Yellow Dog Ventures

Okay, so I wrote that using the WordPress Automatic Update plugin was great and the upgrade went smoothly and everything was wonderful.

Well it wasn’t.

Thank goodness I had backups.

When I published a post using WordPress 2.6 my screen went totally white. Same thing for the other blog that I upgraded to 2.6.

So, what do I learn from this?

Restoring a database from cPanel went very smoothly. This was my first experience having to do this and the thought of it had always made me very nervous. Not anymore.

I’m pretty sure the blank screen problem lies with WP 2.6 and not with the plugin. I say that because the upgrade was fine with the plugin before I made the post. Then the problems started. Same thing with both blogs.

I recommend the plugin at this point, but not WordPress 2.6. I had heard it was a minor upgrade and 2.5.1 seemed pretty stable so I expected a smooth ride. Silly me for not waiting for all the bugs to be worked out first, like I usually do.

Oh well, enough about all this. If this experience helps anyone else out, I’m glad.

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Wow! It’s done. I just upgraded this blog to the newest version of wp and it was a piece of cake.

When I posted earlier about using the WordPress Automatic Update plugin, I wrote a couple words of caution about the backups and upgrading the database. I take them both back. Seeing the process work again, it is obvious when to download the backups and I had no issues with passwords. Very cool.

Highly recommended plugin.

Next step is to really get comfortable with Wordpress version 2.6.

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My plan today is to upgrade this blog to the new WordPress version 2.6. Right now it’s still at 2.3.3.

I am currently using version 2.5.1 with a number of blogs and really like some of the features, particularly when it comes to managing plugins. With 2.5.1 you can automatically upgrade plugins when a new version becomes available. This is such a time saver (rather than downloading the new version, unzipping it and uploading it to the server…).

While Fantastico is cool for installing blogs, I have preferred not to use it because I prefer to name the database with a tag I will recognize. With Fantastico, you get wrdp_1, wrdp_2, etc. and that’s not helpful long term, especially if you have a good number of blogs. So, while upgrading WordPress with Fantastico is a piece of cake, I don’t have that option.

Instead, I found a plugin that will upgrade automatically for me — Wordpress Automatic Upgrade. I tested this plugin out on another blog and it worked really well. Much easier than a manual upgrade. So I’m sold.

A couple things though:

• During the upgrade process, the plugin says it has created backups and you can download them. I did not see any options or links to follow to actually download the backups. Maybe it’s obvious and I just missed it, but I missed it. I’d recommend doing your own backups before beginning.
• The plugin led me through an upgrade of my database. That’s fine, but when it came to logging back into my admin panel, I couldn’t - my password wasn’t recognized. It was easy enough to get a new password, but I needed my email address in order to do that. I’d recommend noting what email address you have listed on your blog before going through the upgrade process. (I have dozens of email addresses and actually don’t know what email address I have used with all of my blogs.)

That’s it! So far, I highly recommend this plugin. I’ll play with it on a couple more blogs and then I’ll know for sure.

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I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve made a post in here. Wow! I can’t believe how quickly time is flying by.

In the meantime, I have been quite productive, and it feels quite excellent.

My focus has been on article marketing and creating little social networks for promotion. I took info from a number of sources about how to create these networks and pulled together a game plan. Seems like each person left a little bit out that one of the others filled in and I ended up with a pretty cool outline. Now I’ve been implementing it over the past week.

My results are not as dramatic as I had anticipated. It sounded kind of fun to take over the first page of Google in about 3 days, but that has not happened — yet. I have some more steps to take for this first article and then plan to move to a second article after that. Each time I go through the cycle, I know I will become more efficient. So, cool!

I’ve spoken about, and promoted the IM membership Earn1KaDay a couple times before. And lots of people have checked out the link on the side bar: “The Best Internet Marketing Forum on the Planet.” I don’t say that lightly, and that’s why I’m coming back to it again today.

Because of some pretty exciting enhancements within the 1KaD forum, Dennis Becker is going to raise the price of membership at the end of July. It’s $29.99 per month now and going up to at least $39.99 later this month.

Part of the motivation for the increase is that Dennis has taken on some “junior” partners in running the forum. These guys are great. They have created 2 membership programs of their own - “Super Simple Marketing” and “IM Coaching Club.” These programs are loaded with training in internet marketing (of course!) and both are free to members of 1KaD. So cool to that too!

There is so much more that we get as members day to day (ie LOTS of WSOs), but the biggest benefit is a friendly forum where you can actually ask any question at all and you will get a respectful and thorough answer. The environment is really conducive to putting your neck out there a little and asking for what you need. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

If nothing else, check out the updated sales page and sign up for the newsletter. You’ll get a chance to see examples of some of the best posts and get a first hand experience of the flavor of the forum. At least give yourself that. It’ll be time well spent and you’ll get it before the price goes up. Well worth it.

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