BackUp WordPress- Plugin
( The Best Web Hosting Service)- They say nothing is completely sure in everything – not even in the world wide web. So if you’ve decided to build your life on doing a website, and got yourself in the WordPress platform, you have to make sure you get to back up your data once in a while.
However, with our busy schedule and thought-occupying worries, one might not be able to do this tiresome task regularly on a fixed schedule. Want someone (or something) to do it for you? Good thing we’ve got BackUpWordPress plugin to the rescue.
Basically, as it name implies, BackUpWordPress creates a backup of your WordPress data. What’s different is that you can schedule it at a given time, so it can regularly perform the backup process even if you are not around. It can even be configured to notify and send you the backup copy to your email address.Cool.
The backup process of the plugin has two modes, which are the Easy and Advanced Mode. The Easy mode allows you to specify only the backup directory, the schedule, and the email recipient settings of the performed backups. In Advanced Mode, however, you get to choose a lot of other options in terms of managing the backup process, including access to backup log, custom schedules, and backup presets.
The plugin also lets you download backups created manually to email to yourself in case you would want to ensure its safe delivery. The files are in .zip files for easier download and easier setup once you get them.
It is also super simple to use and requires no setup to begin. Just install the plugin and activate, and you can now start doing the configuration settings on the plugin page.
The plugin works even in blogs which are hosted on shared servers or low-memory packages. This does not require a huge bandwidth or space, as it uses mysqldump for faster backups and smaller file sizes. It even works on both Windows and Linux servers, and the backup process is highly customizable.
Support is also not a problem for this plugin, as it offers a good support system for downtimes, which rarely happen, so definitely it will not miss a schedule of backup of your WordPress data.
So if you haven’t installed this plugin yet, make sure you utilize this free service now. Though WordPress is a good CMS platform, it is not the most secured there is now and there will always be chances of it being hacked or configured differently. It’s either you take care of your blog contents now or regret it forever. Databases on your hosts will not be a good savior in case bigger problems come, so better do something now. Prevention is better than cure.
Check out the WordPress Backup plugin here.
AdSense Manager – Inside Look
( The Best Web Hosting Service)- Having troubles getting your AdSense to work on your site? Then you should definitely try Adsense Manager, a plugin that could help you manage AdSense ads on your blog even if you are just a beginner.
If you happen to have tried adding Adsense, then definitely you will know how troublesome it is to configure HTML coding as well as ad positioning. This plugin now lets you do this without all the troubles.
But wait. Before starting, you must already have your own Google AdSense account. Creating one is fairly easy. You just have to go their website and sign up. But once registered, you will have to take note of your Google AdSense ID which will be noted after you have logged in for you, as we will need it for the whole system to work.
If you already have the account, you can skip the above step. Simply install the plugin, fill in your Google AdSense ID, and choose or create the ads right on the configuration page.
This means that this plugin connects to the Google AdSense API, and you don’t need to do the copy and pasting anymore. Once ads are created, you can now do the option to change colors, size, and layout of the ads to match your site theme. You can also configure the position of the ad to appear either as a widget on the sidebar, inline in posts, or to a separate part of the page. Just like how you do it in Google AdSense main configuration page, you also have the ability to pre-view what your site looks like when it gets published, what your text links are, and how big it is on the page.
Once everything is fixed and it is already according to your preference, codes will be generated by the plugin itself. In any case, all formatting will be done on the plugin page, and you can also specify from there where it can be put on the site. From there, there would be no need to do any more code editing, and you can simply set the ads to appear on your desired area.
The old AdSense Manager plugin is currently being tried to work with other advertisement programs, and it is being to change to be Advertising Manager plugin. In any case, AdSense Manager can still be installed with old WordPress versions, and will still work accordingly as it had been.
Check out the Adsense plugin here.
CAPTCHA and Cutting down Spam on Your Site
( The Best Web Hosting Service)- Are you irritated from never-ending messages to your e-mail account sent by someone you didn’t even know, or are you fed up with advertisement that seems to come up from nowhere to your website? Well, 100% of the people who have their own e-mail address and websites had once suffered or have still been suffering because of spam. Spam can be considered as unsolicited messages sent in your e-mail or unwanted commercial advertisements on your website. Spams are generated by bots, a computer system that randomly sends those useless messages or advertisements to your site.
There are different types of spam. The most common is the message spam in e-mails and the news group and forum spam wherein the spammers post the same comments all over again to different discussions. When you sign in to a suspicious or unsecured website like forums and news group, you give bot programs a chance to obtain your e-mail address and send spam messages. You have to be careful though, as even though some spam look harmless because of their nonsense nature, they are usually actually very harmful to your accounts and computer too.
Nowadays, different websites like Yahoo and Google are using CAPTCHA. It is a program that helps cut down spam on your website and e-mail. “Completely Automated Public Turing-test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”, is used to prevent bots from retrieving your e-mail upon the signing up process in a certain website. It works by giving a challenge to someone who wants to gain access by a simple CAPTCHA question or a challenge (might be a simple question or math problem) to ensure that it is generated by a person.
Have you noticed the rumbled letters and unusual words below the sign up or log in form in certain websites? Those are CAPTCHA questions that will ensure that the user who wants to gain access is a human and not a computer. Computers cannot decipher words and images that are distorted, only humans can do. Computer researches have already been working on audio CAPTCHA for visually-impaired persons.
There are tips to prevent spamming in your website. Use a different e-mail address instead of using your personal e-mail address in logging in or signing in an unsecured website. Avoid displaying your personal e-mail in your website. If you need to put an email for contact information in your website, make sure you create one as a webmaster or administrator. Never try buying products from spamming websites because they will just send you tons of e-mails after you buy. If you have a website, make sure you also utilize CAPTCHA or at least require e-mail addresses before letting visitors post their comments in your website. As a webmaster, you have the right to ban spammers within your website. Do not reply in any spam messages. And why not trying a spam-cutting application to remove spam in your website? Most CMS, such as WordPress, also have plugins such as Akismet to filter spam comments.
As we all know, the internet is a very public and dangerous place right now. Privacy can be breached at any time, so keep your online presence and websites protected by all means. Your website is your own home in the WWW, so keep it safe.
Smart YouTube – WordPress Plugin
( The Best Web Hosting Service)- Don’t you just love attaching Youtube videos on your posts or RSS feeds? Videos are actually a big help for different blogs, as people tend to like watching more than reading stuffs. However, the problem with too much videos is that it uses a huge size of your bandwidth and resources, that’s why people drop it off already.
However, with the Smart Youtube plugin, this will no longer be a problem for bloggers and website owners. With this plugin, you can attach not just single videos from Youtube but also playlists in your posts, comments or RSS feeds. Size is not a problem with this plugin, as it is fairly small and integrates with your whole WordPress blog.
Even HD Youtube videos can be attached on posts and can be played back on full screen. It can also make the videos viewable on smartphones, such as the iPhone.
So what is different about Smart Youtube in the traditional Youtube video embedding? The answer lies in the codes. This plugin generates an xHTML code from the embedded video file, so it makes it fairly smaller and easier to load. It also surpasses many compliance issues and validation errors that are main problems with the default HTML code in Youtube.
Again, Youtube videos can be included in RSS feeds via this plugin. So, your subscribers won’t be left out on what you were talking about in the whole post, just because they cannot view the video in their RSS readers. They can even see preview screenshots of the video if their RSS reader does not support Youtube.
This plugin also creates a customizable look for your Youtube videos, such as colored borders to either match or complement your site layout and skin. Even size and position parameters can be fixed via the plugin configuration page.
The only problem with this plugin is that it is only exclusive to Youtube videos, and you have to use other closer plugins which support other video sharing sites like Vimeo if you want to embed videos from there. However, who knows, they might add this feature up the next time?
Overall, this plugin is a great tool for those who care much about videos. No problems with bandwidths, speeds, slowing down of sites, or anything else that could make your visitors leave. It is a lightweight plugin that can even be viewed on your iPhone and other mobile devices.
Check out the Smart YouTube plugin here.
Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin
( The Best Web Hosting Service)- Contact forms in blogs provide useful and beneficial results to blog owners as well as their visitors. As you can see, the easier it takes for people to contact you, the higher the chances that they would feel good to interact with you. One such good contact form in WordPress comes as a plugin – the Contact Form 7.
Obviously, it is a recent improvement of old Contact Form plugins supplied for WordPress. Its purpose is clear, to provide contact form, but this plugin also provides more features than just being a simple way to reach the webmaster.
First of all, this plugin is highly customizable. Its layout can actually be configured to match your overall layout in a simple way. You can put different fields on the form, depending on your preference and needs. You can add data to the drop-down lists on each field. Definitely customized and personalized as you would like it to be!
It can also support file uploads and attachment. Yes, it’s definitely not your ordinary contact form. As we said above, you can add this option depending on what your website data needs. Also, with one plugin, you can add multiple forms with different configurations to different pages and posts to your site. That’s a no-hassle form setup!
Not only that, it also supports Akismet spam filtering, so not everyone can be filling up your forms. CAPTCHA can also be enabled to ensure that a human is filling up the right information and data on the form.
After installing the plugin, attaching the form to a page or wherever in your blog is not a hard thing. You know, it uses just a shortcode for that. The code is just [contact-form 1 "My contact form"] or something like that. So no more complicated codes to copy and paste from one place to another.
Those reasons above actually make this plugin a favorite by most bloggers. Actually without it, contact forms are a tiresome thing to do and it is troublesome to get it configured to receive the right information or else data will be messed up. Its developers are always ready to help the users, so if you ever have a concern or problem with the plugin, you may visit their website in http://contactform7.com. You can also download the plugin via that webpage.
Nonetheless, this plugin is a must-have by each blog, and don’t worry, it’s definitely free to use.
-
Recommended:
BlueHost
FatCow
Gate.com
HostGator
HostMonster
InMotion
iPage
Lunarpages
Omnis Network
PacificHost
PowWeb
Web.com
WebHostingBuzz
eCommerce Reviews
BigCommerce Review
