I missed a theme update on an old blog, that came back and bit me in the ass.  Because of the TimThumb vulnerability the hackers were able to inject some code into my wp-config file, allowing themselves access whenever their little hearts desired.  But, several, several, many hours later I’ve now done what I think can be done.

Offending outdated themes and plugins updated, injected code removed, and security measures taken.  Hell, I even took the time to update every single password I’ve ever used and hopefully used some strong enough to keep people out.

Lesson learned, I need to spend more time on internet security, especially since my server is quickly becoming my livelihood.

Fly Out Notifications

Ok, flyout notifications on new features is pretty damn cool.  Any questions I might have had about the new layout were answered as soon as the update was complete.  The notifications are clean, can be turned off or x’d out, not too obtrusive.  I’m actually looking forward to see how future theme makers can utilize this same feature for self customization, instead of bloated control panels.

Fly Out Tabs

Finally, I don’t have to go through and drop down the tabs on the side of the menu, I never understood how this was a smart update.  Thankfully, now you can simply hover over a menu item and the sub-menu will fly out for easy selection.

WordPress 3.3 and Elegant Themes

As of right now, nothing seems broken in my theme.  It always gives me little butterflies when I can upgrade to the latest version of WordPress and not completely wreck the theme I’m using.  This theme was created by Elegant Themes and although they update their themes on a regular basis, it’s always nerve wracking going through the process of checking all the links and various widget placements.

So, there you have it, my 5 Minute of WordPress 3.3.  Thanks for reading and let me know what you think.

After getting the error for about 15 minutes I figured out that my server was unable to contact any of the 5 servers operated by the Akismet spam plugin.  Once I manually checked the servers, via a button at the bottom of the troubleshooting page, everything went back to normal and there were no more errors.

Simple annoyance, no issues, and spam still seems in check.

According to the Akismet website they have reportedly stopped over 11 billion spam comments.  Unsettling however is the figure that only 83% were actual spam.  No doubt Akismet is the best solution to fight spam, but consider that as of this posting Akismet has made over 913 million errors.  Internet wide, but still a good reminder to always check your spam moderation que, you might have some worthwhile comments.

Below are the Word Press affiliate plugins I can’t live without. (Affiliate links are used, thanks for your support.)

phpBay Pro ($79.00) – My online life has changed since finding this handy little affiliate plugin.  Basically the WP plugin adds items from eBay onto your blog and can be customized to fit your sites style.  Items can be inserted in a shop type manner or as a few items listed at the bottom of a post.  This plugin has great support directly from it’s creator Wade and is under constant improvement and updates to follow the changes within eBay.  phpBay Pro works with the eBay Partner Network and with Pepper Jam Network.

See phpBay Pro in action – Used Hybrid Cars

Amazon Auto Poster ($29.99) – I’ve only started using this WP plugin about a month back and it’s already paid for itself.  As you can tell by it’s name, this plugin scrapes product listings at Amazon.com and then creats blogposts automatically.  The items are scraped per your keyword choices, starting point, and category.  The posts generated can then be scheduled up to 9 days out or published immediately.

See Amazon Auto Poster in action – Flip MinoHD Camcorder

Article Auto Poster Premium ($29.99) – Again, I just started using this plugin about a month ago and it’s already provided me with additional traffic, sales, and profits.  Just like the plugin name says, it scrapes ArticlesBase.com for the keyword you choose and generates blog posts off the articles found.  Each keyword creates it’s own job to publish a post based off of that keyword as often as you want.  This is a great method of generating long tail keyword search traffic and keep your blog updated when you cannot be bothered with writing content.

See Article Auto Poster Premium in action – 10 People To Surround Your Band With

AD Rotator (FREE) – This free Word Press plugin makes ad management on your blog a no brainer.  You create a catalog of advertisements, which are then grouped by php code that you place within posts or on your theme files.  This will automatically rotate the ads you placed within the group.  Weights can be adjusted and there is no limit to the amount of ads that you use.  Great way to keep ads fresh on your site through multiple page views and try different affiliate products.

Closing Statement

I use a lot of different plugins with my Word Press blogs, but these are the ones that I can’t live without and provide me the most commissions.  No, the majority of them are not free, but very quickly they can be paid for with just a little traffic.  Pair these WP plugins with a browser plugin like Affiliate Espionage and you’ll see your weekly earnings rise.  It still takes hard work, but thanks to plugins our work as marketers can be streamlined.

Like any digital product your mileage may vary.  However, the items listed here I use on a daily basis and can vouche for their usefullness.  For more affiliate news and information please read my affiliate blog on Blogspot, where on my latest post I describe what makes a BAD landing page.

Update 7/2/09 – The Amazon Auto Poster and Article Auto Poster are now known as WP Robot.  I’m still on the fence on my opinion of the new wordpress affiliate tool.  First reactions is that there is only an option to schedule and not ‘Publish Now’, which makes it difficult to edit these posts before going live.  We’ll see.

Perhaps this function is broken because of a change in Google Blog Search or in the latest update of Word Press.  I can’t remember if this just started happening around the time of upgrading to WP 2.8 or not.  Either way, it was a nice feature to have, especially when said blogs weren’t pinging and were just mentioning your posts in passing.

No Links

Yes, I’m being picky, and I’m fully aware that a blank slate for a fresh post is just one click away.  But damn’t, it’s annoying, I don’t want to have to do it and it’s something I miss of Word Press releases of days gone by.

Does anyone have a mod, plugin, anything that will automatically take me to the dashboard or better yet give me a clean slate to starta  new blog post?  The last thing I want to do after spending 20 seconds typing out a thought out post is to stare at it and maybe edit it.  My ignorance of poor grammar, shoddy typing errors, is what keeps me from blowing my brains out at night from a long day of content creation.

Two years ago I had a wildly successful video game system blog that generated great traffic, but most of my content was constantly getting stolen.  Black hat sites and the like would take my RSS feed and build thin affiliate sites out of them, with of course no link back to me.  Attempting to get my content removed was a waste of time.

Now I’ve been using RSS footer on some of my niche blogs and it works GREAT.  RSS Footer is a wordpress plugin that will automatically add a link to your site at the bottom of each post, with the option of adding a link back to the specific post, complete with anchor text.  The features are customizable and you can even add bits of html code, to be displayed in your RSS feed only.

No longer will I have to worry about people stealing my content via RSS, as a matter of fact I want people to use it.  Generating links has never been easier for my niche content blogs and I’m hoping to really start feeling the SEO love before too long.

The theme’s collection of features are configurable by easy to use administration interfaces. And in the event where these don’t cover your specific needs, the theme’s pluginable nature allows for ultimate customization.

Download Semiologic

Installation (updated for WP 2.6.X)

• Unzip the theme file.

• Upload the entire folder contents of ‘semiologic’ to your /wp-content/themes folder.

FTP Semiologic

• Login to WP-Admin and select ‘Design’ from the dashboard.

Click Design In WP Dashboard

• Select Semiologic form Available Themes, then Activate.

Default Usage
Customizing The Layout, Font And Skin Under Design/Layout and Design/Skin, you’ll find an entire collection of layout, font and skin options for you to choose from when you initially set up your site.

Layout Manager

Skin Manager

Font Manager

From a canvas perspective, the layout options cover the most commonly sought for design patterns.
The skins are sometimes tweaked from a version to the next — be so kind to report browser quirk when you spot any.

You can of course override all of these options by creating your own skin, or by taking advantage of the theme’s custom.css feature (see below).

Customizing The Page Elements
As a rule, page elements only appear when the relevant feature or functionality is active.
Comment links and forms, for instance, only show if you allow comments. Likewise, you won’t see any trackback link unless you allow pings. Both of these are configurable on an individual post basis under its “Discussion” options. Or globally for new posts under Settings/Writing.
Other page elements are available for (mass-) activation under Design/Widgets:

Widgets

These include commonly sought page elements, including author images, related searches, related tags, related posts, and social bookmarking.

Customizing The Header
Design/Header will let you upload any image or flash file for use as the site’s header. Alternatively, you can use an image as the header’s background and keep text on top of it, or even use an image or flash file as the site’s logo — replacing the name of the site in the header.

Design Header

If you don’t have any graphic designer at hand, feel very free to download the older Semiologic Headers on this site .

Keep in mind that file names and extensions are case sensitive.

Customizing The Navigation Menu
A navigation menu manager under Design/Widgets lets you insert arbitrary navigation links to your site.

Widget View

The Header Nav Menu has options for changing search text and for changing your navigation menu.

Header Nav Menu

Choose the type of link you would like to create in the navigation bar by selecting it in Items drop down menu. There are choices for Pages you’ve already created, URL, or Home. To link to Pages within your blog simply create the page and then select it in the Item drop down menu and click the plus button. For linking to other URL’s select URL from the Items drop down menu and click the plus button.

For URL items you will be given two input fields, one for the title and one for the actual url. Make sure and save your changes before closing the window.

Customizing The Sidebars
Sidebar customization is also possible by dragging and dropping elements of your sidebars into the order you prefer. Simply select the current widget location, then drag and drop.

Almost all widgets are configurable in a way or another. To access a widget’s control panel, clicking the Edit button to the right of their name. To hide a widget’s control panel, click the Cancel button to the top right of the panel.

Widget Editing

Inserting Advertisements
Semiologic Theme uses widget boxes to help with the placement of advertisements. Choose the location of where you want your advertisements to show through it’s Widget Location. From here simply add a TEXT widget, Edit and insert the ad code, then save.

According to WordPress.com you can type out a post, just as you normally would, and then edit the time stamp to the time you want it actually published. Therefore, I can now make multiple blog posts, when I have time, set the stamps to auto-publish once a day and walk away. It’s a perfect solution to those days when being productive just isn’t an option.

For a full explanation on Future Blog Publishing check out the official WordPress site.

Who could benefit from such a plugin?

Almost any blog could benefit from this plugin. Chances are even personal blogs go into details about certain products from time to time and this is just another tool in your shed of marketing. However, just because you could benefit from the plugin doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. eBay affiliate commissions can be minimal and require substantial traffic to convert to anything worth getting a check for.

Can it be used with other advertising programs?

Typically when people ask this they mean, ‘Can I use phpbay with Adsense and not get banned?’ Yes, you can use this side by side with Google Adsense, because it is not a form of contextual advertising.

List me the Pros of phpBay.

• plain and simple installation, exactly like every other WP plugin.
• decent selection of options to make sure you display the right eBay items.
• fairly inexpensive for what you get.
• good customer support.
• does not require a mysql database, therefore ideal for light weight hosting.

List me the Cons.

• only one instance of phpBay ads can be displayed at one time, therefore you must place phpBay ads after the <more function. (See below for more of my frustration in this.)
• not enough options. Although decent I’d like to see the ability to integrate it into sidebars, not just in posts and better category selections.
• costs money. Yes I did list that as a Pro, but as many free WP plugins that are available, this should be one too.

Summary

It was a decent purchase and defintely not a waste of money like so many other programs and scripts available out there. I would consider this plugin juvenile in it’s existence and would hope for some more development in the very near future. The inability to display more than one instance of itself on a page is very frustrating and should at least be remedied with a short cut fix.

Adsense Deluxe is a perfect example of a plugin that was designed to work with no more than X instances of itself on a page. This should be easily integrated into phpBay so that if it detects more than one instance of itself on a page it doesn’t load the others. As it stands now, it will screw up your RSS feed without placing the code after the <more tag.

Currently there is nothing else really to compare it to in the marketplace of WordPress plugins. However, when compared to other eBay affiliate tools like BuildANicheStore, it has a long way to go. Check back soon for my review on BANs.

A la carte example:
[phpbay]affiliate, 10, “18793″, “”[/phpbay]