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Figthing SPAM with Akismet for FREE

October 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Akismet-Free-bloggermind

Akismet or Automattic Kismet is a spam filtering service. It attempts to filter spam from blog comments and spam TrackBack pings. The filter works by combining information about spam captured on all participating blogs, and then using those spam rules to block future spam. It is an Incredible tool to use if you have a WordPress Blog or Site. I receive about 10 to 15 spam comments daily, if those add up at the end of the month I will end up with 450 or so spam comments, Akismet will  handle this for you in a very efficient way. But there has been some controversy on how AKISMET started charging for its service, when they use to be free. Most people will go and try to create an account, but will get the surprise of a paid service. Well let me show you how you can get it for free. First you need to create an account at http://akismet.com/ Then you need to select a package, which now is a little confusing since every package has a paid amount, but don’t you worry , you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: PLUGINS, TOOLS, Wordpress Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Removing unnecessary code for Performance and Security

October 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
wphead_code_remove_bloggermind

A few lines of extra code in your header probably won’t slow your site down or risk performance, but you would like to keep things as clean and efficient as possible, since it only takes one line at the time to end up with a load of unnecessary code piled up on your wordpress blog, and that will surely slow it down from time to time. This tip will not only help add up to your Blogs Security but will help with performance by removing unnecessary code from your Blog. Since Wordpress uses the function wp_head() to add a bunch of code to the header of each page. Some of it is absolutely unnecessary. By default, many WordPress themes include the version information in the document this information proves very useful for the hackers as they can easily target blogs that are using the older version of wordpress software. Here is what many themes use to display this info: <meta name="generator" content="WordPress <?php bloginfo('version'); ?>" /> To prevent this … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Firefox 7 stops loading pages + high CPU FIX

October 4, 2011 By 6 Comments
firefox-7-crash-fix-bloggermind

I've been a Firefox fan since its beginnings, but I've been struggling with some issues ever since Version 3.6; First every website that uses the Helvetica Font, became  Arial as from Version 3.6; Then the Delicious plugin that I love so much, was no longer compatible on version 4.0 and up,  fortunately I found a way to install it and went through the tweak in every Release ( since every time I update it, the Delicious plugin broke again, they fixed this on Version 6.0 and up ) , but now that Firefox 7 is released and is supposed to be better, faster and less memory consuming, it turns out that every now and then it crashes. Since updating to Firefox 7 , after browsing and working with it for a while , every website  I load just sit there forever trying to load, but never actually doing so. This issue has only started since the Firefox 7 update, it never occurred in prior versions , and does not happen in Chrome which I am using now, despite not really liking it. So I went nuts … [Read more...]

Filed Under: SOFTWARE, TOOLS Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Giving an article a private members only feature

October 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
turn your Wordpress Blog into a membership site

Do you want certain articles from your Wordpress Blog to be accessed only by logged-in members? You don't have to install a plugin to turn your Wordpress Blog into a membership site, you just have to unlock some features that Wordpress comes with out of the box, but many users simply doesn't know about. You can use this feature for: Online education centers where registered students can access their learning material Share download links or information for member only visitors A place to gather ideas for a project restricted to team members only. Valuable Information worth sharing to subscribers You can password protect it so that only the users that are logged in to your blog are allowed the access to your post. This option is available on your ‘add new post’ under the publish box. You have to click on ‘edit’ next to ‘visibility public’, change the settings and add a password if you want it protected and then click publish. Giving an article a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Securing WordPress Configuration Files

September 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Secure Wordpress by Configuring your httaccess file

Every WordPress installation contains a configuration file called wp-config.php that holds essential data for your Web site to work and  it’s located in your WordPress installation directory. Important and secret information is stored on this file. Lets say you allready installed WordPress in a different directory other than you main public html directory ( If you haven't check out How to install WordPress on a different directory) in order to secure it from bots and hackers , but if some hacker setup bots to crawl for your wp-config.php file and gets to it , he could easily learn all about your installation not to mention where your database is stored, the username and password, remember that this database is where all your articles, pages, comments, and all the information that you have or will have on your WordPress blog or site is stored; In malicious hands, this could be disastrous. Here is a list of what is stored on your wp-config.php file Database name Database … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Optimizing Images in Bulk

March 20, 2010 By 1 Comment
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Why do I have to optimize my blog’s Images ? Well First the loading time of websites has a major influence on the overall user experience and the first thing to cover is how to optimize images meaning that you should resize and save each image in a format that does not uses a lot of space and since Images can create an extra load on the size of your pages. Now, Photoshop and similar image editing software include a feature called “Save for the web”. Always use this feature since it will reduce the image size and load time substantially. But these process can be time consuming and you can end up finishing an article in about 4 times what you expected, that is why we will show you how to do this in a batch, by using this little wonderful app called Fotosizer. Fotosizer is a freeware batch image resizer tool. It resizes your photos in just 3 easy steps - 1. Photo selection, 2. select resize settings, then 3. Start the resize! With Fotosizer, you can shrink JPEG image files, along … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: , , , ,

How2 Exclude Pages From Navigation

March 18, 2010 By 1 Comment
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There are times when you need to create a page, but you don't need it to show up on you Wordpress Based Site, maybe because you want it to show up after a transaction is made or for special signed up users. In this cases, we use a nice plugin that help us doing that. It's called “Exclude Pages” (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/) and the installation is as simple as with any other plugin: just download, unzip it inside your wp-content folder and activate it on your admin panel. This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus). EXCLUDED INCLUDED Pages which are children of excluded pages also do not show up in menu listings. (An alert in the editing screen, underneath the "include" checkbox allows you to track down which ancestor page is affecting child pages in this … [Read more...]

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Turning Off Google’s Eagle Eye

March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
GoogleTurnedOff.png

If you don’t like to be behind the Eagle Eyes of Google You can delete All Web History from your Account at any time or Disable it For good, Maybe you have the Richard Stallman Syndrome or you are just a SEO specialist in which case your searches will be adequate to your history avoiding you to keep track of your true results since Google customizes your search results based on your past search activity on Google. This customization includes searches you've done and results you've clicked. Since Personalized Search treats signed-in and signed-out users differently, the instructions for disabling Personalized Search are a little different in each case.  This Tutorial is for Signed in searches just follow these steps: Click the My Account link from the Google homepage Click Edit next to 'My products.' Click Delete Web History. Make sure you're signed in to your Google Account to see the My Account link. Deleting Web History from your Google Account will erase all … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bloggermind Tagged With: , , ,

3 Steps for a Faster Firefox

March 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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There are several ways you can improve Firefox performance. One step you can implement is downloading enhancements. The SpeedyFox add-on by CristalIdea is a great tool that increases browsing speeds. With its user-friendly interface, the program compacts files and fragments databases. It also centralizes browsing histories, while effectively managing cookies and site data. The result is a quicker and more efficient browser. It also eradicates the waiting time during transmissions, allowing websites to load in an expedited manner. The entire process enables peak performance and ensures a favorable online experience. [ad#GAtext] Another step to secure faster loading time is via configuration. You can manually change Firefox settings to meet your desired results. Increasing the reaction time of the browser will optimize its true capabilities. This gives the browser an edge when accessing sites and downloading multimedia. Since Firefox is designed for high-speed access, the settings … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bloggermind Tagged With: , , ,