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I found this fascinating quote today:

OpenX is a free, open source ad server that manages the selling and delivery of your online advertising inventory.obwiki.net, A Superb Ads Server and Rotator | Openx | obwiki .net, Aug 2009

You should read the whole article.

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Anyone still arguing the importance of backups? Just wait for a disaster to strike and you know what it means, but only a little too late to be of any real good.

At a time when most websites and blogs are built using databases, a sound backup system is nothing but crucial.

As you never know when your server is going to come down, your webhost is cancelling your account (for valid reason or not), your site got hacked or for whatever reasons your database becomes inaccessible, perhaps having a ready backup is the least painful and expensive option.

There are several ways to achieve the goal of having backups done:

Manual Backup

If you’re on cPanel type of webhosting, there is a “backup” option but this has to be done manually. If your account has more than just a handful of DBs, this method become rather tedious and keeping up a good discipline to carry out regular backups becomes a huge challenge.

So what then?

Automatic Backup

After trying two PHP based scripts and failed to make them work, I came across phpMyBackupPro that works out of the box.

If you want something that may represents the list below, phpMyBackupPro is probably the way to go:

• FREE (GPL License, donation accepted)
• Run on PHP and mySQL
• Platform independent
• Backup all or selected databases
• Multiuser
• Backup databases from different accounts on several MySQL servers
• Easy to use interface
• Schedule backups of all or selected DBs independently of each other
• Available in more than 10 languages
• Even comes with 3 CSS stylesheets
• Many many more features here

So do you feel like giving it a try? Go download the script here.

Here are a few sample screenshots of the system (click to enlarge):

Login screen

Intro

My Test Backup

It took 27 seconds to backup 40 DBs with a total of 39MB in size. That was fast! Imagine having to do this manually in cPanel…and if you set this up on automatic schedule, it’s such a pleasure!

It’s really worth trying… get your copy now!

Related Articles:

• How To Test Your Blog Backup

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The immense popularity of Twitter has created all sorts of demand for more services. Currently much of the tasks are rather manual such as following, direct messaging etc.

But thanks to sweet souls out there, it’s now possible to automate some of these tasks using services which are mainly available for free.

If you prefer to auto-follow all your followers, Tweet Later can do just that for you. On top of that there are many other goodies such as auto-reply, email digest and so on.

Auto-reply setup involves creating a filter to auto-forward Twitter emails to TweetLater. It’s preferable that you choose your Gmail account for this stuff. If you did, make sure your Twitter’s email is setup under this account too. There’s a step-by-step tutorial provided in case you need one.

Another service that is quite similar to Tweet Later is SocialToo.

So go check out and pick the one you prefer or both.

Happy Tweeting!

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In the last post I shared with you how to setup a multisite Wordpress blogs where there is only one installation of Wordpress codes that is required no matter how many blogs you have and run.

Before I talk about the productivity benefits, I would like to point out that there are many alternatives out there to choose from and you get similar outcomes with little differences between them.

I was told of a plugin called WP-Hive that could let you have a multisite configuration in Wordpress. I did give it a go and quite impressed with its simplicity in installation. Just drop the plugin, activate and you’re good to go. Personally, the only minus point is that I found no way to keep a separate database for each blog. I consider this as very important so that any problem with a blog can be dealt with without affecting others.

Another very popular option is the WP mu. I have yet to test this out for now. May be a little later in the future.

Now, should you go for a multisite configuration? And improve your productivity?

My straight answer is a resounding yes! And it’s not said without good reasons so read those below:

1. Ideally time required to maintain our blogs shall be minimal so that we can spend more of it on tasks which are more productive if not profitable. Blog maintenance may include tasks such as core code updates and theme and plugin updates.
2. If you run WP blogs, I found that plugins got updated very frequently. I am using around 25 of them and I see 2 or 3 updates almost everyday. Even though most plugins have one-click update feature nowadays, imagine having to log in to each of your 10 blogs and do a couple of clicks for plugin update…every day or so. Wouldn’t it be better to just one tenth of the work? The choice if obvious. And it doesn’t matter which blog you’re at the moment. Updating a plugin in that blog will render all other blogs (no matter how many of them) get updated too!
3. And think about when you installed a new plugin to a blog and you liked it and wanted your other blogs to have it too. You will then need to upload it to every blog which is tedious. With multisite, upload once and it is instantly available to all your blogs. It’s just a matter of whether you want to activate it or not.
4. Theme updates and addition is another big plus too. Imagine having to upload a theme and have it available to all your sites. This is marvelous.
5. Your file backup size will be significantly smaller which translate into easier handling and faster download or upload times.
6. You are better organized this way. I mean you can assign a single folder on your server to cater for all your WordPress sites, just one instead of a folder for each domain. In my case I have two main folders on my system – one for WordPress and another for Drupal as both are configured as multisites. I cannot be happier than this

Conclusion

So for just a one time effort, you get the benefits for a long time to come. I can’t help but to strongly recommend that you go multisite route!

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Yes, it’s possible.

As I was coming over from Drupal to WordPress, one single feature that’s on Drupal but missing in WP is the ability to run multi sites using just one codebase. This is achieved while individual blogs are still treated as separate entities meaning all control panel, themes and plugins etc are unique to a blog i.e. independent of each other.

The benefits of this are particularly apparent when it’s time to do script maintenance or upgrade since there’s only one set of codes to worry about. If you have more than just one or two WP blogs, the ability to have a unified installation is truly godsend.

So for over 1 year using WP for most of my blogs, I was quietly hoping to find a way to achieve Drupal-like feature above.

Then one fine day as I was surfing for plugins, I came across Nerdaphernalia’s Virtual Multi Blog that offers a script (originally used as a plugin) that lets you create multiple blogs using domains and subdomains all out of just one installation. That makes me really really excited.

WARNING: Before you go ahead, doing this on live blogs will be too risky. I used my domains that lay dormant for testing and familiarization. Only then I convert my live blogs to this new setup. Still, do all this solely at your own risk and I will not be responsible for any outcome.

These are the steps in bullet points:

• Download the script
• Extract files
• Read the instructions – Hmm at first the installation doesn’t look that straight forward as the author is a programmer and leaves out lots of the basics. Nevertheless, I just keep cracking at it as this is my only chance to make my WP life a lot easier later. Suffer a little pain now for a lot more gains later – need to motivate myself (perhaps you too)
• Place the “multiblog” folder in the wp-content/ directory
• Move the wp-config.php and wp-config-vmb.php files from “multiblog” to the directory in which you installed WordPress
• In the wp-content/multiblog/config/ folder, rename mb-autoconfig-sample.php to mb-autoconfig.php. Open mb-autoconfig.php in a text editor. Input your database login information
• I proceed to advanced option as I plan to convert several blogs to use the multiblog system

  In wp-content/multiblog/config/, rename mb-users-sample.php to mb-users.php. Open mb-users.php in a text editor. Populate $vusers[] according to the instructions there. For this example we have:

  $vusers[] = 'catblog.com';$vusers[] = 'dogblog.com';$vusers[] = 'mutts.dogblog.com';$vusers[] = 'catblog.com/celebrities/morris';$vusers[] = 'dogblog.com/fido';

Save and close the file.

• Now this is a critical step. Create a symlink for the add-on domain in the root directory that points back to the root directory. I can’t help much here and my best advice is to go back to your hosting support and ask for help. If you’re on Bluehost, there’s one easy way out. Say your WP is installed under domainA.com and you wanted to share the codes with domainB.com. In your Control Panel V.11 go to Domain Manager-Add Domain. Enter your as domainB.com and under “Choose Addon Directory and Sub-domain” go for “Use an existing directory” and select “domainA.com”. So whenever someone accesses domainB.com, he/she will be taken to domainA.com and this is what we wanted as all WP installation is under domainA.com. Yeah, it’s not very clear I know but all we do here is to redirect domainB to domainA. If you’re on different hosting, the process may be different so go ask them.
• Tips: If you’re stuck, always read the multiblog-readme.htm within the download file or go to the author’s site for description and readers’ comments
• Now with your web browser, go to each blog and set things up as normal through WordPress. WAIT! If you intend to keep each blog using their own config and database files, SKIP this step and proceed to the next
• Go into the wp-content/multiblog/config/ directory and make a copy of mb-config-sample.php. Rename it to mb-config-VUSER.php (See below for how to determine the VUSER.) Open that file in a text editor and set the database information and, optionally, the $table_prefix. If you use the same database for multiple blogs, you must set a different $table_prefix for each. If you don’t set $table_prefix, it will be auto-configured.

  If you use the “Easy Setup” method, then your VUSER is the domain or subdomain, plus directory if any, except that all non-alphanumeric characters are replaced with an understroke (‘_’), and any ‘www.’ is removed. (Non-alphanumeric = anything not a letter or a number.)

  If you set up the $vusers[] array in mb-users.php, then the current VUSER for a blog is whatever that value is, cleaned up as described in the previous paragraph.

  For example: With “mutts.dogblog.com“, the VUSER is “mutts_dogblog_com“. For “www.catblog.com/morris“, the VUSER is “catblog_com_morris” and the config file is mb-config-catblog_com_morris.php. (Note the difference between dashes and understrokes!)

• Now with your web browser, go to each blog and set things up as normal through WordPress. If you’re lucky, it may work out-of-box but if not go back through the instructions above until done.

That’s it! Hopefully you manage it ok so far. The truth is that it took me several trials before the whole setup worked. Pay special attention to database info in several config files that you have throughout the scripts. It’s also important to keep trying until you succeed and don’t ever give up. You’ll appreciate it and definitely it worth all the efforts.

It’s hard to accept that I finally have two WP blogs running side by side using just a single installation. OMG, it’s simply awesome!

Good luck and enjoy.

P.S. Stephen, your plugin is fantastic and thanks so much for sharing.

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