Category Archives: WordPress

Professional Blogging Services

WP-Polls

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Let your visitors be heard…

WP-Polls allows you to instantly publish polls with virtually unlimited options. Via your site’s Dashboard you manage the polls. A few highlights include:

  • Define a custom template
  • Configure options including how the poll is displayed and who can vote
  • Define the number of answers
  • Allow users to select more than one answer
  • Starting and ending date

The Polls Widget allows you to instantly add polls to your site. The Polls Archive is automatically generated and can be displayed on its own page or included in your pages and posts. Based on the various polls optons your visitor may also be allowed to vote on the polls displayed in the archive. Interested? Take a closer look here.

Would polls be useful on your site?

  • Yes - Can't wait to install WP-Polls (79%)
  • No - At least until I dream up a few good uses (21%)

Start Date: July 21, 2011 @ 12:00 am
End Date: No Expiry

WordPress 3.2.1 Highlights

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Two of our favorites…

With each release new features comes and you tend to appreciate them as you go about the daily business of updating your site. However once in a while you are really struck with just how much ease or power has been added to a certain feature.

  • In this case it’s the editor. The fullscreen option has been totally redone and all for the better! You won’t find yourself continually jumping back and forth as most of the options are now available in both forms. Another delight was finding the visual editor now supports HTML code much better than in the past. No longer at times will it delete, reformat, and overall mess up your content.
  • Theme Twenty Eleven. WordPress included Themes used to be ignored and mostly for good reasons. But starting with Twenty Ten they need to be taken seriously and Twenty Eleven begins to make one wonder why use anything else. It’s so customizable and feature packed you really don’t need to look elsewhere. It will take a while to decide how you want to take advantage of the virtually endless look and feels but it well be time will spent. Your site will end up beyond your expectations.

Backing Up Your WordPress Database

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WP-DB-Backup

Ever wanted to have a copy of your WordPress database just in case? You can use WordPress’ Export utility which will backup your WordPress database data. However it doesn’t backup all of the tables nor does it backup Plugins and other data. Throw in the fact we have seen issues of it not exporting all of the database data. Where it simply stops exporting before completion and it’s not even nice enough to let you know it failed.

With the WP-DB-Backup Plugin you can backup all of your site’s database data and have it emailed to you automatically. If you prefer you can save a copy on your site or download it directly to your computer. All via a few clicks of your mouse.

Now should you need to restore your database it’s almost as easy. However we’ll suggest contacting us as you can just as quickly go askew. That’s why we are here and we’ll have your database restored in no time.

Google XML – Sitemap and Analytics

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Everything you ever wanted to know about attracting and tracking visitors…

Your site is only as valuable as the people who find it and how they interact with it. First they have to find you and  XML Sitemap Generator for WordPress will generate a sitemap and help you get indexed by all of the major search engines. This Plugin is easy to install and configure and once active it handles all of the work required to keep your site search engine friendly and effective. It even automatically notifies them of your site’s changing content as they occur.

Now that you have been found Google Analyticator will let you know who and how they found you and more importantly how they interact with your site. This Plugin works along with your free Google Analytics account to provide enterprise-class web analysis. Once again everything is automatically captured and customized reporting is broken into the following categories.

  • Dashboard – Overview of user defined period
  • Intelligence – Predefined and custom alerts
  • Visitors - Activity based on visitors
  • Traffic – Activity based on traffic sources
  • Content – Activity based on content
  • Goals – Reports on user defined goals

Typical installation and configuration time will be 30 minutes or less including opening your free google account (linked to above). Even better it requires zero maintenance as your site is updated. The data is dynamically generated and stored on google’s servers.

As always if you need help we are available…

Get Started Now

WordPress 3.1 Released

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This release features a lightning fast redesigned linking workflow which makes it easy to link to your existing posts and pages, an admin bar so you’re never more than a click away from your most-used dashboard pages, a streamlined writing interface that hides many of the seldom-used panels by default to create a simpler and less intimidating writing experience for new bloggers (visit Screen Options in the top right to get old panels back), and a refreshed blue admin scheme available for selection under your personal options.

For further details see: http://wordpress.org/news/2011/02/threeone/

Hyper Cache – Performance Way Beyond Your Expectations

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Hyper Cache is now included with all WordPress accounts…

After several months of testing we have been so impressed with Hyper Cache that it’s now installed with every WordPress account we setup (free of charge). Why do you want to use Hyper Cache? Let’s list a few:

  • Ensures your site is lightning fast by caching its pages
  • Bypasses intensive and timely CPU and MySQL resources
  • Easy and powerful configuration options
  • Self maintaining to reduce disk usage
  • Compatible with most Plugins

Hyper Cache requires zero maintenance. Once it’s installed it simply works and you’ll be delighted with your site’s performance. If you do wish to tweak its settings based on your unique requirements they available under Settings within your Dashboard.

Booking Calendar – Plugin

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Sophisticated booking calendar including online payment now available…

We ran across Booking Calendar while looking for an event calendar Plugin for one of our clients. Instantly it stood out as being extremely powerful and very professionally designed. It’s offered in four versions with additional features included as you go up the ladder. The least featured packed version is free and the higher featured versions start at $119. Even the free version will do more than most if not all of the other similar Plugins. Booking Calendar is designed for…

  • Resource scheduling – rental, rooms
  • Client scheduling – beauty salon,  spa, hairdresser, massage
  • Meeting scheduling – coaching, phone
  • Event scheduling – conference, course, fitness, yoga
  • Patient scheduling – doctor, dentist, clinic
  • Any service – where reservations are scheduled for hours or days

You can demo the front-end and admin sections and compare the various versions here. Booking Calendar is one of the best reasons WordPress is no longer just for blogging. In fact it’s also one of the reasons WordPress is now offering world-class turnkey solutions.

WordPress Upgrade Special

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There has never been a better time…

With the release of WordPress 3.0 it’s the perfect time to upgrade your existing WordPress site. We are offering an upgrade special where we do all of the work and you and your visitors get all of the benefits. Our upgrade service will provide the following services for a flat fee. For an overview of why you need to upgrade to 3.0 see here.

Research

Ensure your existing theme and Plugins are compatible with version 3.0. We will install them in one of our test sites to ensure they are good to go. If they need to be updated to work with 3.0 we will upgrade them as part of the upgrade service. If for some reason any of them aren’t compatible we will inform you along with providing a recommendation for replacing their functionality. We will also provide details should any additional cost be involved in implementing the required changes.

Backup

Export all of your WordPress data via the admin interface to ensure your site’s content will be safe during the entire process.

Upgrade

Install and configure WordPress 3.0 and upgrade all Plugins that need to be updated. Once the site has been upgraded we will test all of its functionality to ensure it’s working 100%.

Support

Should any issues arise we will be happy to address them along with casual support you may require as you delve into the latest and greatest WordPress release.

Having used version 3.0 (various Beta releases) over the past several months we can guarantee you’ll find it well worth it. The new advanced features allow you to take your site to the next level while you’ll be able to spend even less time because of its improved admin interface. Also note the enhanced security features you’ll benefit from and the compatibility issues you’ll avoid when you wish to use additional themes and Plugins going forward.

- Click Here to Get Started -

WordPress 3.0 Released

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If you guessed June 18, 2010…

You might be as intelligent as WordPress’ latest release. Having used 3.0 for a couple months we can say its been well worth the wait.  Among the vast number of new features perhaps the most outstanding is the new default theme named Twenty Ten.

It’s so versatile it can easily satisfy most users. Compared to the previous default theme it’s no contest and new users will find the customization more than enough to forgo the seemingly endless search for the perfect theme. Also new users can start with a basic look and feel and grow into the advance features when they are needed. A few of the highlights include…

  • Custom header
  • Custom background
  • User-defined menus (across posts, pages, categories, tags, and links)
  • Custom right-column Widgets
  • Four custom footer Widgets
  • Custom post types
  • New templates (front-page, single, and author)
  • Easier, faster and more powerful admin interface

In summary if you are just starting out there was never a better time. We always install the latest and greatest release of WordPress when we open your account. If you are a veteran the new release can still benefit your site by enhancing your visitors’ experience and reducing the amount of time required to keep it state of the art.

If you are ready to roll we can help you get started or upgrade your existing site.