Posts Tagged ‘blog’
WordPress Reliability with VaultPress
Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame has announced the (beta) release of VaultPress. WordPress and the guys from Automattic are well-known for their very reliable and simple to use software and services (they are responsible for Gravatar, Akismet, PollDaddy and other awesome and usually free Web software and services). VaultPress is likely to add another high quality service to their portfolio.
It’s very early days for VaultPress but here are the basics (not all details have been released by Automattic); Self hosted WordPress Sites may install and activate a VaultPress Plugin. The ValutPress service (WordPress interacts with ValutPress via the Plugin) costs U.S.$15 per month and will monitor the Website for security breaches, backup the database and files and will install security hot-patches automatically. The idea behind VaultPress is to enable high availability and secure self-hosted WordPress Sites with minimal administration and hassle.
This is a very smart move by Matt and the WordPress people; Automattic software is very solid and reliable and people will be happy to pay a nominal amount for added peace of mind.
Related postsChange the Footer on WordPress Constructor Theme
WordPress is awesome (yes, I am a big WordPress CMS fan). One of the huge advantages of GPL software (e.g. Moodle) is that a huge community often contributes code to the core software. In WordPress, the most common form of community contribution is in the form of Plugins and Themes.
I have been ‘playing’ recently with the Constructor theme by Anton Shevchuk. Although there are many good (and some great) WordPress themes (e.g. Theme Hybrid), the Constructor theme has immediately become one of my favorites for it’s vast array of options and ease of use/configuration.
One question about the Constructor theme that I have noticed on a few Sites is how to change the default Constructor Footer text which looks like this:
‘© 2010 [NAME] Blog is proudly powered by WordPress | Constructor Theme Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).’
Well this is how to amend the default footer text:
- Ensure that your Current Theme is set to Constructor.
- Log in to WordPress as an Administrator.
- Go to Appearance ->Customize.
- Click the Footer tab
- Enter the text you want to appear in the Footer (or just enter a space if you don’t want any Footer text)
You’ll notice that the text you entered above has replaced the default footer Text!
Most popular incoming search terms for this page: Related postsTelstra – A New Corporate Blog
A new Telstra Blog has gone live over the past few days. The new Blog called ‘Telstra Exchange’ is a replacement for ‘Now We are Talking’. From a technological perspective it’s great that Telstra is again using WordPress as the Content Management System (CMS).
Some of the WordPress Plugins being used are;
- Extended Profile: From WordPress.org: This plugin extends the standard WordPress profile to include additional attributes such as photo, organization, address, phone number, and others. A user’s entire profile can then be output as an hCard on any page using the profile shortcode, or with the provided widget.
- Contact Form 7: From the developer: ‘If you value simplicity and flexibility, Contact Form 7 is a great choice. It allows you to flexibly design the form and mail. You can manage multiple contact forms as well. n addition, it supports many features including AJAX submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, file uploading, etc.’. P.S. I use Contact Form 7 on numerous Blogs and love it!
- WP Text Sizer: From the developer: Provide visitors to your site the the option of increasing or decreasing the size of text onclick of image or text links using JavaScript. This code provides that option yet allows you, the page designer, to control which portions of your layout can have text size adjusted and how much.
- WP-reCAPTCHA: From the developer: reCAPTCHA is an anti-spam method originating from Carnegie Mellon University which uses CAPTCHAs in a genius way. Instead of randomly generating useless characters which users grow tired of continuously typing in, risking the possibility that spammers will eventually write sophisticated spam bots which use OCR libraries to read the characters, reCAPTCHA uses a different approach. They effectively kill two birds with one stone.
Great move by Telstra in using WordPress!
Disclaimer: Please note that at publication date of this post I am providing ITIL Process Mapping services for Telstra. I do not represent Telstra in any information on this website. The views expressed in this post are mine only and do not necessarily reflect the views of Telstra
Most popular incoming search terms for this page: Related postsTelco Stops Blogging
A few days ago the Telstra (an Australian Telco) Blog titled ‘Now We Are Talking’ closed. According to Telstra, nowwearetalking.com.au received over 4.5 million visits and 10,000 comments during its four years in existence. ‘Now We Are Talking’ has a Google PageRank of 6 and thousands of backlinks making it a very valuable URL (SEO has obviously been very good for nowwearetalking.com.au).
It is therefore curious that Telstra is satisfied with displaying only a message at nowwearetalking.com.au. All ‘Now We Are Talking’ content has been removed and the message states that a new corporate Blog will be launched later this year. In the meantime however, the value of nowwearetalking.com.au will be slowly eroded as backlinks become invalid, no new content is posted and people cease to visit.
I’m sure there must be a valid reason for having a gap between retiring ‘Now We Are Talking’ and launching a new Blog however much Search Engine Optimization value will be lost by having the Gap.
Disclaimer: I currently provide consulting services to Telstra.
Related postsWordPress 2.8 Released
WordPress version 2.8 is scheduled for general release tomorrow, 10 June 2009. For the past few days WordPress 2.8 Release Candidate 1 has been available for those interested in having a test run.
WordPress 2.8 is now available for Download. WordPress 2.8 Highlights and features may be found at WordPress.org.
A new WordPress release is always an exciting affair and the upgrade is usually painless. Any errors encountered in a WordPress version upgrade usually relate to plugin incompatibility. I run multiple instances of WordPress for my own sites as well and for various clients and tend to use combinations of common themes and plugins (you may have heard that WordPress MU will be combined with WordPress 3 which will enable multiple separate sites to run on a single WordPress install – roll on WordPress 3 I say!!!). My version upgrade strategy is therefore to upgrade one or two sites and test those for a few days. I’ll then upgrade the rest of the WordPress instances I manage.
P.S. For those wanting to check compatibility of plugins with various WordPress versions then head over to bravenewcode.com where they maintain a list of WordPress plugins and their versions.
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