Once you have WordPress installed and setup as a both a CMS and blog you need to think about your website design, Look and Feel. There are several ways to go about this, but they all start with your deciding what you want your site to look like.

If you already have a website and just want to move it to WordPress as a CMS you will need to create a theme for it, which is a little beyond the scope of this article. The WordPress.org site offers substantial theme documentation.  If you need assistance with this we have web designers that can do it for you, just contact our helpdesk. If this is a new site design your job is a little harder as it takes time and effort to decide how you want your site to look. Luckily there are resources out there that make your job easier as many sites provide WordPress themes at little or no cost.

Some WordPress theme resources:

• The WordPress Site – over 1,200 themes to choose from
• WordPress Lover’s Site
• Free Theme Layouts
• Google Search – Free WordPress Themes

No related posts.

The following updates will be sent out to all Apache shared hosting servers beginning on Jan 27, 2010.

Email Messages Routed to Spam Bug Fix

Code updated so that blacklisted email addresses do not result in all email messages from that domain to be routed to SPAM. Now, when a customer adds an email like Joe@a_real_domain to a blacklist, other email messages from that domain will make it past the blacklist. Previously, when a customer added Joe@a_real_domain to their blacklist, email messages from others like jack@a_real_domain would go to trash. This update fixes that problem.

MySQL V5 UPGRADE PROCESS—NEW INFORMATION

We have added a knowledgebase article on how to

upgrade to MySQL 5

SpamAssassin EMERGENCY Patch

(Already implemented)

SpamAssassin had a scoring rule bug that caused some email messages sent after January 1, 2010 to be incorrectly labeled as “spam.” This fix ensured that the spam scoring for all customers returned to 2009 levels. It was patched on January 6, 2010.

Calendar 8 Rollback

Due to an unresolved bug in Calendar 8, the feature has been pulled from this release. An upgraded version of Calendar 8 will be offered in a subsequent release.

Added Gallery2 to Control Panel Features

The Gallery feature on the Control Panel has been joined by Gallery2, so customers can manage picture files using MySQL (Gallery1 does not use MySQL). For more information about Gallery, see: http://gallery.menalto.com/. VSAP updated for this feature.

Note: Gallery 2 requires MySQL to function. It will not be visible in accounts that have MySQL disabled. A few strings were added to the English and Japanese versions to the website.xml and global.xml files in association with this feature.

Upgraded Site Search

The Swish-e feature (Labeled as Site Search on the Control Panel) has been updated to version 2.4.7. This version is available to any customer that is not using Site Search at this time. Current Site Search users will have to delete the following files to use the new version:

/usr/home/userid/index.swish
/usr/home/userid/swish.conf
/usr/home/userid/www/htdocs/sitesearch.html
/usr/home/userid/www/cgi-bin/query.pl
/usr/home/userid/www/cgi-bin/query.pl

Customers will then go to their Control Panel to install Site Search again. After deleting the files and redoing the install, customers can use the newer version. For more information about Swish-e, see: http://swish-e.org/

Note: The files strings/website.xml and strings/global.xml were modified in association with this feature.

Update phpMyFAQ

Updated code so that customers could upgrade to phpMyFAQ v2.5.4. New phpMyFAQ customers will get this version when they install the feature. Current phpMyFAQ customers must back up their phpMyFAQ content before installing the current version. To perform the upgrade, current customers must access phpMyFAQ through their Control Panel, uninstall phpMyFAQ, and then reinstall the application to use v2.5.4. For more information, see: http://www.phpmyfaq.de/changelog.php

WordPress Bug Fix

Updated code so that WordPress will not display if MySQL is disabled for the account.

FTP Latency Bug Fix

Updated code so that there is no long wait time when a customer initiates an FTP request and when the Control Panel allows them to actually use FTP.

Urchin Default Settings Update

Updated code so that customers can set the default installation locale of Urchin in the Branding System.

Upgraded ShopSite Update Button

Customers can now click a link in the Control Panel to upgrade their ShopSite 9 accounts to ShopSite 10. Once a customer upgrades to ShopSite 10, they will not be able to roll back to version 9. For more information about ShopSite, see: http://shopsite.com/news_10_0_released.html.

Changelog

Updated the “What is New” file.

File Manager Updates

Added a feedback message and character rules to File Manager so customers will know if they fail in their attempt to create a directory. This fix also includes a change so that the following characters cannot be used in a file name: | : * < > ? / ” \

Fixed a bug where File Manager was allowing double quotes in a file name. A customer now sees an error message when they attempt to create a file name with double quotes.

UserID Field in Web Access Bug Fix

Code updated so that customers cannot use double quotes when creating a userID in the WebAccess feature.

View CSR in Digital Certificate Bug Fix

Code updated so that customers can view the digital certificate CSR without scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Apache Error Logs (Lumberjack) Bug Fix

Lumberjack Error Logs were not being populated in certain accounts. This fix corrects the issue.

Note: Apache Restart is needed for this fix.

Email Updates/Bug Fixes

Updated rc.whitelist, so that customers can create a WhiteList entry that will not be blocked by the RBL settings.

Updated Blacklist so that the proper Whitelist entries make it to the customer’s IN box; when a Blacklist entry is made, the entry was causing email messages associated with certain whitelist entries from making it past the filters.

Updated Code so that qmail-smtpd will check tmlocals AFTER it checks locals.

Updated Code so that email addresses with multiple periods (…) display correctly in Webmail.

Updated dovecot mail log size to 100mb, enabling the logs to rotate out less frequently.

Customize Account Feedback Message

Customers can now brand the feedback message for a new string in associated with Task Manager, in account.xml

HTML Tags in Welcome Message

Customers can now add HTML code to the welcome message in the Control Panel.

Note: This notification reflects the best knowledge of code and feature updates for this release. Changes may occur and those will be documented in new notifications. These updates may reflect code changes/additions or edits that increase the accuracy of this report. We might make improvements and/or changes in the product(s) and/or the program(s) described here at any time.

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I am going to assume you have WordPress installed on your virtual server which can either be done via the control panel or manually.  This posting is focused just on setting up WordPress as a workable CMS and a blog. I am not going to delve into plugins, the template design, menus or other Word Press settings.

1. Create a page called “Home” which will be your website’s main or home page.

   

   By way of example, if you were to browse directly to our Linux Virtual Private Servers site using just the URL: http://www.linux-virtual-servers.com the “Home” page will be displayed.

2. Add a second page called “Blog” which will act as a placeholder for your blog, which will then be located at:

   http://www.yoursitename.com/blog/

3. Next you have to tell WordPress what pages to use for your CMS Home Page and also where the blog is located.
   1. Under Settings select “Reading.”
   2. Click the “Static Page” radio button.
   3. Select “Home” for the FrontPage.
   4. Select “Blogs” for the Posts Page
   5. Click on Save Changes.



WordPress will now display the “Home” page as your sites “Home” page.
It will display your blog entries at:  /blogs/

4. There is one more step needed, which is to set your permalinks custom setting.There are several options which can be used, such as:
   /blog/%postname%
   or
   /blog/%category%/%postname%
   or
   /%category%/%postname%
   There is a link at the top of the Permalink Settings page to that shows many other options.

This is really all there is to it, your Word Press install is now both a CMS system and a Blog. To add pages to your site just create a new page and publish it.

Related posts:

1. Word Press as a CMS – Part 1
2. WordPress as a CMS? Maybe, maybe not. (Intro)

Problem: WordPress  versions 2.85 and below allow unrestricted file uploads and arbitrary PHP code execution.

Impact: It is possible for a hacker to upload scripts that can be run on the server, view website source code which could allow them to see passwords and then gain access to databases.

Versions Affected: Very possibly all versions of WordPress including current hardened stable release 2.8.5 and beta versions.

Solutions:

This is fixed in version 2.8.6, make sure you are running the latest version.

LEGAL NOTICES
————————-
The information contained within this advisory is supplied “as-is” with no warranties or guarantees of fitness of
use or otherwise. I accept no responsibility for any damage caused by the use or misuse of this information.

Related posts:

1. Apache Shared Hosting Updates – 1/27/2010

When I was first told that one could use WordPress as a CMS I was thinking inside a very small confining box and thought, “why in the world would anyone ever want to do that?” The basis for this thought was totally from a narrow minded security point of view, “here we go, yet another web application that will allow sites to be hacked, servers to be owned and more sites taken over by spammers and hackers.”

Luckily I don’t live in that box, so I quickly stepped outside of it and started looking at the benefits of using WordPress as both a CMS and a blog. I also wanted to see if we could use WordPress as a CMS for a new site we wanted to launch that was just for our Linux Virtual Private Servers. As with everything there are tradeoffs and risks as well as benefits so let’s start with the 10 benefits of using WordPress as a CMS.

10 Benefits of using WordPress as a CMS

• It’s free – unlike some CMS platforms it is free and well supported by a large group of developers and users.
• It is easy to install and setup.
• It is easy to learn – you can edit pages without knowing HTML. Easier to learn than some CMS systems.
• It runs on both Apache (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) and Windows IIS.
• The cost of the actual site design can be controlled by using free or low cost templates.
• It is fairly easy to take an existing design and move it to WordPress as the template system is well designed.
• Many plug-ins are available allowing you to do things like SEO, generate sitemap files, include multimedia like Flash, Videos and music.
• Captchas can be used to prevent spamming of the blog.
• No need to use FTP or other tools to update your site.
• The WordPress team is interested in security and not only makes regular updates to WordPress but they also make it easy to update both the base platform and plug-ins.

Why not to use WordPress as a CMS

There are good reasons not to use WordPress as a CMS system, here are a few that you might want to consider, before you read my conclusion below.

Five Reasons to avoid using WordPress as a CMS

• WordPress was designed to be a blogging platform, so some hard core developers feel that adding CMS capabilities to WordPress is like turbo charging an Edsel.  It’s still an Edsel when you are done. This does not mean that doing this is bad it just limits the capabilities as WordPress is designed for use in a  single user/blogger environment. If you need multiple authors, extremely flexible categorization of content or a complex site WordPress might not be the best solution for your needs.
• Simple Page/Post/User configuration. In software designed to be CMS systems from the start allow more posting options and the ability to setup multiple users with different levels of access.
• Simplified permalink options which force you to a set link structure.
• WordPress lacks editorial process and workflow controls.
• WordPress may be overkill. If you only need to edit the content on one page there are scripts that will do that with a lot less overhead than WordPress or any other CMS.

When I was in high school the guys in auto shop always seemed to get into a debate as to what was the better car, a Ford or a Chevy. As both sides wore blinders they couldn’t see the other side’s viewpoint and refused to be swayed to the other side. The bottom line is that you are running a business you want to survive so you cannot afford to wear blinders. You have to make decisions that affect your bottom line, your employee’s livelihood and your customers. You also cannot make decisions to embrace a new technology just based on its “coolness” factor. You need to evaluate the features available in WordPress and decide if they meet your needs for near future. If it does, then use it, if not find a better tool that does the job you need done.

Related posts:

1. Word Press as a CMS – Part 2
2. WordPress as a CMS? Maybe, maybe not. (Intro)

Sitting on a Fence

Overview – Many web designers are looking at or currently using WordPress as a Content Management system for their clients. As with any technology there are trade-offs that must be considered. In order to explore this more fully we decided to implement a new site devoted to our Linux Virtual Servers in WordPress. This gave us an opportunity to look at this technology from a different point of view and evaluate it with regards to the following areas:

• Investigating using WordPress as both a CMS and blog.
• WordPress Setup.
• Ease of initial website design and implementation.
• User generated content.
• SEO
• Site performance.
• Daily Maintenance
• Security

In part 1 I’ll cover using our investigations into using WordPress as a CMS and what is required to use WordPress and our design constraints.

Related posts:

1. Word Press as a CMS – Part 1
2. Word Press as a CMS – Part 2

SEO Optimizations
The ZenCart storefront with a two SEO related modifications:

We installed the Ultimate SEO URLs plugin to convert non-search engine friendly URLS like:

http://www.spicymama.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=24

to search engine friendly URLS like this:

http://www.spicymama.com/arizona-gunslinger-smokin-hot-jalapeno-pepper-sauce-p-117.html

We created an xml sitemap of products which could be read by Google and let Google know about it.

Product information and images were entered into ZenCart giving as much information as was felt necessary about each item.

The final step we took was to add the site to Google Base and Google Product Search. Google Base is a free Google service that allows you to publish your information for inclusion in Google search results. Google Product Search uses Google Base to get listings of products, making it easy to get listed there as well.

Tracking Visitors
In order to see how effective your marketing is you need to have a baseline to measure things by. We used Google Analytics to track the visitors to the site and came up with a baseline of zero hits which is just like a new website.

Tracking Sales
Just getting visitors who don’t buy anything does nothing more than eat up bandwidth. One needs to also be able to track conversions or sales. In order to do this we selected the page which is displayed when the sale is completed as our Goal. We then added this into Google Analytics as the last step in the order process.

Don’t Expect Instant Results
Once a site is added into Google it takes time for Google to actually index the site and to display the site as one of many possibilities when someone searches Google. We don’t expect instantaneous results and the actual results will vary based on key words searched for and where the site is positioned in the Google search results list. By doing the above we set the very basic foundation for marketing our site on the Internet. The following graph shows relative sales over a 6 month period after we did just the simple changes outlined above.

As you can see the site went from zero sales to a lot more than zero sales after 4 months.

Related posts:

1. Marketing your site for fun and profit

We are going to use a real live customer site, Spicy Mama, as an example to let you know how it works in the real world for a real site.

As we market Spicy Mama we will post followups here to let others know how it works and about how much time it takes to do this. We have already done some of the work and will fill in the details a little later. Our next step is to setup wordpress and to get the theme match the main site. Once that is done we will be adding in adding in necessary plugins, the first ones being Akismet, the feedburner plugin and the All in one SEO plugin.

Related posts:

1. Marketing your site for fun and profit – getting started