tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9664761030516750392023-11-15T08:36:32.041-08:00Blog Building 101How to make a blog networkTitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-36015250988591397232013-10-03T08:01:00.001-07:002013-10-03T08:01:40.573-07:00Wordpress pugins to avoid<ul> <li><strong>Fuzzy SEO Booster</strong> is a Wordpress plugin you should avoid. Once a site becomes more popular, the plugin tends to cause a lot of MySQL issues.</li> <li><strong>WP PostViews</strong> is another problematic plugin. It's very inefficient and writes to the database on every page load.</li> <li><strong>Tweet Blender</strong> causes conflicts with cache plugins.</li> <li><strong>LinkMan</strong> is another inefficient plugin that has a tendency to kill databases with an insane amount of unnecessary database writes.</li> </ul> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-30950176743487874602013-03-12T01:43:00.001-07:002013-03-12T01:43:36.208-07:00How to enable the Blogroll in new versions of Wordpress<p>The developers removed the Blogroll from the user interface but the functionality is still part of the Wordpress core so you can easily turn it back on. Add this to your <em>functions.php</em> file in your theme to enable it:</p> <code>add_filter( 'pre_option_link_manager_enabled', '__return_true' );</code> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-87697953272186797592013-03-03T19:14:00.001-08:002013-03-03T19:14:44.526-08:00Ncftp on a dreamhost dedicated server<p>Today I was happy to learn that '<em><a href="http://www.ncftp.com/ncftp/">ncftp</a></em>', a popular ftp client, is already installed on <a href="http://blogbuilding101.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-to-fix-class-ziparchive-not-found.html">Dreamhost</a> servers.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-62218133491628309782013-02-13T11:44:00.001-08:002013-02-13T11:44:37.058-08:00Why you should not disable comments on your blog<p>Someone wrote the following comment on a Problogger <a href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/02/12/how-to-leverage-blog-comments-to-increase-search-rank/">blog post about comments on blogs</a>:</p> <blockquote>i have disabled comments on my blogs because i think 90% people do comments just to get backlinks.</blockquote> <p>So what if people comment on your <a href="http://blogbuilding101.blogspot.com/ncr">blog</a> with the intention of getting a link back to their site? If they add meaningful, related content by doing so, it will only benefit you:</p> <ul> <li>Your blog will get more content. This will make your site more popular with the search engine bots.</li> <li>Your blog will appear to be more active. People like to know they're not the only ones reading your posts and taking your advice.</li> <li>If you take the time to reply to those comments, people will return to read the replies. Engaging readers in meaningful discussions is an easy way to build a relationship with your readers.</li> </ul> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-17718245915082384572013-01-27T15:43:00.001-08:002013-01-27T15:43:14.670-08:00CSS 101: Cursor control<p>Want to determine what the cursor will look like when you hoover over a link?</p> <ul> <li>The default cursor:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: auto</code> <ul> <li>Gun-style cross:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: crosshair </code> <ul> <li>No change:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: default</code> <ul> <li>The normal <em>link-hand</em>:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: pointer; cursor: hand</code> <ul> <li>The hourglass:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: wait</code> <ul> <li>The text-selecting <em>I-beam</em>:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: text</code> <ul> <li>An arrow with a question-mark:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: help</code> <ul> <li>Cross-hair with arrows on the ends:</li> </ul> <code>cursor: move</code> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-75275222599526339592013-01-21T19:11:00.001-08:002013-01-21T19:11:25.402-08:00If you are not using PDO, you need to wake up<p>If you are still using the <em>mysql*</em> functions to access a MySQL database when writing new PHP scripts, you seriously need to wake and realize this is 2013 and not 2004. The old <em>mysql </em>functions are not being maintained anymore, lack support for the latest MySQL features and -if not carefully used- are prone to security problems.</p> <p><strong>Then what should I use instead?</strong></p> <p>It's simple: a more modern interface such as mysql<strong>i</strong> or PDO. And for most projects, I'd recommend PDO.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-82982925718288259192013-01-16T14:40:00.001-08:002013-01-16T14:40:29.499-08:00How To Fix "Class 'ZipArchive' Not Found" on Dreamhost<p>A plugin I installed needed the <em>ZipArchive </em>functionality and I got this error:</p> <blockquote>Class 'ZipArchive' Not Found</blockquote> <p>I found out that on <a href="http://blogbuilding101.blogspot.com/2012/12/back-up-your-wordpress-files-to-cloud.html">Dreamhost</a> virtual hosting accounts, the older versions of PHP don't have <em>ZipArchive</em> enabled, but the PHP 5.3 version does. So all you need to do to be able to run scripts that need <em>ZipArchive</em> is:</p> <ol> <li>Login to your Dreamhost Panel.</li> <li>Click <em>Manage Domains</em>.</li> <li>Find your domain and under <em>Web Hosting</em>, click <em>Edit</em>.</li> <li>Under <em>Web Options</em> use the dropdown menu to select PHP 5.3. (It doesn't matter whether you choose CGI or FastCGI)</li> <li>Click <em>Save Settings</em> and wait approximately 10 minutes.</li> </ol> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-74792492053818426972013-01-02T07:15:00.001-08:002013-01-02T07:15:20.989-08:00WordPress Backup to Dropbox<p>Last week we talked about backing up your <a href="http://blogbuilding101.blogspot.com/2012/12/back-up-your-wordpress-files-to-cloud.html">WordPress files to Dreamhost's cloud service</a>. An alternative (or additional tool in your backup arsenal) is Dropbox. using <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-backup-to-dropbox/">this Wordpress plugin</a> you can backup your WordPress blog, its media and database to Dropbox.</p> <p>Once installed, the authorization process is easy:</p> <ol> <li> When you first access the plugin's options page, it will ask you to authorize the plugin with Dropbox.</li> <li> A new window will open and Dropbox will ask you to authenticate and grant the plugin access.</li> <li> Finally, click continue to setup your backup</li> </ol> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-51117579457014679232012-12-25T14:25:00.001-08:002012-12-25T14:25:21.218-08:00Back up your WordPress files to the cloud with DreamObjects<p>As you may <a href="http://blogbuilding101.blogspot.com/2012/10/dreamhosts-cloud-service-goes-public.html">remember</a>, DreamObjects is <a href="http://www.dreamh0st.com">Dreamhost</a>'s cloud service that's API-compatable with both Amazon's S3 and OpenStack Object Storage. The people at Dreamhost have now released a <em><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/dreamobjects/">DreamObjects Plugin</a></em> for WordPress.</p> <p>After you've installed it, you can use the plugin to automatically back up your entire WordPress installation (both your database and any associated files like themes and uploaded files) to your DreamObjects storage buckets.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-75623459052045029372012-12-24T13:09:00.001-08:002012-12-24T13:09:11.630-08:00WordPress Popunder Plugin<p>A free popunder plugin for WordPress: <a href="https://github.com/chrismccoy/popunder">download</a>.</p> <p>You can configure the plugin via the options panel:</p> <ol> <li>Pick a url you want to send too.</li> <li>Set the expire time, 24,45,72, etc in hours, use 0 to expire when browser is closed.</li> <li>Select which pages to have the popunder on: index, category, search, etc. </li> </ol> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-33954001617170669202012-12-19T08:04:00.001-08:002012-12-19T08:04:49.366-08:00New in WordPress 3.5<p>WordPress 3.5 brings with it the usual raft of bug fixes, improvements, and other under-the-hood tweaks that only a blogger could love.</p> <p>Among them:</p> <ul> <li>A new media manager.</li> <li>A new default theme. Despite its simple elegance, it manages to showcase all the latest business in <em>themery</em>.</li> <li>Admin enhancements. It's Retina display-ready now!</li> <li>Plenty of new tools that should make theme and plugin developers much happier. </li> </ul> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-60455354938625269842012-11-22T06:19:00.001-08:002012-11-22T06:19:48.863-08:00What is FeedWordPress?<p>I use a WordPress plugin called <a href="http://feedwordpress.radgeek.com/">FeedWordPress</a> in a lot of my projects. FeedWordPress is an Atom/RSS aggregator for WordPress. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress blog. In other words, each new post that appears on one of your feeds will be added as a new post in your WordPress blog.</p> <p>You can use it to:</p> <ul> <li>Automate your blog.</li> <li>Import content from Pinterest, Twitter, Youtube and others.</li> <li>Show recent news and headlines on your site.</li> <li><a href="http://projects.radgeek.com/fwp-limit-size-of-posts/">Shorten</a> articles.</li> </ul> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-51650163245133192502012-11-22T06:05:00.001-08:002012-11-22T06:05:39.850-08:00Black Friday: $3.59 .US Domains<p>Moniker is selling .US registrations for $3.59. Offers ends on November 27.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-423491773218168042012-11-01T19:54:00.001-07:002012-11-01T19:54:36.800-07:00Webair Hurricane Sandy Update<p>Email from <a href="http://adult-web-host.net/review/webair.htm">webair</a>:</p> <blockquote>Webair announced today that it's flagship datacenter known as NY1, located in Garden City, NY received no major damage and performed without service interruption during and after Hurricane Sandy.<br> <br> Knowing the storm was approaching, Webair activated it's Emergency Response Procedure which included Generator Technicians testing and servicing all generators over the weekend prior to the storm, in addition to standard testing and maintenance. This included confirming all diesel fuel levels were optimal and ensuring the datacenter is staffed by multiple System Administrators, Network Administrators and Datacenter Engineers, 24/7 throughout the storm.</blockquote> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-34754382975513714612012-10-17T18:32:00.001-07:002012-10-17T18:32:40.075-07:00Dreamhost's Cloud Service Goes Public<p><a href="http://blogbuilding101.blogspot.com/2012/09/dreamhost-announces-new-cloud-storage.html">Dreamhost's cloud service</a> just went public.</p> <blockquote>DreamObjects is API-compatable with both Amazon's S3 and OpenStack Object Storage (formerly known as Swift,) so many of your cloud-storage- aware apps will work with it right away.</blockquote> <p>Storage costs start at just $0.07 per GB and scale all the way down to $0.044, giving Amazon S3 a run for its money.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-55916510641228894032012-09-13T16:56:00.001-07:002012-09-13T16:56:12.360-07:00Dreamhost announces new cloud storage service<p>From <a href="http://www.dreamh0st.com">Dreamhost</a>:</p> <blockquote>We're excited because we've taken the wraps off of something that we're calling "DreamObjects", our NEW cloud storage service.</blockquote> <blockquote>DreamObjects is so named because it uses the concept of data "objects" where data is stored in giant virtual "buckets". You might make one bucket to house your music collection, another for photos, and a third for documents pertaining to your gross, gross hobby. You can even designate files within each of your buckets as being public or private at a moment's notice.</blockquote> <p>Unlike traditional web hosting where monthly pricing is fixed and resources are unlimited, pricing for DreamObjects is usage-based. You only pay for data that you store on our servers and for the amount of data that is transferred from them.</p> <p>Storage costs start at $0.07 per GB (Amazon S3 starts at $0.12!) and scales all the way down to $0.044 per GB, depending on just how much data you choose to store with us. Outbound transfer costs are fixed at $0.07 per GB.</p> <p>And the best part? DreamObjects is API-compatible with both Amazon's <em>S3</em> and <em>OpenStack Object Storage</em>, so if you're a web developer and your app is storing data on either of those platforms, <a href="http://www.dreamh0st.com">DreamObjects</a> could potentially be a drop-in replacement for you. You could be like, 30 minutes away from saving a sizable chunk of money!</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-37231165595804108632012-07-30T07:19:00.000-07:002012-07-30T07:20:00.388-07:00How to delete pending comments on a wordpress blog<p><strong>Via mysql command:</strong></p> <blockquote>DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved=0</blockquote> <p>Note: If your comments table is prefixed with <em>wp_something</em> will need to use the correct table name.</p> <p><strong>Via a plugin:</strong></p> <ul> <li>'<a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/delete-pending-comments/">Delete pending comments</a>'.</li> <li>'<a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bulk-comment-remove/">Bulk comments remove</a>'.</li> <li>'Akismet'. (it has a 'delete all' button)</li> </ul> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-76401524847849635242012-07-14T18:39:00.001-07:002012-07-14T18:39:53.329-07:00Keep It Simple - Lessons From The Cold WarIn the early 1980s, a Russian pilot defected with his aircraft. When the US military examined the aircraft, they found the nose dropped and behind it were an assortment of vacuum tubes. At first this confused the American experts, until they tested the idea that vacuum tubes do not burn out when exposed to an <em>Electromagnetic Pulse</em>. It was another <em>KISS</em> (<strong>K</strong>eep <strong>I</strong>t <strong>S</strong>imple, <strong>S</strong>tupid) principle idea that worked just like using a pencil instead of trying to design a pen that works in zero gravity. Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-3662185697747425492012-06-26T17:56:00.001-07:002012-06-26T17:56:06.687-07:00Using Wordpress As A Paysite CMSUse two Wordpress installs, each with its own databases. One for the outside <em>tour</em> and <em>signup</em> pages and another Wordpress install that's in a password protected (use htpasswd) <em>/members</em> directory. Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-26700469566931689562012-06-26T04:27:00.001-07:002012-06-26T04:27:05.165-07:00Converting videos to h264 for mobile devices<p>Some software has <em>iphone presets</em>. Do NOT use those presets. They won't stream to Android based devices if you use an embed like jwplayer. It has something to do with the marker that the presets place in the header. So use <em>customized mp4</em> instead. It took me an age to work out that little dilemma.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-5375503409860893592012-06-15T13:36:00.001-07:002012-06-15T13:36:26.830-07:00PSPad<a href="http://www.pspad.com/en/">PSPad</a> is a freeware text editor and source code editor with syntax highlighting for many languages including PHP, Perl, HTML, and Java. One thing I love about it is that it is packaged ready-to-run, so that no installer needs to be run. Give it a try. Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-64152391477275007402012-06-13T13:02:00.001-07:002012-06-13T13:02:08.261-07:00WordPress 3.4 released<p><a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.4">codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.4</a></p> <p><strong>The Highlights:</strong></p> <p><strong>Enhanced theme control</strong></p> <ul> <li> Customize theme options before activating a new theme using Theme Customizer</li> <li> Use Theme Previewer to customize current theme without changing the front-end design</li> </ul> <p><strong>Custom Headers</strong></p> <ul> <li> Improved Custom Headers with flexible sizes</li> <li> Selecting Custom Header Images and Custom Background Images from Media Library Screen </li> </ul> <p><strong>Media improvements</strong></p> <ul> <li>Support HTML in image captions</li> </ul> <p><strong>Under the Hood improvements</strong></p> <ul> <li> Improvements in WordPress internationalization and localization (more info)</li> <li> Different split in translation POT files for faster translations</li> <li> Codex XML-RPC information update accessed via XML-RPC_WordPress_API</li> <li> WP_Query improvements </li> </ul> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-85211312442589839302012-06-06T08:21:00.001-07:002012-06-06T08:21:24.909-07:00Dreamhost adds Multifactor Authentication<p>From their email:</p> <blockquote>Think of it as a second password to login to your web panel - because that's exactly what it is. Except, unlike your traditional password, this one changes every 30 seconds. And the only way to know what this second password is to launch Google's Authenticator app!<br><br>We've picked the <a href="http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Enabling_Multifactor_Authentication">Google Authenticator</a> app to deliver this functionality because it's available on Android devices, iOS devices like the iPhone, BlackBerry devices, and even on Windows Phone via 3rd party apps. </blockquote> <p>Don't worry, it's only optional. If you don't want to install that Big G app, you don't need to. Frankly, I'm glad it's only optional because even though I'm very happy with <a href="http://www.dreamh0st.com">Dreamhost's service</a>, I'd drop them in a heartbeat if they ever forced me to use a Google app.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-34196077162533094142012-05-25T07:46:00.001-07:002012-05-25T07:46:22.107-07:00Online privacy once again under attack<p>This time, <a href="http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/internet/3359850/proposed-new-york-legislation-would-ban-anonymous-online-comments/">the attack</a> on privacy and <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/anonymous-online-speech-ban/">free speech</a> comes from the New York state Senate floor, where is bill is aiming to cut down on <em>cyberbullying</em>, protect small businesses (yeah right), and <strong>protect politicians from anonymous attacks during campaign season</strong>.</p> <p><a href="http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/new-york-lawmakers-messing-big-time.html">This amendment</a> would, were it approved (which it won't be, so don't worry), require New York-based websites to remove comments posted by anonymous users, unless said users agree to attach their names to said comments.</p> <p>And this isn't some wishy-washy Google+ "real name" nonsense, either -- you can't just offer up a real-sounding name to attach to your comment and be done with it. <strong>According to the text of the bill, the anonymous poster must agree to attach his or her name to the post and "confirm that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate"</strong>.</p> <p>As Chris Weigant of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/online-censorship_b_1541144.html">The Huffington Post</a> points out:</p> <blockquote>Speaking out on politics in whatever technological medium exists - and remaining anonymous while doing so - is not just one of the foundational rights our government was built on, it was actually largely responsible for our nation and our government even existing.</blockquote> <p>Violet Blue from CNET points out the <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57439715-93/whats-behind-the-ny-bills-to-ban-anonymous-online-comments/">practical problems</a>:</p> <blockquote>That's right: <strong>if someone doesn't like your comment the Web site will be legally bound to make you reveal your identity</strong>. The accused commenter will also be required to verify that his or her "IP address, legal name and home address are accurate." <br><br> <strong>Since most Web sites don't have the resources or time to police comments in such an overreaching manner, the <a href="http://www.decryptedtech.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=795:new-york-is-trying-to-pass-a-law-limiting-anonymous-posting&Itemid=139">Internet Protection Act</a>, if passed, will most likely result in the mass deletion of comments for any reason</strong> -- or none at all.<br> ...<br>The identity of those complaining will not need to be verified as "real." </blockquote> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-966476103051675039.post-88917768296029979182012-05-25T05:41:00.001-07:002012-05-25T05:41:43.524-07:00Microsoft asked Google to remove more than 500,000 links<p>Google recently <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18204411">shared information</a> about the number of takedown requests they get. In July 2011, the point at which its statistics start, Google was getting requests to remove 129,063 links per week. In May 2012 this figure had risen to 284,850. In the past month, more than 1.2 million links on 24,000 separate sites were removed. Requests to de-list links came from 1,296 separate <a href="http://c4sif.org/category/copyright/">copyright</a> holders. Google said it granted about 97% of requests to remove links and it usually took about 11 hours for any request to have an effect on search results. Just under half of the requests for removals came from <a href="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</a>.</p> <p>I wonder if Google will be seeing an additional increase in takedown requests with the recent attention <a href="http://blogbuilding101.blogspot.com/2012/05/seomoz-and-googles-unnatural-links.html">negative seo</a> got and someone mentioned on Traffic Forum that he used to send fake takedown requests to get his competition delisted.</p> Titohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03048086196821694004noreply@blogger.com