Nothing really new here, except for one statement that really surprised me. Apparently when things started to go downhill in the economy Google pretty much moved the money away from American Financial institutions and moved it to safer external institutions.
When American companies don’t trust their own banks,you know things are bad.
Hopefully you didn’t make the mistake of hardcoding a lot of work into the Wordpress code, so Wordpress’s upgrade process is very clean and straight forward.
Before you upload anything to your server, make sure you make a full backup of your files and database. If your server hosts Cpanel, all you need to do is go to the backups section of the software and click on download full website backup.
Make sure the backup download went through correctly. I would even recommend making redundant backups of the database, just in case.
Now that your current wordpress version is safe, let’s download the latest version of Wordpress.
It’s also important to make sure tat all your current plugins are compatible with the new version of the software, so it would be advisable to login to your admin area, go to your plugins area and take note all of the installed plugins.
Now go to the provider of the plugins and find out if they are compatible with the latest version of Wordpress. Download the updated version of the plugins if needed and available.
Unfortunately the Plugin Compatibility page is outdated, but if you are installing a version prior to 2.8 it will still be of use to you.
By correct files I mean every single file and folder except the wp-content folder, that’s where you hold all of your current themes and templates. It is not necessary to update this folder.
Now login to your Wordpress admin panel, and you will see a message telling you that you need to upgrade your database. This might seem a little but intrusive, but don’t worry, whatever happens you can always roll back to your current database. (you didn’t forget to backup, did you? 
)
The direct path to the upgrade file is: wp-admin/upgrade.php (in case you have wordpress installed in your rout of course)
The update is automatic, and it shouldn’t interfere in any way with your current system settings.
That’s it! Your done, your Wordpress is up-to-date.
So I finally decided to upgrade, the problem is that there is plenty of hard-coded work to implement in the blog, so I am expecting a lot of surprises. The last time I attempted to upgrade, things went so badly that I had to roll back.
Bracing for impact.
The more I listen to John Chow the more respect him. I don’t quite identify myself with his business model, but he is simply fantastic at what he does.
This Video really digs deep into the business strategy applied to Johnchow.com and how the blog is on its way to making half a million dollars per year.
As many of you might have guessed, it’s not through advertising that the revenue is build, but through a highly automated backend system that trades in a CPA (cost per acquisition) and Pay per lead system.
My Blog Business Model from John Chow on Vimeo.
Extremely interesting presentation by Frederic Colas, Fullsix’s CSO at OMExpo in Lisbon. One of the key notes that grabbed my attention was the way Fullsix approached ClubMeds campaign, by engaging the visitors in a very curious and creative way. Check it out, it will be worth your time.
P.s. big thanks for MarketingDirecto TV for making this content available.
Agree or not with the prerogative, at least Capitalism states its premise very clearly, well…that is of course, until things don’t go quite as smoothly as planned.
The concept of a free independent market has been the basis for modern capitalism in the last 50 years. In theory, the markets should regulate themselves, and the binary supply v.s demand should naturally dictate the flow of the market.
But doesn’t freedom bring a new set of responsibilities? And isn’t one of those responsibilities to accept the concept regardless of the circumstance? Or are we solely against something when it’s not convenient for us to be in favor of it?
This sort of double standard makes me question if the freedom we thought we were experiencing in this generation isn’t after all the same kind of tyranny our grand parents went through disguised with catchy buzz worlds like “Free Market”.
As some of you might have noticed, it’s becoming increasingly harder for me to keep this blog updated, primarily because it’s so hard for me to write about Search related issues when I spend all the talking and writing about the subject.
When I first started this Blog I intended to focus solely on Search, but it has proven a much bigger challenge then I perceived, especially since I have to run my own company which pretty much takes away all the time that I used to have.
So I am converting this blog into a more “personal” communication platform, where I will pretty much talk about everything and anything I feel like. And that of course includes topics about Search.
Really appreciate everyone who still follows my blog even consider the lack of fresh content that has been put into it.
This one might sound a little off, but this needs to be said.
I am the only one who doesn’t think that things are all that bad? Sure the economy is down, but for crying out loud, I’ve been people mentioning and throwing around the word “Depression”. Depression..really?
My Grandmother was English, and she lived through World War I, and I remember listening to her describe how she and her sisters would go down to the addict and stay there for days until the German planes would stop bombarding.
Every time a plane would go by and dropped a bomb they could hear the sound of the Bomb falling down and my great grand mother would tell them to close their eyes and count to ten. If they reached 10, it would mean that the bomb didn’t hit the house.
She would describe to me the feeling of going up the stairs and leaving the addict after a bombing, with that feeling of exciting and overwhelming happiness…yes…it was a good day, they had survived.
Survived my friends, this is the word to be noted here. Most of us have never had to survive a day in our lives. Sure we have all gone through some hard times, working too many hours for too little pay, but that’s what life is all about, its supposed to be hard.
So I suggest that all of us make a collective effort to simply ignore the word “crises” for the next year or so, you wouldn’t believe out better all of our lives would be.
So last year I finally decided to get myself a second monitor to see how it would affect my productivity. Although it did take a little bit of time to get used too, once my work system got in sync with the new system, my productivity boosted. And I am not talking about a small improvement; it improved dramatically the way I worked.
By nature I am quite multi tasking, but what a second monitor does, is literally discipline the way a multi tasking person works. With one monitor you are forced to focus your attention on a central area of content. With two monitors you can literally split that attention, making one side complementary to the other. I am not going to get too technical here, so I suggest you read the NEC productivity “A Comparison of Single and Dual Traditional Aspect Displays with a Widescreen Display over Productivity”
The first negative thing that I noticed when I started using a second monitor was that I couldn’t minimize applications in the second monitor. This was really irritating since I was using one screen for active work and another for communication. (Mail and AIM). Every time I wanted to focus on the multiple Skye or messenger windows I had open at any given moment they would get minimized on the main screen, not on the screen where the windows were open. So by default, every window gets minimized in the main monitor and to maximize it you have to go back to that monitor and click on the minimized application in the taskbar.
A simple Google search led me to a lot of applications that supposedly solved this problem and one in particular seemed to have great user references. Ultramon did exactly what I wanted, it created a task bar in the second monitor allowing me to minimize programs on each screen. So in reality it almost gives you a separate system, where you can run certain applications “independently” from each other. This really improved every aspect of my dual monitor experience and in all honesty I wouldn’t be able to use my dual system without Ultramon installed anymore.
On the beginning of this year, I had a brand New dual core PC from the old office that was pilling dust and not being used at all, so plugged it in, partitioned the disk and installed a copy of Debian and played a bit with it.
Soon I had three screens lined up in front of me and before I knew it I started using the second machine to perform routine macros on the first machine. (backups, automated tasks, etc…) The advantages of having two machines working simultaneously, sharing resources between one another began to be evident. Not only was I using the second system as a “slave” machine but most importantly it was not wasting recourses from my main machine that is always running at least 3 heavy duty applications like Photoshop, illustrator, Dreamweaver, and so on.
Now, having two keyboards on the desk was utterly annoying. It was taking so much usable le desk space and let’s not forget the awkward “Dammit, why isn’t this keyboard working”. (Maybe it would work if I used the right keyboard for the machine I was working on.)
It was during this time that I came across an amazing open source application called Synergy. What this little tool does is it allows you to share a keyboard and a mouse on a Network, meaning that it allows you to control multiple computers thorough a single keyboard and mouse.
You can actually place the second system’s monitor on the side of your dual monitors and it will work as an extension, so in reality its almost like a third monitor added but with an independent machine powering it. I will leave the potential of a setup like to your imagination!
Matt goes through some of the topics that were talked about at Webmasterworld Pubcon in Vegas.
I must say its amazing the amount of work one can get done when getting out of our “normal” environment. It just confirms one of the things that I have always felt, that excessive routine is an enemy to productivity, and I am not even going to mention its detrimental effects on creative thinking.
Friday I was beta testing one of our most recent projects and was going through a lot of “nasty code” and out of ideas. It was a beautiful day outside, so I just packed my laptop, and went for a drive. Needless to say that I didn’t get a lot of work done during my little stream in nature, but when I got back I was so relaxed that I got through every pending task that I wasn’t being able to get done before.
Yesterday I participated in a very interesting online session held at SMX West 2009. Barry Schwartz and Keri Morgret were kind enough to provide us with a fantastic Live Session.
Really enjoyed it, specially the Google Personalized search bit since the Wikisearch topic was not too inebriating considering the fact that, lets face it, no one uses it and it simply doesn’t bring anything new to search.
One of the things that really stroke me is that it didn’t seem to me that Google is set on a fixed path yet, a lot of experimenting is still going on, which is really good to hear considering some of the features that they are/were considering implementing.
For some of you who remember Searchmash, the interface of Google Personalized search should feel very similar. Curiously many of the engineers behind GPS are the same that developed Searchmash. (On a side note, I randomly found out last night that Searchmash wasn’t active anymore)
Bellow are some of the most important features that were discussed in the session:
- Ability to remove results that you don’t wish displayed on your next search
- Add personal noted to listings
- Sort you favorite pages within the results
- More relevant results based on what you click on and how you sort your results
- Geographical location becomes more relevant to the results
Another important topic that interested me was the relevance of “location” factor in the results. So Google Personalized search will try to provide you with the results “closer to you”, which means that it will take into account where you are, where the pages that it servers are hosted, and inside the content of those pages, where to they say that they operate.
Say you are looking for Flowers in Lisbon, the system will give you results of online florists that supposedly are closer to you. But isn’t Google supposedly doing that already? Or will the fact you are logged in, and that Google is able to fetch your location from your Google Account profile improve the way these results are delivered? I’m afraid this wasn’t too clear.
Bellow is the direct link to the archived session.
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/019351.html
Also, try Google experimental Search:
http://www.google.com/experimental/
So I was just reading the alleged conversations that went on in a Private Google group where a couple of X Google employees were discussing their experience at Google and what lead them to leave the company.
First and foremost I don’t think that these are not the employees that got the boot recently ao we are talking about supposedly Googlers that decided to leave for themselves.
I must say I was completely thrown back at the level of discontent portrayed al all levels, talk about bitterness…
Now please bare with me because I live in a world where I have to battle for every cent that I make with my company, where food isn’t free and sweets and goodies don’t play a central role in my overall happiness and productivity, but can anyone please explain to me what on earth to they have to complain about?
Imagine waking up every morning knowing that if you arrive 2 hours late at the office no one will really bother you. You get on your hybrid Toyota that was partially paid by your company and arrive at the office for one more day at work at the most striving company on earth. You sit down and all around you are hand picked highly motivated people in the industry that know what they are doing. Sounds horrid.
I never understood why Steve Jobs got so much bad press, and after stumbling across is famous commencement speech at Standaford my respect for the Man was reinforced, truly inspiring.
