For some this may sound like a silly question, for others it’s a wake up call!

Today it’s pretty common for business owners to back up their servers and computers. More and more computers at home are being backed up but it’s rare that we see new clients who have a complete backup of their website. If you own a laptop you need an online backup like Carbonite or Mozy!

The best solutions for WordPress Website backups is BackupBuddy from iThemes.

Although this isn’t a free plugin ($45 for personal, $75 for business) it’s priceless if you have a problem!

I’m afraid people “over trust” their web hosting and I’m not talking about their company going out of business, rather their site getting hacked or what seems like a simple theme or plugin or WordPress upgrade that crashes their site. I don’t think you have to worry so much about losing your site data if you use a major host like Hostgator or Bluehost.

If you use a friends server or some other rogue setup I can’t stress backup any more!

To purchase BackupBuddy follow our link here: http://CyberInnovation.com/BackupBuddy

Installation and Configuration

BackupBuddy is easy to install, with only a few options to configure and you can schedule regular database or full content/database backups.

After you install BackupBuddy you’ll need to enter your supplied license key or login with your username/password you created when you purchased the plugin

Next find the BackupBuddy tab in the left column of WordPress and start at the “Settings” tab.

The first section of settings are the notifications. Here you setup an email address to receive notifications on successful or un-successful backups.

Next is the FTP settings where you can have your backup files uploaded off site! Don’t have a FTP site you can use? Simply get a secondary web hosting account with Hostgator or Bluehost and setup BackupBuddy to store your backups on the secondary web hosting site!

Next is Amazon S3. We won’t go into detail here but if you prefer to store you backups on Amazon S3 prices are much more reasonable and if you have multiple sites this may be a better solution than FTP. This is an API connection which has fewer issues than FTP username/passwords can have

Miscellaneous Settings: IMPORTANT!

Maximum number of archive backups is likely one of the MOST IMPORTANT settings in BackupBuddy. If you have unlimited storage this isn’t a problem but many hosting accounts are limited so too many backups can fill up your empty space and shut down your website!

It varies site by site but we generally set this to 10 backups TOTAL. We generally run a full backup weekly or monthly and database only backups daily or weekly.

Database backups are very small and not a problem. Most full backups are also small but we do have some clients with large amounts of video/audio and PDF files. These can create very large backups and although BackupBuddy excludes backup up the backup archive files, 10 files at 500mb each can add up quickly!

Set your limit and monitor you have enough backups at anytime!

There are additional settings to exclude certain folders or secondary sites you may have installed on the site for testing purposes.

Scheduling

The next tab/page in the sidebar under BackupBuddy is “Scheduling.” Here we generally setup two schedules: One for a database only backup and one for a full database/content backup. You can set them individually for daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly. More options may come in the future but this is pretty comprehensive for backup scheduling.

Backups

The last option in the left tab for BackupBuddy is “Backups” which is why we are here! Simply click the Full Backup or Database backup and wait.. don’t refresh your browser and your backup will run!

A list of your backup archives are displayed and again look at your settings page to limit the number of archive files.

ImportBuddy.php

IF you are forced to restore your website from a full backup OR you need to move your WordPress website to a new hosting company you can do it very easily with BackupBuddy. I say “easy” compared to how we had to do it in the past!

Before BackupBuddy we used a plugin to back up the database but used FTP to move the files to the new host. We had to manually create a MySQL Database and import the DB backup then go into the tables and manually change settings to match the new host.

With BackupBuddy you will need to create a database on your web host in cPanel or your web hosting dashboard. After that you simply upload your BackupBuddy zipped copy of your website which you downloaded or stored on a FTP server or Amazon S3 from our settings above.

Next you download a copy of the ImportBuddy.php and also upload that do your new server under the HTML or Public HTML folder of your website. Once the backup zip file and importbuddy files are in your web server folder simply type in your domain name and the link to the import file. Here’s an example “yourdomainname.com/importbuddy.php”

You will be prompted with a few questions, your database username/password, name of database and then the restore process starts.

Success!

You’ll be amazed at the speed and success of the restored WordPress site. As with any backup system there may be some rogue or unique changes you need to make but generally they aren’t an issue with BackupBuddy rather a oversite. If we move a website from one domain to another, any internal links embedded in pages won’t change. There are plugins out there like Velvet Blues that will find your old URL’s and change them to your new domain name.

Summary

Although this is a very detailed description of BackupBuddy it’s not a complete tutorial. If you need assistance or help installing configuring or restoring with BackupBuddy, we are here to help.

To purchase BackupBuddy simply follow our link: http://CyberInnovation.com/BackupBuddy

If you have any comments or questions please let us know, we are happy to help!

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WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting

More and more we are getting requests from our clients asking how they can add polls to their website.

If you want to give your visitors the ability to vote on your content, ask a question or get their feedback, you can do this with polls.

Below are more details and reading, if you prefer to watch a video instead click here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are a number of WordPress plugins but we prefer to use a couple:

WP-Polls

PollDaddy.com

WP-Polls is one of the most popular plugins in the WordPress directory.

Simply install the plugin, scroll down to the bottom left side of your dashboard and you’ll see a menu item called “Polls” (with a bar graph)

Here you can add a Poll or question you want to ask. Then add the answers you want people to vote on and click save. It’s that easy!

Now in your Post or Page editor you can look for this icon and simply enter the poll id from your “manage list of polls”

The shortcode is added automatically to your page to display the poll.

Or you can go to your widgets and drag the WP-Polls widget to your sidebar

WP-Polls Options

You can:

• set numerous options globally or on a per poll basis
• show results immediately or disable results
• allow more than one answer to be chosen or just one
• block repeat voters via cookie, IP or both

Results are available as graphs in the dashboard and much more!

Polldaddy.com is our preferred plugin!

Polldaddy.com is a company owned/manage by Automattic which also manages WordPress.org. I’m not sure you could find a better connection between two service but that being said they are two services.

Like above you add the free Polldaddy.com plugin to WordPress.

Next go to http://PollDaddy.com and create a free account. Now in your Polls>Options enter your username/password to make the plugin connect to your account.

Now honestly creating basic polls is very similar to WP-Polls but you get additional styling CSS options on a per poll basis.

PollDaddy.com plugin has 20 preset styles and the option to choose Wide-Medium-Narrow

Once you have saved the poll you can then hover over “Share-Embed” to get the Shortcode for embedding into pages/posts but many other options for Java Script, Twitter and others!

There is NOT a simple widget to drop the polls into the sidebar. I suspect it would be tough to offer a plugin as you save the width, color, layout in the polls editor for each INDIVIDUAL post. So you simply copy the script above to an html/text widget.

Adding Media to your Polls

If you want to take your polls to the next level and say vote on an image you can do this with Polldaddy.com. You cannot do this from the dashboard but don’t worry.

Go to your PollDaddy.com dashboard and create a new poll. When you type in your questions or answers you have a choice to upload “Media”

Once you have completed creating your poll and setting your options you can now go back to your WordPress Dashboard and go to Polls>edit and then choose “All my Polls”

You will see the polls you create online and get the same shortcode/embed code and your polls can now show media to allow your visitors to vote on!

Summary

In summary polls are pretty simple. You can install either plugin and setup a quick poll. Then add it to a page/post using the supplied shortcode. Both have similar options to expire on a certain date, allow more than one answer, block by cookie/ip and both allow you to customize the templates.

PollDaddy.com is a free service that allows you to do more with your polls. Now you can add media to your polls to allow visitors to vote on image or other media. There are over 20 pre-designed templates and you can choose from narrow-medium-wide size for your polls.

If you have any questions or have an experience with either of these plugins please make a comment here!

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WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting

Independent Sports Supply is a Wholesale Distributor in the Shooting and Hunting Industry based in Cedar Rapids, Ia.

This was a newly formed company so our website design strategy wasn’t based on upgrading an existing site. The focus was creating a members only website to help a distributor communicate private wholesale price lists to their dealers.

The next priority was maintaining a public website to attract more business and be a source for dealers nation wide.

We started with the iThemes Patriot Theme as it was very “American” and “Red-White-Blue.” One of our designers Chris created an awesome logo with gun site and more! He then faded the US flag, US Constitution and American Eagle into the header image. The home page rotating images were focused towards the shooting and hunting industry.

Next we had to lock down the blog so the owner could post updates to his dealer network. We’ve used WishList Member and s2Member on many WordPress membership sites but this client had a different request. He wanted to manually approve all members AND because of that we needed to collect more information on dealer registration.

On our registration page we needed name, address, phone so the owner could call and verify the dealers who were applying.

Wishlist Member only collects First-Last Name and email but does allow manual approval. Problem was he needed the phone number to call.

s2Member wouldn’t allow for manual approval but we could have set up a free registration then after the owner called to verify he could move them to a “Dealer” level created in s2Member. Problem here was it allow people to become a “subscriber” so if they were denied he would have to delete them.

So we settled on WP-Members (not to be confused with WP Members no hyphen) as it gave us the ability to collect name, address, phone, email and hold approval till the owner called to verify the dealer. Upon approval the owner simply uncheck a box and the dealer is sent an approval email with a login name/password.

I highly suggest this plugin for manual approval sites and Chad Butler was awesome to work with. We didn’t need to collect payment via Pay Pal or anything like that but I know Chad is working on a new release.

We opted to use MailPress for email subscription management for news and updates. This allows for HTML or text emails to be sent to all members and MailPress syncs with WP users. So when the owner approves the dealer a user account is created in WordPress and automatically added to MailPress for email updates when anything is posted to the blog.

In summary we have a website open to the public for the owner to advertise his business and locate more dealers across the country he can work with.

Next if a dealer applies to be a member the owner calls and verifies the dealer and approves them. Automatically a WP account is created and they are added to the MailPress email database.

Now as the owner updates the blog with the most current price list, products, specials, his dealers ONLY see this information. If anyone not logged in tries to access this information they are blocked.

Finally we added BackupBuddy from iThemes for schedule DB and Full Theme and file backups!

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WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting

LinnCountyTrails.org is a group of motivated, creative volunteers combining vision, partnerships, and stewardship of resources to make trails happen in and around Linn County, Iowa.

We upgraded their previous website from a static/flat HTML site to a CMS based WordPress site with maps, dynamic content and social media integration.

We started with the iThemes Builder – Slate Child Theme. This allowed us to create a number of page layouts specific to the home page, inner pages, trail pages, document pages etc.

Dynamic Content Gallery

We used Dynamic Content Gallery on the home page to feature specific trail pages. Each trail has it’s own page with maps, images, description so we used the sliding images to connect to the specific pages.

This allows the client to update the image and description at any time or add a new trail and have the home page images update automatically and link to the specific trail page.

Google KML Map Integration

Obviously the primary focus of the website is the trails. We worked with the client who created custom KML maps for each trail as well as an overlay map and amenities. The maps are zoomable and dynamic.

Each trail page has an individual map for that specific trail.

Support for mobile devices

iThemes makes a great plugin for mobile devices simply called Mobile.

This was important for this site as many people on the trails are either walking or biking so mobile phone access is required.

Auto Generated Featured Image Page Links

The Find a Trail page is an auto generated page from the sub pages and their associated Featured Image which is part of WordPress 3.0.

Basically each trail page is a sub page of Find a Trail page. Each page is assigned a featured image and the link/image is auto generated on this page. The client can add a page and the page is updated automatically.

Photo Galleries

Each trail has it’s own photo gallery which was too much for the default WordPress Media Library. Instead we used NextGen Gallery and created a specific gallery for each trail. We also created a gallery to hold the home page Dynamic Content Gallery images.

Individual Trail pages

As mentioned above each trail has it’s own page, specific KML Google map, description and NextGen Image Gallery slideshow.

The right column links to all trail pages automatically.

If the client adds a new trail page the simply follow the template created and the home page images are generated with title and description and more!

Events Calendar Pro

We chose Events Calendar Pro for this project as it creates a custom post type and in turn a custom menu item in the dashboard. This makes it easier for clients to add events as it’s custom post type aka a blog post with a title “Events”

The WordPress Dashboard was customized for the client to remove items that were confusing.

PDF documents are manage by WP Download Monitor. Although we don’t need to monitor the number of downloads, this is a great way to add a PDF to a document library when editing a post or page. The file is added to the page/post but dynamically is added to the overall site library. Click here to see an example.

We also setup social networking integration and automation so any time the blog is updated their followers are notified on Facebook and Twitter.

Summary

There are so many other features and too many to list here. Take some time to review the site and post your feedback and questions below.

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WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting

Recently we created a WordPress website for a home builder. They wanted to add properties manually as well as images, blue prints etc.

The Great Real Estate Plugin is an amazing plugin connecting a number of existing plugins but that brings along a level of complexity and confusion for the client.

We put this video together showing how to add properties NOT how to setup and configure the plugin.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting

The NextGen WordPress plugin is one of our more popular plugins with clients. It’s a great way to manage photos, slideshows and more!

We create this video NOT to explain how to install or configure the plugin, rather how the end user will use the NextGen Plugin to add galleries and photos into galleries and then how to post to pages or the blog

Click here to view the embedded video.

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WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting

While working on WordPress project with a client today we ran into an interesting problem. Our client had a 30mb audio MP3 file they wanted to host on their website for playback by anyone who registered for the free newsletter. The page was hidden and re-directed after successful newsletter registration. Of course this page and MP3 can be found by search engines so if this is a problem for your situation and you don’t want people finding your hidden files don’t host your MP3 or any large file in this manner!

WordPress support for large files

There are numerous was to create a link, to a large file in a page. Or you can add a plugin to host, stream or play the MP3 files in WordPress. Some of you reading this will think they are crazy for hosting a large file and worry about monthly bandwidth limits? They have an unlimited account and we aren’t hosting top 40 music files or movies so it’s relative to the hosted content!

Problem

The problem was the client couldn’t upload the MP3 file via the WordPress Media Library upload. The PHP limits were restricting large files commonly anything over 8mb???

To get around this problem and avoid PHP editing we helped the client this way:

We logged into the website cPanel and simply clicked on “File manager.”

Next you double click on sub-folders or click the plus in the folder structure to dig down to the WordPress content library. The window will be open in the right pane.

example: ../wp-content/uploads/2010/2 (of course your year and month will change with the date you upload)

With the folder open on the right next click “Upload” in the top toolbar.

You will see your maximum file size upload. Often this is greater than the WordPress limits but if it’s less than your file size STOP HERE and contact your web host to increase your limit!

Next simply click Browse and choose your file and upload.

Back to WordPress

Now login to your WordPress Dashboard and add the plugin “Add to Server” from Dion Hulse

Next go to your Media Library in the Dashboard and you’ll see a new link

Next choose Add from Server and you are taken to a file browser similar to file manager in cPanel. Simply drill down to your directory and choose the file or files and import.

You will now find your files in Media Library!

Other considerations

Maybe you have a need to upload a large number of files? It could be a combination of photos, video, documents or ?? Maybe you want to FTP a bunch of files and then add to the media library instead of uploading one by one in the media library!

If you find any other solutions or ideas please post them here!

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WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting

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1. Welcome to our website!

WordPress Website Design-Development-Hosting-Training-Consulting