1. When you download WordPress you get a file called “wp-config-sample.php” and are told to rename it to “wp-config.php”. What I do is have one file called “wp-config.php” that contains my local database settings and one called “wp-configON.php” which contains my online database settings. So after you upload your files to your server, simply rename “wp-configON.php” to “wp-config.php”. Don’t upload the “wp-config.php” to your server because it has your local settings. Doing this will allow you to continue working on your local website while still making it easy to locate and change settings to the ON version of the file. This is a very simple tip but it can save you a lot of time, energy, and headaches.
2. If you have to change a core file, make a copy of it and add some text so you remember that it was changed. Example: In the last post we had to modify the “wp-comments-template.php” file which is a core WordPress file. If you forget that you modified that file and update WP, you will overwrite it, then you’ll have to try and remember what modifications you made. Instead, simply copy the file and give it a name such as “wp-comments-templateBACKUP.php”. Now if you forget about your changes and overwrite your original file, you’ll always have a backup available, it shouldn’t be overwritten when you upgrade.

Well these are all the tips I have for now. Hopefully they save you a headache or two and allow you to focus more on your website and less worrying about important files.

Multiple WordPress Comment Forms

So as you can see from the graphic, on this site we have 1 form for regular comments, shown on the left, and 1 form for reviews, shown on the right.

Let’s go through the steps so you can see what has to be done to get this functionality on your WordPress website.

1. You need to make some changes to single.php to call the comment form template you want.

<?php if ( in_category('12') || in_category('17') || in_category('37') || in_category('42') || in_category('50') || in_category('1') ) { ?>
<?php comments_template(); // Get comments.php and comment-template.php template ?>
<?php } else { ?> 
<?php reviews_template(); // Get reviews.php and comment-template.php template ?>
<?php } ?>

So basically this says that if you”re looking in any of those specific categories in the first line, put the
usual comments template, otherwise put the reviews template.

2. Copy comments.php as your new template, so reviews.php in this scenario.

3. Open up wp-includes/comment-template.php

Find the code that starts like this….(around line 642 in WP 2.6)

function comments_template( $file = '/comments.php' ) {

And ends around line 670 like this…

 else
require( WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/themes/default/comments.php');
}

COPY that whole block of about 30 lines and paste it below
that block so you have 2 exact copies of all that code.

Now in the 2nd block we just copied, change the first line to…

function reviews_template( $file = '/reviews.php' ) {

And change some lines near the end of the block to this…

define('REVIEWS_TEMPLATE', true);
$include = apply_filters('reviews_template', TEMPLATEPATH . $file );

Now you should have 2 separate comment templates that you can modify and tweak to your liking. You can also easily change the code in single.php so that one template or the other only shows up for a specific category or page. Here’s a link to the codex so you can learn more about that.

Conditional Tag information at WordPress.org

• A Quick Look - Posts in this category will be a quick look at a CMS or doing something specific to a CMS. These posts will be shorter than usual and will be consise and to the point, not going too in-depth.
• An In-Depth Look - Here we will really drill down and take an in-depth look at a CMS or a group of CMS’.
• Hack and Extend - Plugins, addons, extensions, and hacking a CMS to the extreme.
• Promotion and Performance - This category probably won’t be posted to very often but posts will be about promoting your site and improving it’s performance.
• Random Ramblings - Sometimes you have to talk about the web without rules or restrictions or labels.
• Sites You Gotta See - Won’t be used very often, typically a post contains 3 links with brief descriptions of the sites that are new and interesting.

Well there you have it. Keep in mind that I may be adding categories as time goes by and the site expands and grows. If you ever have a suggestion or advice or anything to say, don’t hesitate to use the contact page to get in touch with me.

Traffic Secrets 2.0 Review

The above link takes you to a review by StomperNet about the all new Traffic Secrets 2.0 developed by John Reese, an accomplished internet marketer of 15 years. The reason I’m pointing you to the review and not the actual sales letter (ugh I hate sales letters, sorry John) is because you get a bonus by purchasing through StomperNet. If you’re not interested in bonus stuff though you can always go directly to TrafficSecrets.com.

Now sometimes when you find something like this there’s a part of you that thinks “keep this to yourself, don’t let other internet entrepreneurs know it exists!”. But that’s not the way you succeed in life. Besides, having the knowledge of making your website successful isn’t the whole picture. You still need to have the tools, the courage, the time, the list goes on. Sharing your information with others isn’t going to hurt you in the long run, that’s my point.

Anyways, the sooner you jump in the water, the sooner you’ll figure out what you need to do to make some money on the internet. So get started today, and if you can’t afford to buy the above package, oh well! There’s still massive amounts of information on the net for your comsumption so get started today!

Good Luck and Godspeed young web samurai.

Let’s jump to domain chat. When I started out I went for the cheapest registration cost per domain, 1and1. I thought you had to have the domain and hosting at the same place so that’s what I did. It wasn’t until later that I realized it wasn’t necessary to have the domain and hosting with the same company. All you have to do is change the nameservers! If I were to give you advice on buying domains it would be this; buy domains where they’re easy to push, like namecheap or dynadot. Eventually you’re going to want to sell one of those domains and pushing is a lot easier than trying to transfer.

Read a book on SEO. If you’re serious about getting a site some traffic you better know how the search engines work. How many normal internet users do you know that don’t use google or yahoo to find something? The answer is not many. If you’re looking toward the future though, you’ll probably see search engines that find the best site available, not the site that’s best optimized. So in my opinion you need to build websites that can stand the test of time, websites that have a purpose. Because you never know when a new google will come along or a new idea and there goes your traffic. Building a site that is easy to navigate, usable, has a pleasant design, ranks well in the engines and so forth takes time to build. So my advice to you is to get ready for the long haul. Strap yourself down, put on your typing gloves and get ready to grind it out for a while.

That’s all the writing rambling I can take for now, thanks for reading.

First up, Adregate

Adregate is an online ad serving solution that makes it pretty easy to manage your ads. You pay a monthly fee which is based on impressions and you can even serve ads for 1 site for free.

Pros:

• Very easy interface makes managing ads easy
• Media/Sales kit page to refer your potential advertisers to

Cons:

• No way for advertisers to check ad stats

OpenX, previously OpenAds

OpenX is a PHP app that you install on your own server for all types of ad serving. Their blog had a post about their roadmap for 2008, it sounds good to me.

Over the last few months, we have spent time sorting through all of the opportunities, features, and priorities that we have, and distilling these down to a clear roadmap of what OpenX plans to deliver in the coming months. Read the rest

Pros:

• It’s open source
• Advertisers can be emailed statistics about their campaigns

Cons:

• Admin area is a bit difficult to get used to

These are the only 2 I’m going over for now. I will update this page when more ad serving apps are available. Feel free to leave a comment if you know of more ad serving solutions like the above. Google is currently in beta with it’s ad manager and I can’t wait to try it out. If I get to, I’ll be sure to update this post.

Amember

Price: Under $200

Pros

• Site features trial download, support forum, and an online demo
• Software Integrates with many payment processors and other software like WordPress, PHPBB, and more

Cons

• Software development doesn’t seem very active, only 2 updates in 2007
• Forum isn’t much help aside from a few helpful members, have to use ticket system
• General lack of announcements or news, unsure if software integrates with new versions, like PHPBB3

Caribou CMS

Price: Starts at $free (LE version, 100 members)

Pros

• Site features online demo and ticket system for support
• Software integrates with Paypal, 2Chechout and authorize.net
• Software has built-in CMS and many features available
• Active development, they responded to my email message quickly
• *Now integrates with PHPBB3 and vBulletin software

Cons

• Can’t view users in administration area
• Somewhat difficult to implement a custom front-end design

Omni-Secure

Price: Starts at $197

Pros

• Site features online demo, 10-day trial of the software and ticket system for support
• Software integrates with Paypal, 2Chceckout, authorize.net, PHPBB, and more
• Software features Multi-Directional Login Forms and more
• Active development, many new features added already this year

Cons

• CMS integration plugins cost extra, about $50 each
• More expensive than some of the alternatives

Hopefully this general rundown will be enough to get you going. I try not to spew my opinion too much when writing an article like this.

First up, RaiseCapital.com

A great way to raise capital because you get to connect with investors for free. Anyone can sign up and post an opportunity or look for opportunities to invest in. A neat idea and one that I think many will use and find invaluable.

Next we got G04Funding.com

This site has nearly the same goals as raisecapital.com, connect investors and entrepreneurs. Also has some nice articles on what angel investors and venture capitalists are and how the investment process works.

Lastly, OSSpinions.org

Feel free to spew your opinions on open source projects at this site. A nice way to check out OS projects and see what others think about them.

I hope you enjoy these sites as much as I have and don’t forget to leave a comment and let me know what you thought.

So basically all I did was write an article called Why WordPress Rocks. It took about an hour and I tried to include as many links as I could to all the best WordPress sites on the net. I also (of course) included a link to my site where I release WordPress Themes.

The Google searching began straight away because I wanted to see if the article showed up, how long it took, and where it ended up. I was shocked to see that in under 2 days it was number 1 in Google for the keywords “Why WordPress Rocks” and “WordPress Rocks”. Now I know that these aren’t the best keyword phrases in the world, but the results are amazing. Needless to say, I highly recommend that you try it out for yourself. My Lens was built in a couple of hours and Squidoo makes it really easy. The great part is that there are other sites like Squidoo out there and if you utilized all of them, who knows what results you’d have.