Here’s a heads up about what happens to your Akismet plugin once you install WordPress 3.3

First, ALL comments posted to my blogs were going into spam after I installed WordPress 3.3. Ergo, I wasn’t getting email messages about comments being held in moderation. Thought no one was enjoying my latests posts until I found nearly 100 ‘good’ comments in the Spam box.

Then the BBPress Forum on Affiliate Blogger PRO stopped working. I got a message from one of our members that they couldn’t post to the forum. I checked and it seemed to work, so I asked him to try again and never heard anything back. I received an email about the same problem from another member this morning and discovered that new posts to the forum were automatically being deleted.

Suddenly something in my tiny cranium clicked that the problem must have something to do with Akismet.

Sure enough, when you install WordPress 3.3 and do the Akismet upgrade, things go awry.

The fix?

Easy enough. Go into the Akismet configuration panel on your WordPress blog and you’ll discover that the API key is no longer there.

Once you re-enter and save it… all is well once more.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

I’m finally getting around to upgrading my last few blogs to the Genesis Framework from StudioPress and have decided to spare my readers the ugliness that usually accompanies such a change.

In this video I discuss how to use a plugin that allows you to test drive a new WordPress theme in the background, so that you won’t miss a single click, commission or subscriber signup from your blog’s readers.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ever wondered how webmasters create feed mashups?

If you don’t know what I mean by ‘feed mashup’, take a look the homepage of this blog where it says “Ros’ Other Blog Posts“. You’ll see another example on my personal blog under “Recent on Ros’ Other Blogs“.

What you’ll notice is that the most recent posts from a variety of my blogs show up in those spots.

In the past, I’ve used software to create mashups, but now I’m using Google Reader.

Creating your own mashup with Google Reader is easy.

• Subscribe to the feeds you want to publish in Google Reader.
• Create a new folder and assign the feeds to that folder.
• Make the folder public by going into Manage Subscriptions (on the bottom left-hand side of the page), Settings, then Folders and Tags.
• The public page now has a feed of its own which includes all the feeds in the folder. To get the feed URL, click on “View Public Page” and copy the link.
• To post the mashup on your WordPress blog, go into Widgets and drag the RSS widget into the section where you want it placed, i.e. the sidebar.
• Enter the URL, a title and other particulars as you want the feed displayed.

So there you have it, an rss feed mashup of your own!.

With my latest WordPress upgrade, I once again ran into problems with my Max Banner ads program not functioning properly.

Folks would click the ad and see a page full of “set_magic_quotes_runtime is deprecated” text.

UGH!!

This isn’t an MBA problem, but rather a WordPress problem and easy to fix.

Watch the video below to learn how to fix “set_magic_quotes_runtime is deprecated” errors.

I like placing tag clouds on my blogs’ sidebars or footers.

Displaying your blog’s tags in cloud format is an easy way to point your visitors to your most popular topics.

The WordPress default tag cloud appearance leaves a little to be desired however, so this article explains how to format prettier tag clouds.

In the screenshot below, the default tag cloud widget is shown under #1. You can see that it takes up a lot of space and that the large fonts are VERY large. Unfortunately, the only items your can configure with this widget are the widget’s title and the taxonomy… whether you wish to display tags or categories.

Making improvements to the tag cloud appearance is easy when you use a plugin. The Configurable Tag Cloud plugin and the Super Tags plugin are shown in positions #2 and #3, repectively.

These plugins give you the option to increase or decrease the number of tags that you display, change the font sizes, change the sort order and so much more. The options for both of these widgets is shown below.

Configurable Tag Cloud Widget

• Title - Title shown in sidebar.
• Number of Tags to Display - Controls the total number of tags in your cloud.
• Min. Number of Posts - Tags with less than this number of posts will not be displayed.
• Max. Number of Posts - Tags with more than this number of posts will not be displayed.
• Font Display Unit - What unit to use for font sizes.
• Smallest Font Size - Tags will be displayed no smaller than this value.
• Largest Font Size - Tags will be displayed no larger that this value.
• Min. Tag Color - Beginning color for tag gradient. Please include the #.
• Max. Tag Color - Ending color for tag gradient. Please include the #.
• Cloud Format - How to display the cloud.
• Show Tags - Display tags in cloud.
• Show Categories - Display categories in cloud.
• Show Empty - Display empty categories in cloud.
• Display Post Count? - Show number of posts for each tag.
• Sort By - What field to sort by.
• Sort Order - Direction of sort.

Super Tags Widget

• Title:
• Smallest Font Size ( optional / in pixels ):
• Largest Font Size ( optional / in pixels ):
• Max Tags To Display ( optional / number > 1 ):
• Format ( optional / flat or list ):
• Orderby ( optional / name or count ):
• Order ( optional / ASC, DESC, or RAND ):
• Exclude ( optional / comma separated term IDs ):
• Include ( optional / comma separated term IDs ):
• Taxonomy ( optional / post_tag, category, or link_category ):

Both plugins are available for download via your wordpress blog. Either search for their names under Plugins > Add New or visit Configurable Tag Cloud and Super Tags Widget on WordPress.

Although not as robust as the Configurable Tag Cloud Widget, I have chosen to use the Super Tags widget on this blog.

NOTE: If you prefer to hard code the default WordPress tag cloud, please read the documentation for the wp_tag_cloud() function on the WordPress Codex.

So… do you use tag clouds on your blog? Do you pretty them up with a widget or are you using the default WordPress plugin? Do tell!

WordPress Version 3.1 was released to the public on February 23, 2011.

Highlights include:

• Internal Linking – click a button for an internal link and it allows you to search for a post or browse a list of existing content and select it for inclusion.
• Streamlined Writing Interface – new users of WordPress will find the write screen much less cluttered than before, as more of the options are hidden by default. You can click on Screen Options in the top right to bring them back.
• Post Formats – meta information that can be used by themes to customize presentation of a post. Read more in the article Post Formats.
• Network Admin – move Super Admin menus and related pages out of the regular admin and into a new Network Admin screen.
• List-type Admin Screens – sortable columns for list-type screens and better pagination.
• Exporter/Importer Overhaul – many under the hood changes including adding author information, better handling for taxonomies and terms, and proper support for navigation menus.
• Custom Content Type Improvements – allows developers to generate archive pages, and have better menu and capability controls. Read more in the article Post Types.
• Advanced Queries – allows developers to query multiple taxonomies and custom fields.
• Refreshed Blue Admin Color Scheme – puts the focus more squarely on your content.

My personal favorite change is the new Admin bar which contains various links to useful admin screens. By default, the admin bar is displayed when a user is logged in and visiting the site and is not displayed in admin screens for single blog installs.

Here’s a screenshot of how the Admin bar displays for this site when I’m logged into the site and viewing any of the posts or pages.

For more information on this enhancement and bug release, read the WordPress Blog.

WordPress 3.0.3 was released to the public yesterday (December 8, 2010). This latest release is a security update for all previous versions, which according to WordPress:

Fixes issues in the XML-RPC remote publishing interface which under certain circumstances allowed Author- and Contributor-level users to improperly edit, publish or delete posts.

If you have users operating at those levels, it’s a good idea to update your blog ASAP!

The following article and video were submitted by Rosalind Gardner’s Academy member, Mark Washburn, who was keen to share what is undoubtedly the best solution to date for complete and easy WordPress backups (including blog, membership software, forum and more…) and WordPress blog cloning.

Read Mark’s review of the WPTwin plugin and watch the video below to see how simple it is to use.

I’ve made a point to back up my WordPress database and files routinely over time. These days you can’t afford not to because sites get hacked, code get’s messed up, or databases run into problems. Any one of these things can take a site out of commission and and the logical remedy is to run regular backups.

In theory, restoring a site from a back up shouldn’t be too hard. You save the database and some primary folders that contain the theme and plugins, install WordPress again,and the rest should be easy…unless something goes wrong… and a few weeks ago, something went wrong for me.

I decided to move a fairly small WordPress site from one host to another. I followed the normal routine and then found, when I launched the site at the new location, things got really screwed up.

Somewhere along the way a forum lost all of it’s content, many of the plugins didn’t activate properly, and my theme got screwed up…so basically I found myself having to set the site up all over again. I was really disappointed.

Nevertheless, I kept thinking about the fact that so many other things are incredibly easy with WordPress, but backups continue to be kind of “primitive“. There are a handful of backup plugins that you can install and use but some haven’t been updated in quite awhile and others end up being helpful but they aren’t a complete solution.

A few days later I shared my frustration with a friend of mine and he told me about a new program called WPTwin that is designed to easily and quickly clone or replicate an entire WordPress site from top to bottom. I have to admit, he piqued my interest, but I didn’t buy the software right away.

A few days later however, I went back into that WordPress site I had tried to relocate. I wasn’t even close to getting everything back to it’s original form. It was going to take at least a few hours, if not days of work and it made me sick to even think about all of that.

And then I remembered something one of my online mentors once told me. He said:

“You have to spend the majority of your time being focused and working on things that matter most, and if you’re trying to make money online, you better be focused on generating great content, finding great affiliate offers or products, and building good incoming links for traffic…everything else is minor and usually a distraction!”

And he’s right. You don’t make a dime endlessly tweaking (i.e. fighting with code) to bring a theme to perfection, or while you’re constantly researching that next great article that you can’t seem to get written, or…doing the mundane work of backing up and hopefully restoring a website should the need arise.

With that said, backing up your work is critical, so you might say I finally saw the light of common sense, and bought WPTwin. If it had the potential to save me days of unnecessary work and helped me avoid future frustrations, it was worth my time to test it out!

After getting the program, I read through the instructions and found the replication process to be very simple.

The program contains two php files. The first one is uploaded into the root folder of the WordPress site that you want to clone. Once uploaded, you simply access the url of the php file page and click one button. Usually within about 30 seconds (large sites may take longer and the system has been tested on sites as large as 4 gigs), you’ll have a replication file that’s available for downloading to your computer.

Using the example of moving a website from one host to another, you would simply set up a new WordPress install on the new hosting account. Upload the replication file along with another small php file which contains the deployment code into the root folder of the WordPress install. Then by simply visiting the url of this php file, entering the email that you provided when purchasing WPTwin, and clicking a final button to activate the process, within another 30 seconds or less you’ll have a fully functioning, identical clone to your original site!

After testing the process on one of my sites, I continued to back up and test the deployment of a handful of my other WordPress based sites. Several of these included unique plugins such as the Wishlist Member membership plugin and the Simple Press forum plugin. And in every case the process worked flawlessly!

All content, comments, videos, pictures, settings, login information, and plugins (and their settings) are duplicated precisely. The only thing you’ll likely want to change is in the general settings folder of WordPress where you can change the title of the new site.

The instructions that come with WPTwin are clear and easy to understand but you’ll probably only need to read through them once. It also comes with video tutorials that cover every step in the implementation process should you ever need them. Customer support has been very good at responding to questions in a timely manner and according to them, several updates are planned in future releases, one of which includes a scheduling module to create automatic backups as often as you need them.

With all of my WordPress sites now backed up and secure I’m confident that I won’t ever have to go through the recent turmoil of rebuilding a site from scratch again.

For well under $100 WPTwin has turned out to be one of the best investments I’ve made in software in several years. I simply can’t recommend it highly enough. It finally brings the WordPress back up process up to speed and makes it so easy that anyone can do it without fear and frustration.

Gosh, I just love sharing my little blogging horror stories with you.

It’s not my intention to scare you or dissuade you from blogging. I just want you to be aware of the mistakes that I’ve made, so you won’t make them as well.

BTW, in case you don’t know — before getting into affiliate marketing and blogging, I was an air traffic controller.

The most useful phrase I learned during that time was:

“Learn from the mistakes of others; you’ll not live long enough to make them all yourself”.

Anyway, this little lesson comes from a WordPress upgrade that I completely botched.

All would have been fine had I bothered to stop, think and follow my own basic instructions — backup your blog prior to upgrading to the latest version of WordPress.

But after a number of successful automatic updates to other blogs, I ignored my own advice and just hit the “Click Here to Automatically Upgrade WordPress to latest Version ___” link on the AffiliateBloggerPRO member blog.

Initially, I saw nothing wrong with the blog’s functionality, so I went on my merry way.

A couple of days later I realized what a mess I’d made.

Very few of the images were working. All those that had been uploaded via the WordPress administration to the wp-content/uploads/ folder were no longer linked correctly. In fact, some of the images had been deleted.

I started getting “Allowed memory size of 33554432″ errors.

Page slugs and image names were changed… then things got worse.

One new member had somehow acquired ID #1, which had been mine. All my posts on both the blog and the BuddyPress forum were now attributed to that new member.

‘Members’ refers to those members who joined through the Wishlist Member software, not as registered members via the WordPress interface.

And therein was the problem.

The Wishlist Member software is the crucial component in making that site run properly, and I hadn’t checked the developer’s site to make sure that it integrated with the WordPress update.

Had I bothered to do that, I would have seen that Stu and crew were still working to make the latest version of Wishlist Member integrate properly with the new WordPress.

And without a backup, I didn’t have the option to roll back to the previous version of WordPress.

Aargh.

All in all, I wasted nearly a day getting the site back together.

So, you know what the lesson is … again … backup before upgrading!!!

I’ve uploaded, activated and reviewed a number of different plugins and software applications intended to increase your subscribers – most of which I’ve never told you about.

But Subscribers Magnet is different — in a VERY good way… and the reason I’m telling you about it NOW, is because it is 30% off until but only until October 1st.

First things first, ‘Subscribers Magnet’ is a WordPress plugin, which makes it super easy to install and activate.

See the graphic up and to the right?

Yes, the plugin automatically recognizes and fills in your visitor’s name and email address to encourage signups. You have the option to add your opt-in form all over your blog, and actually ‘seduce’ your visitors to join your list, in a very friendly manner.

Watch this video to see Subscribers Magnet in action.

You can add the form to your WordPress footer or within the post itself.

Better still, you can add a subscription box to the footer and decide how often it will show.

(You might be seeing the footer bar right now.)

Plus, you have full control over the look, feel, location and functionality of your forms and it works with AWeber (my favorite), GetResponse, and other major autoresponders.

The developers suggest that Subscribers Magnet could actually triple your sign-up rate almost overnight, without you having to get more blog visitors than you’re already getting. (I WILL be testing that statement and letting you know how it works. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to report my results before their discount offer has ended. No problem though – they do offer a money-back guarantee).

Suppose the assertion is true and you get 100 unique visitors to your blog on a daily basis and receive a 5% conversion ratio, meaning 5 subscribers. If you use Subscribers Magnet, you should get 15 subscribers instead, from the same amount of traffic.

Just think about it!

If you’re all about the list and optimizing it for better performance (which really should be one of your first priorities), you will love this plugin!

Here’s my caveat. You should NOT buy ‘Subscribers Magnet’…

1. If, once you finish watching the video, you still don’t see its real value
2. If you receive less than 10 visitors a day to your blog
3. If you don’t plan to actually test-drive it on your blog.

On the other hand, you should BUY Subscribers Magnet:

1. If you want to double, triple and even quadruple your subscription rate ‘overnight’ – and do it over and over again, day and night, week after week, month after month!
2. If you want optimum list conversion and to get maximum value from your blog’s real estate by placing your opt-in form in strategic, non-intrusive locations, where anybody can see it.

P.S. Here are some other amazing features that I haven’t found on other subscriber plugins:

• A. You can show the signup form in your footer bar in a highly visible but not obnoxious way. Very good for turning first time visitors into subscribers.
• B. You can also end “automatic” and highly-personalized ‘thank you messages’ by email on the first occasion someone comments on your blog. Think of the possibilities! In that message you can invite them to join your newsletter or rss feed. It’s another “friendly” reason to create trust with your readers and get them on your list, in a non intrusive way!
• C. Plus, there’s unique tracking available for each subscription method – you will know which forms perform better than others; with this new found knowledge, you’ll be able to skyrocket your sign-up rate like never before!

P.P.S. Download your copy of Subscribers Magnet PLUGIN now and GET a free copy of “Multiple Hit Strategy” with your purchase. This bonus item is a step-by-step guide detailing how to build your list FAST with this proprietary “multiple hit strategy”.