No site is ever safe from being hacked, like in the real world, if someone really wants to break in they can, it’s just a matter of making yourself a much harder target so it’s not worthwhile.

You should check out the following ten plugins to harden WordPress to defend your blog.

1. Login Lockdown: when someone attempts to access restricted areas of your blog by logging in, Login Lockdown records the attempt and its associated IP address. If multiple failed login attempts are detected that come from a group of similar addresses, Login Lockdown will deny further attempts from those addresses. This is an important tool that can protect your blog from dreaded brute force password attacks.
2. WordPress File Monitor: check the files that run WordPress for anything that has been changed, deleted, or added. When an event has been detected, the plugin sends an email alert to a user-defined address. This plugin can be vital to bloggers defending themselves against SQL injection.
3. Bot Block: harden your WordPress installation by preventing multiple registrations from the same IP address. It also compares new registrations with blacklisted IP addresses to make sure no known troublemakers are signing up. This is an effective tool in the fight against automated WordPress user registrations.
   Even better, if there is no reason for you to allow user registrations, prevent this by going to Settings > General and under Membership unchecking the box that says “Anyone can register”.
4. Admin Renamer Extended: everyone knows what the default administrative user name for WordPress is. That give hackers half the information they need to access your site. This plugin will change your administrator user names including the default admin and any other admin logins that have been created. It checks the validity of user names, user names that are unfilled, and for user names that already are present in the system. Keep attackers off guard by making them have to guess your admin usernames.
5. HTTPS for WordPress: a plugin that forces users to login over secure connections. By sending authentication information over SSL, login information is encrypted between a user’s browser and the Web host. This eliminates the risk of interception associated with unsecured logins. This is an essential tool that will help prevent login credentials for your site from being compromised, however can be difficult to configure and is not always compatible with your web server or the latest version of WordPress, so be careful!
6. WordPress Security Scan: finds vulnerable areas of your blog and recommends specific actions to take to harden it. Because there is so much involved in security, this is a great tool to help make sure you don’t miss anything.
7. AskApache Password Protect: protects important folders like wp-admin, wp-include, and wp-content, guarding against automated and manual attacks against your WordPress blog.
8. WordPress Exploit Scanner: this plugin will look through all the code in your posts, comments, and plugins looking for something suspicious. Often attacks on WordPress enter through these three paths, so take the time to guard against exploits by installing this plugin. Don’t worry about the plugin making any mistakes either because it relies on the blogger to take any necessary action.
9. The WP-Scanner: scans for weaknesses within your WordPress installation, checks to make sure you have changed your table prefixes (you did, didn’t you?) and a variety of other important steps that need to be taken to harden your blog.
10. Stealth Login: create unique URLs that are used when logging in and out of your blog. This plugin can also be used to keep registered users from logging in using the wp-login.php file. By making it difficult for attackers to find your login page, you have just made your blog more secure.

Finally you may want to check your wp-config.php file has file permissions of 644 and not higher – this has been the cause of the latest “security scare”.

This was a guest post by Tom Walker who is the lead editor of the CreativeCloud blog, which he runs on behalf of a leading supplier of franking machine ink based in the UK. Old school print ads, book art and modern print design are among the topics he most enjoys writing about.

If you’d like to write a guest post for Blog Tech Guy, get in touch here.

Read the full post: 10 Plugins To Harden WordPress

Ekin Ertac has produced a WordPress Template Tag Cheatsheet that lists the available template tags and what they do. You can download it in PDF from his site.

It also includes tips on a standard theme structure, what the loop is and a couple of example navigation menus for good measure.

[Via WeblogTools Collection]

Read the full post: WordPress Template Tags Cheat Sheet

You can read the full details here, but please don’t ignore the Upgrade notice.

Backup, using a plugin like WP DB Backup (while you’re there, set it to regularly email you backups).

Why not also go to Tools > Export and backup all your post/page/comments in a smaller XML file. This can be useful too.

If you like you can backup your uploaded images via FTP in the wp-content folder, but that’s up to you.

Then Tools > Upgrade.

Some people will have to upgrade manually depending on their server setup, so here are the manual upgrade instructions.

While you’re at it, take a look at upgrading your out of date plugins too, why not?

The basics: Upgrading is easy, fixing a hacked blog is hard.

Read the full post: Fixing A Hacked Blog Is Hard

If you don’t have Wordpress 2.7

- Make sure you’re uploading to the correct folder. This should be wp-content/plugins.
- Make sure the files have uploaded. There should be no Failed Transfers listed in Filezilla and you can see the files on your server.
- Make sure the plugin is not in a zip folder. Most plugins are downloaded zipped, you need to upzip the zip folder contents before uploading.
- Make sure there are some files in the top level folder. Some plugins have a folder, then inside that no files, just another folder. Wordpress will not see these files if there is no file in the top level folder.

A great video found on YouTube shows you how to upload a plugin:

If you have Wordpress 2.7 or above

Then to avoid these issues you can use the inbuilt plugin uploader. Go to Plugins > Add New. There you can search for a plugin and if it’s in the Wordpress repository you can install it then and there. If not you can upload the zip file from the site you have downloaded it from and it will install that for you.

Hopefully the next version of Wordpress will allow a similar action for installing new Wordpress Themes, as it’s a great feature to avoid the frustration many bloggers have with installing plugins.

Read the full post: Why Are My Plugins Not Showing In My Dashboard?

This has happened to four clients in the last week, three on Hostgator and one on another. I know Hostgator are gradually upgrading all their servers and I’ve no idea if this is the cause but wouldn’t be surprised.

The reason (in these cases) has been a crashed wp_posts database table. The error message given (if you get one at all in your theme or admin menu) is often: “wp_posts is marked as crashed and should be repaired”. To fix is pretty simple. Login to your host’s control panel and go to the phpMyAdmin option. This brings up a list of your databases. Select the one you’re using for Wordpress to see the Wordpress tables in that database. A list like this will appear (the actual number and name of some tables will vary depending on the plugins used):

(Click to enlarge)

You can see the problem here, wp_posts is labeled as “in use” and is locked. To repair, simply check the box next to wp_posts and select Repair table, as in the image below.

(Click to enlarge)

You should then get a success message and your posts will have reappeared. If not then you may have a bigger problem, but at least you have a recent backup. Right?!

Read the full post: Help, My Blog Posts Have Disappeared!

Hi everyone, my name is Mwangi and I share the title of “Blog Mastermind Mentor” with Joel.

So what you are reading below is the culmination of many many years of experience and investigation. Without any futher ado, I thank Joel, and wish you nothing but podcasting succcess.

What actually is podcasting?

Podcasting has many definitions, and when I was doing research on what the definition is, I found a number of variations.

I like to use Yaro Starak’s definition, which is:

“A podcast is an audio file distributed by an RSS feed.”

On My Podcasting Tutor we pretty much define it as:

“A podcast is a series of audio or video presentations syndicated on the internet in digital format that is designed to be subscribed to and played on-demand using a PC or portable media player.”

Why would you recommend starting a podcast? What are the benefits?

I think the first thing that is always important to emphasize is that podcasting, just like blogging is just a communication channel.

Ultimately, what matters more in my opinion is the message you want to distribute via this channel.

That having been said, podcasting has a number of intrinsic advantages that other communication mediums don’t. Please note, I am lumping podcasting together with video blogging:

Number one is building relationships. There is no other way I have seen of building relationships with A players in your niche that works quite like podcasting or video blogging.

If your niche has about 30 A-list players in it, if you ask all 30 for an interview, and you have some substance of some sort backing you up -meaning when people look at what you’ve done they can tell you are either a star or an up an coming star or at least someone who is putting in the work – at the very least one of them should say yes and the instant credibility this can give you is huge.

I can honestly say I have networked with Gary Vaynerchuk, Steve Pavlina and Paul Colligan and its all because of the wonderful opportunities brought about by podcasting.

What niche(s) are best for podcasting?

To break it down to its simplest essence,the best niches for podcasting are the ones that fulfill two criteria:
* Have a significant audience
* Have commercial potential

The way to discover these two things is quite simple actually.

If you want to know if your niche has a sizeable audience, brainstorm as many of the common terms in a niche as possible and just go exploring up and down the web.
Are people assembling at forums to discuss the topic? Are there other podcasts or blogs in the niche? Is there any form of Internet life in that niche?

To find out if there is commercial potential, as you do Google research, look to the right of the screen to see if there are any adwords ads that pertain to your niche.

Go to Clickbank, Commission Junction and the other big players in the affiliate market and look to see if there are any people spending money to get to your niche.

If you tick both boxes, then the conditions are great for you to get in and give it your best shot.

And the old expression, “You never know,”, holds true. You truly never know until you select a niche and work it for a few months.

What equipment and technical expertise are required?

Not much really, if you know how to use a computer, download and install software, you should be able to get podcasting within a day if you wish.

If people join my free email list at mypodcastingtutor.com, I have a video tutorial where I show people how to setup only 3 tools and they can immediately get podcasting.

Though I wouldn’t recommend it, because you wouldn’t own the podcast, if you want you can head on over to a place like Blogtalk radio and get started even before you finish reading this.

How do I get this on my blog?

When I first got started, I made heavy use of the podpress plugin and later on less use of the audio player plugin.

Anyone who podcasts on Wordpress would pretty much know those two plugins.

Now, podpress, which is what I still use to this day to podcast, hasn’t been updated for months, but that didn’t stop the podpress community from coming up with solutions to incompatibilities that existed between podpress and the latest version of WP.

So I’d probably put my money on podpress, it makes adding your podcast to itunes easier and the community is awesome.

NB: I am yet to update to the latest version of WP, as I haven’t really had the need to, so definitely check in with the discussion surrounding your plugin and the latest version of Wordpress prior to installing it or make use of nice folks like you and you’ll never go wrong

How do I add a podcast to iTunes?

Rather than tell you why not show you:

If you can’t see the image, click here to watch the video.

A very common question now, what do I talk about?!?

My recommendation would be to pick an area, that seems viable that I am PASSIONATE ABOUT.

Not just passionate about the end results, but something I am passionate about engaging in and being a part of on a regular basis.

If you select an area like that, you are able to bring a level of creativity and insight that only comes from unforced, deeply engaging participation and investigation of a niche or idea or whatever.

I’d recommend you get on the mic and just go into the flow.

If you are scared of offending people, good. Steve Pavlina and Timothy Ferriss both say that one of the keys to their success is the fact that they have a polarizing effect.

If you just want to be a helpful source of information, good, AJ and Jordan Harbinger from Pickup Podcast got a nationally syndicated radio show by committing to helping men understand dating once every week.

Get out there, give it your best shot, and see what results the word throws your way.

And, to shamelessly plug myself, you want to learn what 6 A-list podcasters did that led to their success, so you have folks you can model, check out my Conversations with Podcasting Gurus package or just watch my free Podcasting Profits Manifesto which is basically a free video presentation where I pulled all their insights together with my experience and knowledge into the one presentation.

Great, thanks Mwangi!

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Read the full post: How To Podcast On Your Blog

Made by the makers of Wordpress (Automattic), Wordpress.tv contains videos on writing and publishing posts, adding a static page, and many more “how-to” videos.

Below is their welcome video (if you can’t see it, click here):

Looks like a great resource for those who aren’t too sure how to do something in Wordpress. As always if you would like to TALK to someone about how to use Wordpress, or you’re uncomfortable with the interface, please get in touch.

Read the full post: Wordpress.tv Videos Will Help You!

Read the full post: Wordpress 2.6 Is Out

For those who are signed up to my Monthly Maintenance Package, they will get upgraded by me as part of this.

A couple of interesting articles about the new version are available. Weblog Tools Collection talks about:
- Post revisioning.
- Tumbling your posts.
- Admin interface speed improvements (by the use of Google Gears).
- (De)Activating plugins in bulk.
- Other technical changes.

Technosailor also goes into detail about:
- Post revisioning.
- Google Gears.
- Avatar Options.
- Press This! feature.
- More technical details.

Very interesting for when you blog is upgraded and you think “I wonder what this does?”. Just remember, you should be making at least weekly backups of your blog database, and more for mission critical blogs. And aren’t they all critcial?!

Read the full post: Wordpress 2.6 Is Coming Soon

1. Use the word “your”. Treating visitors as if they’re people (even friends), and your site is all about them can increase your sign-up or conversion rates.

2. Add video, video and more video. Something I don’t do enough of myself, but it works. Whether it’s a video loading/squeeze page to get newsletter signups, a demo of your company’s services, or even a silent, short video of the product you’re selling, the evidence is that it could be phenomenal for your conversion rate. Don’t believe me? Watch this video on the subject.

3. A flashing arrow can help. Yes, really. I’m against flashing graphics in a lot of situations (and especially more than one on a page), but apparently this can really help. Look, isn’t it nice?

4. Add a Call Me button, usually this is done with Skype, and is very easy to do. Being able to contact someone easily, especially before purchasing something.

5. Tell them what your site is about and how it can help them. Very obvious I know, but sometimes your company name may have nothing to do with what you provide. Don’t leave it to someone to work out for themselves, let them know immediately.

Quick and easy isn’t it?

Read the full post: Five Tips To Improve Your Conversion