In my continuing effort to provide Thesis skins, and after the success of my first skin, Network News Skin, I’ve decided to release another free skin for all you Thesis theme users out there.

If you’re not yet using the Thesis theme, I really don’t know what more I can do to convince you to buy it. My endorsement has only grown stronger since my 4 out of 5 star review, and as evidenced by these skins, it has helped me learn CSS at a rate I never thought possible.

Besides, without Thesis you can’t make use of all these kickin’ skins I’ve been working so hard on lately

This time around I decided on a completely unique design that would cater to photographers, artists, and just about anyone else that would want to showcase their work. I present:

Exhibit

The image above should give you a pretty good idea of what the skin looks like but I’ve also set up a Demo Site so you can click around and take a look.

Once again, if you’re already comfortable using Thesis as well as the custom.css & custom_functions.php files using the Exhibit skin will be a breeze for you.

However, if you’re not quite to that level yet, that’s ok! I’ve documented the entire process, from installation to actual use of the theme, in as much detail as possible.

Note: Please don’t let the length of the instructions intimidate you, I just wanted to make it clear enough that even someone brand new to Thesis would be able to use the skin.

Requirements:

As I already mentioned, you obviously need to have the Thesis theme for this skin to work. Also, this skin was designed for Thesis 1.6 which is out of beta and has been released to all Thesis owners. While the Network News Skin was backwards compatible, I’ve gone to that length with this skin.

Besides, you should upgrade anyway.

I’ve also once again made use of the fantastic Dynamic Content Gallery plugin that allows us to achieve the “slider” functionality without a ton of coding of our own.

Installation:

Download and unzip the file.

Upload the custom.css, custom_function.php and layout.css files to the Custom folder, over-writing your current versions. While I didn’t make any edits to the layout.css file, it would be best to upload the version I’ve provided just to make sure we’re all starting from the same place.

Tip: Always save copies of your current files before uploading the new versions. They’ll act as a safety net of sorts in case anything should go wrong or you make a mistake.

Design Options:

Next, open the Design Options panel for Thesis and set your options as shown in the image below:

click for larger image

The primary color for the site is #303030 with an accent color of #B3B3B3. I’ve set the primary text color to #FCFCFC since pure white is a bit harsh on a dark background.

You’ll also need to set your Site Layout to use 1 column with a width of 934.

The example installation of Exhibit uses Teasers to present recent images uploaded and since I want the focus to remain on the images, I’ve opted to only display the post title and post excerpt.

I also removed the Outer Page Padding that is the default option in Thesis. This is really a personal preference, I just prefer the look of the site without it.

Exhibit also makes heavy use of the color options that are new to Thesis 1.6. Rather than walking you through each one, I’ll let you take a look for yourself via the screen shot below:

click for larger image

Thesis Options

Once you’ve tweaked all the Design Options, you’ll need to move on to the Thesis Options.

I’ve elected to have Thesis display all posts on my home page as Teasers so I’ve set the Home Page Display option to 0.

In my continuing effort to keep the design extremely simple and clean, I’ve also opted not to display any Bylines by un-checking all the boxes in that section.

The final few options you’ll need to change can be seen in the screen shot below of the Post Images and Thumbnails section:

Logo

Displaying your custom logo instead of the default Exhibit image requires just one simple edit to the custom.css file.

Simply replace http://exhibit.wpblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/exhibit-logo.png with the file path to your logo and save!

The default logo size is 955 pixels x 75 pixels and is a transparent png. You don’t have to use a logo this wide, and the theme can accommodate taller images as well, but you will need to edit your custom.css file if using an image that’s not 955 x 75.

Featured Content Slider

Last but certainly not least, we need to get the featured content slider working. Michael Gray has an amazing tutorial on how to create the slider and it’s actually his code that I’ve incorporated into the skin.

However, I do need to walk you through a few of the items that are specific to this Thesis skin.

Once you’ve installed and activated the Dynamic Content Gallery (DCG) plugin, you’ll need to go to the DCG settings page and skip down to step 3 to specify what content you want to feature.

DCG gives you 5 “slots” to feature in the slider and allows you to mix and match how you want those slots distributed. Rather than mixing and matching across several categories, I just created a Featured category, and inserted the category id (in my case 5) into each of the 5 category id spots.

Since I want to display the last 5 posts from that featured category, I simply numbered 1 through 5 in each of the post select boxes.

Steps 4 & 5 let DCG know where to find the images you want to use in the slider. I’ve input /wp-content/uploads/ in both fields since that’s where my images are stored.

Tip: WordPress defaults to managing your uploads into month and year based folders. Unless you want to be continually updating this setting in DCG, I recommend unchecking that box and forcing WordPress to store your images in one large folder.

Step 7 is where you’ll need to set the desired width, height, and colors for your slider. Since I want the slider to take up the full width of my site, I set the width to 955. The height is up to you but I used 500 as I think it provides the best ratio for most images. The rest of the settings are fairly self explanatory and I’ve included a screen shot of my settings for easy reference below.

Tip: Cropping your images to match the settings of your slider (in my case 955 x 500) will make sure the images aren’t stretched or distorted in any way. It will also avoid any cropping issues when Thesis generates the thumbnails to display in the Teasers on the home page.

Once you’ve entered the desired settings, click the update options button to lock them in.

Before the slider will work you’ll need to a) make sure to save a few posts into your featured category and b) create two custom fields on each post you  want to display in the slider.

The fields are as follows:

• Key = dfcg-image with a Value = Image filename including extension eg. myImage.jpg
• Key = dfcg-desc with a Value = Description text eg. Here’s our latest news!

After you enter each of the custom fields once, WordPress will automatically remember them for future use. When you want to put a new post into the featured slider, just make sure you add those two fields.

Also, make sure you only include the file name of the image in the dfcg-image field. The plugin is already set to look for the images in your uploads folder so you only need the myImage.jpg portion of the file name.

Customize to Taste

Since this skin aims to cater to the artistic community I fully expect you to want to make significant changes and customizations to the skin. I’ll try to help you through the more common issues you may encounter but I simply don’t have the time to answer all of the questions and issues you may encounter when heavily changing a free skin.

Fortunately, the Thesis support forums are absolutely top notch and I’ve never failed to get the help I needed. That’s one of the things that makes Thesis great so be sure to take advantage of it!

BUY THESIS | DOWNLOAD SKIN | DEMO

In the WordPress world there’s no quicker and easier way to start a passionate debate than to bring up the issue of the GPL.

For those of you new to the discussion, the GPL is the license under which WordPress is distributed. It states, in part, that you’re free to modify and build on the code of WordPress, and distribute it in any manner you wish.

Premium Theme Controversy

Where the controversy comes in is that the license stipulates that your derivative work inherits the GPL licensing as well.

Where this has become a hot topic for discussion is in regards to “premium” plugins and themes.

Several of the most prominent premium themes such as Thesis or Headway contend their themes do NOT inherit the GPL licensing and have restricted use of their themes accordingly.

Other theme creators such as WooThemes, StudioPress, and others have publicly embraced the GPL and structured their business models accordingly.

The most recent entry into the premium theme market, Rocket Theme, states in their FAQ that they adhere to the standards of the GPL and yet price their themes in a manner which directly contradicts the license, a much more deceptive practice than flat out rejecting the license all together.

In short, the WordPress community tends to be all over the map when it comes to the implications of GPL licensing.

Matt Weighs In

WordPress creator, Matt Mullenweg, has weighed in on this issue several times, going so far in fact to ask a lawyer about the topic.

His position, which is supported by the lawyer and I happen to agree with, is that the PHP of WordPress plugins and themes that are distributed do in fact inherit the GPL licensing regardless of the developers’ wishes. Images and CSS files however, do not necessarily inherit the same licensing.

The problem of course is that some of the framework themes use the PHP to generate the CSS files and use very few if any images. And, as WordPress themes progress, that seems to be the direction more and more themes are heading.

In short, this issue isn’t going away any time soon.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

The reason this is such a contentious and potentially far-reaching issue is simple…

Money.

If Matt’s interpretation of the GPL is accurate, users would be well within their rights to distribute premium themes at a lower price or even for free if they chose to do so.

Naturally some premium theme developers have been very vocal about their opposition to this interpretation of the GPL. In fact, Thesis developer Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg have previously feuded over the issue with the threat of legal action being thrown into the mix.

Just last week Matt published the video embedded below in which he says around the 8 minute mark that premium themes that place limits on users’ rights such as number of installations or footer links are “evil.”

Put Up or Shut Up

Now I don’t know about you, but calling a company evil seems like a pretty strong statement to me. If nothing else it’s evident that Matt feels strongly about the issue.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t bothered to actually DO anything about it.

Instead he’s left users like you and I in the middle to try and interpret the legal language, debate it amongst each other, and contend with the thread of a lawsuit should we decide to embrace the rights he claims we have under the GPL.

So my request to Matt and the rest of the Automattic team is simple. If you honestly believe that WordPress themes inherit the GPL licensing, put your money where your mouth is.

Either distribute the GPL portions of premium themes for all WordPress users to enjoy or file a lawsuit against premium theme companies that don’t adhere to the GPL.

Automattic certainly has deep enough pockets to be able to afford the legal battle that’s likely to ensue. And as the creators of several WordPress based businesses, you have a vested financial interest in seeing the case through.

If you’re unwilling to take either of those steps, then I respectfully ask you to SHUT UP about the issue.

Don’t sit back and take pot shots at “evil” premium theme companies during an interview if you’re not willing to back your statements up with action.

I happen to agree with your stance on the GPL but I find myself unable to defend your attitude of superiority & intimidation towards non-GPL theme developers.

Either put up, or shut up.

It’s that simple.

image source: pedpaula

When I declared that Premium Themes Are Dead, I received a LOT of feedback arguing that there will always be a market for premium themes since they give you a head start on the design process.

My response was that skins for framework themes such as Thesis provide that same “leg up” on the design and layout, without sacrificing any of the flexibility.

And, while I firmly believe that, there is one slight problem… there just aren’t many skins available yet.

So in an effort to help my prediction about premium themes come true, I decided to create a free Thesis Skin that heavily mimics one of my favorite premium theme designs.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce…

The Network News Thesis Skin!

Feel free to click around the demo site or download the zip file (it’s free!) to use on your own Thesis installation.

As those of you familiar with premium WordPress themes world will no doubt notice, the skin is based heavily on the Gazette theme by WooThemes, but offers even more flexibility.

Note: Let’s go ahead and get one thing out of the way right off the bat. I did not rip WooThemes off. Their themes are released under the GPL license and this is exactly the kind of thing the GPL is designed for. Besides they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

If you’re already comfortable using Thesis as well as the custom.css & custom_functions.php files using the skin will be a breeze for you.

If you’re not quite to that level yet, I’ve documented the process below in as much detail as possible. Please don’t let the length of the instructions intimidate you, I just wanted to make it clear enough that even someone new to Thesis can use the skin.

Requirements:

So what do you need for this skin to work?

Well obviously, you need to have the Thesis theme (and yes, that’s an affiliate link *waves to FTC*).

Also, this skin is also built for Thesis 1.6 which is currently in beta.

If you want to get your hands on it now, upgrade to a developers license (an absolute necessity anyway if you have more than one Wordpress site).

Otherwise, you can wait until 1.6 is release from beta which I believe will be happening quite soon.

I’ve included extra instructions for those of you using older versions of Thesis, it’s just easier with the newest version.

Last but not least, you’ll need to install the Dynamic Content Gallery plugin which will create the featured content slider on the home page for us.

Installation:

Download and unzip the file.

Upload the custom.css and custom_function.php files to the Custom folder, over-writing your current versions.

Tip: You may want to save copies of your current files for future reference.

Design Options:

Next, open the Design Options panel for Thesis and set your Nav Menu options as shown in the image below:

click for larger image

For those of you using Thesis 1.5.1 or newer, find the following code in your custom.css file:

/* If you’re using Thesis 1.5.1 or older delete this line

.custom ul#tabs a {
background: #FFFFFF;
color: #CC0000;
text-decoration: none;
}

.custom ul#tabs a:hover {
background: #CC0000;
color: #FFFFFF;
text-decoration: none;
}

.custom ul#tabs li.current_page_item a {
background: #CC0000;
color: #FFFFFF;
text-decoration: none;
}

If you’re using Thesis 1.5.1 or older delete this line*/

“Uncomment” or activating the code by deleting the two lines that are bolded and underlined above (the first and last lines).

While still in the Design Options panel, I’d recommend dropping your Outer Page Padding to 0.5 em, and deciding on a column format.

I’ve chosen a 2 column layout with my content section set at 595 pixels wide with the sidebar set at 270 pixels.

Other column format and configurations will work, but personally I think this one looks the best.

The final design option you’ll need to set is the Feature Box placement.

The feature box is where we’re housing the Featured Content slider (more on that in a minute) and I think it’s a bit much to have it on more than just the home page. Select “In your content column” from the drop down and click the “on home page only” button.

Thesis Options

Once again, this is a matter of personal taste but I’ve elected to display all of the posts on my home page as teasers. To accomplish this simply select 0 from the drop down menu under Home Page Display in the Thesis Options panel.

You’ll also need uncheck the “Show site tagline in header” box under the Header settings.

Warning: If you want your site logo to be clickable, make sure the “Show site name in header” box remains checked.

Logo

To display your logo instead of the big red block that’s there by default, you only need to make one simple edit to your custom.css file. Replace http://thesisdev.wpblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/logo-placeholder.jpg with the file path to your logo and save!

The default logo size is 384 x 100. The skin can easily accommodate a wider logo, however that will limit your use of the banner widget in the header .

If your logo is taller than 100 pixels, you’ll need to edit the height setting in the custom.css file one line above where you entered the image URL. You may also need to adjust the margin-top: value (currently set at -82px) for the sidebar_header in your custom.css file in order to keep it centered vertically.

Banner

The Network News was designed to incorporate a 468 x 60 banner advertisement into the header. To make use of the banner, add a text widget to the sidebar named Banner. Drop your banner code into the widget, click save, and you’re all set.

If you don’t want to use a banner, not a problem! Just don’t insert a widget into the Banner sidebar and the sidebar won’t be displayed.

Featured Content Slider

Last but certainly not least, we need to get the featured content slider working. Michael Gray has an amazing tutorial on how to create the slider and it’s actually his code that I’ve incorporated into the skin.

However, I do need to walk you through a few of the items that are specific to this Thesis skin.

Once you’ve installed and activated the Dynamic Content Gallery (DCG) plugin, you’ll need to go to the DCG settings page and skip down to step 3 to specify what content you want to feature.

DCG gives you 5 “slots” to feature in the slider and allows you to mix and match how you want those slots distributed. Rather than mixing and matching across several categories, I just created a Featured category, and inserted the category id (in my case 5) into each of the 5 category id spots.

Since I want to display the last 5 posts from that featured category, I simply numbered 1 through 5 in each of the post select boxes.

Steps 4 & 5 let DCG know where to find the images you want to use in the slider. I’ve input /wp-content/uploads/ in both fields since that’s where my images are stored.

Tip: WordPress defaults to managing your uploads into month and year based folders. Unless you want to be continually updating this setting in DCG, I recommend unchecking that box and forcing WordPress to store your images in one large folder.

Step 7 is where you’ll need to set the desired width, height, and colors for your slider. Since I want the slider to take up the full width of my content section, I set the width to 595. The height is up to you but I used 270. The rest of the settings are fairly self explanatory and I’ve included a screen shot of my settings for easy reference below.

click for larger image

Tip: Make sure my post images are cropped to the 595 x 270 dimensions so the images aren’t stretched or distorted in any way.

Once you’ve entered the desired settings, click the update options button to lock them in.

Before the slider will work you’ll need to a) make sure to save a few posts into your featured category and b) create two custom fields on each post you  want to display in the slider.

The fields are as follows:

• Key = dfcg-image with a Value = Image filename including extension eg. myImage.jpg
• Key = dfcg-desc with a Value = Description text eg. Here’s our latest news!

After you enter each of the custom fields once, WordPress will automatically remember them for future use. When you want to put a new post into the featured slider, just make sure you add those two fields.

Also, make sure you only include the file name of the image in the dfcg-image field. The plugin is already set to look for the images in your uploads folder so you only need the myImage.jpg portion of the file name.

Customize to Taste!

I’ve said countless times that the best thing about the Thesis theme is the incredible flexibility it offers.

I’ve tried to capitalize on that as much as possible with this skin offering all sorts of widgetized areas that should make it easy for you to mix and match the different content you want to feature on your site.

I really enjoyed the process and plan on creating a few more skins so if you have any questions or suggestions please leave them in the comment section below!

BUY THESIS | DOWNLOAD SKIN | DEMO

I rarely if ever publish an article that just directs readers to another blog post.

However, Lisa Barone’s coverage of the “Pumping Up WordPress for SEO” session at SMX is THAT good.

Jordan Kasteler (of Search and Social), Jon Henshaw (of Raven SEO Tools), and Rae Hoffman (affiliate genius & one of Lisa’s fellow founders at Outspoken Media) were the presenters and they covered a TON of ground.

All three panelists are experts in the SEO industry and obviously know their way around WordPress so if like me, you weren’t lucky enough to be able to attend in person, make sure you read & bookmark the post for future reference.

I’ll see if I can’t talk one or more of them into an interview in the future, but if Lisa’s post and the 60 or so links in it (not an exaggeration) don’t satisfy your craving for information on the topic, there’s always our SEO Guide for WordPress to fall back on.

Enjoy!

Oh, and for those of you wondering what I’ve been up to lately, I’ve been busy building out a few new sites (using the Thesis theme of course). But I’ve got something in the pipeline for that I’m confident will make up for the recent lack of posting.

It should drop in the next day or two so be sure to check in or subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss it!

image source: Shannon K

When a plugin has hundreds if not thousands of competitors, you instantly know two things: there’s a HUGE demand for the functionality it provides, and it’s going to be tough to rise above the crowd.

Such is the case with Gravity Forms, the newest premium plugin to tackle the form issue. If you do a quick search for “form” in the plugin directory you’ll see over 800 results shown. If you narrow that down to “contact form” you’re still left with well over 150 different options.

However, if you keep tabs on the WordPress community, you’ll know that Gravity Forms hasn’t had much trouble getting noticed, despite the crowded plugin landscape.

How’d they manage to pull that off? Amazing functionality.

Now that’s something that’s a lot easier promised than delivered but even with my sky high expectations from the hype that’s been surrounding the plugin, I wasn’t disappointed.

Gravity Forms (yes, that’s an affiliate link for all of our FTC friends out there) basically allows you to create a whole host of different forms with just a few clicks of the mouse with no coding required. The interface (as seen below) is extremely intuitive and I had no trouble finding my way around. If you want to add an element to your form, simply click which field you want to add & drag it where you want it positioned.

In about 10 minutes time I was able to reproduce the contact form that I had been using via Contact 7 plugin as well as create a brand new Guest Post Submission page.

Not only does the form allow any fan of WordPress to submit a guest post for my consideration (including post images), it automatically turns that submission into a draft within my WordPress dashboard!

It’s the Flexibility, Stupid!

The Thesis theme disrupted the market by offering incredible flexibility from your theme. Gravity Forms has done the exact same thing. The incredible functionality makes blogging life easier and the unprecedented flexibility eliminates the need for any other form plugin.

The features I’ve highlighted really are just the tip of the iceberg but thankfully you can check out all the different features, take a video tour, and even play around with a demo installation over on the Gravity Forms site.

It Costs WHAT?

As I’ve already discussed, I love the functionality offered by Gravity Forms. But the one aspect of the plugin that I pretty much hate, is the pricing structure.

A single use license is $39, a 5 site license will run you $99, and an unlimited use license will cost you a wopping $199.

I mean, it’s a plugin for crying out loud!

If you’re a web designer or make your living with your websites, $199 might be well worth the time you’ll save using the plugin but I bet your jaw still drops a bit from sticker shock.

Now will I end up breaking down and forking over the money at some point down the line?

Probably.

But, when a plugin is more expensive than two of the most popular (and expensive) themes on the market right now, Gravity Forms is going to have a long way to go convincing people that a plugin’s developer license should cost more than the developer license for their premium theme.

Would I Recommend It?

Given my obvious misgivings about Gravity Forms’ prices, would I still recommend the plugin?

Absolutely.

Most people are never going to need a developer’s license. And, at $39, the plugin doesn’t need to save you much time at all before it’s well worth the small investment.

User Feedback?

Have you used Gravity Forms? What did/do you think of it? What kinds of interesting applications have you found for the functionality offers? Or, do you know of other plugins (premium or free) that you like better?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below!

If you haven’t updated your WordPress installation to version 2.8.4, take a minute and go do so now.

As Lorelle explains, a new attack seems to be making the rounds amongst older versions of WordPress and wreaking havoc across the web.

Apparently the hack will not only create a new administrator for your site, but also penetrates the database making it much more difficult to restore if you’re a victim. Once your database is infected, even if you backup WordPress on a regular basis, those backups would likely also be tainted.

Given WordPress’ recent tendency to update every other week, I know a lot of bloggers held off making the latest update, figuring they’d just be doing the same thing in a couple of weeks. However, 2.8.4 has been out for nearly a month and this hack isn’t something you want to tangle with.

How Can I Tell If I’ve Been Hacked?

According to Lorelle:

“there are two clues that your WordPress site has been attacked.

There are strange additions to the pretty permalinks, such as example.com/category/post-title/%&(%7B$%7Beval(base64_decode($_SERVER%5BHTTP_REFERER%5D))%7D%7D|.+)&%/. The keywords are “eval” and “base64_decode.”

The second clue is that a “back door” was created by a “hidden” Administrator. Check your site users for “Administrator (2)” or a name you do not recognize. You will probably be unable to access that account, but Journey Etc. has a possible solution.”

Also, my man Michael over at Smackdown has a great post on how to completely clean your WordPress installation if you’ve suffered an attack, however, with this particular attack you need to be sure that you’re NOT working with an infected database. You can either use an older DB that hasn’t been impacted, or just work with WordPress’ content export feature.

Using the latter option won’t be pretty as you’ll probably need to reactivate your plugins and could lose some settings for things such as SEO Smart Links, but it’s better than having a hacked site.

Basically, getting hacked is a real pain in the ass so don’t be an idiot and take the time to go update your sites if you haven’t already done so.

Update: Matt has a post on all the whole WordPress security issue that touches on a lot of topics including a bit of web security philosophy but his main point is the same as mine, keep your installations up to date.

He does stray off into a little bit of self righteous don’t blame us, we’re just a community of dedicated open-sourcers which is true to a large degree. But, as I’ve said before, Matt and Automattic make a lot of money off WordPress and it’s time they invest some serious resources into security. If Matt and the other developers can’t predict what schemes hackers will try, hire one to help you do just that.

Ok, I’ll step off my soap box for now, but only because I want you to stop reading, and go update!

Image Source: Vinit

After reading iThemes’ most recent blog post I came to a startling but suddenly obvious realization… Premium WordPress themes are dead.

I realize that may seem like a foolish statement given the constantly increasing number of premium themes on the market, but its true.

Over the last year, the premium theme that has garnered the most attention has undoubtedly been the Thesis theme.

In recent weeks, the Headway theme has exploded onto the scene and quickly emerged as Thesis’ main competitor.

So in light of the still growing popularity of these two themes, why would I proclaim that premium themes are dead?

Because.. They’re Not Themes

Oh sure they label themselves as themes, contain many of the same files as themes & are installed in the same way as themes, but they’re not themes.

They’re frameworks.

If you read my Thesis review, or our guest submitted Headway review, you may have noticed that the thing we liked best about these two “themes” was their flexibility.

You can create virtually endless different site designs, all while working within the framework of the Thesis or Headway theme.

And that my friends, is exactly why premium themes are dead.

Flexibility Killed the Premium Theme

Sure it’s nice that companies like iThemes keep turning out new themes, but they’re fighting a losing battle.

People don’t want to purchase a different theme for every new site they create or every time they want to redesign their site. We want a framework that allows us to make a vast array of design changes as quickly and easily as possible.

Unless premium theme companies release frameworks of their own, and do it soon before Thesis and Headway gain an even stronger strangle-hold on the market, they’ll be reduced to even more posts like the one we saw today.

As Monty Python taught us, it you can go around screaming “I’m not dead yet” as much as you want, but you’ll get carted off just the same.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paparutzi/

One of the most important lessons my mother taught me growing up was the one she repeated most often…

“When it comes to protection,” she’d say, “the key is multiples, multiples, multiples!”

If one is good, mom reasoned, 3 would be better. And, while her intent at the time was to avoid having grandchildren before she hit 50, she was in fact teaching me an important lesson that applies to many areas of life including blogging.

As any teenage soon to be parent will attest, you might never think it will happen to you, but it only takes once to really mess things up.

No, you don’t have to worry about getting knocked up online, but if your blog gets hacked, your web server crashes, or a Russian virus wipes out your web host’s database, your blogging life as you know it could change forever.

So what forms of protection should you use? Just like in the real world the only fool proof method is abstinence. But since staying off line would sort of defeat the purpose of blogging, here are 3 methods that when combined are 99.99% effective.

WordPress Database Backup

Much like birth control, backing up a blog (or data of any kind for that matter) seems to be one of those things that if it’s not easy & convenient, people just won’t use it.

Thankfully, there are couple of plugins that automate the WordPress backup process. WordPress Database Backup by Austin Matzko, oddly enough, allows you to create on demand backups of your WordPress databases including any that have been created by plugins you use.

WordPress database backup options

As you can see in the image above, the plugin also allows you to schedule automatic backups and email them to a location of your choice.

I’ve selected to backup the database once a day and instead of storing the backups on my own machine, I opt to send them to my gmail account to take advantage of the enormous amounts of storage space they assign to each account.

Not only does this preserve my hard drive space, but I’m also protected should anything ever happen to my local machine. While Gmail certainly isn’t infallible, I figure if Google’s backbone of servers goes down, there’s probably bigger things to worry about than my blog backups.

WordPress Backup

Now that we’ve taken care of our databases, the only thing left to backup are the actual files themselves. While most of the WordPress files remain static, customized files such as the images you upload, the plugins you install, and your theme files all need to be backed up on a regular basis.

To automate that task, I turn to the WordPress Backup plugin which, you guessed it, allows you to create scheduled backups of your Upload, current theme, and Plugins directories.

options for the WordPress Backup plugin

Once again, you can select the frequency of the backups and send them to an email account. In addition, the plugin creates zip files that can be downloaded on demand by simply clicking a link in the control panel.

With both of these plugins installed and scheduled to run on a regular basis, you should never need this last option. Of course, sometimes strange things happen and it never hurts to have a last line of defense.

Web Host Backups

Having to rely on your web host’s backups is like having to take the morning after pill. Sure you’ll probably avoid a major catastrophe, but it’s going to cost you and there could still be some damage done.

Any quality web host will regularly backup their data, but it never hurts to check before signing up. You should also ask about the availability of those backups. Hostgator for example, does weekly backups but offer no guarantees on their backups, and will charge you a $15 fee should you need to use their file.

And, if the problem you’re dealing with is due to a problem with your host, you never know what backups will be available to you or when.

While you certainly want to make sure your host can act as a last line of defense, you’re much better off taking the proper precautions before hand.

Better Safe than Sorry

Just about every blogger I know has had to deal with a hack or an attack of some type. And, while they’re never fun or enjoyable, your life will be a LOT easier if you take a few minutes to set up the simple methods of prevention.

Install the plugins, backup your site before upgrading WordPress for the 19th time this month, and store your backups in multiple places in case your local machine were to suffer some sort of failure.

“Multiples, multiples, multiples!” was my mothers mantra, and while I’d certainly never admit at the time, mothers really do know best.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peachy92/

The following is a guest review.

You may have heard of this little Wordpress theme called Thesis? Well, if you haven’t, you obviously haven’t been reading this blog, so get on board. Thesis finally has some competition in the market in a new Wordpress framework/theme called Headway.

Headway is young and has a lot of competition in the premium theme market (Thesis, WooThemes, etc), but there’s already a lot of buzz about the theme and it’s being used by Jay Fleischman, Chris Cree, John Haydon and of course Jason Wietholter (yours truly).

Now, I’m not a Wordpress genius like Ben and I’m not an SEO guru either. I know business and I know enough about the web to be dangerous (mostly to myself), which is precisely why Headway (*gasp* its an affiliate link!) has been so incredibly helpful for me.

But instead of continuing to gushing about how it’s the best thing since sliced bread, let me give you my take on the Headway theme.

Design

The “out of the box” layout is strictly text and doesn’t feature any really special features that are offered in the backend. As noted in Ben’s review on Thesis, the same applies to Headway, the title and description are actually text and not an image you have to create, although you do have the option to include an image and it is exceedingly simple.

Flexibility

I’ve not used the Thesis to be able to compare, but Headway’s flexibility is second to none for me. I can redistribute items as I see fit. Create new sidebars and duplicate them across pages. I can even customize the 404 page directly in Headway.

Headway let’s you customize the layout of each page in the Layout Editor. You can add what they title “Leafs” for different types of content, such as: Image Rotator, Featured Post rotator, Widgetized Sidebar, RSS Feed and Content or Text/HTML and a few more. It’s infinitely customizable and each Page or System Page can be customized with a drag and drop layout.

If you move to the Design item in the Appearance tab in the WP Sidebar, you get a plethora of options to re-design everything in your site. There is even the capability to add your own custom.css file or download/share “skins”. However, the Headway community isn’t as big or well-established as Thesis, so you won’t find a lot of shared skins yet.

One more thing. Headway allows you to move the Meta tags for posts and pages around and also has “hooks” for adding content after every post, after the header, before the footer and on and on.

With all the ability you have to customize every single page of your site, Headway makes a gymnast look tight and stiff.

Ease of Use

Headway was extremely easy for me to figure out and use. If you follow the new Headway items in the Appearance tab in the order they appear, you can set up all the options of your site very quickly and easily. Just like with Thesis, you can customize every bit of CSS, but unlike Thesis, there is no PHP to learn unless you really, really want to.

As I stated before, I’m not a SEO or CSS guru, but Headway helped me design a fairly nice site with minimal effort and I got it on the first page of Google in just a few days. While that may not be a big deal for some of you, it is huge for me and I attribute that success directly to Headway’s easy to use SEO options.

Headway features drag and drop simplicity, offers slew of options, and is infinitely customizable. You really get to choose your own level of difficulty, but 90% of the functions are right at your fingertips in the WP Admin pages.

Support

This is hard for me to review as I haven’t had any need to use it. From what I have seen, the documentation is available and there is a forum for users to discuss any issues and share ideas, but I just haven’t needed it. Obviously, with Headway being so young it doesn’t have the same number of users as Thesis, so community support will be lacking in terms of shear size.

Total Rating

I’ve used a lot of themes from designers and theme brokers, but Headway is the first one that really allowed me to get what I wanted out of a theme and I haven’t even scratched the surface of its total capabilities. I mean, take look at my site: jasonwietholter.com. It has no custom.css and I only broke away from the built in options by adding an image as a header (which is arguably, built in) and the image in the sidebar.

In all honesty, I haven’t even scratched the surface of what Headway is capable of and I think you could write a book to cover and thoroughly explain all of the features. I would absolutely recommend the theme.

Note from Ben: We’re going to hold off on giving Headway an official score for now. As Jason mentioned, he’s not used Thesis and despite my best efforts, I haven’t had a chance to really sink my teeth into Headway just yet. So, trying to rate how Headway stacks up against other themes that I have much more experience with (namely Thesis) just wouldn’t be fair at this point.

However, thanks in large part to Jason’s review, I’ve decided to dedicate time in the coming week to getting familiar with Headway. I’ve been wanting to redesign my personal site, Skitzzo.com for a while now and this seems like the perfect opportunity. It certainly sounds like Thesis may have a challenger for the top score on the list so I’ll be sure to let you all know when the final score comes down.

Jason Wietholter is an entrepreneur of multiple businesses online and off, and pretty much as nice a guy as you’d ever want to meet.

You can find him at jasonwietholter.com and lurking around the “internets” on Twitter @jasonwietholter. I’ll vouch for him any day & can promise you won’t be disappointed by the information he provides.

No, it’s not GroundHog’s day, and yes you probably DID just upgrade all your WordPress installations.

But if it seems like every time you turn around there’s another WordPress security release, well that’s because this (version 2.8.4) is the 4th release in less than 5 weeks.

And, lest you think the WordPress coders are just developing new features THAT quickly, the three most recent releases have all included security issues.

The latest security problem allows anyone to automatically reset the password of the first user in the user table. Naturally, that user is most often the administrator & while this exploit doesn’t allow anyone to gain access to your site, it could definitely be a hassle.

WordPress has become the default blogging platform of choice, and as the user base continues to grow, it’s only natural that more and more people will dedicate their time to finding exploits or weaknesses in the code. However, if WordPress wants to remain the most popular platform they’d better get their act together and stop releasing sloppy code.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the people that volunteer their time to improve the open source platform, but there’s just no excuse for this many security releases this close together.

Whether it means bringing more developers & testers into the mix or whether Automattic has to hire a devious minded developer to expose these kinds of vulnerabilities BEFORE they’re released into the wild, something has to be done, and soon.

Backup!

As always, make sure you backup your sites before you upgrade. I’ll be publishing a post later in the week detailing how to easily stay up to date with your backups just in case something crazy happens… like yet another exploit being found in the latest version of WordPress.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crazycups/