checker, which tells you exactly which posts are most attractive to the spam bots. You might use this information to block comments on certain posts, especially older ones with high spam volumes or simply be aware of the types of content that attracts the spam bots.


3. Haiku
There are dozens of audio players desgined to make life easier for podcasters using WordPress but Haiku is a minimalist HTML5 player that uses text “play” and “stop” links to start and stop audio files. Easy to integrate into any post, Haiku requires no version of Flash Player (or any other plugin) to work and can be used in any HTML5 compliant browser.


4. IE9 Pinned Site
One of the more important features of the new beta of Internet Explorer 9 is the ability to “pin” sites to the taskbar the same as if they were applications. This plugin makes it easy for you or your visitors to take advantage of this feature and quickly access recent posts and other parts of the site. Great for popular blogs or mission-critical sites that users may want quick access to at all times.


5. OrangeSoda Keyword Density
If you need a little bit of help with your SEO, OrangeSoda Keyword Density can help by providing a quick, free tool for getting the keyword density on your post as you work on your new posts. Great, for ensuring that you are targeting the correct keywords and a possible free replacement for some of Scribe’s features.


Keep in mind though that, even with the very limited timeframe for these plugins to have been published, there are still many dozens of other great plugins that didn’t get a mention. Your best bet is to visit the WordPress Plugin Directory regularly and stay on top of what’s new.


You don’t want to miss the plugin that could either save you a ton of work or improve your site in ways you can’t currently imagine.


This post was written by Lior who works for Producteev, an online task management company. You can also share your WordPress tip and hacks and write guest articles here.





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10 Useful WordPress Plugins for Blog Marketing

Guest post by Laurah. Which are the best WordPress Plugins for Blog Marketing? With easy-to-use programs like WordPress, everyone is writing a professional-looking blog these days. Fortunately, even though the blogosphere is crowded, it’s still easy to stand out from the masses.


Not everyone is committed to intelligent marketing, so by investing time in optimizing your posts for search engines, and making it easy for readers to share your posts with their own networks, you’ll be far ahead of the crowds in terms of readers and a growing subscription list.


Intelligent marketing doesn’t take a background in rocket science. The following plugins from WordPress will get you started in driving traffic to your site with a just a few simple downloads…and, of course, the persistence to follow through on using them!


Blog Marketing WordPress Plugins



  1. Word of Mouth Marketing: When you find something amazing online, you want to tell a friend, right?  Simplify the word-of-mouth process for your readers, and gather new subscribers, with this useful plugin. It automatically inserts a link to your posts, so your reader can spread the word with just a few clicks.

  2. Greg’s High Performance SEO Plugin: Drive traffic to your blog by making sure it comes up on major search engines. This plugin lets you configure up to 100 SEO characteristics in five significant areas, including the main title, secondary title, and even comments.

  3. OptinPop: Popup windows don’t have to drive your readers crazy. By selecting the content you want to pop, and timing when it pops, you can use them to build your subscriber list or promote a new product. OptinPop gives you full creative control, ensuring that the popup delivers the message you want, when you want it.

  4. Bookmarkify: Turn your readers into cheerleaders by giving them a tool to promote your blog.  Bookmarkify lets you put social bookmarks in your post, customized to match the design and font of your blog.

  5. Facebook Like for Marketers: Recruit new readers to your blog by adding a Facebook “like” function to your website. Each time your post is “liked,” the plugin posts a message to the reader’s Facebook page, promoting your blog to a new audience.

  6. Arkayne Marketing Plugin: This plugin is a complete marketing tool, allowing you to track the success of SEO keywords, tweet about your posts, and more from a simple dashboard. Check out the short video for a convincing case on how Arkayne will help you achieve blogging greatness.

  7. Digg WordPress Plugin: When your site receives a Digg, this plugin automatically adds a link to your blog taking readers to the Digg post, maximizing your chances that the Digg will create a snowball effect.

  8. Nuconomy Insights: Continuously improve your blog with this plugin that “learns”. Select a goal for your blog (increase comments, traffic, etc.) and the plugin will prompt you with specific instructions on how to maximize your digital assets to achieve it, based on detailed analysis of reader interactions with your site.

  9. WPMarketer: The benefits of marketing can be great, but you won’t know what marketing channels to invest in unless you track the returns of each one. WPMarketer allows you to easily manage your affiliate marketing links, and track Google adwords conversions, so you know for sure when you’re on the road to success.

  10. JetMails: Would you like to send a professional-looking promotion or newsletter to your subscriber list? How about if you didn’t have to edit even one line of code? JetMails makes it possible, with a plugin allowing you complete control over the content you send, and when you send it.


Guest blogger Laurah Hagen is a writer on Guide to Online Schools. You can also share your WordPress tips and guestblog here.





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Download WordPress 3.0 Now

Download WordPress 3.0 now. The latest and biggest version of WordPress 3.0 is released and available for download by the WordPress community.


WordPress 3.0 is showcased by a new default WordPress theme called Twenty Ten, replacing the old Kubrick theme. Theme developers can now play around with new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus, post types, and taxonomies.


A major achievement is the  merger of WordPress MU (multi-user) and WordPress, allowing you to create and run multiple WordPress blogs from one WordPress installation. The new bulk update feature lets you upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click too. Here is detailed feature list of WordPress 3.0


Download WordPress 3.0 – Tuned up by 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements, WordPress 3.0 promises to change the way you blog. See the video below to get an overview of the new changes.






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Fix Thesis Theme Custom File Editor Use_CodePress Errors in WordPress 3.0

If you are using Thesis WordPress theme, and upgrading to the new WordPress 3.0, be prepared for some use_codepress fatal errors when using custom file editor on your blog admin.


Thesis Theme Custom File Editor Use_CodePress Error


If you are using the Thesis theme’s built-in Custom File Editor, you might spot PHP error messages like this:


Fatal error: Call to undefined function use_codepress() in /DIRECTORY/public_html/wp-content/themes/thesis_17/lib/admin/admin.php on line 42


The reason is Thesis theme calls on the function use_codepress – from the Thesis core file admin.php for syntax highlighting using CodePress, but the use_codepress function is now deprecated in WordPress 3.0. So the error appears. But there is a fix here.


Fix Use_CodePress error in Thesis Theme using WordPress 3



  • Power up your FTP program (I use Filezilla)

  • Browse to /wp-content/themes/thesis_17/lib/admin/admin.php.

  • Download admin.php

  • Open in a text editor like Notepad.

  • Locate this text in line 42
    if (use_codepress()) add_action('admin_print_footer_scripts', 'codepress_footer_js');

  • Comment out that line by placing two forward slashes just before it.
    // if (use_codepress()) add_action('admin_print_footer_scripts', 'codepress_footer_js');

  • Upload and replace admin.php


That should remove all the use_codepress errors, but you will not be able to use the syntax highlighter in your Custom File Editor after that. Remember to keep a backup of admin.php in case something goes wrong.


This site is also currently powered by Thesis theme and you can see our Thesis theme review here. I really wish Thesis developers have some way of sending out critical update emails to paid theme users, rather than they search around the forums.





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Fix “Allowed Memory Size Exhausted” Errors with Wordpress 3.0 Upgrade

A lot of people upgrading to WordPress 3.0 are encountering “Fatal error: Allowed memory size exhausted” errors on their blog and the upgrade fails. There are some solutions which WordPress experts suggest.


“Allowed Memory Size Exhausted” Errors


This is how typically the error looks like


Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2356995 bytes) in /ANY-DIRECTORY/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1331


Why does this happen? Web reports indicate that the size of the download package for WordPress 3.0 is larger than previous versions (due to merger with WordPress MU and new Twenty Ten theme), due to which WordPress needs more memory to download the larger file. Since most web servers have set limit upto 32MB, whenever this is exceeded, the errors occur.


Fix “Allowed Memory Size Exhausted” Errors in WordPress 3


Here are some solutions which WordPress experts suggest.



  • Login your server via FTP (I prefer Filezilla)

  • Download wp-config.php located in the root of your WordPress install

  • Edit it using a text editor like Notepad

  • Add this line after after the <?php tag
    define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

  • Upload and replace wp-config.php file


All should we working fine now. You can also choose  a value higher than 64 like 128M, but 64 should do the trick. Always keep a backup of the original wp-config.php file incase something goes wrong.


Update: Here is another suggested fix – locate your php.ini file (if it exists), and if it shows 32M, change to 64M:
memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)


But if you don’t have access to PHP.ini try adding this to an .htaccess file:
php_value memory_limit 64M


If all these steps do not work? Then your web hosting provider may have prevented PHP from increasing the memory limit, and you can contact your webhosting support to increase the memory limit for your server.


Use a WordPress Plugin – Memory Bump is a simple WordPress plugin which can add this line to your wp-config.php file (with 256MB limit) automatically, no PHP file editing manually required. Simply install and activate the WordPress plugin, and the memory limit error will go away (again only if your hosting allows PHP to raise the limit on your account), then you can deactivate once done.


I think WordPress needs to address this memory issue soon, by reducing the package as much as possible, as it will be affecting thousands of WordPress bloggers upgrading WordPress on shared hosting servers.





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5 Top WordPress Forum Plugins

Guest post by Vinnie Lauria.
It is easy to add a forum to your WordPress blog using WordPress forum plugins. Well, WordPress (WP) has evolved quite a bit since 2003 and now stands to be more than just a blogging system, it’s a full Content Management Service (CMS).


One technology important to any thriving community is communication between its members.  A forum is a great way to facilitate the many-to-many conversations within a community that a blog cannot address.


This article compares the popular service offerings available for adding a Forum to your WordPress site.





















































Tal.ki ForumsWP-ForumbbPressSimple: PressZingiri
Facebook & Twitter IntegrationYesNoNoNoNo
Email NotificationsYesNoYesYesYes
Embed Media & VideosYesNoWith
Add-On
YesYes
Search Engine Optimized URLSYesNoYesYesNo
Last ReleaseMay ‘10Sep ‘08Jul ‘09Feb ‘10May ‘10

1. Tal.ki Embeddable Forums


talki forum


The Tal.ki Forum plugin for WP is simple to install and configure as it automatically detects your WordPress theme and styles itself accordingly.  Tal.ki really shines with it’s social network integration, allowing members to publish topics to their Facebook and Twitter feeds.  Tal.ki is unique from the other plugins as the same forum can be embedded onto multiple websites, and not just WordPress.


2. WP-Forum


wp-forum


The most popular forum plugin, with over 57,000 installs is WP-Forum.  WP-Forum supports different skins and admins have the option to turn guest posting on or off with optional Captcha.  Tight integration with WordPress makes this plugin easy to use and administer.  One thing to consider, is that while popular, WP-Forum hasn’t been updated since 2008 so there are security concerns as patches haven’t been released for known bugs.


3. bbPress Bulletin Boards


bbpress forums


bbPress is made by Automattic, the people behind WordPress.  bbPress is separate software from WordPress and requires a bit more experience to set up, but it closely integrates with a WordPress blog and it’s membership. Now available as an installable plugin.


4. Simple:Press


simplepress forum


Simple:Press is a feature rich forum plugin for WordPress. It is fully customizable and comes with a number of skins and icons.  Through it’s powerful and flexible permissions system it is suitable for those who wish to run private, specialist forums with invited members but is equally able to accommodate open, public forums that allow guest posting.


5. Zingiri Forum


zingiri forum


Zingiri is a unique plugin that integrates existing forum software, myBB, into WordPress. Zingiri provides the glue to connect MyBB, an easy to use, powerful, multilingual, feature-packed, and free forum software with WordPress. MyBB also includes a reputation system, multi-quote, and the ability to create custom BBCode (called MyCodes).


Guest author Vinnie Lauria is the co-founder of Lefora.com Forum hosting and organizes the 5,000 member Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup which has featured hundreds of companies that have built their startup in Silicon Valley. You can also guest blog on QOT and share your WordPress tips.





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5 Plugins to Convert WordPress Blogs to Membership Sites

Guest post by Louise Baker.
Here are 5 WordPress Plugins to convert your WordPress blog into a membership site.  There are many reasons why someone would want to create a membership site.


Some may want to provide proprietary information, some may be offering educational material for a fee, some may want a private area to discuss matters that could be very personal, and others may just want a safe place to talk about whatever they want to. Whatever the reason, whether the membership site is paid or unpaid, WordPress is a great software platform to use as a springboard to turn your blog into a membership site.


WordPress? The blog place? Yes, that WordPress. Although it is most often thought of as a blog site or software, WordPress has an ever expanding functionality. Users can turn their blogs into almost anything they want, including a membership site. While there are a number of paid plugins available, this article is focused on free options you can use to try out a membership site and see if it is right for you.


Convert WordPress Blog into Membership Site


So here are 5 WordPress plugins that can be used to turn the blog you started years ago into the membership site you want today.


1. WP-Members – Designed to restrict some or all of the content you publish to your blog, WP-Members allows excerpts and teasers of your posts to be viewable to the public. You decide how much by inserting the restriction tag where you want. In order for users to see the full post, they need to register and login, which is also available through the use of this plugin. Essentially the opposite of WordPress’ open nature, it blocks all content on your site to outsiders, and allows you to determine what is shown to those not logged in.


2. Members Only – This plugin will essentially block all access to your site unless someone is logged in. Visitors attempting to access information on the site will be met with a log-in page. Once logged in they will be re-directed back to where they started at. Includes functionality for restricting and managing feeds.


3. Wp-Private – Another teaser program, Wp-Private allows some of the content you post to be viewable by the public and the part that you don’t want seen to be accessible only by logging in. Great way to get people signed up to the site to see what else is going on.


4. Are Paypal – Designed to turn a blog into a sort of membership site, Are PayPal has numerous options. Owners can set up different levels of payments, for example pay to gain access to a single post, to the entire blog, or to whatever package of posts the owner chooses. Posts are visible to Google so they can be ranked in the search engine, yet privacy is retained and access is limited. Fully integrated with PayPal.


5. s2Member – More than just a way to collect PayPal for accessing the blog, s2Member bills itself as a full-featured membership management system that integrates with the WordPress software. Multiple levels of membership, custom access packages, ability to limit access to pages, posts, protection of tags, categories and even URLs, s2Member has many many options available. Probably the best and most expansive free plugin for paid membership sites.


Louise Baker writes about online colleges for Zen College Life and most recently ranked the best psychology schools. You can also submit guest posts and share your WordPress tips and tools.





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