So it began when I got a Google alert that a few of my blog posts has been picked up by Google’s search bots. “Great”, I thought but wait…those posts looks a bit strange. On closer inspection, they were spam posts for sex performance drugs and using pictures of scantily clad women on my blog!

“How did this happen??” I gasped! The links are coming directly from my blog and the posts uses the same theme as my blog!

Well after much research, I found that there’s quite a few security holes that needed to be plugged by the WordPress updates as well as a common plugin called “Timthumb”. The scary thing is that this plugin can be exploited even if its in a theme that is not active!

Wow! So I updated my WordPress installation using the “automatic update”, and that got me a fatal error with one of my plugins. A double-whammy in one morning! After almost 2-hours of trouble shooting, things are back to normal. I thought that at the very least, I’d make a blog post out of it in case it helps any of you.

So here are the solutions in case any you encounter such a horror one day:

If you encounter a fatal error after upgrading to the latest WordPress build, chances are, its caused by a plugin incompatibility. This effectively locks you out of the admin panel and is quite alarming. But don’t panic! The solution is to identify the offending plugin and deactivate it.

In my case, the culprit causing the fatal error in WordPress was the popular “Popup Domination” plugin.

When WordPress can’t find the plugin (because you renamed it), all it does is deactivate it. This allows you access back into the WordPress admin panel. Then you reactive them one-by-one until you find the plugin that causes the error! When you know which plugin is the offending plugin, you can either delete it or replace it with an updated version if it exists.

Now, about how to fix the “Timthumb” vulnerability. I found a simple solution on this post:

http://ravidreams.com/fix-timthumb-security-issue/

Basically, its just a mater of locating the “timthumb.php” file, and replacing it with this one:

http://timthumb.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/timthumb.php

Now, I can’t say if this has permanently fixed the issue but so far, the offending SPAM posts has been removed and everything seems to be back to normal.

From now on, I will definitely make sure to keep WordPress updated – especially if any vulnerabilities have been found and fixed!

I finally got around to doing it so here is my video walk-through:

If you want to download the work flow diagram, here it is too:

This diagram shows you how I turn a single blog post into about 40 back links. I currently publish about 1 blog post per week on average.

If you were interested to build up the page rank and traffic for your own blog, I would suggest you use the formula above and start publishing 1 post per day on specific keywords.

You can also supplement the strategy above with article marketing. I have a team of people who can handle all my article writing and back links on this service: http://PersonalBrandingTheme.com . Combining blog marketing and article marketing is a very effective weapon to build search ending ranking and traffic.

If you want to know how to set up your Ping.FM account and your Hootsuite account, you can review this related post here:

How To Use HootSuite & Ping.FM to Publish Your WordPress Blog To All Your Social Media Sites

It took me 2 years to learn by trial and error and the steps above is worth it’s weight in gold. Whether you are an affiliate marketer or an income blogger, you can use these strategies to improve your results.

Make sure you subscribe to my blog for more tips and tricks to optimize your online business.

To customize the settings of which blog directories get notified whenever you publish a new post, go to your WordPress Dashboard and click on “Settings”.

Then click on “Writing” and scroll towards the bottom where it says “Update Services”.

In the text field provided, you can enter all the various links to directories that you wish to notify whenever you update your blog.

Here’s the current list of services I update. You can copy and paste this list into your settings if you wish.

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

If you have a better list or recommendations, please share them in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: ping, wordpress

This is what my blog looks like on the iPhone before and after installing the WPTouch Plugin

I found two options – the WPTouch mobile WordPress theme and the Wapple Architect. As an iPhone user, I had noticed quite a few blogs that I visit regularly on my mobile device had very nice mobile version. I used to think that it would be quite a pain to create a separate mobile friendly version of my blog.

To my surprise, with the above plugins, creating a mobile friendly site is really quite simple. Just 5 minutes of work really. All you have to do is install the WordPress plugin and make a few simple customizations with the plugin control panel. And you’re done!

I particularly liked the WP Touch plugin because it is a lot easier to install (Wapple Architect requires you to create an API key and register on their site) and has very simple and effective customization options. For example, you can customize the title of the mobile version (I created a shorter version to fit on the screen), create your own custom icons for navigation and for the more advanced, you could create push notifications as well as custom CSS!

I also like the fact that my Disqus comment plugin which I really like is compatible and so are the TweetMeme and Facebook Sharecount buttons. Other smart options built into the mobile theme is the option to add Google Analytics as well as Google Adsense so that you do not lose advertising page views from mobile visitors.

The WPTouch control panel has a section to let you know which other web based plugins are compatible and which are not. Smart feature.

The plugin has a slider button on the footer of the page that allows your visitors to decide if they prefer the mobile version or switch back to the full web version.

With more and more people beginning to surf the web with mobile devices, I do think that this simple plugin is worth installing to give your mobile web visitors a better experience visiting your site. If you have a mobile browser, I guess you’re already looking at the mobile version. If you reading this on your web browser but have an iPhone or other mobile device, load my blog on your mobile at http://brianwong.com/blog and let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: iphone, ipod touch, plugin, wordpress

So far, I am not convinced that I will be able to use this regularly unless I am posting under very specific circumstances.

I have found it difficult to add long links because I can only use one screen at a time. It’s only ok if I had already copied the link to the clipboard before launching the app. Even so, posting multiple links is still a bit of a hassle.

Photos are attached to the end of the post by default. I can’t arrange them. See in this example of scrrenshots I made.

Attaching videos will also pose a similar challenge.

The preview of the post does not load my theme. So I need to guess what the final output will look like.

Also, I like the idea of mobile comment moderation. But, because I am using Disqus – this feature in the app does not work. I can still read the comments but I can’t moderate them.

On the plus side, it is pretty awesome that I can even do this much. I could blog anywhere with a connection. This is a welcomed option to have.

I’ve yet to fully test other mobile blogging solutions for Posterous and Tumblr. When I do, I do a review too.

Verdict?

I think the app is great for a short post and if you only needed to attach ONE link, photo or video.

I think I would use it in certain conditions. E.g if I was on holiday without my computer or if I took a photo of a real-time event and wanted to share it immediately.

Otherwise, I would stick to using my Ecto desktop publisher as I normally do.

So I started my blog on BrianWong.com. Back in the day, it wasn’t so easy to add Adsense ads to the blog themes that were available. You had to really know your way around the code editor. I’ve lost a great deal of hours just trying to figure out how to create and ad block and how to freaking insert it into the right place on my blog!

Today, there are many free Adsense plugins and widgets and even Adsense-ready themes where you just plug your Adsense ID in the theme and all the ads are added for you.

When I first started out, the Adsense income was pretty pathetic. I used to earn like $3.00 a month. I even tried to create a few dedicated Adsense websites around certain keywords but I could never create any consistent Adsense income from my sites. Mostly because I did not have a passion around the subjects of those blogs.

So in the end, I just left the Adsense model and started exploring other means of online income to see if it was better return for my time. I decided to just blog for fun and for the “therapeutic” value of being able to write of post about something and make it accessible to the world. That was over a year ago.

In the early days, like all new endeavors, I found it hard to maintain a consistent habit of blogging. It was almost a chore to keep it up each week and I was only blogging about once a week.

After sticking to it for a while though, things started to change. Today, it’s a lot easier and its just something I do once a week or whenever I have the time. I blog about anything I like really. There’s no plan or schedule for when and what I blog about.

Now in the meantime, I’ve noticed that over the last year, I’ve seen my Adsense income starting to grow. I was earning about $50 to $70 a month which was a welcomed income. Then I started earning over $100 a month.

The last check I received came to just over $180.00. Although its just a small amount of money, I never play down any source of income. It’s all good.

So, I think the take away point of the story is this:

1. Start a WordPress Blog and Host it On Your Own Domain

It does not cost much to host your own blog on your own domain, so go ahead and buy a domain name and install a WordPress blog. It doesn’t matter what it looks like or even if you have nothing “great” to say. Just get started. If you don’t start, you can’t learn and if you don’t learn, you can’t progress.

2. To Build and Audience, Passion is FIrst

If you have an interest in a particular area, just start a blog about it. There are many “gurus’ who tell you to do all kinds of market research before you choose a topic. While I think there’s valid reason to that bit of advice, I also believe that if you don’t have a strong passion around a subject, you will never create a big enough audience to make money from blogging about that subject.

3. Monetize

Adsense is just ONE of many ways you can monetize your blog, if you don’t have any product to sell or have any initial sponsors (might be hard get sponsor for a new blog), you could at least put up some banners to affiliate programs or add Adsense to your blog.

Finally, just enjoy the process of blogging. At the very least, if will help you to improve your writing and communication skills and to connect with other people from all over world. If you have any questions about blogging, leave and comment and I will try and help out if I know the answer.

Technorati Tags: adsense, google

This tutorial will you how to add a customized “Adsense for Search” block on your WordPress Blog to add another channel where you can earn income.

What this means is that when someone uses the search box on your WordPress blog, the results will be a Google search results and has Google Ads on the site. For example if someone searches for “baby” on the blog…

…the result is this..

Notice the results appear within a page in my blog with all the theme and styling elements that is consistent with the site.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

Step 1: In your Adsense account, create a new “Adsense for Search”

Step 2: Under “Search Type” select “Only sites I Select” so that the search only returns pages within your blog. Under “Selected Sites”, type the URL of your blog. Leave the rest of the settings and click “Continue”

Step 3: In my case, I want a very discreet appearance so I chose the watermark version of the search box. I also changed the search box length to 20 so that it fits on my blog sidebar. Then, click “continue”.

Step 4: For the search results, I selected “Open results within my own site”, and I specified the exact page to display the result. For example, my son’s blog is at http://jdwong.com/blog and so I want the search results to appear here: http://jdwong.com/blog/search. We’ll be creating this page in the later steps.

Next, I changed the width of the display area to 550 pixels so that it will fit within the content area of my blog and not overflow to the sidebar.

For “Ad Location”, I chose “Top and Bottom” because the width is small and therefore I would prefer for the ads to appear only at the top or bottom.

You can also customize the color and style of the search results. I left them as the default.

Click “continue”.

Step 5: Click the checkbox to agree to the terms and conditions and give your Adsense for Search a name and click “continue”.

Step 6: You are now almost there. Just copy the two blocks of code for the search box and for the search results and head on over to your WordPress admin panel of your blog.

Step 7: Create a new Page on your blog and call it “Search Results”. Make sure that the permalink address says “http://jdwong.com/blog/search” because this is the URL we specified in Step 4.

Now just paste the “Search Results Code” as the content for this page.

Step 8: Now all you have to do is to add the search box into your blog. I added it to the sidebar with the sidebar widget. Go to your WordPress “Design” section and select “Widgets”. Add a “Text” widget to the sidebar, and paste the “Search Box Code” in the content area.

And that’s it! Congratulations! You’ve just added a completely customized Google Adsense for Search on your blog and can now earn money by showing relevant Google Ads to your blog visitors.

Technorati Tags: adsense

Since you’re at my blog, I think it’s appropriate to show you what blogging is all about with Common Crafts’s “Blogging in Plain English”.

So if you like this blog, subscribe!

1. Akismet – Comes with the standard installation of WordPress for eliminating comment spam! A real must.
2. All In One SEO - allows you to create custom tags and permalink titles
3. Audio Player – allows you to add audio to your blog posts.
4. AYB Javascript in Posts – A plugin that allows javacript to be used in your WordPress post.
5. Executable PHP Widget – A widget that allows PHP code to work in your sidebar.
6. Google XML Sitemaps – automatically creates and submits your blog sitemap to Google.
7. LightBox 2 – creates a lightbox effect on any linked images in your posts.
8. Recent Comments – a widget that displays a list of your most recent comments added on your blog
9. Recent Posts – a widget that displays a list of your most recent posts.
10. Related Posts - displays a list of related posts at the end of each blog post
11. SEO Friendly Images – automatically adds relevant tags or keywords to the “alt” tag of your blog images.
12. Sociable – allows your reader to quickly submit your post to major social bookmarking sites and social media sites.
13. Subscribe Remind – adds a reminder at the end of every posts to subscribe to your blog.
14. Subscribe to Comments - allows your blog commentators to leave an email so that they can be notified of new comments.
15. Top Commentators – A widget that displays a list of your top commentators.
16. Ultimate Google Analytics – inserts your Google Analytics tracking code in your entire blog. A real time saver.
17. Viper Video Quicktags - allow you to use a simple video tag to add YouTube videos to your posts instead of having to use the embed code. Also compatible with other popular video hosting/ sharing sites.
18. WordPress.com Stats – provides detailed analytics of your blog
19. WordPress.com Popular Posts - Displays a list of your most popular WordPress posts based on the statistics gathered from the WordPress.com Stats plugin.
20. WP-Table – allows you to create a table in your posts. Additionally, the tables are editable, sortable and you can even create hyperlinks in you tale data.

I am always on the look out for cool plugins. If you have some cool plugins to recommend, please post a comment and tell us about it!

However, each time I upgrade I end up spending an hour trying to fix the bugs that make WordPress work EXACTLY the way I wanted it to work BEFORE I upgraded! Hmmmm! Something is wrong with this equation! I upgrade so I can spend an hour making my blog look exactly the way it was before I upgrade.

Anyway, if you have upgraded to WordPress 2.5.1 do check that your RSS feeds working properly! What I discovered was that my RSS feed was completely empty even though I have been publishing posts. This was very troubling because I use FeedSmith to redirect all my feeds to Feedburner. If you go to my original feed at www.brianwong.com/blog/rss2.php you will see that the feed reports ZERO posts on my blog despite all my posts!

The fix?

Well I discovered that my feed at www.brianwong.com/blog/feed still works. So this is what I had to do to get back online:

1. Disable the FeedSmith plugin
2. Edit my RSS source in Feedburner from www.brianwong.com/blog/rss2.php to www.brianwong.com/blog/feed

So the next time WordPress comes up with the message ” “there’s a new version of WordPress, please update!” will I upgrade??

Sigh! I guess I am a sucker for punishment, I think I would still do it.