Check This Out

May

2013

Instant WP

There’s a new bit of *paid* software been released that allows you to easily set up a localhost WordPress installation.

You’ll likely get an email or two or three from people promoting it over the next few days.

I didn’t buy it because it’s already been done. For free. A few years ago.

(Probably more than once.)

Why would you want to install WP locally and not on a web site?

Simply because you get to test everything at lightning fast speeds BEFORE you deploy it on your web site. That way you can make sure everything works the way you expect it to before anyone else sees it live.

PHP is amazingly quick when run on an up to date PC. I can confidently say you’ve never seen WP run so fast until you run it on your PC – the page change on a menu click is near instant.

However…

The fact of the matter is setting up WP to run locally can be a nightmare, but some clever guy (Seamus Brady) in 2009 came up with the software to do it (for Windows only I’m afraid) and has been updating it every so often when it needs it.

It will even run on a USB stick for total portability (which I like). Just copy it to wherever you want to run it from.

Once you’ve downloaded and run the executable unzipper, you just fire it up to get a really nice dashboard presented to you where you can see your local site, log into the admin panel, use MySQL admin, and view the documentation.

Trust me, it’s a doddle to use.

All the nasty stuff like setting up the Apache web server, PHP and MySQL are done totally transparently in the background for you and it just works, which is how we like things isn’t it?

http://www.instantwp.com/

There’s documentation on the site, but if you’d like me to do a few videos explaining it all and how to run it on a USB stick etc, then just let me know by leaving a comment.

My guess is there are similar freebies out there that I don’t know about, but if *you* do then please let me know and I’ll pass it on to everybody. 🙂

Now then, before I sign off, I know that some people will want to consider the paid-for option because there’s a whole lot MORE in the paid-for version rather than just the software – there are a number of bonuses too. No I’m not going to go through them all but it’s a quite a comprehensive list of information, themes, plugins, and how-to’s. (Take a look at the sales page on the link below.)

And one big technical difference between the free and the paid software is that the paid for version comes with 10 WP development installations you can switch between and the free version only comes with one.

So, free or paid? You decide.

http://www.frankhaywood.com/wordpress-sim-machine/

-Frank Haywood

Dec

2009

Why You Shouldn’t Use Gmail

I don’t have much more to add to what’s been said in the comments on this news item on The Register, other than to say what I’ve said many times before. If you’re running a business, then use a BUSINESS email address, not a free one.

Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy
‘If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t do it’

And you should also check out the comments. A few choice words there, but it merely reflects the anger you’d expect would be generated by someone making such an arrogant statement.

Google do no evil? Don’t make me laugh.

Sep

2009

Updated Blog Software

Just a quick post to say I’ve updated this blog using this theme and software:-

http://www.frankhaywood.com/go/slp/

I’ve had my eye on it for quite a while now, but it seemed that development had stopped and the company was being sold, but not any more. Now development is full steam ahead with lots of point releases coming out all building up to a full version 6 release.

It’s relatively expensive, but you can get it at the lowest price for at least the next few days – the word is the price is going up when v6 is released.

It’s well worth every penny at any price, and I’m gradually upgrading all my niche blogs to this new platform.

When I’ve got to grips with the over 70 plugins that come with the theme I’ll do a proper review of it, but that could take some time as there’s so much in there.

In the meantime, the theme itself comes with 27 skins, and I’ve chosen one that is clean and simple and is very similar to the previous one, so it shouldn’t all come as too much of a shock to you. 🙄

Update: v6.0 RC1 has now been released, so if the price is going up when the full v6.0 is released, now would be a good time to get it.

-Frank Haywood

Aug

2009

Zero Blog Comment Spam With Clickcha

I thought I’d tell you about a plugin I installed a week or so ago that has completely removed all automated comment spam from this blog.

It’s called Clickcha and what it does is present a small random clickable image with instructions on where to click such as “click the smallest number” or “click the biggest square”.

The beauty of this is only a human would know where to click. So all those spammers using tools that automatically leave spam comments on blogs are out of luck.

Interestingly, it seems that ALL comment spam has stopped. In fact, even those comments I used to get that were what I would call borderline spam have stopped too. I used to deal with those by looking at the URL, and if it was anything to do with herbal remedies or gambling etc, I’d mark it as spam and let Akismet deal with it for other blog owners.

So just stopping to think about that one for a moment, it seems to be true that there’s a lot more automated blog comment spam must be going on than you’d think.

In fact Akismet hasn’t had to deal with one item of spam since I installed Clickcha.

That’s pretty cool and is definitely a plugin worth getting.

Update: I’ve had a couple of problems getting Clickcha to work properly on another site and I had to edit the comments.php in order for it to work. I’ve also had a subscriber (hi Larry) tell me that he clicked the smallest number and it deleted his comment from this blog. I’ve also just found a load of comment spam in Akismet, so Clickcha doesn’t quite seem to be doing what it’s supposed to at the moment and I’ve now deactivated it. The concept is good though, so lets keep our eye on that one.

-Frank Haywood

Apr

2009

5ubliminal Is My New Hero

While doing research for a report on autoblogging, and looking for a tool that would allow you to post to WordPress remotely, I (eventually) came across this blog by 5ubliminal.

It’s well worth signing up to as the owner has released some pretty cool plugins and you’ll only get them if you sign up due to his very nice pp:Morpheus plugin which I’ve just purchased.

If he had an affiliate scheme I’d join it. And if it was a WordPress plugin I’d buy it. 😉

And after purchasing the pp:Morpheus plugin I DEFINITELY want to buy his WordPress store plugin when he releases it, it’s just what I’ve been looking for to use on this site, although I guess I’d want a slight tweak to it. From my recent shopping experience there it allows you access to additional content by adding an access token to your subscriber account on a blog.

The tweak I’d want doing to it is to optionally (on a per-post basis) make some content available to all existing subscribers, but make new subscribers pay for it. Tie that in with an affiliate scheme and it would be bloody awesome. I don’t swear often so I think you can tell what I think about that idea.

If you decide not to look at 5ubliminal’s blog or even subscribe, then at least take 2 minutes of your time to read this and have a chuckle. 5ubliminal is my hero just for creating this page alone.

http://www.5ubliminal.com/

-Frank Haywood

5ubliminal message: I would very much also like a WordPress plugin that allows me to gather subscribers and email them from within WordPress. It would need SMTP support so I could use a service that I like called AuthSMTP.com to ensure email deliverability. Actually I think a lot of people would like that. Thank you. 🙂