wordpress

I run several Wordpress blogs and most of them never run the current version because I don’t have time to walk through all the upgrade process, time and time again (plus I always have to look up how I do it again as I don’t want to screw it up!)!

That was until yesterday when I found Wordpress Automatic Upgrader, here’s how simple it is:

• Download and unzip the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade zip file to your plugins directory.
• Activate Plugin.
• Go to the page specified in the plugin.
• Insert FTP details.
• Download the backup of the file system.
• Specify extra database tables to backup (I backed everything up).
• Download the backup of the database.
• Tell the plugin to use the latest release.
• Let the plugin put the site into maintenance mode.
• Let the plugin deactivate all of your plugins.
• Let the plugin upgrade your files.
• Click to upgrade your database.
• Let the plugin reactivate your plugins.
• Let the plugin take your site out of maintenance mode.
• Wait for the next Wordpress release to play with it again!

It does have an automatic mode (which I haven’t tried), but the above is the manual process and seems to work!

Interestingly it didn’t go quite so smoothly going from a Wordpress 2.3.1 blog to 2.5.1 and my plugins weren’t reactivated properly.

Definitely a worthwhile tool and will make my life so much easier!

You may remember a while back we discussed the ability to use a Wordpress plugin to find Flick Photos for your blog.

I emphasised that your blog contains adverts, that you should probably consider it commercial and only use images allowed for commercial purposes (to be on the safe side), if you felt I was being a little over the top here with my level of caution, you may find it useful to read Josh’s post about Creative Commons.

If you follow my personal blog, you’ll be aware that I’ve been keen to get a plugin that will allow me to insert Flickr photo’s to my blog posts, this all started when I read Skellie’s guide to using Incredible Flickr Images using images licensed under the Creative Commons license.

photo credit: NUCO

I wasn’t the only one and there were some half solutions around in the form of:

• J @ The Glass is Too Big’s prototype.
• EmoRate’s Photo Comment Tool.

Then Michael posted about Photo Dropper, it’s a fantastic tool that does exactly what I need.

For example, let’s have a look for elephants:

photo credit: exfordy

And a fox using a computer:

photo credit: Rob Lee

See, it’s great - that all took 2 - 3 seconds.

But Wait!

ProPhotographer posted a comment on Anne’s blog (where we’ve been discussing the plugin), about how this plugin could spell a whole host of trouble for Wordpress publishers who are less aware!

If you are using this plugin, you should make yourself aware of a few things in ProPhotographer’s post, because you’ll have no comeback on the plugin if you get into any copyright trouble - their disclaimer covers them.

I’d do a couple of things: Check the box that says you’re going to use the images commercially, because I agree with ProPhotographer - if you’ve got any ads on your site - that’s possibly commercial! ProPhotographer doesn’t say it explicitly but avoid: Street photography where the models will not have signed release forms. Trademarks and Logo’s. Pictures of People.

photo credit: laihiu

Is your blog commercial?

If it’s running adverts it could probably be described as commercial in my opinion at least, but ProPhotogapher does point out that:

That said, magazines are classed in the stock world as “Editiorial use” and you don’t need releases for editorial (supporting articles) use. Most blog images just illustrate the concept or message behind the post (like the ones I have inserted) so even though I have ads running - the posts are actually editorial comment.

The problem will come on those blogs specifically designed to sell something. A lot of webmasters are using Wordpress nowadays as its easier to get to grips with, and get a site up and running, than learning HTML from scratch. On these sites the choice of image will be crucial. Like I suggested; a site selling ringtomnes and featuring an unreleased image of a recognisable teenager on a phone would be hard pressed to say the image is not endorsing their product.

The big bottom line is:

If you use an image in a commercial context featuring a person, or a piece of property that needs a release for commercial use and you don’t have one then you’re a law-suit waiting to happen.

Remember that people!!

Looks like there’s a real competition on the cards for a decent Wordpress Theme, thanks to Anuj @ Online Presence for pointing this out!

The competition is being run by Brian Gardner and R. Bhavesh, now these guys aren’t designing two-bit themes that look like they fell off the back of the TemplateMonster bus! These are the guys that brought you:

• Wordpress Revolution
• Wordpress Remix

If I win (I’ve entered just by writing this), I’ll probably go for the Remix theme, torn as I am between that and the Wordpress Revolution Tech theme! Guys if I win, can I choose then - I just can’t make up my mind?!?!

Both are clean themes and look really good in my mind….

Enter Here! (Actually don’t enter - I want to win!!)

Commenting is a fantastic (when it’s not full of spam and breaks all of my commenting policy) way of finding out if anyone is actually reading your posts.

I realised yesterday that after commenting here on Damien Riley’s post about what he was going to do next year, that when he tried to respond about my offer of a guest post he couldn’t comment, I’ve now rectified that and allowed users to comment.

Which Mona promptly did, however - I suddenly realised I’d not setup subscribe to comments on this blog!

I’ll be honest if I leave a comment on a blog and this plugin isn’t there, it’s very rare that I either:

• Leave a comment in the first place!
• Check back to see if there’s a reply after leaving a comment!

So it’s now installed here so you can stay in touch!

I can’t backtrack so hopefully Damien will see I’ve replied to his comment!

Alright, alright so I screwed up - it’s Christmas!! Comments were set to registered users only, but I hadn’t set up the blog so anyone could register as Damien has quite rightly pointed out, although pointing it out to Chris Pearson and not me will probably just add more confusion!!!

Damien, Chris, I apologise!

I’ve already said you should be using Wordpress as it’s a fantastic piece of software, more importantly it’s Easy to Install (with Fantastico , or Manually without Fantastico), and with a Few Tutorials you can be and running in a few minutes.

I was going to provide a bunch of tutorials here on Wordpress, but in the spirit of this blog I won’t be doing so. Reinventing the wheel is not what we’re here for, so just to get you up and running take a look at these tutorials before we go any further and get Wordpress installed, change your theme, make your first post,  and create a few categories.

For future reference you may want to read this tutorial, about installing Wordpress Plugins. Plugins are great because they extend Wordpress’ capabilities - sometimes beyond what you expect!

One of the first things I intend to do is produce a Wordpress resources page as you’ll find it’s a great tool, in fact that’s exactly what Yaro recommends… We’re getting on swimmingly here!