Alrighty! Time to get on with week 2. I updated the post that used to be “Day 2″ with a couple of screen shots & a bit of clarification.
But first, did you do anything for week 1?
Did you run into any snags?
If you have, let me know in the comments & I’ll do a once-weekly Q & A Post along with the assignments.
So, without further ado… Week 2: Personality.
This is part of a series called “Does My Blog Make Me Look Fat?” – a now 10-week series on how to improve your blog doing small, relatively simple things that don’t take up all your time.
Since I switched this to be a weekly thing, I’m going to take the opportunity, as the first in the 10 week series, to go over what has been posted so far and what’s coming up next.
If you stared out with me and tried to keep up, take this opportunity to go back over the first four days at your convenience. This week I’ll be updating and revising the last few posts so you will get some new and clearer information.
So, Week 1 is Look & Feel. This is essentially how all the parts of your site work together to emphasize your site’s mission.
So this week, with your site’s mission in mind, re-read that post. read more…
Please upgrade your WordPress installation to 2.8.4 if you’re still hanging on to an older version.
There’s a particularly nasty worm that will do awful things to your WordPress sites. It will infect your site and use it as a launching pad to find more sites to infect. Google and other sites will label your site as dangerous, your traffic will decline and on top of that you’ll most likely lose months worth of posts just like Robert Scoble did.
So, as in past update-your-site-now posts, please back up your database (Tools > Export is the easiest way to do so – it’ll get all your pages & posts), disable all your plugins and run the update.
DO IT NOW.
I urge you.
Keeping WordPress updated is so much easier than recovering from being hacked.
If you need help, don’t hesitate to ask. I check Twitter often & you can always email me.
I’ve been getting some great feedback regarding this series and because of the sheer volume of information, I’ve decided to change it from posting daily to weekly.
This will give you more time to absorb the info and do the exercises without stressing out.
So there won’t be another post for a few days. I’ll start up again on Monday.
I’ll also be editing the first four posts based on some comments and questions I’ve received.
Thanks if you’ve made it this far, and I hope you’ll stick around for the rest!
Yesterday we took a gander at your blog’s Look & Feel. It was a lot to digest, I know so I’m going to make Day 2 of Does My Blog Make Me Look Fat a little easier on you (but not much!).:
Today we’re going to work on getting your personality on your blog. This is also known as “Branding.”
In this world if you’re a solopreneur or tiny biz, you need your business to stand out.
What if your core business is not so unique?
How do you differentiate yourself? read more…
How many times have you said “I hate the way my blog looks” or “Why am I not getting any visits” lately?
If you’ve said it at all, I feel ya! And don’t worry. Your blog doesn’t make you look fat… it’s just the mirror. 
Although WordPress is an excellent, relatively easy solution for your blog, there are lots of other things regarding operation of a blog that do little more than make you want to pull your hair out or toss that shiny new computer out the 22nd floor window.
read more…
Someone on Twitter had a problem updating her WordPress installation to 2.8.4. You know, there is a security update (yes, I know… the 4th one in almost as many weeks since 2.8 was released).
Anyway, she kept on encountering this problem, even after the upgrade seemed to complete:
An automated WordPress update has failed to complete - please attempt the update again now.
My normal recommendations are to:
- Deactivate all Plugins before upgrading
- Install the WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin & use it instead
One of those to usually works, but in this case she was stuck.
So after a bit of research, I found that WordPress creates a file called .maintenance. This is the file that puts WordPress into maintenance mode. “Maintenance mode” keeps your blog visitors from seeing all the nastiness and broken pages when you run an upgrade.
This file sometimes may not get deleted properly which forces that message to display in your Admin screen.
To remedy this, simply log into your FTP, go to the root, or the base directory where you installed WordPress. Locate the file named .maintenance and delete it.
Log back into your WordPress admin & everything should be fine.
This should take care of it. If not, I really really hope you backed up your site before upgrading!
photo credit: Tweek
