Wordpress 2.6.3 Released

Wordpress released a new version to Wordpress. It addresses a security vulnerability. You can reinstall or just update two files.

You can download Wordpress here.

Two files will need to be replaced:

wp-includes/class-snoopy.php

wp-includes/version.php

Thats all you need to do. Just ftp into your web hosting account and replace those files.

Installing Wordpress for a Test Environment

Here are directions on how to install wordpress and xampplite for a testing environment on a PC. You can make changes to your themes and plugins first in your testing environment before making the changes to your production website. Coming soon I am working on steps to backup your current production website and restoring it in your testing environment for a better testing environment.

Download XAMPP Lite (.exe is recommended) – http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#646

Download Wordpress - http://wordpress.org/download/

Install Xampplite – Xampplite provides an apache server emulation. Installing xampplite on your machine will make your machine will allow you to run Wordpress on your machine.
1. Drag Xampplite-w3.exe to the Virtual Machine window.
2. Double click on Xmapplite-w3.exe, extract xampplite to C:\
3. Click Extract.
4. Open the xampplite folder on your C:
5. Click setup_xampp.bat
6. Press any key when prompted.
7. Click on xampp-control.exe.
8. Click on the Start Button for Apache. Click Unblock if prompted.
9. Click on the Start Button for MySQL. Click Unblock if prompted.

Create the wordpress database
1. Open the browser in the virtual machine.
2. Type in http://localhost/xampp/splash.php for the address.
3. Click on your language.
4. On the left side under Tools, click on phpMyAdmin.
5. Look for the Create new database fields on the right side.
6. Enter wordpress for the database name.
7. Select utf8_unicode_ci .
8. Click Create.

Install Wordpress
1. Extract the wordpress files from the wordpress zip file.
2. Extract the files to c:\xampplite\htdocs
3. open c:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress\wp-config-sample.php.
4. Modify the following

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘root’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ”); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to

Your database name should be wordpress.
Your db_user name should be root.
The db_password should be left blank

5. Save the file as wp-config.php.
6. In the browser window go to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php
7. Enter your blog title.
8. Click Install Wordpress.
9. Copy the username and password.
10. Click Login.
11. Change the password to a password you can remember.
12. Wordpress is now configured.

To access your wordpress admin page go to – http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin
To access your wordpress website go to – http://localhost/wordpress

Plugins and themes can be copied to
C:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\plugins
C:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\themes

Setting up a Wordpress Testing Environment with Virtual PC

This details how to setup a virtual testing environment with Windows XP and Virtual PC. You can setup a wordpress testing environment on your machine but using a virtual testing environment leaves minimal footprint and modifications to your current machine. The same principles apply when working with other virtual environments but this is catered toward Windows XP and Windows Vista Users. If you would like to install Wordpress on your PC instead of a virtual environment check out these instructions on how to install a Wordpress testing environment on a PC.


System Requirements:
• Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1
• Atleast 4 GB RAM
• 10 GB of availabile disk space


Here is what you need to do:
NOTE: The XP virtual hard drive will expire after a certain date. You want to make sure you backup your files in case it expires. If you want a long term solution, install xampplite directly on your machine. Here are the instructions to install Wordpress and Xampplite directly onto your workstation.

1. Download Virtual PC 2007 – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=28C97D22-6EB8-4A09-A7F7-F6C7A1F000B5&displaylang=en
2. Download the virtual PC image of your choice. I have only tested this on Windows XP, but is should work on Vista also. - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en (XP SP3 with IE6 is recommended).
3. Download XAMPP Lite (.exe is recommended) – http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#646
4. Download Wordpress - http://wordpress.org/download/
5. Install Virtual PC 2007
6. Expand the downloaded image that was downloaded in Step 2.
7. Start Virtual PC and add the VHD.
a. Click on the New button on the Virtual PC Console.
b. Click Next.
c. Select Create a virtual machine.
d. Enter a name for the virtual machine.
e. Select the Windows XP as the Operating System.
f. Adjust the RAM if needed, I recommend atleast 500 MB or up to 1GB if you have enough RAM.,
g. Select An existing virtual hard disk.
h. Click Browse to find the expanded virtual PC image. For this example we are using the XP SP3 with IE6 VHD. Select XP SP3 with IE6.vhd.
i. You can choose Enabled undo disks to revert back and commit any change. For this case I have chosen not to enable the undo disks.
j. Click Finish.
8. Go back to the Virtual PC console.
9. Highlight your Virtual Machine you just created, click Settings.
10. Click on Networking, on the right side select your network adapter. If you want Internet access from the virtual machine, select your network adapter that is connected to the Internet.
11. Click OK
12. Click Start to start your virtual machine.


Install Xampplite – Xampplite provides an apache server emulation. You can install this on your machine without Virtual PC. With the Virtual PC, you have the ability to uninstall things and to have an actual server like environment.
1. Drag Xampplite-w3.exe to the Virtual Machine window.
2. Double click on Xmapplite-w3.exe, extract xampplite to C:\
3. Click Extract.
4. Open the xampplite folder on your C:
5. Click setup_xampp.bat
6. Press any key when prompted.
7. Click on xampp-control.exe.
8. Click on the Start Button for Apache. Click Unblock if prompted.
9. Click on the Start Button for MySQL. Click Unblock if prompted.


Create the wordpress database
1. Open the browser in the virtual machine.
2. Type in http://localhost/xampp/splash.php for the address.
3. Click on your language.
4. On the left side under Tools, click on phpMyAdmin.
5. Look for the Create new database fields on the right side.
6. Enter wordpress for the database name.
7. Select utf8_unicode_ci .
8. Click Create


Install Wordpress
1. Extract the wordpress files from the wordpress zip file.
2. Extract the files to c:\xampplite\htdocs
3. open c:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress\wp-config-sample.php.
4. Modify the following


define(’DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘root’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ”); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to

Your database name should be wordpress.
Your db_user name should be root.
The db_password should be left blank

5. Save the file as wp-config.php.
6. In the browser window go to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php
7. Enter your blog title.
8. Click Install Wordpress.
9. Copy the username and password.
10. Click Login.
11. Change the password to a password you can remember.
12. Wordpress is now configured.

Goto http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin to access your Wordpress admin page.

Goto http://localhost/wordpress to see you wordpress website.

Plugins and themes can be copied to


C:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\plugins
C:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\themes

Why you should have your own domain name

One of the reasons for having your own domain name for any blog or website is the legitimacy of your blog. If you have a website for your company you wouldnt want to host it on blogger.com or wordpress.com. These are very good companies if you want to try blogging or have your own website. But if you wanted to be a player with your website or blow, I would highly recommend having you own website.

Krishna De of BizGrowthNews wrote this article on Why Blogger is No Good for Business Blogging, the same reasons should apply to any person trying to leverage a website for marketing.

It kind of sets a message that your company cant afford to make the $6.95/month investment into a web hosting service provider. If you cant afford that, how can someone take you seriously. Imagine a company like Walmart having their blog on blogger.com like walmart.blogger.com – How would you know it is really a Walmart blog ? But if it was www.walmart.com/blog or blog.walmart.com then you would know for sure that it is a blog from Walmart. Unfortunately with the Internet these days you need that warm and fuzzy. I know Walmart is not the best example of a company not paying for a web hosting provider but you get the point !

Logo Design Services

We now offer logo design services through our partners – LogoBee - Prices start at $199 and up to $1199. Enter coupon #9488 for $20 off regular priced package. Here is what you receive for $199:

• You can choose from 6 different custom designed logo design samples.
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• If for some reason, we did not match your chosen style in the initial drafts, we will give you a free redraw session with 6 completely new logo design variations. – Once you approve the final logo design your logo Kit will be sent to you by email with optimized files for the WEB: (*.GIF 72dpi, *.JPEG 150dpi, *.PNG-24 (transparent)), vector resizable files for printing (*.AI, *.EPS, high-resolution image (*.TIFF 300dpi) in RGB and black/white colors, if the logo has less than 4 colors we will also provide Pantone colors.

Check out their customers and testimonials.

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Website of the Month

We are now taking nominees for website of the month. You site will be featured on our Website of the Month page. You may nominate yourself. How can you be the website of the month ?

• Unique and interesting theme and design.
• Interesting content.
• You use Wordpress as your blog and web platform.

Those are just a few things.  We have no system. Its just based on our judgement. Submit your site for review today ! email us at rob@blogger911.com

Top 10 Web Traffic Tips

In every bloggers life comes a special day – the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader – you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don’t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry – it’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important – it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it’s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

Revolution Themes – Wordpress Themes

One of the themes that I like are the themes offered by Revolution Themes. I used the Revolution Theme – Sports Theme for my website The Sports Affiliate. There are a lot of themes out there but by far i think Revolution Themes has the best themes. It is easy to use and can be customized within an hour or two. Click on the banner for more details. It does take a little work to customize, but that’s what we are here for. But out of the box or once purchased and downloaded, you can put it to use immediately.

They have themes for Magazines, Sports, Tech, Real Estate, etc… up to 10 themes.

They have a developer package for $299.95 that gives you all the themes and you can use the themes as many times as you want.

A single use theme is $59.95. You can use a single theme for only one website. If you want to use the single theme for multiple websites it will costs $149.95.

It will definitely look better than a plain old wordpress theme and will make your website stand out.

Check out Revolution Themes today.

Bluehost – Web Hosting Partner

Starting at $6.95/month Bluehost will provide you with all that you will need to get you started.  All you need is to figure out your domain name, register through Bluehost, install Wordpress, and you are good to go.

Here is what is included for $6.95/month if you choose Bluehost:

• UNLIMITED Hosting Space (NEW!)
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Ready to start blogging ? Click on the banner below to sign up.

Blogging is Worth It – Man sells blog for up to $15 Million

Still think blogging is not worth it ? Well think again. Last week the Blog – Bankaholic was acquired by BankRate for up to $15 Million.

The Blog is run by one person – Johns Wu.

You never know what will happen with your blog that’s why even if you are in doubt, you should just give it a try. You may strike gold.

Here is the full story on ProBlogger.net.