The WordPress 3.0 has finally been launched after going through a strenuous development program. It is one of the most important releases for WordPress and this updated version comes along with a lot of enhanced features.

The upgraded WordPress 3.0 version comes with a lot of enhanced features. Some its latest additions include the Twenty ten default theme that will enable you a better platform to create your own themes. There is a menu management system that and also an enhanced post types which are in built. The latest APIs will allow users to implement headers, custom backgrounds, shortlinks, post types, menus and taxonomies with ease.

The latest WordPress 3.0 is laced with several other enhanced features and it will offer a completely new way of blogging. It has given a lot of emphasis on customization and this will be a great pull for users as they will be able to have their own choice of themes. This latest version will offer a much lighter user interface and the users will definitely welcome this change. Other significant addition to WordPress 3.0 is the ability to upgrade 15 plugins at a single click.

There is no doubt that with such superior features the WordPress 3.0 will be a great hit amongst the users. The upgrade is sure to offer a unique experience to users as well. Incidentally, the version 2.9 has been so far downloaded over 10.3 million times. Going by these statistics, this latest version is expected to be downloaded even more times.

The development team at WordPress has managed to release the first two release candidate for the version 3.0 of its platform for open source blogging as well as publishing in a space of a week. The latest release is aimed at providing its translation team clarity over the String Freeze app, which is fully operational now. The 3rd release in this series, which will be launched later this month, will have several new features and a whole series of updates.

It will have additional features to further enhance the user experience in WordPress. The most striking update is the latest menu management feature, along with an enhanced child theme support. The existing Kubrick theme will be replaced by a default theme called Twenty Ten. These old themes will not be a part of the distribution any more; however they will be available in the repository of themes.

Other important additions include support for customized theme backgrounds along with the option of updating the themes in bulk. Amongst other changes are the contextual help system, enhanced custom post types, custom taxonomies and a brand new comment tag.

Like any other development release, WordPress 3.0 is also advised not to be used in a production environment or in systems which are critical to the organisation. WordPress encourages users to test these releases and submit feedbacks and report back if they come across any malfunction. You can download WordPress 3.0 from the archives and it has been approved by the GPL under GNU.

• ISBN13: 9780672331206
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
Sams Teach Yourself WordPress in 10 Minutes   Chuck Tomasi Kreg Steppe   Sams Teach Yourself WordPress in 10 Minutes gives you straightforward, practical answers when you need fast results. By working through its 10-minute lessons, you’ll learn everything you need to build great blogs with WordPress and WordPress.org, and reach any audience by web browser, RSS, or cell phone!   Tips point out shortcuts and solutions   Cautions help you avoid common p… More >>

Sams Teach Yourself WordPress in 10 Minutes

Is WordPress Goldmine an unconventional SCAM? It’s perhaps one of the weirdest sales pages I have ever seen in the world of Internet Marketing. The sales page has the following headline…

“This is No Coventional Sales Page Because This is No Conventional Product”

Then, followed by a 7 minutes video telling you WHAT exactly you’re going to get inside the WordPress Goldmine package, an unconventional way of accessing and downloading the package after your purchase, and a couple of testimonials.

In the Internet Marketing world, normally you’ll see loads of HYPE and outrageous claims in the sales letters but you won’t find any of this in WP Goldmine’s sales page. That’s why it catched my attention.

Usually, I don’t pay much attention to WordPress guides. This is because I’m very familiar with WP and I find many information related to WP can easily be obtained for free (you just need to spend a little time searching the web).

Anyway, since it’s such an unconventional sales page and has a 60-day 100% money back guarantee, I got to give it a try and see what is it all about. So I bought WordPress Goldmine and here is my honest review.

WordPress Goldmine is written by Mark Thompson. The main guide is 128 pages long and divided into 5 parts. For those who are familiar with WP can skip or just skim through part 1 as it’s very basic. It shows you how to install WP, change the default settings, change the permalink structure (for SEO friendly purposes), set up the ping list, install new theme, install essential plugins, etc. Nothing is new to me in part 1.

In part 2, it discusses about CONTENT or what and how to add the right content. Essentially, it discusses about prewritten PLR articles and write-your-own articles. No matter where you get your content, it advises us to make our content UNIQUE. Because unique content is the linchpin for getting free organic traffic from the search engines.

Again, nothing is new for me so far. However, there is one thing that’s new to me in part 2, that’s a UAW WordPress Plugins that allows you to get unique content to your blog on auto pilot. I personnaly have NOT try this plugins so I can’t comment too much on this. And, I don’t think I want to try it in my existing blog. If I were to try it later, I would try it on a NEW blog as I don’t trust anything that sounds too good to be true.

Part 3 – Monetization. This is where WordPress Goldmine really shines. This is where it shows its real muscles. You’ll learn the various ways of monetizing or making money with your WordPress blog. The author provides indepth information on how he made $15,000 through just ONE blog post. You not only will see one of his LIVE blogs but he also shows you how you can follow his plan and set up similar blogs.

In my humble opinion, part 3 is perhaps the section that offers you most value for money! Even if you’re a very experienced WP user, I’ll guarantee that you’ll pick up something new here.

BUT, it gets better! In part 4, you’ll learn the author’s secret Traffic Generation System, how he gets organic traffic for FREE (no PPC ad costs, no buying traffic). You’ll also receive an easy to follow diagram that shows you all the steps and sites the author uses to generate free traffic to his blogs. If you follow and implement the WordPress Goldmine’s traffic generation system, the potential result for your site is immense.

I really thought that the guide should have concluded after part 4 but it doesn’t. It the final section (part 5), it shows you the advanced techniques the author uses to promote his blogs. However, the author strongly urges us to have created at least two blogs and apply all the methods taught in the previous sections before trying to learn the advance methods.

I agree! If you read WordPress Goldmine, you should master the basics first and then come back and tackle the advanced stuffs. Trust me on this, it will be a lot more effective if you can master the methods in previous sections first before moving on to part 5.

Last But Not Least

Besides the main guide, you’ll also receive a bonus package that consists of a software called “WordPress Secure Pro” to protect your blogs from unauthorised users and a set of videos (20 of them) showing you all the tricks on how to optimize your WordPress for SEO purposes.

Closing Comments:

WordPress Goldmine is a quality product that delivers a lot of value, unlike many other IM products that are over-promising and under-delivering. If one of your online business goals is to make money using WordPress blogs, then this product is worth considering.

Hope you find this review informative.

Download Your WordPress Goldmine Now Before The Price Increase!

Get my WordPress Goldmine BONUSES (worth more than $1,400) for FREE! I believe these bonuses can provide even more value for you and can help you to achieve success faster. So go and check them out while they’re still available!

• ISBN13: 9780470570920
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
Get your blog up and running with WordPress Are you itching to share your thoughts with the world through blogging but aren’t sure how? Teach Yourself VISUALLY WordPress introduces you to one of the most popular, easy-to-use blogging platforms: WordPress. This book’s clear directions and visual approach helps you to quickly get started in WordPress and then take full advantage of all its features. Janet Majure, an experienced and popular WordPress user, demon… More >>

Teach Yourself Visually WordPress

Moving a blog can make it unreachable for 24 – 72 hours, unless the new domain name has fully propagated around the Internet. It is just the way it is and WordPress doesn’t have anything to do with such limitation. Moving is best done when you have the time or have planned ahead.

Moving Towards a New Domain Name

The first thing to do is create a database back-up. The entire WordPress installation needs to be downloaded with no exceptions. This is not the time to tidy up your install or to upgrade/change anything. That would have to wait after the blog has been moved and is shown to be working. Your computer should now have these items: one or more database backups plus all your wpfiles, folders and images directories. The backups should be copied again to somewhere safe on your machine so that the next stage can be done on a copy.

Alterations are needed to be made. The details of your new mysql connection have to be changed by opening the file “wp-config.php” on your WordPress install. The file: SCR 1.0.002 Freeware Edition (13KB) should be downloaded to search and replace your website URL with your Xampp url. This is because your blog address inside the database has to be changed. Database files can be very large, thus opening them can be excruciatingly slow. It could even crash your machine. By replacing the old address with your new address, the URLs within your site will still work.

Moving hosts will mean changes in your passwords. You can double check your new passwords for your mysql connection as well as other passwords that you have in use. After which, it is now time to upload all your files to your new web space and restore your database. From the website cpanel, select the database you are using. You should still need to look inside the “wp – options” table to check that the values in “site – url” and “home” are correct. Clear your cache and cookies before checking your new site.

It is possible that you will get a blank page when looking at your blog right after moving. In this case, the themes should be checked. A faulty theme file causes a blank page. You can try changing themes or uploading a new theme then changing to it. Should this step not help, you should check whether all the WordPress files are present and are of the correct size. You can use your ftp client to download a new set of WordPress files, if needed.

There may be instances where you would need to move WordPress around within your server. WordPress is flexible enough to handle this situation. Moving WordPress from one server to another is also possible.

Moving Within

WordPress files can be moved from one location on your server to another. Start by creating the new location using any of these methods: create the new directory when you will be moving your WordPress core files to a new directory, or move the WordPress to your root directory by making sure all index, php, .htaccess and other files that might be copied over are backed-up and/or moved. This will then make the root directory ready for the new WordPress files. It is crucial that you set the URL locations before you move the file.

When done, test your site to confirm that it works right. Make sure that you let people know the new address when the change involves a new address to your blog. Consider adding some redirection instructions in your .htaccess file to serve as a guide to visitors towards the new location.

Handling Redirects after Moving a WordPress Blog

Concerns should not be limited to the moving of the actual WordPress program files but also on finding a way to redirect visitors that may be following outdated links to an old content. It is possible that redirects can mess up RSS feeds and search engine results thus an ideal redirect option that preserves both past and current search results is the key. After moving your WordPress blog, look into how 301 redirects can be properly handled.

A suggested way goes like this: open your .htaccess file in the directory that houses your newly moved WordPress file and edit in either your host’s file manager interface or by downloading to your local machine. Insert a line at the top that reads: redirect301/blog/http://www.yoursite.com/. You have to make sure to insert the opening and trailing / at the end of the destination path. Save your .htaccess file. Reupload it if you’re editing on your local machine rather than on the server. Load your old WordPress URL to make this work.

Moving Several Posts from One Blog to Another

When you decide to move over all your WordPress related posts from another blog, the task is basically to extract a few posts and their comments and to insert them into the database of the new blog. This can be accomplished by following these steps: click on the wp-posts table name in the left panel when you are in the proper database. It should be noticed that other tables might have a different prefix. Click browse on the top in the next panel. Select the checkbox at the beginning of the rows that you want to extract or export. Select “Export” at the bottom of the rows where it says “with selected”. Deselect structure on the next panel, leave selected Data, check Save As file, then Go. You will then get a prefix – posts.sqlfile.

Open the file in your chosen text editor such as Notepad. Change the wp-part everywhere to target_ -, depending on the prefix of the tables where you want to move the post using Search/Research. You are ready to go if you move the post to a new, empty database. However, if the target blog has posts in the database, there is some more work to do. You have to check in the database what the ID number of your last post is in the target blog. You should also go back to the .sqlfile and take a look at the first line below Dumping data for table…

Moving a WordPress Blog to Your Own WordPress Installation

WordPress is a platform you install on your own/hosted server and maintain the installation yourself. However, attempting to make the move should only be done if you’re comfortable with ftp, basic work in the UNIX shell, basic SQL and a little bit of general hacking. Expertise is not really required but possessing the basic skills and the willingness to give it a go are.

The first thing to do is to install WordPress and get a hosting service. Choose one that does an automatic install of WordPress to do away with fiddling. Of course, you would need http://mysql.php, some form of ftp access and a shell account. The challenge lies on setting up your blog on a new place while finding the theme and the plugins you want. The themes on http://WordPress.com normally have links to places you can download them from.

How to Install WordPress 2.7, 2.8, or 2.9 through Cpanel

There’s a war going on in the blogosphere, and it has nothing to do with bloggers dissing each other on their respective websites. The war is about control of the blogosphere by several great, many good, and tons of terrible blogging platforms. The average newbie now has “too many” options to choose from, and the battle for blogging supremacy is hotter than ever.

At my website and blogs, I’m always asked the question “Is WordPress better than Blogger?”. The answer, of course, is “Yes”. But to really understand why, it’s important to look at both blogging platforms side-by-side and see which one you really need.

You also need to understand that there are different versions of WordPress, the earliest now termed as “WordPress” at WordPress.org, and the hosted version similar to Blogger now termed “WordPress.com” which is of course available WordPress.com. Only the latter comes with free hosting on a sub-domain account. We’ll discuss this in Part 2.

For Part 1 of this article, we look only at the self-hosted version of WordPress. Here’s the comparison scale:

1) Ease of Set-up And Use

Yes, it’s much easier to set-up a blog with Blogspot.com and get your own Bloggger account. You can be done in 10 minutes flat. Once you’re set-up you can start posting immediately. If you want to add a designer’s touch to your blog, there are also tons of blogger templates available for free.

Installing WordPress however can be a major headache if you don’t know what you’re doing. Since you’re going to host it on your own account, you’ll need to download the installation files, upload them to your server, set-up a database, and run the configuration script.

However, if you know which hosting account to get, you can choose one with Cpanel included. With Cpanel, you can do a one-click installation, upgrade and removal of your WordPress platform.

2) Customization & Advanced Use

Blogger doesn’t allow categories. You can’t sort your articles into different focuses, unless you know how to hack the platform. With WordPress, not only can you add categories, you can also display each category differently on your main page. In fact with the correct plugins you can even turn your WordPress into a magazine-like portal.

Publishing with Blogger can extremely furstrating. It can take forever to post articles, especially if you’re making changes to the entire website. With WordPress, publishing is much faster, although if you load your system with all kinds of bells and whistles it can be just as frustrating.

With a Blogger account, you can get additional features like “Shout Boxes” that improve interaction on your site. You can also get pretty themes and nifty little tools that you can add to the core template files. However, that’s as far as you can go with Blogger.

With WordPress however, the sky is the limit. As cliche as that may sound, not only can you get themes, additional “plugins” and advanced tools, you can also extend WordPress to far beyond just a blogging platform.

The talk today is about using WordPress as a complete, user-friendly Content Management System or CMS. Unlike complicated predecessors like PHPPostNuke, B2, Mambo or even Joomla, WordPress is user friendly. Plus, the availability of source codes in this open-source system coupled with a strong community makes it possible to use WordPress as an article management system, classifieds system, direct-selling site and even a paid membership site.

4) Copyrights and Ownership of Content

I started with Blogger and I won’t say that it’s bad. But after a while I started to get frustrated with Blogger, and here’s why: Google Owns Your Content

Google has the authority to shut down your account without warning if they don’t like what you’re blogging about. You don’t have absolute control over your own blog. With WordPress, you own the domain name and the blog is hosted on your own account. You have full control over your content.

With the self-hosted version of WordPress (not WordPress.com), you’re free to write about anything you want, and use the software in any way you want. Yes, Blogger allows you to publish to your own domain, but they still own the database that holds your content! Don’t forget that!

5) Search Engine Optimization and Traffic

There’s this propaganda that since Google owns Blogger, they tend to favor Blogger accounts. I won’t say that this is illogical, but from my experience, there’s no such favoritism.

I’ve heard as many stories of getting indexed fast and ranking high in search engines from both WordPress and Blogger users. As long as the content is good, the spiders will come.

When you post in Blogger, you can only “ping” a limited amount of sites, whereas with WordPress on your own domain you can ping as many blog directories as you want, and start getting more traffic.

As a conclusion, I would say that WordPress is only slightly ahead in terms of optimization for search engines, and building large amounts of traffic.

6) Money-Making Potential

There’s no doubt that it’s easier to get started with Google Adsense if you have a Blogger account. In fact you can now apply for Adsense from within a Blogger account. Not entirely surprising considering the fact that both are owned by the same company.

With WordPress, it can get tricky. The default installation is not enough. You’ll need a couple of plugins and even a better theme to really maximize the Adsense potential. However, this seems to be getting easier and there’s even “Adsense revenue sharing” plugins around that allow you to share ad revenue with other contributors and writers for your blog.

When you start using WordPress to build your Adsense websites, you’ll soon discover what I mean. It’s something you need to experience for yourself. I can tell you one thing though – when you go WordPress, you don’t go back.

• ISBN13: 9780321591937
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
Having your own blog isn’t just for the nerdy anymore. Today, it seems everyone—from multinational corporations to a neighbor up the street—has a blog. They all have one, in part, because the folks at WordPress make it easy to get one. but to actually build a good blog—to create a blog people want to read—takes thought, planning, and some effort. From picking a theme and using tags to choosing widgets and building a community, creating your blog really start… More >>

Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read

Hey, check out these auctions:
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Product Description
Theme design can be approached from two angles. The first is simplicity; sometimes it suits the client and/or the site to go as bare-bones as possible. In that case, it’s quick and easy to take a very basic, pre-made theme and modify it. The second is “Unique and Beautiful”. Occasionally, the site’s theme needs to be created from scratch so that everything displayed caters to the specific kind of content the site offers. This book is going to take you through the Un… More >>

WordPress 2.8 Theme Design

• ISBN13: 9780321679215
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
This book gives readers the tools they need to create beautiful, functional WordPress-powered sites with minimal hassle. Using the WordPress user interface as a baseline, authors Jessica Neuman Beck and Matt Beck walk new users through the installation and setup process while providing valuable tips and tricks for more experienced users. With no other resource but this guide, readers can set up a fully-functional and well-designed WordPress site that takes advantage… More >>

WordPress: Visual QuickStart Guide

WordPress has become a hugely popular open source blogging and publishing platform. The abundance of free themes and plugins as well as its ease-of-use have contributed to the attraction and popularity for using WordPress. While there are some great free themes for WordPress, many only offer basic functionality and simplistic designs.

Since late 2007 however an increasing number of WordPress theme developers have been offering premium WordPress themes – themes which are offered for a fixed price. These premium WordPress themes are usually sold for between $50 to $250. Originally only a small number of talented and well-known WordPress theme designers created paid premium WordPress themes which were well designed, highly functional, top-quality themes that transformed a WordPress installation from a simple blog into a powerful content management system. However as the premium WordPress theme business concept spread, more and more WordPress theme designers have hopped on the bandwagon trying to cash on the new trend filling up their portfolio with premium (paid) wordpress themes.

However with greater variety and numbers of paid premium WordPress themes also comes varying levels of quality. So what specifically makes a premium WordPress theme premium? Some characteristics that should set a premium wordpress theme apart from a free theme are listed below:

Quality and Unique Design
Premium WordPress themes should be just that – Premium. They should look better and be of a much higher quality and unique design than compared to those available for free.

Features
While all themes are different, in general premium WordPress themes should have more “Features” than their free counterparts. What that means depends on the theme in question. However some features may include: “Featured Posts” areas, Multiple layout options for the home page, drop down menus, multiple customs templates for pages, custom field options, print style sheets etc.

Customization Options and Fexibility
People want options, so Premium WordPress themes should be customisable. Buying a premium theme will set you apart from the crowd significantly, but since other people will still be using the same theme, premium themes should be able to be easily customized further, whether it be for the layout, colours, images, or all of the above.

Live Preview or Demo
There should be a live demo or preview of the theme so you can test it and check it out before buying. If there is no live preview or demo that should be a warning sign. You should ask why don’t they want you to test the theme first? All reputable premium theme sellers will have a live demo full of content for you to test. Explore the live demo thoroughly, testing all pages to see that the theme works properly and there are no errors or mistakes.

Full Support
If you’re buying a premium WordPress theme it should also come with a certain degree of support from the designer. The level of support can vary however and will range from personalised individual support from the designer, to the provision of forums or blog comment sections for asking questions and obtaining support from the designer and other people who have purchased the theme.

Supporting Documentation
Premium WordPress themes should come with an instruction manual or document. This should explain how to upload and install the theme and how to manage any of the options that are built into the theme.

Free Updates
Wordpress is continually being updated and improved and a premium WordPress theme developer should be offering you free updates of the theme when required.

Well Coded and Error Free
There should be no coding errors, misspellings, X images, etc in a premium WordPress theme. The theme has cross browser compatible and been tested to work properly on all the major browsers, plus the theme should have clean and valid code and adhere to strict XHTML and CSS standards.

• ISBN13: 9780470554586
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
Don’t let WordPress intimidate you. WordPress 24-Hour Trainer is a unique lesson-based book that walks you through the essential parts of WordPress. Each lesson is streamlined to teach a specific aspect of WordPress, helping you to focus on just what you need in order to get the task accomplished. If you learn better visually, this book provides you with a video to accompany each lesson. This book is the perfect guide to Planning and prepar… More >>

WordPress 24-Hour Trainer: Watch, Read, and Learn How to Create and Customize WordPress Sites

• ISBN13: 9780470560549
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
An in-depth look at the internals of the WordPress system.As the most popular blogging and content management platform available today, WordPress is a powerful tool. This exciting book goes beyond the basics and delves into the heart of the WordPress system, offering overviews of the functional aspects of WordPress as well as plug-in and theme development. What is covered in this book? WordPress as a Content Management System Hosting Option… More >>

Professional WordPress

Basic WordPress Tutorial that gives an overview of WordPress, the community and its potential, and describes a little about how to turn WordPress into a website.

A WordPress tutorial can teach how to use WordPress in blogging, but by far the best way to learn is by means of a WordPress video tutorial. Why video and why WordPress? Let’s take the last question first.

Why WordPress

Most people use either Blogger or WordPress for their blog, and there appears to be an ongoing debate as to which is best. I prefer to design my own blogs using Drupal,but that’s not related to this topic. With repect to the Blogger and WordPress debate, there is only one answer for serious bloggers.

WordPress. That is in now way being derogatory towards Blogger – just fact: run from Google’s hosting site kown as Blogspot, Blogger is an easy blogging system to use, and being easy, it has very litle opportunity for customization; however Googe users can use Google’s toobar to add posts or online content to their blog at the clickof a button. However, WordPress wins hands down when we consider serious boggers seeking more detailed customization.

Sure, you can ftp Blogger to your website and run it from there, but if you do the same with WordPress you have an infinitely larger number of possibilities that Blogger cannot even begin to compete against.

WordPress Video Tutorials

If you want to operate WordPress form your website you have to do it right, and it takes some knowledge of how your web space works and also of your online databases. However, learning is well worth it, and there are WordPress video tutorials online that can help you to do so easily. There is a lot involved, but all you have to do is copy what you see on the video and you will get the same result as the video does.

Not only that, but in order to make best use of it, you have to learn the benefits of using plugins, widgets and themes and how to use them to your advantage. These are what make your blog what it is: add Adsense bocks, a calendar or a blogroll – or all three. If you understand how to do it, you can alter the entire appearance and functionlaity of your blog.

WordPress Templates and Themes

WordPress templates are what give your blog its online appearance. Your theme can be chosen according to style or color. For example you can a space-oriented style, woodland, nature, medical, etc. The themes and templates contain graphics that can represent any topic that your blog is based upon. An environmental theme, for example, could be based upon melting icebergs, or pets on a theme displaying any animal you want to choose. There are thousands of WordPress templates available online, both free and paid.

WordPress Plugins and Widgets

Plugins are small applications or code that carry out certain actions. As an example, there are plugins that optimize your posts for Google, amd you also get one that sends a tweet to Twitter when you make a new post. It will shrink the tweet to a TinyURL link. You can download a plugin to your blog that will allow you to add a calendar in any format you desire.

A widget is a small icon that activates these plugins when clicked upon. If you use a good Worpress tutorial, all that will be explained, but if your are doubly fortunate to have a WordPress video tutorial, then you will be able to see what is being done and follow it exactly with your own blog and make it work as it should.

There is now doubt in my view that Blogger is inferior to WordPress as a blogging system, as long as you run WordPress from your own website, and you will also need a WordPress tutorial, preferably a WordPress video tutorial, to ensure that it is installed correctly and that you understand how your blog can be modified and customized to what you want it to look like.

Good Luck!

go.tagjag.com – If you have a blog, you have a theme. Chances are, you downloaded a theme off the web somewhere. It’s okay that you don’t know how to code your own customized theme from scratch! Very few people are capable of doing this. You want your blog to say “YOU”, but you don’t want to pay a designer a ton of money to accomplish this. It’s a good thing Artisteer now makes it simple for you to create and customize your own wordpress theme with just a few clicks of the mouse. twitter.com – chris.pirillo.com

People with Internet and web experience of all levels have worked to make sure that their websites, web service accounts and browsers were as safe as they could be from computer hackers. However, the hackers practice an old baseball saying which goes, “If you want to be a success you have to hit ‘em where they ain’t.”

The weakness that the hackers have found is the WordPress Blog. Many may have never considered a blog to be worthy of a hacker’s attention, yet with the way that advertising and marketing dollar potential have soared, that’s what sets a hacker off on their hunt for a victim.

The hacker attacks on WordPress Blogs take the person who wants to come to a particular blog to a different site that’s full of ads, many of them obscene and many of them virus filled, which obviously does not present what was the assumed landing point blog in the best light. In fact, one hacker attack, no matter how quickly it’s spotted and dealt with, can destroy all the work that the owner of that blog has done. If it’s a blog full of content with years of archive material, a hacker’s attack will turn all of that work into worthless untrustworthy words.

The attacks launched on WordPress Blogs by hackers get even worse for the blog owners. Google, for example, when (not if) their robots detect something suspicious about a WordPress Blog will include the following in the search result for that WordPress Blog.

“This site may harm your computer.”

If a person clicks on that phrase, which appears as a link within the search result listing, they will be taken to a page that will repeat the warning of harm to their computer and suggest that they go to another site or blog that came up in their search results.

Even if a WordPress Blog owner catches the damage quickly, the time it will take to repair that blog’s reputation will be costly at a variety of levels. People will remember the warnings of computer harm no matter how strongly it’s presented that all with that WordPress Blog is well. A loss of blog traffic will mean a loss of ad revenue. In many cases this could mean the loss of advertisers since many affiliate ad programs require a specific level of traffic activity.

WordPress Blog owners make the mistake of thinking that since the warning signs that their blog has been hacked are so obvious that they’ll be able to catch the problem before it becomes a major disaster. They would have to be proactive rather than reactive and monitor their WordPress Blog every minute of every hour of every day. Just five minutes under a hacker’s control can destroy the connection that WordPress Blog had made with the thousands of people who visit it at any point.

While WordPress does the best they can with security updates, that’s still just a reactive option for the WordPress blog owner. There is a proactive step every WordPress Blog owner can take to prevent hackers from destroying the work and reputation of their WordPress Blog.

Internet developer and expert James Stein, with 15 years experience in the development of programs that assist and educate people, has created WordPress Secured. Instead of one plug-in fix after another, WordPress Secured brings total security to every WordPress Blog that anyone can learn and benefit from.

WordPress Secured teaches how to close the many open doors WordPress Blogs contain which hackers exploit. It teaches how to find a blog’s softspots and strengthen them. Users discover how to protect their important avenues of ad revenue. WordPress Secure makes the blog owner not only more secure but more smart and aware about their blog.

WordPress Secure also includes a special feature called BadBot Killer. This program stops the scanning bots that seek out a WordPress Blog’s weaknesses that are the welcome mats for computer hackers. BadBot Killer stops the hackers even before they can find the front door to a WordPress Blog.

The amount of knowledge and information required to do a WordPress Blog post-hacking repair is large and above the heads of many WordPress Blog owners. WordPress Secure is one easy and educational package that keeps the WordPress Blog owner steps ahead any hacker.

The purpose of this article is to outline three different ways of getting a WordPress blog up and running. WordPress is a free blogging software, has many benefits and is supported by a large community of users and developers.

A “blog” is abbreviated from the term, “web log” which is a form of online diary or journal.

Since its advent a few short years ago, blogs have found numerous uses. Just to name a few, these include:

- teenagers putting their thoughts and ramblings online
- hobby ists giving updates about their interests and passion
- people staying updated with friends overseas
- professional bloggers updating specific niche products
- multinational corporations (MNC’s) such as Microsoft & General Motors using blogs as marketing tool

Like a web site, a blog has global reach. However, it’s far cheaper, quicker and definitely easier to maintain a blog than a traditional web site. A blog’s contents can be easily updated by submitting short or long articles (commonly known as blog posts) through an easy-to-use graphical interface. As a blog’s content is updated regularly, they naturally attract both human readers as well as search engines hungry for fresh content.

To set up a blog, we need some form of blogging software or platform. There are free software like Blogger and WordPress and there are paid platforms like Moveable Type and Typepad.

Blogger is owned by Google. It’s free and perhaps the easiest way to create a blog and your first post, literally within minutes! Howeer, its features are somewhat limited.

Thus, WordPress is a good alternative if you are looking for free blogging software. As it is an open source software, it is literally supported by a huge community of users and developers that assists both new and experienced bloggers. Not only feature rich – it supports categories, pages and trackbacks, just to name a few – it is constantly being updated through its core software as well as through software plugin’s which are bonus software components that extend the basic functionality of WordPress. For more information, visit WordPress.org

Here are 3 different ways to get a WordPress blog up and running:

1) Via WordPress.com

2) Via WordPress.org

3) Via CPANEL’s Fantastico

VIA WORDPRESS.COM

Like Blogger, you can get your WordPress blog and first post up and running within several minutes through WordPress.com! This site is meant for people to get a taste of WordPress without having to go through the somewhat involved procedure via WordPress.org (see the section below). If this is the first time you are getting your WordPress blog up and running, you should definitely give this a shot.

It’s as easy as going to WordPress.com, clicking the button that says “Get a WordPress Blog Now>>” or something like that and following the directions there. And then, you start posting!

In this case, your WordPress blog will be hosted on WordPress.com totally free. Therefore, you do not need your own web host. The only drawback is that there are limitations such as you can’t install your own themes or plugin’s.

VIA WORDPRESS.ORG

Instead of having your blog hosted on WordPress.com, you can install WordPress on your own web host. (Of course, in this case, you need to have your own web hosting account which preferably comes with a version of “CPANEL” – a an easy-to-use graphical control panel to manage your web host.)

Setting up of the WordPress blog comprises the 3 main steps below.

Step 1: Visit WordPress.org and download the WordPress installation files which are free (since it is open source software as mentioned before). As the files are in a compressed format, run your compression utility (such as Winzip) to expand the files to your hard disk..

Step 2: Run your File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program and connect to your web hosting account. Then upload the installation files to the domain (if you have multiple domains hosted) and folder that you want your WordPress blog installed.

Step 3: This step is going to be challenging for the non-techie type if they managed to survive Step 2! You log into the CPANEL of your web host and create and configure your MYSQL database. After this is done, you need to configure some files to complete your installation.

Next, launch your browser to access your blog and start making your 1st post by running the “wp-admin.php” script that has been installed.

As you can see, this is the “normal” but very tedious way of setting up of your WordPress blog.

However, the effort you expend is worthwhile as you can configure all aspects of WordPress like installing the theme you like and adding HTML codes to include Google AdSense on your blog to earn some profit, etc.

VIA FANTASTICO

Again, you install WordPress on your own web host but this time through FANTASTICO. In this case, not only would you need to have your own web hosting account, it MUST come with a version of “CPANEL” that includes “FANTASTICO” – an advanced script installer that automates a 1-click WordPress installation! (Actually a few clicks are needed.)

With FANTASTICO, all the 3 steps above are automated for you. All you need to do is to log into the CPANEL of your web host and then click the FANTASTICO icon, which is a smiley face.

In the next screen, click on “WordPress” and then click on “New Installation”. FANTASTICO will open a form and you fill in a few things like which domain (if you have multiple domains hosted) and which folder to install to. Once you have typed in the information and pushed a button, FANTASTICO will install WordPress in a few seconds!

How is that possible? That’s because the installation files are already at your web host. This saves you time as you don’t have to download them from WordPress.org, expand them and upload to your web host. Likewise, the databas is also automatically created and configured for you.

Next, launch your browser to access your blog and start making your 1st post by running the “wp-admin.php” script that has been installed.

As you can see, this is the “preferred” method of getting a WordPress blog up and running, also within minutes.and yet you can have all the benefits of configuring all aspects of WordPress, such as adding Affiliate Programs easily (including Amazon.com) and Google AdSense to make a handsome profit month after month!

If you interested in wordpress there are good books created by Rob Benwell, if you want so here:

http://tinyurl.com/ydjgopx