How to Do Easy WordPress Backups

May 29, 2008

WP Guru Nathan Rice, co-founder of RockinThemes, just did a post on how to do WordPress backups.

He gives pros and cons for two quick and easy ways to do backups:

1. Through the WordPress Export function, and

2. Through the WordPress Database Plugin

Check out the post “2 Quick Ways to Do WordPress Backups” here.

Posted by Cory Miller | Filed Under Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

How to Do Rotating Photos Video Tutorial

April 8, 2008

Based on Chris Pearson’s simple rotating header images tutorial, we’ve produced a short video screencast walking you through it.

Click here to view the video on How to Add the Rotating Photos Script to your blog or website. If you haven’t seen our free WordPress tutorials section, it’s also filled with video tutorials explaining the basics of WordPress.

Posted by Cory Miller | Filed Under Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

Start a Freelance WordPress Design Business

February 27, 2008

We’ve just released an all-in-one shortcut tutorials for those interested in starting a freelance WordPress design business called the WordPress Developer Toolkit.

It covers:

Basic tools you’ll need
The best plugins to use
Useful code snippets for WordPress
Suggestions for getting new clients

Go check out the iThemes WordPress Developers Toolkit here

Posted by Cory Miller | Filed Under Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

The WordPress for Beginners Video Tutorials

October 8, 2007

After more than 6 months of helping dozens of clients walk through the first steps of using WordPress for their blogs, I’ve complied the most often asked questions into a free WordPress tutorials section at iThemes.com.

Tips included in the tutorials:

How to Install WordPress Using Fantastico
How to Login to WordPress
How to Write a Post
How to Write a Page
How to Upload New Themes and Plugins
How to Edit Posts and Pages
How to Set Up Your Feed in Feedburner
How to Add a New User
How to Make a Static Page Your Home Page
How to Change Your Permalinks Structure
How to Moderate Comments
How to Add Links to Your Blogroll
How to Use The ‘More’ Tag
How to Use Sidebar Widgets
How to Install Google Analytics Stats

Yes, you can find this information online! But I’ve included screenshots and tips with the tutorial in one easy place that you can print off and review as you start your WordPress blog.

Click here to watch the free WordPress video tutorials

Posted by Cory Miller | Filed Under Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

Another Example of Creativity

March 20, 2007

I was browsing our stats at Technorati (we’re currently at 3,785!!!) and as always, I try to visit all the blogs that use our themes. One blog in particular caught my attention and I wanted to take a minute to showcase it :-)

Feature

TitusBlair.com uses our RockinSuckerfish single column theme, but this guy has really made it his own! It looks fantastic with the right-hand sidebar (which make me want to push even harder to get that 2 column version published soon) and the addition of his own image in the header really makes the site pop!

Also notice the dotted line he put around the posts and the meta information at the bottom of the posts (with the post ratings too, very nice).

Last but not least, he made sure to keep author attribution in the footer, something theme developers really appreciate :-)

Great site, good theme, and a little creativity! I just love it when my themes are used in such a creative way. Of course, not to mention the fact that he and I have the same spiritual affiliations :-) I’m impressed, and honored.

Posted by Nathan Rice | Filed Under Tips and Tricks | 4 Comments

Howto: Rotate Adsense for 2 Accounts

March 3, 2007

Since this site is co-operated by 2 individuals, it can be difficult to split ad profits evenly between myself and Cory. Don’t get me wrong, we have mutual trust for each other, but it would just be a hassle to have to make sure one of us splits up the revenue and sends it to the other person. To remedy this, I wrote a small PHP script to rotate our adsense code. Essentially, it randomly chooses an adsense block and displays it.

First, we have to get PHP to give us a random number. We’ll limit the options to just 1 and 2 since we are only rotating 2 adsense blocks.

[code]$rand = rand(1,2);[/code]

Then, we write the qualifier, an “if, then, else” statement.
[code]if ($rand == 1) //Comment: If the random output equals 1, then display Cory’s Code
print ‘YOUR CODE GOES BETWEEN THE SINGLE QUOTES’;[/code]

Yes, it is important to use single quotes. Just paste one of the two blocks of adsense code between the single quotes.

Next, we write the statement for the second block.

[code]elseif ($rand == 2) //Comment: If the random output equals 2, then display Nathan’s Code
print ‘YOUR CODE GOES HERE, LEAVE THE QUOTES THOUGH’;[/code]

Notice that I used “elseif”. Do this for all qualifier lines after the initial “if” statement.

Here’s what the final product should look like:

[code] $rand = rand(1,2);
if ($rand == 1) //Cory's Code
print 'YOUR CODE GOES HERE, LEAVE THE QUOTES THOUGH';
elseif ($rand == 2) //Nathan's code
print 'YOUR CODE GOES HERE, LEAVE THE QUOTES THOUGH';
?>[/code]

Save the file as adsense-rotate.php and upload it to your server. It doesn’t really matter where you put it, just make sure to use the correct path when calling it.

Finally, you’ll need to add a line to your template to call the file:

[code][/code]

Put that code in your template wherever you want your code to show up.

Notes:
If you want to rotate more than just 2 ad blocks, just change the second number in the randomizing line to the number of blocks you want to rotate. Then, just add a new “elseif” statement for the other blocks of code you want to rotate for.

Posted by Nathan Rice | Filed Under Tips and Tricks | 3 Comments