I emphasized the importance of backing up in my basic security tutorial, but I discovered all of the backup tutorials I found were out of date. So here’s a tutorial on backing up your WordPress database with the terrific WP-DB-Backup plugin. The great thing about this plugin is that you can have it automatically send you backups by e-mail that you can save both to your local computer and optionally store in your Gmail or other web mail account and an additional off-site backup. This tutorial assumes you already know how to install plugins. This tutorial should be forward-compatible with WordPress 3.0

Reflections Perfect for photofolio blogs or websites using WordPress. Support threaded comments and pretty simple to use. Page in Malay Homage Homage is a two-column layout WordPress theme, with a right-hand sidebar. Plus a static pages menu, a replaceable logo area and paged- and threaded- comments. K9 K2 inspired theme for WordPress. Key features include: widgets support, custom header, threaded comments and post thumbnails.

New Plugins Hikari Hooks Troubleshooter Hikari Hooks Troubleshooter creates a draggable window with informations about all functions hooked to WordPress actions and filters, and lists all conditional tags. Hikari Unicornified Gravatars Hikari Unicornified Gravatars converts avatars from people that don’t have a Gravatar, into customized unicorns. Tal.ki Embeddable Forums Add a forum, message board, or discussion board to your blog. This plugin will add a Forums page to your blog and allow your members to start their own conversations and topics on your site. Eletro Widgets It allows yout to use WordPress widgets to set up your home page (or any page) in your blog. You can configure and drag & drop widgets around right in the front end. Please watch the video for further details HTML Emails Converts the default fugly, plain-text email notifications into fully customizable, sweet lookin’ HTML emails. ArcadePress Allows you to turn any WordPress site […]

Within this review, I will provide an objective view on the video-hosting service called VideoPress (owned by Automattic). Now I will be one of the first to admit that I am somewhat of an Automattic fanboi. I love WordPress, and use several of Automattic’s other services. However, even I was skeptical of what I considered a too-good-to-be-true video-hosting service. A Little Background I have been hosting my videos on YouTube for quite a while now. I especially liked their new HD feature and the ability for my screencast software to export directly to the service. I didn’t (and still, really don’t) care that the YouTube player is branded and shows ads. It worked, and worked well, and that’s really all I cared about it. And best of all, it was free. However, I ran into a roadblock with some of my videos. The ten-minute time-limit was really started to kill […]

WordPress developers take security very seriously, and many security experts evaluate WordPress’s code for flaws. Security updates are made frequently to keep users safe. However, there are some extra steps you can take to make a fresh installation of WordPress more secure and protect against future attacks. Remember, no system can ever be completely secure, but taking preventative measures can be helpful. Much of this guide is based on the advice from the WordPress Codex article on hardening WordPress, but it is aimed at the WordPress beginner. In future articles, I’ll cover advanced security measures, hardening existing WordPress installs, and recovering hacked WordPress sites. This guide should be relevant for both WordPress 2.92 (the most recent stable release as of this writing) as well as WordPress 3.0. Overview: -Preliminary steps for securing your WordPress install -Changing defaults in WordPress to implement “security by obscurity” -Choosing strong passwords -Installing and configuring […]

SuperBlog Light and clean theme for personal blogs. Three column, widget ready. HalfCircle HalfCircle , comes with theme option, embedded flickr widget to display your flickr image and other features. Sextant Globe A very simple free WordPress Theme 1000px wide with 1 Sidebar and an Option Page to populate the Footer.  5 Free Sport WordPress Themes As spring progresses and the weather warms, people love to shake off those winter cobwebs, head outside, and throw the old ball around. These sports-themed WordPress themes should help you get in the mood for some friendly competition. Each one is widget-ready and gravatar-enabled.

New Plugins WP Comsoon WP Comsoon (from “Coming Soon”) creates a little widget for the sidebar to display the titles of the next scheduled posts of the blog. Rico Bookmark Tree This plugin can create a simple bookmark list with a tree structure on a post using Rico Ajax Simple Author Box Adds a simple author box with Gravatar image below the articles on single page. You can add Twitter and Facebook profiles. WP Footer HTML This plugin allows you to insert HTML in the footer of your blog and you can set it to add the data just to the homepage. Updated Plugins SEO Ultimate This all-in-one SEO plugin can handle titles, meta, noindex, canonical tags, 404 monitoring, robots.txt, auto-linking, and more. Version 1.9 adds title tag editing for category archives. Embed Article Embed Article WordPress Plugin prevents copyright theft by offering an alternative solution to your readers who […]

Gray01 Gray01 is a three column theme. In the theme options panel it is possible to configure social network links. ALogo The theme comes with simple but unique design, theme option, embedded flickr widget to display your flickr image and other features. WoW Blue 2 column, fixed width, widget ready theme for World of Warcraft related blogs