Rent My Brain

Search Engine Optimization, Content Creation and Blog Development

Wordpress tips

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Create Attractive Buttons for Your Site

Recently I was working on a site for which I needed buttons.  These buttons were to be used in a sidebar widget – in this case red buttons that looked like this:

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You would think this would be an easy task to accomplish, and my first thought was to go to Fiverr.com and get these buttons created for $5 each.   It occurred to me, however, that this task ought to be simple enough that I could do it myself.   I work with a wonderful Fiverr designer in Indonesia but because of the time difference, the turnaround time is 8 to 10 hours.

I started looking around and I discovered that it was difficult to find online button makers.   I did find sites like BestCSSButtonGenerator.com and ButtonMaker which create attractive buttons but they create CSS files that you have to upload.  The CSS component allows you to choose different looks when a user hovers over the button and after a visitor has already visited.   These are neat features but not essential to my needs.   In any case, I prefer not to mess with the CSS files in my WordPress installs so I kept looking.

Another interesting concept is DaButtonFactory.  Here, you create a button that is hosted on DaButtonFactory’s servers and you simply link to the URL.    The problem with this approach, of course, is that if DaButtonFactory.com goes dark or if they suddenly decide to start charging for hosting all those buttons, I would have a problem.

I had also tried an online button generator at http://jirox.net/AsButtonGen.  This was a site maintained by a Japanese company and it did everything I needed – but now it has gone away.

So my search continues….

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Hardening Your WordPress Install

Recently I installed a very useful plugin on most of my WordPress sites called Wordfence.  Wordfence offers both a free and a paid version.  The free version is quite robust, although the paid version does unlock a number of useful features.  Both the free and the paid version do a nice job at blocking the most common types of hacking attempts and, if you wish, the plugin will email you when someone tries to penetrate your site.

The Wordfence emails are interesting in that they reveal what hackers are trying to do.  In my case, I previously maintained dozens of WordPress installs on the same IP address (not a good idea, and I have fixed this).  There are numerous tools out there that anyone can use to identify all web sites – WordPress or otherwise – on any IP address, so if you own or manage multiple sites and use the same login name and password, once one site is penetrated, they could all be at risk. [Read more…] about Hardening Your WordPress Install

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How to Solve a “Fatal Error: Allowed Memory Size Exhausted” Problem

You can add some incredible functionality to WordPress by installing plug-ins.  If you run a quick Google search you will find where WordPress power users have posted lists of “essential” plug-ins.

The law of conservation of energy being what it is, however, you give up speed as you add more plug-ins.  As a rule, a site running 10 plug-ins will be faster and more stable than a site running 25 plug-ins.

In addition, some plug-ins do not play well together, and, worse, some plug-ins are poorly coded and will hog resources.  For example, there is a really useful plugin called Broken Link checker, but activated using certain configurations can really slow your site down. [Read more…] about How to Solve a “Fatal Error: Allowed Memory Size Exhausted” Problem

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Adding Driving Directions to Your Website or Blog

Are you trying to figure out how to add driving directions to your website or blog?  If you Google “embed code for driving directions” you will see several results for a Google Gadget that is supposed to do this, but currently, the gadget does not work and no code is generated.

I needed to add driving directions to one of my sites so I dug around and found code that works.  [Read more…] about Adding Driving Directions to Your Website or Blog

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Solution to Disappearing Visual Editor

WordPress has become ubiquitous in the online world because it is readily available and because both paid staff and unpaid volunteers constantly work  to update the software.  Many of the updates are released to address security concerns and it is wise to keep your WordPress install current.

Similarly, WordPress theme designers regularly update their software as well.  There are literally hundreds of free and paid themes out there – because I publish multiple sites, I made the decision several years ago to standardize on two robust theme frameworks – Thesis and Genesis.   A framework adds functionality to the basic WordPress install, while child themes or skins designed for the framework give a site its unique look and feel.   This site is built on Thesis 2.x and the Pearsonified skin.   You can view a Genesis framework site with a child theme at ssdAnswers.com.

As these updates have been released, however, I began to see a recurring problem – my visual site editor stopped working. [Read more…] about Solution to Disappearing Visual Editor

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