The best thing about DreamHost is they have great hosting, and one click installs and upgrades. They even give you one free domain a year and you can get great deals on your first year of hosting. For instance using a promo code like Emma90 can save you 90 dollars, so that’s an entire year of hosting for 29.40$.

Occasionally I consider consolidating and moving my DreamHost sites to my HostGator account. But it’s easier to pay for double hosting then going through the hassle of moving. But if I ever change my mind. Pat Doyle just moved her account from DreamHost to HostGator and changed her domain name.

I wanted to make a post about her post so I would have the directions handy, just in case. So here they are; How To Move a WordPress Blog.

If you want to use WordPress for more of a static site that is updated infrequently removing the dates from your theme could come in handy. To remove the date you need to find where the date is referred to in index.PHP and remove that line. It will probably be a line between 2 div tags that refer to a date in some way.

Also remove the date instances in single.PHP and archive.PHP. If you are afraid of removing the wrong thing and ruining your theme. You can use comment tags instead. This will make the lines still readable but whatever is between the tags won’t run.

<?php /* These tags can be used to comment something out in PHP */ ?>

Now for the Good news. I just discovered a Date Exclusion WordPress Plugin over at Daily Blog Tips. This just might be the answer for those of us who don’t feel completely comfortable poking around in our themes code. I haven’t used it yet. But it might be the safer option I’ve been looking for.

Create Your Own Template

Create Your Own Template II

If you’ve never installed a WordPress plug in before you get a little glimpse in to plugin installation and FTP. But the important part I like is he shows the proper way to configure All In One SEO Pack. This plugin can give your blog powerful SEO benefits if it is configured correctly. So check out his video.

How To Install And Configure All In One SEO Pack By Court

• change home title to keyword
• check rewrite titles
• post titles=post title | blog title
• deselect-use categories for META Keywords
• deselect-use no index for categories
• deselect-use no index for archives
• deselect-use no index for Tag Archives
• check Autogenerate Descriptions
• Change Blog Title To Keywords under WordPress General Settings

The first time I purchased WP Affiliate Pro I had trouble getting it to work properly. So I returned it and tried some free plugins that did similar things, such as alinks and wp affiliate. It seemed like free would be a better option but I still wasn’t satisfied with the results.

So I decided to try WP Affiliate Pro again but at the same time I heard about WP Affiliate Elite. So I purchased both and tested them on two different blogs that also run on different servers. Here are my results:

I finally got WP Affiliate Pro to work and it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s an easy to install plug in and easy to configure. I think they are the first and original creator of this software. This plugin costs 97$, but sometimes you can find online deals where it sells for less. Another way of getting a discount is to purchase it from your own affiliate link.

But the one I decided to keep was WP Affiliate Elite. It does the same thing as WP Affiliate Pro but the interface is set up a little better. And you can change the colors of your links without messing with CSS. Where as with WP Affiliate Pro you have to edit a couple of lines of CSS to get the same effect.

WP Affiliate Elite also cost less at 47$. And they have an affiliate program as well. The one small downside to this software is when you install it you add one file to your plugins folder and one to your root folder. Which is still really simple, but without reading the installation text it’s a step you could miss.

Anyway I think WP Affiliate Elite is a plugin worth having, and I’m keeping my copy. Do you use these plugins or something similar? Also I’d love to hear any input on hiding affiliate links.

The Winner!

I don’t have this issue because I use DreamHost and they have easy one click upgrades. But I know other people have had these issues. I was recently reading Skellie’s blog, skelliewag and I found this great article 9 Things That Drive a Blogger Crazy.

One of the things she talks about is fear of upgrades; below is a copy of her guide:

Skellie’s thirty-second how to upgrade WordPress guide:

• De-activate your blog’s plug-ins.
• Open the .zip file for the version of WP you want to upgrade to.
• Cut the WP-Content folder and wp-config-sample.PHP from the .zip file and Paste them to your Desktop.
• Save the .zip file and double-check those files are gone, then upload the .zip to your blog’s root directory, unzip and overwrite the files on your server with the files from the .zip.
• Upload the contents of folders wp-content, plug-ins and themes into the same folders on your server, but not the folders themselves. Uploading the folders will overwrite your theme, plug-ins and any customizations you’ve made
• After you’ve done that, visit this URL immediately and finish the process:

http://example.com/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php    

Skellie is not only a prolific writer but both of her blogs are packed with some great information. If I were giving out homework assignments I would say to spend some time reading Skellies blogs, and taking note of her writing style and how she really goes in depth with each topic.

I know this is basic stuff, but the first time I tried to update a plugin I couldn’t find any directions and had to wing it. I was deleting the old files and then pasting the new file. When all I had to do was paste the new file and it would be overwritten.

I believe with some FTP programs you will be dragging and dropping instead of cutting and pasting. But the effect will be the same.

There is now no reason not to have everything up to date. Best of Luck!

copyright itsWriteNow.com

It’s easy to embed video in a WordPress.com blog. But when you switch to your own hosted domain and WordPress.org. Suddenly you get all kinds of problems. First it’s there, than it disappeared.

This is because of the WYSIWYG editor in WordPress. The easiest work around for this problem is to disable the Visual Editor. To do this go to Dashboard, Users, Your Profile. Deselect – Use the Visual Editor When Writing. Then click on update profile.

I knew there was a way for WordPress to automatically post drafts. I didn’t know how easy it was to do.

When you have time and your thoughts are flowing freely. Prepare some drafts in advance.

Then enter the time and date, under the Post Time tamp tab. Check the Edit Timestamp tab, and hit publish. Your post will appear at the time and date you specify.

For most of you this is old hat. But for newer people this is important information to have. Talk to you soon.