Foximus Internet Business Blog

Once again it is time to examine another Wordpress Plugin! This one is called WordPress Database Backup and you will never guess what it does. It backs up your database. Joy and Bliss! But this little beauty does it for you automatically. You will never have to worry about backing up manually again.

Installation is easy. Down that plugin from here and upload it in your plugins directory. After that, activate it, then go to your admin panel. Click on ‘Manage’ and then ‘Backup’. you will see something like this:

You will now have 2 choices to make. You need to pick where your backup is saved to. you can save it somewhere else on your server of have it e-mailed to you. Then you pick how ofter it happens and you are set. You will never have to worry about your back-ups again. High Five!

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I know it is hard to believe, but I am not always perfect. I messed up again. I forgot to include something that I feel is needed on any site. It is very simple, yet a very powerful tool. Want to know what it was? A search box.

Yes, I forgot to include a search function on this site. Sorry about that, but it is now included in the sidebar for all your super fantastic searches! One more thing. Please help me from looking like an idiot in the future by letting us know if we are missing anything you need.

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Yes lovely reader, it’s time for another WordPress plugin! This time it is the Snap Shots plugin. While you are looking around the site, you will notice that whenever you put your mouse over an external link, a small ‘Snap Shot’ of the site will pop open. I really like this thing, and it has not slowed the site down at all. Although I am using a fairly quick connection, if anyone notices a slowdown please let me know.

First you will need a Snap Shots account. Sign up is very simple and will give you the code you need to input into the plugin. At the end of the sign-up, you will have the option to download the plugin.

Installation is easy as usual. Unzip the file and upload it to your plugins directory. After you activate it, go to your options tab and choose the Snap Shots tab. It will look something like this.

Remember that code that you got when you signed up for a Snap Shot account? Now you need to enter it into the provided box. There are also a bunch of other options so you can make the snap box look and do what you want. So far I really like this thing. I can see it being very useful for surfing from work to make sure the site is not going to get you in trouble

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Well? When was the last time you backed up your blog/site? Was it a week ago? A month? Do you count on your host to do it?

For shame…

Go and do it now! Don’t stop to think about it. Don’t put it off any longer. It does not take that much time, and think of all the work you will have to do if you lose everything from the last few months.

If you are using WordPress (which you should) then it takes no effort at all. Log into your admin panel, click on ‘manage’ and then ‘export’. You will get something close to the following screen.

Now just hit the button and save the file to wherever you save that kind of thing. No more worries. You should also already have a copy of your current template, but if not, drag a copy of your main WordPress directory back to your desktop. Now even if your host burns to the ground, you can be back up and running in no time at all.

Now don’t you feel better? You can sleep well knowing all your bits and bytes are safe.

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This is going to be a weird one as I am not going to install or review this one yet. It does not really fix any bugs, so I would rather wait until it is out in the wild for a week or so and then consider upgrading. Anyway, for those that are waiting for it, here is a list of the improvments.

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Author: Aimee

I know it’s hard to believe, but before today I was a 26 year old Wordpress plugin virgin. I thought my first time was going to be painful, but it actually went fairly smoothly.

Usually, when Jason is not busy punching evil, or inspecting bikinis, he is the one who installs the plugins. I was starting to become tired of being made fun of for not knowing how to install a plugin (Jason can be very mean), so I decided that I would go for it. After my first experience with it I can tell you that it really is as easy as he says it is.

The plugin is called User Bio Popup. The reason we installed it was because it was unclear to many people that there were two of us running this site. Now whenever one of our names is written into a post, a link will be placed on the name that leads to our bio. Let’s test this out…Aimee, Jason. The popup isn’t all that pretty at the moment, but that can easily be fixed by editing the css code in the ddub-template.php file.

This plugin is great for any site that has multiple authors. It’s important for us bloggers to create relationships with our readers and one of the best ways of doing that is by telling them who we are. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my days of being an Evil Female Wrestler, it’s that personality is a key ingredient for success.

So first I downloaded the .txt files and renamed them to .php files. I uploaded the dd-user-bio-popup.php file to the plugin directory, I uploaded the ddub-template.php to the folder that contains the active template that we are using. This folder should be inside your “Themes” directory.

Then all I had to do was activate the plugin, and set the photo directory (with the full URL including the final “/”) in the “Options” section and I was done. If you don’t already have a bio set up, just click on your “Users” tab, click on “edit” beside your username and enter your bio under “About the user”.

That’s it! It didn’t hurt at all!

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OK, so that is not the name of the plugin, but I feel like an idiot right now. I just realized tonight that we did not even have a contact form for this blog. I know, a horrible sin. But all is not lost as I have just made one! It was very easy as I took the lazy way and just used a plugin to create it! High five!

The routine for install is the same as always. After you download it from here, unzip and throw it into your plugins directory. Log into your admin section and active the plugin. Now go to the options page to configure your contact page.

All done? Good, now you need to create a new page and add a small piece of code to it. You can copy the code from the same place you downloaded the plugin. To create a new page, select the ‘manage’ tab in your WordPress admin section, and then choose pages. You can add a new page from there.

Thats all there is too it. You can now accept multitudes of fan/hate mail, comments, letters to the editor, and sales pitches for viagra. This form also has a challenge question to battle the evil spam bots so you can feel safe while you sleep. As always, if you know of any other plugins we should try or review, please let us know using our super fantastic happy new contact form!

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Yes, I love plugins. I admit it.

This one is the dofollow plugin. I was actually looking all around my admin page looking for a way to turn of the nofollow tag. I got bored so I took a break to read some blogs and Jon Lee had a new post mentioning the plugin needed to do exactly that. Wasn’t that nice of him?

Basically I wanted a way to give back to people who drop off a comment or two. So as of right now all links in comments will be followed. Now I know you all want to do the same thing for your blog right? Spread the link love?

Well, here is a page to download a very simple plugin. All you do is download, install it and activate it. Nothing more to do and the nofollow is removed. Just make sure you have akismet turned on first so you don’t get bombarded once people find out. If you would like more information or a list of different plugins, take a look at Jon’s post.

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I sure love those WordPress plugins, and here is another one for you to sink your teeth into. It is called MyAvatar. What it does is includes your avatar pic from MyBlogLog in any comments you leave on the site. As we all want more pictures of ourselves everywhere we go, this is a great plugin. It’s almost like digital graffiti, you get to ‘tag’ every comment you make!

As with most WordPress plugins, you simply download the zip file and extract the folder into your plugins directory. Then log into you WordPress admin area and activate it in the plugins tab. There is a little more work to be done as you have to add a small piece of cade to your comments.php file. All the instructions can be found here.

Although this is not a big thing, it does add a face to the people leaving you comments which is nice. Plus it will make it easier to recognize the regulars.

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If you have a blog and you are like me, you probably have more post ideas than time to write them all. I find that alot of times that I am either writing a post, doing some work or even just surfing around other blogs leaving a few comments I get struck with an idea for another post.

Now I know you can’t know this, but I just had to stop writing this post as I had 2 new post ideas and had to answer an e-mail. The problem is that I am a multi-tasker (I am on the phone right now) and sometimes things get forgotten, especially if they are just ideas. So I get all these great posts going through my head and I need to do something with them before I lose them.

I went through a few attempts at ways to keep track of these things. I tried to just get my giant brain to associate them with something I would think of later. Seeing as my mind does not stop ever, it just got mixed up in with everything else and lost until I finally remember it during a drive home at 3 in the morning 800 miles from a computer.

Then I tried to write everything down. This met with a little more success, but I could not find a notebook that I could carry in my pocket comfortably. And I will not carry an Palm or a pocket pc or anything like that. I don’t need anything that emits an electric field near my boys, all you crackberry addicts are going to be crying later in life after you have cooked your manhood.

Anyway, I kept losing the notes I was writing. Or seeing as I never pick up a pen or pencil other than to defend myself, I cannot write anything that even looks like letters. I am lucky to be able to write my own name. So the paper notes idea was no good.

Next I tried to e-mail everything to myself. I’ve always done this sort of thing. E-mail myself what I need to do that night, or that I need to pick something up. Even messages I need to tell others. I also realized that I never really do what I e-mail to myself. Who the hell am I to order myself around! After a day full of e-mails at work, I don’t want to check any more as it just reminds me of more work.

So now what do I do when I have a post idea? I just start writing it right then. I log into WordPress and start the post. All I do is write a descriptive title that will remind me of what it was supposed to be about and save it. Takes only 30 seconds and won’t interrupt your regular work. Just make sure you do it right when you have the idea, even if you are writing another post.

So when you are finally ready to start writing, you don’t have to do any extra work. No need to search for little crumpled up note at the bottom of your bag. No need to sift through spam and other junk to get to your e-mail reminders. They are all sitting there waiting patiently for you when you log into your WordPress admin area. Sounds very simple, but it makes things a lot easier, plus you will never lose another good post idea again.

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