Wordpress 2.5: Fix for the “unable to upload files” blues

I love Wordpress… really I do. Wordpress blogs are great for so many reasons which I’ve covered before here. I’ve got clients who can barely use email who are creating posts on Wordpress blogs that are getting GREAT SERPS.

Wordpress is DEFINITELY the technically challenged person’s dream application.

Installing Wordpress is easy.   Using Fantastico, it’s positively simple.  The devil is in the details.

For example, when Wordpress 2.5 is running on a security minded hosting platform… well, let’s just say allowing Wordpress 2.5 to upload images or video is NOT viewed as a desired activity.

In order to work around this, you have to rewrite the htaccess file. It’s not a biggie and while I was in there, I found some great suggestions on how to rewrite the htaccess file to keep the “bad bots” out.

With that said, it only takes a misplaced character to screw up your ENTIRE website when you’re messing with your htaccess files. Mistakes were made…. but no clients were injured in the process. <grin>

Here’s a bit of the code that I found on the Wordpress.org message boards which fixed the 2.5 image upload file error. Add this to your htaccess file and VIOLA… Wordpress 2.5 uploads files, images and videos.

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

As for my clients… they are ecstatic that this is my job and not theirs.

Unfortunately, as Wordpress becomes even more powerful and more popular, it’s becoming less accessible for the technologically challenged.

Wordpress rocks for SEO

This is one for the “more proof” files. As you know, I’m a real fan of Wordpress blogs.  I’ve found that for my clients, who are not tech savvy, a Wordpress blog allows them to compete successfully with “web experts” in getting their website found on the internet.

Mark Gosh on the Weblog Tools Collection did his own unscientific research project and was kind enough to share his findings. In his “experiment” he typed in a keyword and took a look at what results were returned. In each case, the results returned a WordPress blog post on every Google Search.

March challenged his blog’s readers to find keywords that didn’t return such favorable responses, and they found a few.

I’ve written about how I’ve had clients who launched a Wordpress self hosted blog in addition to maintaining an established blog on another “popular” platform who were SHOCKED at how quickly their Wordpress blogs rose to the top when they searched for their own name.

Reading the comments on Mark’s post, you’ll see their experiences are not uncommon.

Easy Transition to Wordpress 2.5

So far so good…. I must admit, I was REALLY worried about the upgrade to WP 2.5

The upgrade to 2.3 was a real bear for me. It took a bit for me to sort out which plug ins could co-exist peacefully within the new framework.

However, I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 and the only plug in that didn’t make the transition was the one I used to display online videos inline in blog posts. Since WP 2.5 offers that feature as part of the “standard” package…. it’s not a great loss.

If you’re one of my “people”… ignore the beg message from Wordpress asking you to upgrade. Allow me time to make a few test posts on the new system to ensure there aren’t any “hidden” surprises in store.

The administration panel is completely revamped… which means all those video tutorials I created for my people are now obsolete. New video tutorial creation will be filling my early morning hours for the next few weeks.

Definitely not worth migrating to a new platform over!

Quality Wordpress Themes Done Dirt Cheap

A while back, I was working on one of my projects and went in search of a Word Press Blog Theme.

Choosing a theme is probably the toughest part of the whole “blog launch” experience. However, as I tell my clients… unlike the process of choosing a “look” for your HTML web presence… a blog theme can be changed as easily as you can change your clothes.

I’ve always loved the work of a designer who goes by the moniker of Small Potatoes and was pleased to discover he’s come up with an interesting method of packaging and promoting his services. Back in February, he launched a promotion Wpdesigner 20,000 Accounts Giveaway

It was brilliant… it was inspired. For $5 you can join a club to get a new premium theme every month. From the support materials:

You can use each theme under multiple domain names. Whether it’s one site, one hundred sites, or more, you do not need to pay any more than $5. Also, feel free to use Wpdesigner club themes for client projects without a developer license.

According to his blog he’s already at 1300+ members…. yet last week he announced that he’s selling WPDesigner.

I’m saddened by the announcement.  I’m not sure I buy the story of his planned extensive travel plans for the year as the reason for the sale.   I suspect the “real” reason is the third stated reason on the blog post where he says he “hates providing theme support”. Unfortunately, this is something he offers using the $5 membership system.

I knew the $5 yearly club membership was “too good to be true”   and I get it.  Support is a HUGE issue when it comes to any business but most certainly a web based one.

Perhaps one reason for the sale is he’s disappointed with the response to his $5 membership club.  According to the information on the auction, he has 400 paying members in the club.  That means there are 900 who won a free membership and will (hopefully) pay next year. I’m one who GLADLY paid $5 and even if he doesn’t offer another theme consider the three offered so far to be well worth the investment!  I’m surprised that only 399 other people saw the bargain of the offer.

By the way, I am his IDEAL client.  His themes are incredibly well coded and I don’t EVER have to contact him about “support”.  IMHO…. pricing the service at $5 per month is no where NEAR enough to deal with the support requests I imagine he gets.  As a result, I’ll pass on making a bid to buy this blog.

Which reminds me of Liz Strauss’ blog post “Wendy Didn’t Wait. Will You?”

A blog isn’t a business any more than a building is a company. We can work our hearts out in the name of our blogs — reading feeds, writing posts, commenting, and social networking — but without a plan, those things won’t get us what we need to pay the rent.

WPDesigner.com has a lot of things going for it:

• Page views/month:  896,000
• Monthly Revenue: 890
• Google Pagerank: 7
• Uniques/Month: 70,000

With all of that going for it, I think the blog would have been more “attractive” to buyers without the existing membership site and the promise of 9 more themes with support.

Liz is right (she always is, by the way).  A blog is NOT a business…. think of it more as an advertisement for your business that lives on the web.

Moveable Type Takes an Ugly Swing at Wordpress

Wordpress 2.5 is scheduled for release and the buzz on the web is that the transition is going to be another difficult one.  Like the previous upgrade to the 2.3.x, themes will be broken and plug ins will be rendered useless.  It’s part of the carnage of progress.My blog clients don’t have to worry.  When Wordpress 2.5 is released, I’ll go through these steps, work out the kinks and when I upgrade their blogs to 2.5 the only “surprise” in store for them will be whether their chosen theme makes the transition.

However, Daily Blog tips reports Moveable Type has taken a “swing” at Wordpress and tried to spin the negative buzz surrounding the upcoming Wordpress upgrade into positive growth for their platform.

The biggest problem I can see in the PR war between the two platforms is that it’s been my experience that Six Apart (Moveable Type/Typepad) customers are much less tech savvy than Wordpress users... they don’t understand blogging basics such as trackbacks which is an important part of building a successful blog.

So we have two camps in this war… in one corner we have Moveable Type and Typepad users… who don’t understand why turning on trackbacks for each and every post is important.  Their “flagship” blog is sporting an Alexa ranking of 55,035.

In the other corner, we have the tech savvy crowd backing Wordpress.   Users in this camp include heavy hitters such as Micheal Arrington of Techcrunch (Alexa  ranking 926)  Darren Rowse of Problogger (Alexa ranking 3,529), Daily Blog Tips (Alexa ranking 14,490) and the Blog Herald (Alexa ranking 33,003)

I know, I know… Alexa is skewed towards the tech savvy user…. which is why it’s a valuable resource in this discussion.

For my non-techy readers… Alexa is a type of traffic spy device provided by Amazon.  You install the toolbar and Alexa tracks your web surfing activities and ranks sites in order from 1 to 10,000,000 + and displays this ranking in the toolbar.  Alexa detractors point out the “regular people” don’t usually have the tool bar installed so results are skewed and instead of displaying the ranking of a site’s traffic, instead the tool bar displays the ranking of a site’s traffic amongst the most tech savvy of web users.

I’ve already placed my bets on the optimal blogging platform for me and my clients…. because when faced with the choice of a platform backed by the tech savvy and a platform of choice for the “less tech savvy”…. I’m going with the platform with the big guns behind it.

My parents bet on Beta as the format of choice for home video recording more than 25 years ago…. they still have that beta max machine in their basement today.   I didn’t want my clients stuck with the “beta” equivalent of blogging platforms.  Therefore, my choice was influenced by several factors.  First, Wordpress has incredible community support.   Combine that strong community support with the caliber of bloggers choosing the platform, and Wordpress pulled into the lead.  However, the final “straw” in making my decision was when Template Monster began offering Wordpress Themes.    Commercial backing + strong user community = winner in my book.

I know there are other GOOD blogging platforms out there, but rather than be a jack of all trades, master of none… I made what I believed to be the BEST choice for my business.  Speaking of which,  I don’t see Drupal’s developers taking potshots at Wordpress.  Instead, they’re heralding the migration of Popular Science Magazine to their platform.  Way to go Drupal!

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