Always Remember To Back-Up Your Files!

This topic crops up more often that not, and we always seem to read about it every other day! So if you haven’t gathered what I’m talking about yet, then it’s to do with backing-up your files and folders.

I learned the hard way yesterday when I was working on my new blog theme! I was in the middle of editing the stylesheet and must have accidentally deleted most of it without ever noticing a thing! So I carried on as normal, and clicked the ‘Update’ button and then refreshed the screen (Ctrl + R) to take a look at the changes, and boy did they look a little strange this time!

So at first I wondered what on earth had happened and went back to undo the change I’d just made in the stylesheet. (At that point, I thought that changing the ‘padding’ had caused the problem!) I scrolled down and then it hit me, at least half the stylesheet was missing!

Sorting this problem was going to take me a good few hours, and possibly even more. I spent the time getting things back to normal (Although some parts still need work done on them today!), and I refresh the page once again hoping that things are back on track. But NO there was still a problem somewhere and I just couldn’t find it. I was almost ready to call the experts in because of it!

It got to the point were I had to start from the top, and work my way down. I remembered that I was doing something in the header.php file and so I checked there first. BANG! - I found the problem in 2 mins flat! It turned out that I had an extra </div> tag were I shouldn’t have. (Talk about bad luck?!)

The main point I’m trying to make is if I’d had a back-up, then I could have just re-uploaded that and been able to get on with my modifications. Instead I had to get this sorted. (While I’m here, the new theme will be with us pretty soon. It all depends on when I get it complete. HEHE)

I learned the hard way with this, but imagine if you lost EVERYTHING in your hosting account or even your Aweber signups! I can guarantee now, that it wouldn’t be a very nice sight!…

So spend 10 minutes now and go back-up your files and folders!

Popularity: 96% [?]

Have You Taken The Wordpress 2.5 Plunge Yet?

It’s been around 2 weeks now since Wordpress released their latest version (2.5) of the blogging software! Now as first, it can be quite daunting when you go to upgrade your older version…and some people keep holding off and off. But have you thought what could actually happen if you DON’T upgrade?!

Look at it this way, you’ll have some people with nothing better to do with their time (mainly hackers) who will take advantage of your old WP version and you could run the risk of losing your blog completely!

I bet that’s NOT what you want, is it?!

As soon as I found out that Wordpress 2.5 had been released, I upgraded straight away! Some people did have the odd problem with incompatible plugins (and the odd theme I think) as this was a completely new version, but I’m glad so announce nothing bad happened here and the upgrade was done in less than 5 minutes. (If your unsure what to do, you can follow their instructions that come included!)

Now as Lee McIntyre mentioned this morning (On his blog!), you could quite easily head over to RentACoder or whatever freelance site you use and get someone who knows what they are doing to do the upgrade for you in double quick time.

You could also ask one of your Internet Marketing ‘friends’ if they could possibly upgrade the version for you, and an experienced person should manage it no problem. (I’m sure most would say yes!)

I really like the *BRAND NEW* design of the admin panel in v2.5, and find it easier to move around. Things are easier to find out and you can change the colour scheme if you like as well, just by the click of you mouse!

Popularity: 12% [?]

To Plugin Or Not To Plugin, That Is The Question…

Since this blog went ‘on air’ so to speak, I’ve added a few plugins over time! Now some can be of use and others a total waste of time, if you know what I mean. But what do I have here at Mark-McWilliams.com headquarters? While I’m not going to list them all here, I thought about recommending a few that you should have!
(Click their name to be taken to the relevant page!)

1. What Would Seth Godin Do - I really like this plugin and find it very useful. You see, if your new (or just cleared your cookies) and you visit any part of my blog, then it allows me to display a custom message to them. At the moment, I try to encourage the visitors to subscribe to my RSS feed. You can, if you wish, edit the message and put whatever you like in.I really like this plugin, and it has to be one of the best ones out there.
2. Akismet - As this blog grows and grows (you’ve got to think big eh?) it will more or less receive quite a few comments on the posts that I make. This plugin assists, along with comment moderation, in filtering out all the SPAM that comes through (mainly from bots!) - Hence, it saves me quite some time when I’m approving and attending to my blog. You do need to signup at Wordpress.com were you’ll receive an API that the plugin requires to work. (It’s FREE! - Signup Now!)
3. Related Posts - Whenever a visitor finds your website through a search engine (for example) they often only see that single post at first. They are also here because they want to find out about a topic that interests them! With Related Posts plugin, it makes life 10 times easier for your visitors by showing them other posts you happen to have written on the subject. I would hope that they stuck around and looked at even more content because of this.
4. Google Sitemaps - Don’t want the hassle of creating one yourself? Then this plugin is for you! It will automatically create a Google compliant sitemap of your Wordpress blog. This will ensure that all your pages are, and get indexed in Google. You really don’t want to be without this plugin when Google crawls your site!
5. Well that’s for YOU to decide! - It can be whatever plugin you like. There has to be hundreds of them going around and I bet I’ve missed half of them. Are you able to fill me and my readers in with another part of the jigsaw? Well, I hope so! Just leave a comment below, and I’ll sum them all up in a new post later on next week!

That rounds up the main plugins for today. I happen to use all 4 of them on this blog, and am have no problems! So go ahead and install some yourself!

And as always, I’m looking forward to what you’ve got to add! We’re all here to help eachother!…

Popularity: 19% [?]

Have You Registered YourName.com Yet?

Once again it’s pouring down with rain here in the UK. Not to mention this cold that’s just hit me, but I’m not letting it stop me from providing my readers with information!

Now, you’ve maybe heard other marketers like John Thornhill or even Lee McIntyre talking about this from time to time. If you remember from that ‘interview‘ I had with John, he mentioned it there too.

When I first started out online, I really didn’t know were I was or what in fact I was doing. I searched eBay several times and I eventually came across PlanetSMS (John Thornhill) and started from there really.

The IMPORTANT thing I never did, was to register MarkMcWilliams.com - People will do searches on Google maybe even Yahoo looking for YOU! So after a bit of time, I eventually went to register Mark-McWilliams.com because the other one had been TAKEN!

Fortunately for me, MarkMcWilliams.com had been registered a few years before so it couldn’t be helped. However, I am on the lookout for when it does expire…cause I’ll be jumping on it like a hound.

The thing I’m trying to tell you is go register YourName.com domain today! Get a blog setup on it, then start typing away. If you know nothing about Wordpress, then you could always get someone to do it for you. Although, if you have cPanel then there is a program called ‘Fantastico De Luxe’ were you can install it from.

Back on track of things, you can use your domain and add a ‘recommends’ directory were you can create nice looking affiliate links. I mean, what’s better?

http://markmcw.smsdigital.hop.clickbank.net

http://www.mark-mcwilliams.com/recs/sms_mentorship

Come on, I hope you were going with the second link there!

I hope you’ve learnt a thing or two from this post today. And as always, if you need to know anything else…then just drop me a line in the comments below.

Popularity: 29% [?]

The Revolution Theme And WP Has What In Common?

So how was your weekend then? Action packed or just taking some time off? Well, mine was pretty quiet and I therefore didn’t do much…

Well over the past few days, I’ve been looking into this GREAT collection of Wordpress Themes. As you know, I mentioned that I was planning on revamping Mark-McWilliams.com with the use of a new theme. So I thought it was about time for some good news.

I came across a site called RevolutionTheme.com and was amazed at the quality and look of the themes that were provided. After checking out all the demos, I’m still undecided as to which theme to go for. Now I must say before I go any further that they are not free. In my eyes though, there is an advantage to paying for them…and I’ll get onto that a bit later.

Why can’t I make my mind up then? Well, it’s down to the stunning array of themes that Brian Gardner has created. (You may have heard about him?) I mean, let’s take a look at them below…

     

…So from these thumbnails, you can see what I mean! I hope to have made my mind up by the end of the week and make my purchase then get the beast installed.

And don’t worry, because I’m going to customise whatever theme I get too…so you may not know were you are the next time you visit. I think I’m going to stick with the green colour too, although I’m not sure. Your comments would be appreciated on the subject.

Now before I wrap this up for tonight, I was going to mention why I like a theme that you have to pay for. Well…as silly as it may sound for wanting to pay for something, it’s actually very logical! If you purchase one of the themes you like, you will receive FREE life-time upgrades. So as the internet moves on and the themes are developed even further, you get FULL access to them at NO additional cost! This is 99.9% the same with digital/software products that you buy.

So that’s me for today, but if you want to take a look at the themes yourself…then just click the banner below.

Popularity: 11% [?]