Web Development Insight

I am all for saving time. In the old days backing up a WordPress blog meant either using phpAdmin to back up the database or manually logging into each blog and using a backup plug-in.

No more.

Starting with WordPress 2.0 the bundled backup program was taken out and made a separate plug-in. Version 2.0 of the WordPress database backup plug-in takes advantage of WordPress cron program and will email a backup on a regular basis. I use once a week, though the granularity can be once an hour.

Once installed, go into Manage then Backup. On the bottom of the page the time frequency of the backup and the email address is set. Note if you choose once a week, the weekly backups are on the day you hit submit. Since I like getting backups on Saturday I started all my backups on a Saturday.

Note this only backs up the WordPress database; not the WordPress source code.

admin Doug

One of the banes of blogging is spam comments. Nearly every blogger gets them. One way to reduce comment spam is to turn off accepting comments on older posts. Each blog host will have a different way to do this…if it is possible. Check with your host to see how.

Generally trackbacks are a nuisance since they do not require a login to implement. The poor moderator or comment filter must decide whether these are legitimate or not.

Since shutting off accepting comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks before a specific date is not built-in, WordPress has a comment timeout plug-in that does the job.

Doug

Like most people, I have experienced a very frustrating waiting period after I hit Publish in WordPress. It takes forever sometimes. Or the white screen of death: MySQL database access has timed out (or a similar message). Why is this happening?

The default for WordPress is to ping the pingomatic website after a post is published. Look under Options > Write and look under Update Services. There is a reference to pingomatic which pings many, many servers. When all the pinging is done then control is returned…if ever. The default timeout is 15 seconds.

There are several ways around this.

1. Have a service, such as FeedBurner, do your bidding. Delete the entries in the Update Service area and have the service (FeedBurner e.g.) handle your feed. FeedBurner has an option called PingShot which, when activated, will ping pingomatic and other servers. I use a plugin called subscribe me which routes your blog’s feed requests to FeedBurner.

2. A plugin called wp-no-ping-wait will ping the list in Update Service *after* control is returned to WordPress. Thus after Publish button is pressed control is returned almost immediately. The website that handles the plugin has been down for a while so go to this link to get it (the wayback machine). Look for nopingwait2.php. Upload it to your plugin directory and activate it.
3. Delete all entries under Update Service and manually ping the servers yourself using pingoat or pingomatic.

Doug

Most online people have their own web sites. For business owners web site is almost mandatory. One of the best ways to improve link popularity and traffic of a website is by blogging. Up to date information can be posted quickly, giving viewers an edge. A way to increase quality links to your web site is to have others write blog articles about your niche. This service is a way to quickly get many links pointing to your web site. Search engines use quality links as an important part of their algorithm for rating a web site. This is one avenue worth investigating.

Doug

I updated to WordPress 2.0.5 the day it came out. It has several security fixes and some bug fixes. I updated by getting the files that were different and applying them. So far no upgrade problems have occurred. The mySQL database did not need updating, either. Nice.

Doug

Most avid online people have web sites. For business owners web site is almost mandatory. One of the best ways to increase link popularity of a website is by blogging. Up to date information can be posted quickly, giving viewers an edge. A way to increase quality links to your web site is to have others write blog articles about your niche. This service is a way to quickly get many links pointing to your web site. Search engines use quality links as an important part of their algorithm for rating a web site. This is one avenue worth investigating.

Doug

Writing a blog entry is fun. Blogitive makes it easy to make money by blogging. Your blog has to be approved which is pretty easy, a Paypal account set up (since payments are made directly to the account), and that is it. We have been doing it for several weeks without a hitch. One advantage is that my writing skills and thought process have improved.

New services, such as ghost writing and NewsNerve, are being offered to increase the scope of blogging for bling. Ghost writing is attractive since a blog is not necessary - only your writing skills. An assignment is given from a client and the final work is reviewed for approval.

Doug