How to upgrade WordPress (now with video tutorial!)

December 2, 2010 By

This post is part of my WordPress Essentials Toolkit — a collection of the most important basic steps to maintaining a WordPress site. Get a free copy of this helpful 28-page PDF by subscribing to my Weekly Web Tips!

WordPress announced today that an upgrade is available — version 3.0.2 has just been released.

I recommend staying up-to-date with WordPress upgrades as they become available, so you always have the latest security fixes (this release is described as being a security update — here’s the official upgrade announcement from WordPress.org.).

To show you how easy the one-click (really two-click) WordPress upgrade process is, I recorded a video of my screen as I updated my own site today. Yes, my real live business site! The video is four minutes long, but most of that is me talking about why it’s important to upgrade, and why you should back up your WordPress database and files before upgrading. The actual upgrade process takes about 10 seconds toward the end of the video.

If you can’t see the video in your RSS reader or email application, head over to the original blog post to see it.

And if you don’t like watching videos (true confession: I almost never watch online videos, not even from my bestest friends — so if this is you, I totally get it!), I wrote a post several verions of WordPress ago that has text instructions and screenshots illustrating how to upgrade WordPress. Other than the version numbers, the process is exactly the same.

This video shows my whole screen, and it’s kinda small — click the button in the lower left corner of the player, the one with four little arrows pointing toward the four corners, to watch it at full-screen size (and then press the ESC key to return from full-screen to tiny-player mode).

There, wasn’t that easy?

Now, if you need help with backing up before you perform your own upgrade, you can read about the WP-DB Backup plugin. That plugin backs up your database but not your files (your media library, theme, and plugins). There’s another plugin called WordPress Backup that takes care of that for you. The two plugins together cover all the crucial backup functions you need.

And if you want to hand off all this backing-up-and-upgrading stuff to someone else, I can do it for you.

I’m running a small pilot version of a peace-of-mind service (it’s so new I don’t even have a Buy Now button, let alone a sales page — email me if you want in!).

Here’s how it works: You pay $89 by the end of December 2010 and get WordPress upgrades, monthly plugin upgrades, and weekly backups (both database and file backups) through the end of March 2011. Anyone for whom I’ve installed WordPress also gets theme upgrades (because you’re all using my favorite theme, Atahualpa!).

Got a question? Leave a comment, send me an email, or call me during Open Office Hour!

Filed Under: WordPress How-To's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Guest post on Virtual Moxie: Technocalypse Now

October 12, 2010 By

Anastacia Brice, creator of Virtual Moxie

Today I’m guest-blogging over at my dear friend Anastacia Brice’s blog, Virtual Moxie!

If you’re not already a VM reader, I humbly suggest that you check out the blog. Anastacia posts a Bit O’ Moxie every Tuesday, and while it’s technically aimed at Virtual Assistants (the tagline is “The cure for the common VA practice”), I’ve found that many of her moxie-full posts have been applicable to any solopreneur-type business.

She talks about having standards. About clear communication. About self-care and its role in business. And lots of other moxie-filled topics.

What’s “moxie,” anyway? From VM’s sidebar:

It’s an attitude; a way of being in the world that creates immense freedom. It’s where savvy, committed, smart and highly skilled meet spunky, shameless, gutsy, and brazen. It’s what OTHER people would call “too big for your britches,” but it’s just not. It’s juuuuuuuust right!

Hmm, that’s strikingly similar to what Havi describes as “sovereignty.”

Anyway, Anastacia is taking her annual fourth-quarter sabbatical (another reason I admire her!), and asked for moxie-full guest bloggers. I’m honored to be included!

Here’s the beginning of my post:

Technocalypse Now

It happened with no warning at all. I was happily surfing the web when my computer turned itself off.

Huh, that’s weird, I thought, as I pressed the power button… with no result. And checked the power cord and the battery. And pressed the power button again. But my trusty MacBook remained an unresponsive lump of plastic.

My entire livelihood was on that computer, and three simple things kept me from dissolving into a pool of hopelessness:

…read the rest over at Virtual Moxie!

Filed Under: Real-Life Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Four quick steps to make your WordPress site more secure

August 9, 2010 By

I got this question in my email box last week:

Hi Wendy,

I have a question about the Atahualpa theme and spam. I just saw a google alert for my blog, and there was a mysterious reference to, uh, I don’t want to get caught in your spam filter, but let’s just say there was spam in the header. Do you know if this is a ”legitimate” part of the Atahualpa theme, or is it likely that my blog got hacked? Aside from upgrading WordPress (did that) and upgrading Atahualpa (reluctant until I understand this better), is there anything I can do to prevent further problems? Thanks!!

–Worried about hackers

Dear Worried,

Atahualpa definitely does not do this — your website content is totally determined by you, and Atahualpa never inserts content or links (the legitimate exception being the link to the theme’s author in the footer area). I hate to say it but it sounds like Intruder Alert time.

Here are a few quick tips to make your blog more secure:

  1. Back up your stuff. The WP-DB Backup plugin backs up your database and the WordPress Backup plugin backs up your images, theme, and plugins. Use them both to get a complete backup of everything. Bonus tip: Give yourself some additional peace of mind by having these plugins schedule automatic weekly (or daily) backups. Then you’ll always have the ability to restore a damaged site if necessary.
  2. Upgrade WordPress, all plugins, and your theme. Upgrading WordPress is a one-click process (assuming you are all backed up as Step 1 suggests). Upgrading plugins is even easier. Upgrading Atahualpa can feel really scary (depending on what version you have — recent versions have the ability to export and import Atahualpa settings files, which lends extra safety and security to the process) but I’d do it (or have someone do it for you).
  3. Change your username. If your login username is still “admin,” use the plugin WPVN Username Changer to make it something different (because the easiest hacks are on accounts where the username is known, and most people leave it “admin”). New WordPress installations allow you to set a custom username with no need to use this plugin.
  4. Change your passwords. At least change your WordPress login password and make sure it’s secure (at least 8 characters, with a mix of upper and lowercase and a few numbers or symbols). You may also want to change your FTP password, and even your email password (since hackers can send password-change requests to your email account).

This list is not comprehensive — there are many other safeguards, plugins, and security tricks that exist to protect your website. But these four tips will put you ahead of the pack.

If you want a professional hack-cleaning service, I have heard positive recommendations for Sucuri (not an affiliate link, since I haven’t actually used their services). Sucuri also offers a hack-monitoring service to alert you if anything suspicious is added to your site (and since sometimes these suspicious additions are invisible, unlike the header spam you immediately noticed).

Hope this helps!

Filed Under: WordPress How-To's Tagged With: , , ,

Upcoming classes: Backups, Upgrades, & Web Colors

June 8, 2010 By

A quick roundup of upcoming stuff:

Tomorrow (Thursday, June 10), I’m Cairene MacDonald’s guest for a special Bite the Candy workshop on backups and upgrades. So if you’ve been putting off backing up your hard drive, or upgrading your WordPress plugins, or you want support with other backup-and-upgrade-related issues, join us for a dose of reassurance and some focused work time.

Learn all about Bite the Candy and sign up here.

Next week, on Wednesday, June 16, I’m holding a free Color Clinic teleclass with artist Amy Crook of Not Dead Yet Studios and Antemortem Arts. We’ll talk about the do’s and don’ts of choosing colors for your website (I’ve got lots of stuff to ask Amy, because I’m a builder, not a designer — I deliver function, and the form is pretty much up to you), plus we’ll announce our top secret joint project!

Learn about the Color Clinic and sign up here.

Finally, my Love Your List workshop with Shannon Wilkinson is going really well, and you can still join us! The live workshop runs through June 22, and you’ll have access to all the call recordings so you can catch up and get AWeber all set up to build your business. We will be packaging the recordings and creating a workbook for a home-study version, which will be priced 50% higher. So if you want all the same materials as the home-study version, for a much lower price, you’ll want to sign up now.

Learn about Love Your List and sign up here.

I love doing these live classes, and I’d be thrilled to have you join me for any of them.

Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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