Blogger vs WordPress Blog

There's a flurry of discussion going on across the net about who is going to have the best publishing platform. Facebook, Medium, or maybe even Twitter. Let alone blogs running on WordPress, which is powering a quarter of the net's publishing.

Everyone knows about Facebook as a social network, but few view Facebook as an application to use for publishing. Sure, share on Facebook what I publish elsewhere, such as on my blog, but publish directly on Facebook's system?

Facebook recently resurrected "notes," a feature that enables users to "blog," using the term liberally, inside Facebook.

Earlier this week, Isaac Salier-Hellendag, a Facebook user interface engineer shared:

We're rolling out an update to make notes on Facebook more beautiful and customizable. Notes are now an even better way to write a longer post and share with anyone — whether it's a small group of friends or everyone on Facebook.

With this update, you can add a cover photo that represents what your note is all about. You can caption and resize photos, and format your text into headers, quotes or bullets.

For instance, you can recap your summer vacation or an important time in your life to update the people you care about. You can voice your opinion on something you saw in the news or write an open letter you want to share with the world. You can share a special recipe with a bulleted list of ingredients and photos of each step.

Tech and publishing commentators view Facebook's move with "notes" to be in response to Medium, a well-funded company founded by Ev Williams, who co-founded Twitter and Google's Blogger.

Medium is a free blog-like publishing platform that enables people to blog into a community like atmosphere of curated content. Its interface is eloquent and it is growing in popularity. Stephen Poor, Chairman of Seyfarth Shaw is writing at Medium on a publication called Rethink the Practice.

No one knows for sure where Medium is headed, except for possibly Ev. A couple days ago, Business Insider columnist Biz Carson penned a pretty popular piece on the reason for Medium having a high value in the venture capital community.

Despite not having tasteless ads based on traffic and click-throughs, Carson viewed Medium as the next PR Newsire with content bordering on ads and press releases.

There are no ugly ads that flash advertising before crashing your browser.

Instead, everyone from San Francisco's local supervisors to the White House are publishing articles, essays, and press releases, surrounded by the same swaths of white and clean fonts. The bylines are tucked away in the top left corner.

Companies may call this "content." A lot of it looks like advertising.

And let's face it: Medium has become a dumping ground for a different generation's press releases.

Then yesterday we get word that Twitter has plans to launch a product allowing users to publish well beyond the 140 character count.

It is unclear what Twitter's product will look like, but sources say it will enable people to publish long-form content. It is also speculated that the user interface would not be the same as the core Twitter interface so as to enable a more blog-like look.

No question in anyone's mind though that Twitter's move is a response to Medium and Facebook's publishing platforms.

Then we have LinkedIn Publisher, which frankly has not generated nearly as much discussion among publishing and social media authorities as six months ago or last year when pundits wrongfully predicted this feature would kill off blogs.

LinkedIn Publisher may be its own worst enemy with the huge amount of stuff people and organizations are pumping through it — almost spam like.

I like a publishing platform and network that is open (versus closed ala Facebook) and with individual publications in the publisher's brand, whether the publisher be an individual or an organization.

Though I closely follow Medium, Facebook and others, law firms and other professional services organization tell me they value firm branded publications – big time.

And why not? Publishing a blog that becomes the "Harvard Business Review" or "CNN" of a niche subject is huge. Huge as a reputation builder and huge as relationship currency when highlighting and citing others — and even allowing guests, such as in-house counsel to post a piece.

If you are looking for circulation alone, these other publishing platforms may make more sense. And don't get me wrong I do believe exposure can bring credibility and reputation. I just see it as more limited.

Who knows where this is all going to go – other than publishing continuing to rise. But for now, I am betting on firm branded publications whether we call them blogs or anything else that publishers can call their own.

Image courtesy of Flickr by redspotted

Advertisement Are you leaving money on the table?That's just one of the 5 Reasons Lawyers Need to Blog Get the LexBlog Ebook now
Source: Medium, Facebook or blogs, where will professionals publish?

The Swiss security firm Silent Circle today released the new edition of its smartphone that aims to help people control what info they share about themselves online.

Two new pieces of point-of-sale malware are affecting small and medium-sized businesses predominately in the U.S.

Researchers at Malwarebytes detected another malvertising campaign targeting popular adult sites over the weekend, this time against PornHub and YouPorn.

Source: Campaign injecting spyware and unwanted apps into WordPress sites

Over 2000 WordPress sites are compromised and are spreading potentially unwanted applications, as well as spyware. The spyware and PUAs are being sent to users through fraudulent browser plugins and bogus Flash update messages.(Photo : Serge Kij | Flickr)

Researchers reveal that some compromised WordPress sites are unwittingly spreading potentially unwanted applications (PUAs), as well as spyware.

The spyware and PUAs are being sent to users through fraudulent browser plugins and bogus Flash update messages. The hacked WordPress sites basically redirect users to Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that are infested with spyware.

The covert campaign was discovered by researchers at Zscaler who revealed that this campaign has been in place since first week of August. The spyware and PUAs have affected more than 20,000 users and have been sent to over 2,000 WordPress websites.

The research team also divulges that majority of the infected sites run the current version 4.3.1 of WordPress CMS. However, it is believed that the sites may have been compromised before being updated to the latest version.

The attacks were also corroborated by users on the WordPress support forum as well as Conrad Longmore of Dynamoo's blog.

"We've recently been dealing with several virus attacks. I encountered a virus that did not show up in the Wordfence scan, nor searching for it on Google or any other virus scans performed by myself or BlueHost," noted a user on the WordPress forum.

"I've been seeing some injection attacks since last week utilising hosting services of VPS Hosting in Latvia. These are continuing today," revealed Longmore in a blog post.

So how does the malware begin the infection cycle?

"The infection starts when a user visits a compromised WordPress site," said Zscaler, who also gave a screenshot of the JavaScript code the infected pages show.

The code contains an iframe which gives information of the hacker's server location. According to Zscaler, the hackers are gathering data such as a user's version of Adobe Flash Player, their time zone and system timestamp.

How is this potentially threatening?

Once an attacker has data on the user's system, they send them several quick redirects in succession to a web page. Here, for the most bit, the user is asked to make an update to their Adobe Flash Player or install the same, which is basically a spyware in disguise.

If users take the bait, then the attackers will deliver an .exe file to their system which will install a modified Win32.InstallCore PUA.

Once the user installs this PUA they will be redirected to the authentic Adobe site. There, the user is informed that the installation of the Flash Player has failed. Consequently, the user is asked to try to reinstall, but from the genuine source this time round.

In some instances, one may also be asked by the attackers to install fraudulent browser add-ons and not the Adobe Flash Player.

While these are minute-level adware PUAs and spywares, they are still dangerous as they can serve as potential gateways by hackers for injecting severe malwares on an infected machine.

The researchers reveal that an IPS address (91.226.33.54), which belongs to a Latvia-based VPS hosting service, is behind the attacks.

Photo: Serge Kij | Flickr

© 2015 Tech Times, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Source: Compromised WordPress Sites Spread Spywares And Potentially Unwanted Applications: What You Should Know

Kristin Gray, the math specialist at Shields Elementary School in Lewes, was hired by the Teaching Channel this year to be a part of its math team. As the elementary laureate and one of only nine math teachers nationwide, she will be offering other teachers classroom instructional ideas and collaborating on math ideas across the world.

In addition to her Teaching Channel adventure, she writes a math blog on wordpress that invites conversation and feedback from math professionals around the world. She has also developed a strong Twitter following with almost 5,000 followers.

Several years ago at a conference, Gray realized the power of social media as it relates to math and education and since then she has embraced the concept of conversing with a larger math community than just her local one.

Since that time, Gray has become a social media math guru and she has been invited to speak at many international and national math and educational conferences.

Most recently, Virginia Bastable, author of the book "Connecting Arithmetic to Algebra," invited Gray and a select group of peers to a private conference at Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts.

Also, having been a previous presenter at the National Council of Teachers for Math Conference, Gray has joined the 2017 programming committee.

Although Gray is now involved in math teaching on a national level, she still is extremely engaged at Shields Elementary School. She has worked for the Cape Henlopen School District for 17 of her 20 teaching years. She began her career in Maryland and then accepted a position at Lewes Middle School. Following that she was a fifth-grade teacher and math specialist at Rehoboth Elementary School until she moved to Shields Elementary School two years ago.

Gray's talents are not confined by her math skills; she also is in charge of Shields' large-scale musical productions each year. When asked what motivated a math teacher to put on musicals, Gray said, "My love for musical theater made me think that it would be fun to put on a musical for the kids, and fortunately I had many parents engage and assist me in the early years of the musicals."

Gray has been directing elementary school musicals for over 10 years; however, her productions are not the regular elementary school plays. She has a strong core of sound and set partners who help her and her students achieve success.

To find Kristin Gray online, go to www.teachingchannel.org, mathmindsblog.wordpress.com/ and @MathMinds on twitter.com. She also can be found daily in person at Shields Elementary School.

Source: Shields Elementary specialist branches out with math blog, Twitter feed

1. MySQL persistent database connection is recommended for improving performance, it is preferred when you use a remote database server.

   For more information, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/how-to-run-wordpress-site-on-azure-websites/

2. Persistent database connection has "timeout" implemented, when you try to use the existing connection after long idle time, you may get

   PHP warning "MySQL server has gone away" because it timed out. To prevent this error, use mysql_ping (or mysqli_ping).

   "mysql_ping" checks whether or not the connection to MySQL server is active and working, if the connection is down, it attempts to reconnect.

3. By default, WordPress use regular (non-persistent) connection. To use persistent database connection, you can modify the code in wp-includes/wp-db.php.

Find original code:

  if ( WP_DEBUG ) {       $this->dbh = mysql_connect( $this->dbhost, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, $new_link, $client_flags );   } else {    $this->dbh = @mysql_connect( $this->dbhost, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, $new_link, $client_flags );   }

...

Modify it to:

  if ( WP_DEBUG ) {       if ( !mysql_ping($this->dbh) ) {           $this->dbh = mysql_pconnect( $this->dbhost, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, $client_flags );       }   } else {       if ( !mysql_ping($this->dbh) ) {        $this->dbh = @mysql_pconnect( $this->dbhost, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, $client_flags );       }   }

For mysqli, find original code:

if ( WP_DEBUG ) {    mysqli_real_connect( $this->dbh, $host, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, null, $port, $socket, $client_flags );   } else {    @mysqli_real_connect( $this->dbh, $host, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, null, $port, $socket, $client_flags );   }

...

Modify it to:

if ( WP_DEBUG ) {       if ( !mysqli_ping($this->dbh) ) {        mysqli_real_connect( $this->dbh, "p:".$host, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, null, $port, $socket, $client_flags );       }   } else {       if ( !mysqli_ping($this->dbh) ) {        @mysqli_real_connect( $this->dbh, "p:".$host, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpassword, null, $port, $socket, $client_flags );       }   }

Note: The code is base on the current version WordPress 4.3.1

{{html Body}}
Source: Use MySQL persistent database connection for WordPress on Azure App

When blogging started, the first blogs were really glorified online journals, and in all likelihood, becoming a professional blogger and making money online wasn't the goal. Since then, the blogosphere has evolved, and now people blog for many different reasons. There are even distinctions among types of blogs - business, lifestyle, fashion, food, and entertainment blogs, among others.

While the blogging scene has developed over the last decade, the benefits of blogging are still plentiful. Here's a list of reasons why people blog and how blogging can benefit your personal or professional life.

Express Yourself and Share Your Passions

The landscape has changed, but there are still countless blogs that serve as a platform for people to voice their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Whether your passion is business, personal finance, cooking, politics, photography, or marketing, blogging gives you the opportunity to connect and network with likeminded individua ls who share the same passions.

Make A Difference

Some people's passions lean toward supporting a cause. Whether it's a political, environmental or social cause, a blog is a great way to build awareness and garner support.

Share Your Knowledge

If you're someone who loves to teach, starting a blog can provide the opportunity to educate others interested in your field of expertise. The best part is that, as you build resources on your blog to teach others, you may realize there is a chance to monetize your blog by creating educational products or services online.

Refine Your Writing Skills

The more you write, the better you become at it. Most professional bloggers write on a regular basis and therefore analyze and proofread their writing constantly. You may even get feedback from readers to help you become a better writer.

However, being a good writer is not a prerequisite for a successful blog. Many very high profile bloggers are self-proclai med terrible writers, and part of their success could be attributed to their message of "If I can do it, so can you".

Learn How To Make Money Online

Most people start out with one blog, but along the way, they gain experience and eventually generate ideas for blogs in other niches. What you learn from your initial blog - the dos and don'ts, marketing strategies that are effective, how to make money blogging, etc. - will help you accelerate the growth of future ventures.

Build Your Professional Network

Blogging is a community-based endeavor, and networking is one reason people engage in it. Whether you are a solopreneur or blogging to market your business, building relationships will facilitate your blog's growth.

Meanwhile, growing your online network has its own side benefits, such as gaining access to valuable software and tools, seminars, workshops, product unveilings, and other events.

Earn More Exposure

Businesses create blogs primarily to expand their online presence, connect with potential customers, promote their brand in a positive conversation, and even generate online revenue.

Beyond the immediate results, businesses use content marketing to rank their posts in search engines, thereby generating residual leads and revenue.

Become an Authority in Your Industry

A blog can be utilized as a platform to showcase your knowledge and expertise. Publishing blog posts that are accurate, timely, relevant, and informative will eventually get the attention of industry insiders and earn you recognition as an authoritative source and thought-leader.

Build an Online Portfolio

Blogging is a great way for aspiring authors and freelance writers to build up an online portfolio. By showcasing their writing skills on large platforms with expansive reach, freelancers can grow their exposure and sign new clients.

Market Your Business

For companies and entrepreneurs, gaining online visibilit y is one of the best ways to grow subscribers, leads and ultimately revenue. This can't be achieved with a static corporate website. Creating blog content that is valuable, helpful, and/or entertaining is an effective way to grow your website's authority, online rankings, and traffic.

Starting A Blog Today

As the internet and technology become more ingrained in our day-to-day lives, the benefits of blogging or building a website become impossible to ignore. However, unlike in the early days, bloggers don't need to have computer science degrees or HTML knowledge. Software such as WordPress.org and "how to start a blog" guides have made it simple and easy to set up a blog in 15 minutes. If you're unsure of whether blogging is right for you, use a free blogging platform for a few months before transitioning to a self-hosted solution.

Source: Why Do People Blog? The Benefits of Blogging

   Follow The Travisionist's c-blogAbout The TravisionistOne of us since 2:43 AM on 08.29.2015

This Travisionist typically writes at http://thetravisionist.wordpress.com, but thought it would be a splended idea to stick his neck out and visit the greener pastures of games writing.He's more inclined toward the indie PC gaming scene than consoles, has a somewhat respectable beard and a load of programming courses on his agenda in the next months. With endless love for The Binding of Isaac, Five Nights at Freddy's and Portal, for example, he's punched his pretentious indie card numerous times.A former print journalist outside the games industry, he's ready to write for a subsection of the world that matters to him.

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Source: So when is Catwoman officially changing her name to DLCatwoman?

A new malware in WordPress, which was first noticed two weeks ago, has now started to gain real traction. Called "visitorTracker_isMob", it was first noticed by security monitoring and malware removal company Sucuri.

The company said that it is seeing a sharp rise in the number of infections in recent days, and it hopes that, by repeating the information, it will inform WordPress and have it take action against the problem.

Heed Sucuri's call, WordPress!

"We initially shared our thoughts on it via our SucuriLabs Notes, but as the campaign has evolved we have been able to decipher more information as we investigate the effects on more compromised sites," explained Sucuri CTO Daniel Cid in a blog post.

"This post should serve as a resource to help WordPress administrators (i.e. webmasters) in the WordPress community."

"This malware campaign is interesting", he says.

"Its final goal is to use as many compromised websites as possible to redirect all their visitors to a Nuclear Exploit Kit landing page. These landing pages will try a wide variety of available browser exploits to infect the computers of unsuspecting visitors."

"If you think about it, the compromised websites are just a means for the criminals to get access to as many endpoint desktops as they can. What's the easiest way to reach out to endpoints? Websites, of course."

The company still doesn't know which plugin is affected by the malware, and advises all WordPress users to update their plugins, including the premium ones.

It is also recommended that you check your site via the Free Security / Malware Scanner (SiteCheck) to verify if you're currently being affected by this campaign.

Leave a comment on this article
Source: A spike in new WordPress malware detected

Have you written anything about Bernie Sanders or Progressive politics in general? Would you like your words to be seen by the world? The reason I'm asking is: I would like to announce the launch of BernieBlog.Org !!! A blog about Bernie Sanders that is written by and for supporters of Bernie Sanders. Since Bernie doesn't get adequate mainstream media coverage I thought it would be a great idea to create our own media machine for Bernie!

The goal of this site is to showcase the writings of Bernie Sanders supporters all across the nation. BernieBlog.org aims to show the world how much the peoples of our great nation loves and supports Bernie Sanders! Also, BernieBlog.org will provide Bernie Supporters with useful links, Official news about Bernie, news about the 2016 elections and all of the politics surrounding it.

And, that leads us to this post… I'm currently looking for articles that Bernie supporters have written on the topic of either Bernie Sanders or Progressive Politics in general. If you have any blurbs, articles, essays or blog posts that you would like to have published on BernieBlog.org… Please submit your writings here:

>Submit Your Posts Here<

I am also on the hunt for EXPERIENCED current WordPress (or similar publishing platform) users that would like to publish their articles directly to the site. If you are an experienced blogger and would like to write for BernieBlog.org please also use the link above. Please include a link to your current blog with your message.

I look forward to publishing your work! GO BERNIE!

Bernie Blog Administrator/Editorwww.Bernie Blog.org

Source: Bernie Blog

This is what happens at the network level when a browser visits an infected site. Malwarebytes

Attackers have hijacked thousands of websites running the WordPress content management system and are using them to infect unsuspecting visitors with potent malware exploits, researchers said Thursday.

The campaign began 15 days ago, but over the past 48 hours the number of compromised sites has spiked, from about 1,000 per day on Tuesday to close to 6,000 on Thursday, Daniel Cid, CTO of security firm Sucuri, said in a blog post. The hijacked sites are being used to redirect visitors to a server hosting attack code made available through the Nuclear exploit kit, which is sold on the black market. The server tries a variety of different exploits depending on the operating system and available apps used by the visitor.

"If you think about it, the compromised websites are just means for the criminals to get access to as many endpoint desktops as they can," Cid wrote. "What's the easiest way to reach out to endpoints? Websites, of course."

On Thursday, Sucuri detected thousands of compromised sites, 95 percent of which are running on WordPress. Company researchers have not yet determined how the sites are being hacked, but they suspect it involves vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins. Already, 17 percent of the hacked sites have been blacklisted by a Google service that warns users before they visit booby-trapped properties. Interestingly, Cid added, the attackers have managed to compromise security provider Coverity and are using it as part of the malicious redirection mechanism. The image above shows the sequence of events as viewed from the network level using a debugging tool.

Sucuri has dubbed the campaign "VisitorTracker," because one of the function names used in a malicious javascript file is visitorTracker_isMob(). Cid didn't identify any of the compromised sites. Administrators can use this Sucuri scanning tool to check if their site is affected by this ongoing campaign.

Source: Active malware campaign uses thousands of WordPress sites to infect visitors

The popular platform for building and running websites fixed two XSS-scripting vulnerabilities and a potential privilege escalation exploit that could have put millions of sites at risk.

WordPress has released security updates that fix three issues, including two cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and a potential privilege escalation exploit, which could have allowed potential compromise of millions of live web sites, the company reports.

WordPress, a popular PHP-based Content Management System, is the most prominent web platform on the Internet today, running over 20 percent of the top one million websites worldwide, according to some reports.

As a result, cyber criminals and malicious hackers frequently target WordPress instances to gain access to private databases and internal network access. A typical WordPress compromise is based on exploits of vulnerabilities in an outdated plug-in component and, more recently, brute force attacks on WordPress are on the rise. As Daniel Cid, founder & CTO of Sucuri Security, wrote earlier this month on his company blog:

"When you have an unprotected login page, you will see brute force attempts. With WordPress sites, the same rule applies. We see thousands of failed login attempts to /wp-login.php on the websites we protect per minute. In fact, failed login attempts jumped from 5.2 million in January  to 40.9 million on Sept. 15, on sites protected behind Sucuri's firewall."

Heimdal Security, meanwhile, has observed an increase in malicious scripts injected into legitimate websites that redirect Internet users to the Neutrino exploit kit server when accessed. The company said that the attack is "carried out by systemically compromising websites which run an outdated content management system or outdated plugins." The cyber-attack is mainly directed at websites built on WordPress, according to the company.

Today, it's all about the core code

However, these latest vulnerabilities were in the core WordPress code. So instead of affecting 5,000 to 10,000 sites that installed a specific plug-in, there was the potential for millions of websites worldwide being compromised, says Shahar Tal, head of vulnerability research with Check Point Technologies, which discovered two of the vulnerabilities. 

"So that is a different magnitude of discovery," Tal says.

According to WordPress, version 4.3.1 addresses the following vulnerabilities, as well as fixes 26 bugs:

WordPress versions 4.3 and earlier are vulnerable to a cross-site scripting vulnerability when processing shortcode tags (CVE-2015-5714). Reported by Shahar Tal and Netanel Rubin of Check Point.

A separate cross-site scripting vulnerability was found in the user list table. Reported by Ben Bidner of the WordPress security team.

Finally, in certain cases, users without proper permissions could publish private posts and make them sticky (CVE-2015-5715). Reported by Shahar Tal and Netanel Rubin of Check Point.

Attackers have built specific tools, such as scanners, to search out and exploit vulnerabilities on WordPress platforms, Tal says. "There have been countless stories where adversaries – cybercriminals or nation-state adversaries – have actively infiltrated a WordPress website for multiple reasons," he says.

Attackers are looking for ways to move laterally throughout an organization's network. By hacking into a company's web server, adversaries can continue into the internal network to see what they can find.  A second scenario is a watering hole attack, where an adversary can run arbitrary script code to try and infect every visitor to a website with certain malware, Tal says.

Typically a rare occurrence

Compared to the frequent findings of third-party plug-in vulnerabilities, issues with WordPress core code are rare, Tal notes. WordPress core developers are well-trained and have a high security awareness for all released code. This fact was confirmed during Check Point's audit of the source code. Developers implement multiple layers of security protecting WordPress from most attack vectors Check Point security researchers can think of, Tal notes.

"WordPress in its core is relatively well-secured in comparison with most PHP code that you typically come across," Tal says. PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for web development but is also used as a general-purpose programming language.

However, the security team lead by Netanel Rubin was very persistent and found several holes.  The first vulnerability allowed the researchers to escalate privileges from a subscriber user with read-only privileges, to a user who could create, write and post content.  A hacker could also use these privileges and create situations to perform SQL injection attacks on databases.  And, then they also discovered the cross-site scripting vulnerabilities.

Check Point's team notified WordPress and opened up discussions in which they suggested fixes and a few alternatives to address the problems, Tal says. WordPress took one of the suggested alternatives and fixed the cross-scripting vulnerabilities. The privilege escalation fix was more complicated because it touched a sensitive area of code, plus it affected third-party plug-ins and libraries. As a result, the company needed more testing before coming out with that fix, Tal notes, which is now available in WordPress 4.3.1.

Rutrell Yasin has more than 30 years of experience writing about the application of information technology in business and government. View Full Bio

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Source: Wordpress Dodges Further Embarassment By Patching Three Vulns

ASPHostPortal.com - the leader of ASP.NET hosting provider launches WordPress 4.3 hosting with the complete WordPress package.

New York City, NY, September 16, 2015 --(PR.com)-- Although WordPress is free and usually you can use it as a separate individual without any problem, for any business website you need a web hosting and your own domain to make a business out of your blog or business website. Using open source WordPress with your own domain having a unique identity makes it profitable brand. Purchasing a domain name is easy, but you have to consider certain factors while choosing a hosting provider for WordPress websites. ASPHostPortal.com is reliable and powerful WordPress hosting provider for you. Today, they offer WordPress 4.3 hosting with excellent service and complete WordPress package.

WordPress is a publishing platform used for building websites and blogs. It allows for a highly customizable user interface. WordPress powers millions of websites in worldwide, and many big brands use WordPress: CNN, PlayStation, New York Times Blogs, People Magazine, and even Ford- they all use WordPress. Pret ty impressive list of users, if it's good enough for the big boys, it's good enough for your site.

A great thing about WordPress is, it's completely open source which means that the source code used to run WordPress is available to the general public. This means that anyone on the planet can modify the code if necessary and customize WordPress even further to be what they need. Often, this isn't necessary, but it also means that some plugins and themes (templates) created for the platform are also open source. Imagine a world-wide community working together to add more features and functionality to WordPress, you're not limited to only being able to use specific employees or developers to produce customizations, which means it's a powerful CMS system ready to do what you need it to, it's flexible, and easy to customize.

ASPHostPortal.com is a web hosting provider dedicated to providing high quality web hosting at an affordable price. They care for the clients, ensuri ng each and every client is more than just satisfied day in and day out. They only use the best hardware, super fast network, covered by 24/7 Support Team. They have locations in 8 world class data centers, located USA, Europe, Asia and Australia. Each of locations will provide with amazing performance. To learn more about their WordPress 4.3 Hosting, please visit http://asphostportal.com/WordPress-4-3-Hosting

About ASPHostPortal.com :ASPHostPortal.com is The Best, Cheap and Recommended ASP.NET & Linux Hosting. ASPHostPortal.com has ability to support the latest Microsoft, ASP.NET, and Linux technology, such as: such as: WebMatrix, WebDeploy, Visual Studio 2015, .NET 5/ASP.NET 4.5.2, ASP.NET MVC 6.0/5.2, Silverlight 6 and Visual Studio Lightswitch, Latest MySql version, Latest PHPMyAdmin, Support PHP 5.x, etc. Their service include shared hosting, reseller hosting, and sharepoint hosting, with speciality in ASP.NET, SQL Server, and Linux solutions. Protection, trustworthin ess, and performance are on the core of hosting operations to make certain every website and software hosted is so secured and performs at the best possible level.

Source: ASPHostPortal.com Announces WordPress 4.3 Hosting Solution

The page you requested does not exist. For your convenience, a search was performed using the query blog posts 2015 09 15 great site pick best wordpress web development service.

Marketing Buzzwords Dictionary

advertising' .   e.g. This blog is great   F - Freemium Users are permitted ... e.g. Wordpress uses a great WYSIWYG editor to help people build their own websites. ... it. e.g. Netflix uses big data on its viewers to develop new television ...

Blog entry - Claire Vanner - 7 Sep 2015 - 3:34pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

Why B2B Marketers Can't Afford to Ignore Google's Latest Updates

they are still fundamental for any site engaged in SEO to understand. For Google, delivering the best search results is a never-ending development process. As technology changes and users ... business model ultimately depends on providing users with a great experience, so sites that provide ...

Blog entry - Anonymous - 24 Jul 2015 - 7:11pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

Social Media Events in London: 5 of the Best in 2015

will host a number of world class social media events in 2015 - see below to keep up with the best ... leading sites on the web. Their Social Media Shakeup comes to London later in the year and will be held ... great happenings and is potentially one of the big social media events in London in 2015. It takes place ...

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The 8 best B2B digital marketing campaigns of 2014

Automation,Marketing Automation Report,B2B,Eloqua Marketing Automation,brands,digital,best,top,2014,2015,marketing ... living in a world overflowing with digital content. In January 2015 the average person will be exposed to 15.5 hours (nine DVDs worth) of content every day, according to research from the Institute ...

Feature - Jessica McGreal - 8 Dec 2014 - 4:52pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

Upcoming Web Development And Web Designing Technology In 2015

here in relation web designing and web development practices for 2015. Web designing trends ... will certainly see more of in 2015. Web development trends that can be seen in 2015 When it comes ... next year. While the web designing and development companies in India ...

Blog entry - Michael Smith - 8 Dec 2014 - 11:28am - 0 comments - 0 likes

CASE STUDY: LRS repurposes content to build brand awareness

clients through the unique best practice of integrating content-driven PR, social, search, web and email ... blog posts, byline articles, media placements and an infographic. Execution Idea Grove ... of LRS' channels. The content team also wrote a blog post about the infographic and published it on LRS' ...

Case Study - Jessica McGreal - 3 Jul 2014 - 2:54pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

7 habits of successful digital marketers in 2014

an email campaign or a blog post? Just remember NOT to shoehorn your brand into an event just because ... world is changing fast. To keep abreast of developments, digital marketers should adopt these seven ... by content marketing . However, it's not enough to cram your web pages ...

Blog entry - Suzanne Stock - 10 Mar 2014 - 11:40am - 1 comment - 0 likes

CASE STUDY: Six Degrees Group 'Jargon junkies'

Cloud computing – 15 per cent believed 'cloud computing' was a new free internet service. To tackle these misconceptions Six Degrees Group developed and launched the microsite uptothecloud.co.uk in March. The site ... and third-party blog posts ...

Case Study - Jessica McGreal - 2 Jul 2013 - 9:28am - 0 comments - 0 likes

Five ways to improve your local SEO to drive sales

minutes but can make a huge difference in search results. And if the site is a WordPress site ... but a few minutes but can make a huge difference in search results. And if the site is a WordPress site ... businesses such as financial services or automotive dealerships while out-and-about. Even if your highly ...

Blog entry - William Yates - 24 Jun 2013 - 5:24pm - 9 comments - 0 likes

Liberate to Innovate B2B Marketing Conference - Top 10 Take-outs

with the development of web and social media channels. We need to embrace these changes and adapt to ensure we make ... you (B2B Marketing 2012). In this new age of web based information buyers will find you (or your ... marketing, so that when buyers come to look for your product and services they will find you and already ...

Blog entry - Susan Bolam - 9 Nov 2012 - 4:44pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

Source: For A Great Site- Pick The Best Wordpress Web Development Service!

Daily Deals

Pay what you want to master Wordpress, the dominant platform in professional bloggingPhoto: Cult of Mac Deals

So you want to be a blogger. One way or another you're going to have to reckon with the big cheese in blogging, WordPress. To get your arms around the subject, we've gathered a bundle of a dozen courses that cover the ins and outs of using the dominant platform in the blog-o-sphere, and the business of blogging itself. Even better, you can pay whatever you want for the whole shebang.

Here's some of what's included:

Become a WordPress Expert Over 11 combined short courses, cover the basics to more up to advanced concepts for a deep understanding of WordPress's various facets and features.

Cover 95% of the WordPress user-interface

Learn to select & customize commercial themes and integrate social media

Walk-throughs of sample sites using 6 popular theme families

Monetize your sites and study SEO techniques to get maximum traffic

Keep your site backed-up, secure and functioning at peak performance

How I Make $4000 Each Month Blogging Under the tutelage of a seasoned instructor who's generated over 3 million page views for his own site, learn to monetize your blog without spending a dime on promotion.

Choose a host provider, set up and monetize your WordPress blog

Learn to use YouTube as a revenue stream

Apply SEO techniques to boost traffic and submit your site to the search directory

Use giveaways to increase your audience

Generate revenue using affiliate programs

Learn WordPress by Building 2 Responsive Websites This course will teach you to build a website with the assistance of free themes available online.

Learn how to acquire a strong domain name and set up a hosting account

Build two entire websites step by step

Go over how to use plugins and widgets

Integrate social features into your website

Learn how to implement Live Chat

Create a Native App for your WordPress Website in 8 days This course will teach you to build native mobile apps and build audiences with zero coding experience.

Register to a hosting account and create a database

Download app software, configure and design your app

Add features like news sections and calendars and incorporate APIs

Create the app icon and

Register as a developer and publish your apps to app stores

Creating a Business Website with a Responsive Design Learn how to build an optimized and responsive WordPress site for your business using the Genesis theme framework.

Use the Genesis theme framework on WordPress for future-proof, responsive design

Customize site visuals like headings and typography

Add widgets, icons and responsive sliders to your homepage

Use CSS to make your WordPress site more dynamic

Create contact forms, email subscription lists and more

Build Your Brand: Blogging, SEO, Social Media & Relationships Learn how to craft a strong web presence by cultivating an audience for your WordPress and social media accounts.

Craft a strong web presence for yourself or your company

Learn web marketing fundamentals and brand yourself on social networks

Set up & increase SEO on your WordPress blog

Execute a strong online content strategy

Maximize traffic to your site

WishList Member & WordPress: Create a Membership Site WishList Member is a widely-used plugin that turns your WordPress site into members-only subscription content, a great way to monetize your audience.

Make money from your content by charging monthly, per post, and others.

Protect your content from wide distribution

Collect email addresses to create a subscriber list

Create communities around your content

Provide a simple, robust payment gateway for the sale of digital product

Complete Web Developer Course: How to Build Websites and Make Money This course offers real-world, practical knowledge for building websites without any coding background.

Master HTML, CSS and Javascript

Build a personal blog, corporate website and magazine website

Learn fast, easy and practical ways to get started with coding

Understand how to gain income as a developer

Pursue strategic marketing with the flexibility coding provides

Talking With Clients – Creating a WordPress Website Observe live communications between a web designer and client to understand the essential questions that should always be asked before initiating a project.

Understand the client's elevator pitch: "who you are and what you do"

Select a web host and the connecting domain name

Define the website's purpose

Learn to understand your target market

Assess previous design material and website competitors

Develop WordPress Sites and Earn Money With Affiliate Programs This course covers setting up your blog, joining the best affiliate programs, and other practices to maximize your site's chances of becoming lucrative.

Set up, configure security settings and easily navigate your WordPress

Learn about recommended affiliate programs

Implement different monetization techniques

Submit your site to search directories

Increase your WordPress's chances of making money

WordPress eCommerce with WooCommerce Learn how to set up your own WooCommerce shop — an ecommerce platform that allows users to easily sell their products or services on any WordPress site — and customize it with features like PayPal configuration.

Master WooCommerce in under 90 minutes

Add a shopping cart to your WordPress site to collect money for products and services

Easily navigate the Quick Start section, configure shopping page layouts, add products

Use advanced techniques like creating email templates, using CSS styling, and more

Enable site features like coupons and specific shipping options

Build a Money Making Website For Beginners: Work From Home Create your own revenue generating site, from WordPress setup to search engine optimization.

Build a WordPress site to earn online income

Integrate ads without repelling visitors and fine tune your monetization strategy for niche sites

Utilize profitable affiliate programs like StudioPress, Amazon Associates, and more

Use Google Webmaster and Adsense as tools to drive traffic and revenue

Increase organic and direct search traffic with proven techniques

Pay whatever you want for all of the above and more at Cult of Mac Deals. Part of every dollar goes toward the good work being done by the good folks over at Creative Commons.

Posted in: Daily DealsTagged: Cult of Mac Deals, pay what you want, WordPress, WordPress course About the author: Cult of Mac Deals are brought to you by StackSocial, an e-commerce platform offering flash sales on digital tools, web apps and tech gear. StackSocial sleeps, breathes and would probably eat Mac apps if it was at all possible. Follow StackSocial on Twitter @stacksocial.

Rob Alfonso

As a developer I can say WordPress has been a huge problem for us, with all the various plug ins that can compromise WordPress I highly reccomend using something else.

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Source: Pay what you want to become a master of the world of WordPress [Deals]

For those who don't have time to figure out HTML, CSS, graphic design, search engine optimization, or formatting a WordPress blog -- Tilden Task is the answer!

Technology makes everyone's lives easier. Tech can seem so simple, yet it can be so complicated. It can take hours or days to figure out the most simple tasks, even for techies. For example, blogging helps obtain an online influence which is very important to marketing a business or product, and actually help people become better at what they do. WordPress is the most preferred blogging platform, and bloggers don't need to know computer programming in order to start a blog. Since there are only 24 hours a day, those who work full time may not have time to figure out HTML, CSS, graphic design, search engine optimization, or formatting a WordPress blog. Thanks to Tilden Tasks, busy people who want to blog don't need to worry about WordPress help ever again.

Tilden Tasks offers unlimited WordPress help, which is a relief for those who work full time, are full time parents, travel a lot for work, or just don't have the patience to spend hours a day or weeks updating their website. It's like having your very own personal WordPress assistant 24 hours a day that performs website support, management, maintenance, fixes, changes and jobs. Its support specialists are professional and courteous. They respond to emails on the same day within a couple of hours, and work on a task or small project for a maximum of one hour per business day. Small projects can be less than an hour. Its support team can perform bigger projects and separate them to finish over several business days. Tilden Tasks' support team will always update on the progress every day, and can even create a demo site for longer projects, so as not to disrupt any website traffic as development is going on.

The average freelance blog expert charges approximately $50 or more per hour. Tilden Tasks' rates start as low as $77 a month for unlimited WordPress help and various projects to maximize a blog. There's also a 30 day money back guarantee, in which a refund can be given within one business day. Sounds like a win-win solution, so definitely give Tilden Tasks a try.

Source: Tech makes life easier for everyone including techies

Tables (and generally everything where cells are involved) can be a pain in WordPress. Offering a good viewing experience in these cases is often difficult, as one would need to take care of various resolutions and devices to work properly on a responsive website. I covered TablePress in April here on SitePoint, which also comes with a responsive plugin, making a great duo together. However, often tables like those created by TablePress don't suffice, and a more professional alternative is needed. I've seen many conference websites struggle with this and some just end up putting the agenda on an Excel spreadsheet, which is a pity.

When organizing OSCAL 2015 (also proudly sponsored by SitePoint) our team had the exact same problem. After a long search, we were lucky to stumble upon the Timetable Responsive Schedule Plugin for WordPress on CodeCanyon, which looked very promising and also didn't fail to reach our expectations at the end of the day.

I personally think of Timetable as a flagship plugin for stylish and responsive schedule creation in WordPress. The plugin also displayed the tables perfectly on mobile devices, which was a big relief for us when organizing the conference. Having said that, Timetable is designed "for most websites and types of business like gyms, kindergartens, health care or law related", however the vast flexibility it offers allows you to adapt it to many other use cases (like a tech conference, in my case).

We're going to have a quick tour of the plugin's functionalities so you can see if the plugin is able to cater your needs.

Getting Started

Timetable for WordPress is available on CodeCanyon and will set you back $20.

Before you get overly excited however, you need to note that timetable doesn't work like a spreadsheet, so making simple changes (especially switching cells) will costs you a few minutes, which might happen on several occasions if you have constant changes going on. To avoid this, I'd suggest to work on an an initial draft of your schedule in a spreadsheet document, before blessing it off to the Timetable plugin. I spent a lot of hours with such changes, which is expectable at a conference, but might be avoidable in other cases, so be aware of that.

After installing the plugin, you can find two new tabs on your WordPress Dashboard and one new option in your Dashboard settings.

These are pretty self explanatory. The timetable columns serve as placeholders here, so you can assign Events to the right column. You can also change the order of the columns. Usually columns are used to determine days, and rows are used to determine a specific time of the event. You can also mix these, but you probably shouldn't unless you have a good reason to.

The Events tab is where all the magic happens, as it stores all the data the actual tables will hold. To help you visualize it, think of every cell in spreadsheet schedule needing a separate custom post in WordPress. Yep, it's quite a lot. The good news, however, is that similar events which occur on various days and times can be specified within the same Event element, so for example, you don't need to have three Event elements for three "Gym Classes" which are on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but otherwise are completely similar. You can specify all three of them within the same Event element.

Let's have a look at the Event custom posts.

Event Custom Posts

You can format an Event custom post just like normal posts in WordPress. In this example, we created an event and added some bio about the speaker (Redon Skikuli in this case) and some details on his session.

Note: Content for an Event post is optional, as you can disable the link to the Event post on the actual Timetable if you wish.

Now things start to get interesting. If you look further down, you will stumble upon the Options which allow you to style the timetable, give the Event a subtitle, and enable/disable the event URL, which I mentioned previously. Let's assign the event to the right time slots now:

This is also pretty self explanatory. You can add a time slot where this event should appear, together with one or two optional descriptions and categories. This is where you can assign your event to appear on various slots, so make sure you don't duplicate single similar events for different time slots, but first check in here to assign the event to other time slots as well.

Finally, add the event to the timetable category where it should appear (on the right of the editor).

You can do the same for all Events until you have populated the timetable. However you still want to render the timetable on certain pages, so let's go to the Dashboard Settings > Timetable.

Shortcode Generator

With all data put into the Event and Columns section, we can go on to display the timetable via shortcodes. This might look unconventional at first, but allows for great flexibility and customization of your events, as the settings are stored into shortcodes and can be tweaked without going into the Shortcode Generator necessarily. You can also import the Plugin's demo content directly to inspect and experiment with its settings (highly recommended).

There are many other tweaks and customizations available here, so make sure to check out all of them to make the most out of your timetable (it would also be too confusing to list all of them here). In case you want to restore your settings in the generator, simply paste in the generated shortcode snippet into the output field of the generator and all settings will be tweaked accordingly.

Note: The color shortcodes of the timetable will be overwritten by individual Event posts color settings. This can be helpful to make some cells stand out or to create some cool color effects.

After making sure that you have all options set up the right way, you can copy the generated shortcode snippet and paste it into a page or post where you want it displayed. Voila!

The plugin also comes with a widget which allows you to include upcoming events in any widget area you wish. A vast variety of settings and tweaks are also available here, allowing you full control over the widget.

Scheduled Yet?

The Timetable Responsive Schedule Plugin is one of its kind when it comes to advanced tables. It delivers great looking and professional results with vast possibilities of customization options. Although quite a lot of manual input is needed to get a timetable right, the plugin makes up for it with its huge variety of tweaking options. With so many WordPress plugins taking a simplistic approach rather than a multifunctional one, it's refreshing to see a plugin which prioritizes the latter.

What are your experiences with this or other timetable plugins? Let me know in the comments!

Source: Responsive Schedules for WordPress with the Timetable Plugin

All,

There is always an excitement and authentic feel when we read/blog/refer any of the MSDN Tech blogs. I follow quite a bunch of MSDN blogs and always prefer reading over any other non-Microsoft blog post. I start referring first -MSDN documentation and then PG team blog or PM's blog for better clarity. 

Blogging is not new to me, Yes -I am an award winning Microsoft blogger(from Steve Ballmer :)) writing for the past 10+ years in WordPress medium(started originally in Live.spaces.com later moved). Being a blogger, I always love to share the interesting tech stuff/code which I read and tried for better understanding and also valuable feedback from readers. I greatly believe in learning by sharing

About me: I am a passionate C#.NET developer & technologist started my career in 2004. I had an opportunity to work with various Microsoft Technology projects in Web and Windows for the companies like Sobha Renaissance IT, Sapient Global Markets and Thomson Reuters. I stared as dev for ASP.NET 2.0, then Window forms, back end developer(Windows/ Web services/WCF) etc. Mostly worked on WPF/XAML app development, performance tuning, design and delivery of projects and products for Healthcare, Trading & Financial market domain. 

Currently I work for Microsoft GTSC(19 months+) by fixing/troubleshooting/assisting some of the complex Office Developer programming issue. I work pretty much everything related to Office developer stack like VSTO Add-in, COM-Addin, OpenXML, Office Apps/Add-in, performance tuning, WinDBG debugging(managed) and also experienced with various troubleshooting tools and techniques. 

My hobby & passion: I have an innate passion for building/studying/architecting enterprise software systems. I follow Cloud news from the initial stage(early adaptor) and tried various hands-on offerings from Azure and AWS stack. Apart from technical stuff, I spend time with family & friends, market news, travelling, @MahesKBlr and reading non-tech books :)

What to expect here: I have told myself and going to limit by blogging only codes/hands on experience with Microsoft Technology offerings -.NET /XAML/Services/Azure. 

Some of my all time favorite quotes:

"Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domain" - Bill Gates

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas A. Edison

"The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.'' -Friedrich Nietzsche

"You have a dream. Go get it. Period." -Chris Gardner 

// Happy Blogging ! 

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A Quick Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are my mine and not of my employer! Any feedbacks and suggestions are most welcome..

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Source: My first blog post in MSDN

Automattic, the company behind the popular WordPress.com blogging platform, receives thousands of takedown requests from rightsholders.

Unlike many other Internet services the company carefully reviews each notice to see if they're legitimate. This isn't unnecessary, as nearly half of all requests are rejected.

This is also the case with a trademark violation Subaru reported earlier this year. The car company spotted a blog by WordPress.com users Sam and Jenna, which repeatedly uses the Subaru trademark.

Subaru informed WordPress.com that it doesn't condone this kind of "infringement," citing a violation of the Lanham Act.

"This use is clearly designed to cause confusion, deception, and mistake on the part of individuals visiting the site," Subaru of America writes.

"This use of 'Subaru' name and marks in connection with this website violates [Subaru's] rights and constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition under the Lanham Act."

In addition, the car manufacturer notes that the mention of Subaru in the domain name violates the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, adding that the domain registrant wasn't helpful in resolving the issue.

"[Subaru] aggressively protects its trademarks and other intangible assets. To this end, we have informed the registrant of our complaint and have received no cooperation from them."

The takedown request

It's clear that the company is serious about protecting its trademark, but apparently not serious enough to carefully review its own request. As WordPress.com points out, the blog in question is far from a blatant infringement.

Quite the opposite, Sam and Jenna's blog is a part of the application for the Subaru/Leave No Trace traveling trainer program. In the application Subaru said it's specifically looking for people who can generate social media content via blogs, photos and videos, which is what the site does.

However, instead of being offered the position Sam and Jenna received a legal threat. In its takedown request Subaru said it was considering "appropriate legal action" against the blog owners while asking WordPress.com to take the site down.

WordPress.com refused and simply forwarded the request to the bloggers, explaining that it wouldn't take any action.

"We passed along the notice to Sam and Jenna with the understanding that we would not be taking any action against their blog as their content does not constitute trademark infringement," WordPress.com notes.

Perhaps overwhelmed by the threatening language, Sam and Jenna decided to remove most instances of "Subaru," the brand which they looked forward to promote initially, from their blog. WordPress.com, meanwhile, awarded Subaru with a spot in its takedown "Hall of Shame."

So, instead of a Subaru promo page showing up in the top search results, the company will now be associated with a "Hall of Shame" entry. Not exactly the best example of trademark protection.

Source: WordPress Adds Subaru to Takedown "Hall of Shame"

Tory Ministers blew thousands of pounds redesigning their Whitehall blog - and then saw readership plummet to just 35 people a day.

A vanity project to redesign the blog on the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's website cost taxpayers nearly £6,000 last year.

The number of readers halved following the upgrade.

"What an utter waste of taxpayers' money," said shadow culture secretary Chris Bryant.

"Ministers could have got a blog for free, but instead paid thousands of pounds for this shambles which attracted thousands of fewer people to the site."

DCMS Ministers have slashed spending on arts, sports and music across Britain as part of the Tory-led austerity drive.

The Arts Council has already lost a third of its budget since 2010, with more brutal cuts expected this autumn.

But a written answer by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey revealed he still found £5,550 from his dwindling budget to lavish on the department's little-read online blog.

The blog includes self-congratulatory posts from Mr Vaizey himself, alongside other Ministers and civil servants waxing lyrical on everything from the BBC to Britain's oldest battleships.

Following the redesign, the blog's annual readership halved from 26,152 people in 2013, to 13,063 in 2014 – an average of just 35 per day.

"It's complete incompetence from Tory Ministers who are just throwing taxpayer's money away on these meaningless projects," Mr Bryant said.

Labour pointed out most popular online blog services such as WordPress are available to use for free.

Ed Vaizey

But Mr Vaizey insisted taxpayers were getting good value for money.

"The Department spent £5,550 on redesigning and rebuilding its blog platform in 2014," he said.

"The blog is consistently meeting its objective to introduce a higher percentage of new audiences to our policies, the sectors we support and the voice of the people who champion them."

A DCMS spokeswoman said the spending was a one-off cost for an "essential" upgrade of the blog.

"The DCMS blog was run on a platform that was so outdated it couldn't be viewed properly on mobile phones," she said.

"The new blog platform is simply an essential IT upgrade which does not incur any additional maintenance costs."

Source: Tories spend fortune on blog nobody wants to read

WordPress is a very popular platform. Using Azure plus Web Apps plus the Azure Marketplace you can easily spin up a WordPress site without having to touch any code. The provisioning process takes care of code installation, Web App initialization, and even creating a MySQL database for you.

For one of my engagements I was asked to come up ways to spin up online properties like blogs with little or no code. Accordingly, I've recorded a video of provisioning WordPress into a Web App in Azure. WordPress is an easy to work with, PHP driven blogging platform.

Watch the video below for a walk through using a Stop and Go tutorial format. After completing the video tutorial you will have stood up a complete blog in the cloud with no coding required.

Source: Easy Blog with WordPress, Azure Web Apps and the Azure Gallery

On a recent episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, a question for the cast was if they ever walked away from video games, if any of them had ever stopped playing video games for an extended period of time. I thought I'd give my answer to this question because there was a time when I almost left video games entirely.

The sixth generation of consoles started out on a sour note for me. It's a story for another time but I had to fight for my PlayStation 2 and challenge my mother to get it. However, once I did have it, it seemed to be smooth sailing. The first game I got for my PS2 was the awesomeTwisted Metal: Black, I loved games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, and I soon after was able to get a used GameCube and Xbox.

However, as games were released, there weren't many that caught my eye. Sure, there were some great games every once and a while, such as Grand Theft Auto III, Halo: Combat Evolved(the first FPS game I liked FYI), and Super Smash Bros. Melee, but a lot of games were leaving me cold. Wave Race: Blue Storm was disappointing, Dead or Alive 3 couldn't hold my interest for long, and games like Splinter Cell didn't interest me.

As a result, I started turning to older games to occupy my time. I got collections like Midway Arcade Treasures 2, King of Fighters 2000 / 2001, and Sonic Mega Collection. I picked up a Dreamcast and fell in love with that, ignoring titles like Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, andMetroid Prime for Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Phantasy Star Online. I even picked up a Saturn and started playing PlayStation 1 games again, like Chrono Cross and Twisted Metal: Small Brawl, which is actually a fun game. It was around this time I was introduced to emulation.

However, this worried me as I found myself perfectly content with playing games I had already played and completely ignoring new releases. People would be talking about Bloodrayne andMechAssault and I wouldn't care. A new Grand Theft Auto is coming out? I've already played one of those. Resident Evil 4 is awesome? I didn't like the other games so I'm not going to bother. I reached a point where I just didn't care about gaming as it was. This then started to affect the older games I was playing. Crazy Taxi and Clockwork Knight were great fun but knowing that they were never going to be more than that made the games feel a bit empty.

I vividly remember one night I was up late. I wanted to play a video game and I looked at my library of games. I didn't want to play any of them. I couldn't think of a game I wanted to play. This depressed me. I just was in my room without something to do and no idea what to do with myself. So I walked out of my bedroom and into the living room that was dark except for the light coming from my room. I sat down on the couch and pondered what I was going to do with myself.

I've been playing video games for over 10 years at that point. If I wasn't going to play video games anymore, then what was I going to do? I had other interests, sure. I loved to read and listen to music but my biggest hobby was video games. Hell, if I was listening to music, it was usually during playing a game. I don't know how long I was sitting there until my mother came out of her bedroom and noticed me on the couch.

She sat by me and asked me if something was wrong. I was hesitant at first because I knew that this was not a serious problem. I eventually told her after some convincing and she just told me about how people change and their interests in thing change with them. We talked a bit and I came to the conclusion that I needed to find what it was about games I liked. After that night, I got more into the history of games through emulation. By the time the Xbox 360 was released, I felt renewed. Games genuinely started to interest me again and the seventh generation of consoles reestablished that.

Since then, I've come to the conclusion that many of the games in the sixth generation of consoles were uninspired and graphically drab. However, as I have a greater appreciation for games now more than ever, I want to return to that generation and give the games I missed another shot. I want to hear from you now. Have you ever stopped playing video games for an extended period of time? Have you ever thought about quitting, like me? Let me know in the comments and be sure to check out my Wordpress blog for more posts on video games as well as music, movies and more. Peace and Love, gamers and players! Colorwind out.

Source: Old School: Almost Leaving Video Games

WordPress is a very popular platform. Using Azure plus Web Apps plus the Azure Marketplace you can easily spin up a WordPress site without having to touch any code. The provisioning process takes care of code installation, Web App initialization, and even creating a MySQL database for you.

For one of my engagements I was asked to come up ways to spin up online properties like blogs with little or no code. Accordingly, I've recorded a video of provisioning WordPress into a Web App in Azure. WordPress is an easy to work with, PHP driven blogging platform.

Watch the video below for a walk through using a Stop and Go tutorial format. After completing the video tutorial you will have stood up a complete blog in the cloud with no coding required.

Source: Easy Blog with WordPress, Azure Web Apps and the Azure Gallery

The Internet is abuzz over last month's major WordPress update.

After massive data breaches at Ashley Madison, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, cybersecurity has become a top priority for consumers, businesses, and even federal agencies. So WordPress, a platform used by nearly a quarter of all the Internet's websites, has installed advanced new privacy features. Observers are eager to see if these enhancements make a difference and prevent future breaches.

But despite the update, some people are still skeptical of using WordPress, chiefly because of some baseless myths about the platform. Here are the five most prevalent -- and why they're wrong.

Myth No. 1: WordPress is just for blogs.

While primarily used as a blogging tool in its early days, WordPress is now a full-featured "content management system." That means users can customize their site's appearance with thousands of themes and specialty functions via downloadable "plugins."

WordPress can serve as the backbone for powerful, dynamic websites far more advanced than a cookie-cutter blog.

Myth No. 2: WordPress isn't secure.

With over 60 million websites, this system is certainly targeted by hackers. The vast majority get blocked. WordPress comes with robust security plugins, which are particularly useful for sites hosting ecommerce or other sensitive client information. And those plugins, along with other security measures, are only getting stronger.

Last month's update, for example, includes enhanced password security features. Password reset links will now only stay live for a limited time and passwords themselves will never end up in inboxes -- a feeding ground for hackers. WordPress will even advise indivi dual users on the safest possible password.

And even those scant few successful breaches don't mean WordPress is any less secure than rival platforms. The websites of CitiGroup, Google, and Zappos don't run on WordPress and have also been hacked or attacked. Regular, commonsense precautions -- like avoiding "password" as your password -- will protect average users from any shenanigans.

Myth No. 3: WordPress isn't suitable for big businesses.

Many large companies with high-traffic sites use WordPress, including Forbes, CNN, TIME magazine, The New York Post, and General Electric. Most of the speed and security issues that might affect a well-trodden site can be solved by hosting the site on a private server.

Even the experts trust WordPress. TechCrunch, a major technology news site with millions of visitors each month, runs on the platform. And The Seattle Times now entrusts its entire online presence to WordPress.

Myth No. 4: Open-source software does n't provide good user support.

WordPress uses software that can be edited by any web developer. Some critics claim that such "open sourcing" leaves gaps in user support.

The opposite is true.

Open-source software allows millions of developers from all around the world to add and refine the WordPress programming. That means if a user runs into an issue, chances are someone else has bumped into it too -- and already found the solution. WordPress forums are a massive base of community knowledge and offer fixes to almost every potential problem.

Compare that to a closed-source platform. Even the most dedicated support team probably includes at most a dozen or so people. They're responsible for solving a wide and sprawling mass of glitches. Even common user issues often go unaddressed.

Myth No. 5: The plugins can't be trusted.

It's safe to assume that some of WordPress's 30,000 plugins haven't been coded to the highest standards. But that's why the p latform has a robust review system that allows users to flag any problems.

With millions of sites giving feedback, glitches are ferreted out quickly. And just as you wouldn't buy a blender on Amazon with one-star reviews, users would do well to avoid installing a plugin with less-than-stellar ratings.

Whether you want to run a basic blog or an online empire, WordPress is a solid platform option. And last month's security upgrade is bound to make it even more so.

Kristen Thomaselli is a director at Keybridge Web, a leading web development company based in Washington, DC.

Source: Debunking the 5 Big Myths about WordPress

Terri Seymour

Terri Seymour has almost 20 years of internet marketing experience and has helped many people start their own business.  Now is the time to get started with your own exciting resell ebook business.  Visit now to get three free gifts including The Big Book of Social Media Tips.  http://www.ebooks.seymourproducts.com

Terri Seymour has written 69 articles for PromotionWorld. View all articles by Terri Seymour...

For anyone wanting an ecommerce website, Wordpress is an excellent tool with which to launch your new business.  Wordpress is an open source website building program using PHP.  It is one of the easiest ways to produce a professional profit producing website or blog. 

Wordpress may have started out as a simple blogging platform but it has evolved into much more.  With plugins and widgets the features you can add to your site are endless.  There is no cost to use Wordpress.  You can install it and modify it however you choose and it is fairly easy to learn.  

Hundreds of different themes provide a wide array of designs you can choose for your website.  Some themes are free and some require a fee.  Although WP is not extremely difficult to use there are some things a beginner should know to make the experience flow more smoothly. 

1. Wordpress Folder – When you create your WP site you do not want to use a Wordpress folder so it shows up in your url.  I have seen sites that do this and end up with urls like  mysite.com/Wordpress.  Install the WP in your main directory or use a subdomain. 

2. Plugin Overload – Plugins are a wonderful thing.  They have one for everything from changing your font size and color to sharing your posts to your social media accounts.    Although they are a great tool to use, be careful not to use too many.   When I first went to the plugin directory at wordpress.org I was like a kid at Christmas.  I was downloading just about all of them.   I have since learned to only use the plugins I actually need and to be sure they all get along.  Sometimes you do get plugins that don't play nice together.  If you notice a problem on your site after installing a new plugin, just deactivate the plugin and see if it fixes the problem. 

3. Posts and Pages – Pages and posts are different and should be treated as such.  A page is static which simply means it is fixed.  The page displays the same to each visitor because the information is embedded in the HTML code.  A post is dynamic which means visitors can interact with the content and it can consistently change.  Your static pages should be like permanent webpages – About Us, Privacy Policy, i.e., any content that you want to remain constant. 

4. Backup Your Site – If you have ever experienced the loss of a website, you know it is not a pleasurable experience.  To prevent this from happening be sure to backup your WP site regularly.  Some hosts will provide a 24 hour backup of your site if anything happens but not all of them offer that extra feature. So, do not forget to backup your website regularly.   There are services for this or plugins that do this for you as well.  You can search the plugin directory at wordpress.org and find hundreds of options. 

5. Use Images – Using quality images in your posts and on your pages can increase your conversion rate dramatically.  The brain pro cesses images much better than text so they do much more for your products/services.  Be sure you are using images legally and always add an alt text.  This will help the search engine spiders "see" the image.

6. Remember Your Footer – Unfortunately many people overlook the footer at the bottom of the page.  This is where you want to add your copyright and/or business information or other pertinent information or links.   Be sure to keep it up to date as well.  Many people will make it a point to check the footer for information and to see if the site is up to date.

7. How to Choose a Theme – Choosing a theme is an important part of building your website so do not take it lightly.  The theme provides the design and layout of your site.  Determine the purpose of your business and what you need your website to do for your business.  Research each theme thoroughly to see if it will provide what you need.  Be sure to see if the theme provides support.  Try the theme and see if it "fits" with your site and content.  Take the time needed to choose the right theme.  If you do find out later the theme you chose does not work, don't fret, they can easily be changed. 

8. Customized Permalinks – Permalinks are the urls given to your post by Wordpress.  The default permalink can be ugly or extremely long depending on your post titles.  You can change the structure of the permalink by going into Settings>Permalinks.  You can choose one of the options they have or you can customize your links. 

9. Automate Social Sharing – Social media must play an integral part of your website.  There are many options for social sharing plugins so every time you post, it will be shared with your social media followers.  There are also plugins that will allow your visitors to easily share your content on their social pages.  Be sure to use these plugins to your advantage.

10. Update Wordpress and Plugins – Wordpress a nd the plugins associated with it are constantly being changed and revised.  You need to keep up with these updates and always check to see if an update is available.  If you are not up to date the chances of your site being hacked could increase.  It could also cause problems with interaction between old and new plugins and features.   Updating is as simple as a click of the mouse.  Check for an Update Available button next to your plugins or at the top of your admin dashboard. 

Wordpress, to me, is the best thing to come along since chocolate so if you have not yet considered using WP, look into it and see all the possibilities it can provide for your website.  There is a ton of information available so take the time you need to research WP and see what it can do for you and your business. 

Source: 10 Needed Tips for Wordpress Beginners