Time to change out if you use Tweet My Blog. Just got this email from John and Soren today. Just put the applicable part below.

Hey Mike,

This is a very important update!

Due to some changes made by Twitter, the TweetMyBlog
plug in will cease to work on August 15th.

Due to time constraint and other projects taking
priority, we are not going to update TMB to work
with the new Twitter standards.

What this means to you…

1) You need to remove/deactivate the TMB plugin
on your blog(s) – we suggest Twitterfeed.com as
a good free alternative.

2) If you are currently advertising TMB you need
to stop your campaigns before the 15th of this
month.

So the question is what do you need to do?

Here are the steps to to use Twitter Feed.

First sign up for an account. It is a free service. You will now need to create your feed.

1. Use a name or description you will know for your feed. This is important if you have multiple blogs.

2. Put the feed url in the box and test it. This will be yourdomai.com/feed if you are using WordPress or your Feedburner feed if you created one.

3. Go to step 2.

Click on the Twitter link to tie in your Twitter account. You can automate other services too but we will not be covering that.

You will need to authenticate your Twitter account to add it to the service.

Just sign in and click allow. You will now be set up to have your posts added to your Twitter automatically.

You can go back through the steps and add your other blogs if you have them the same way.

That fixes half of what Tweet My Blog did. If you want to have your Twitter feed in your sidebar you will need to go a bit further.

For me I will do it with the RSS feed for my Twitter account.

Go to your Twitter page and get the feed url.

When you click that you will be taken to the feed. Copy the url from your browser window.

Go to widgets in your theme and drag the RSS widget to your sidebar where you would like your feed to show.

Paste in your feed url. Give it a title you want displayed and decide on how many Tweets you want to show. Click Save and you are done.

Personally I am sorry to see Tweet My Blog go but at least you have a way to have similar automation by following these steps.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: blog, sidebar, tweet my blog, twitter, widget, wordpress

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WordPress just released a new upgrade last night to the 3.0 series. This is a security release and fixes over 50 minor items.

I did the upgrades here and it worked well.

These are primarily security fixes so I would do the upgrade now. If you have been waiting for the first upgrade before switching to 3.0 then now is the time to switch over.

The video I created when WordPress first added the auto upgrade to the dashboard is below because the procedure has not changed.

If you are not comfortable with doing the upgrade you can always have me do it for you. Just check it out here.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: upgrade wordpress, wordpress, wordpress 3.0.1

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It has been a while since I have done a monthly Blog Talk Radio show on WordPress and blogging. Not quite sure why it got dropped but before I put together a new one figured it was best to see if there was an interest in it.

Time after all is the one thing that is most valuable to all of us. If it is an activity that is worth you spending your time to get your questions answered on WordPress and blogging then please leave a comment.

Now with it being the middle of the summer this may be a bad time to start this back up but even if you would be interested in this but not until the summer is over let me know.

I have always enjoyed the interactivity that BTR allows but my main desire is to provide information in formats that are most valuable to you the reader. Your input will let me know if the Blog Talk Radio is a format that has value to you. Your comments will decide.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: blog, Blog Talk Radio, btr, interactivity, wordpress

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Well it will remain to be seen whether they follow through with it but WordPress has announced that it will not be supporting PHP 4 and MySQL 4 when version 3.2 is released in early 2011.

The reason I say that it remains to be seen is that this was originally announced to happen with the release of 3.0 if my memory is correct (and it may have been earlier).

Now the majority of web hosts are currently running PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5 and it is easy to check through Cpanel if you are running the proper versions. Log in to Cpanel and check your general server information and you should see what version you are running.

There is plenty of time to get your server upgraded before this comes into play and the new version will not update if your server will not support it.

You can see the full detailed announcement from WordPress here.

Remember that your questions and comments are welcomed so leave them in the comments below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: cPanel, mysql 4, php, upgrade wordpress, web host, web hosts

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For those that are member’s of Profitable Blog Steps we had a great conference last night. If you have upgraded and missed it the replay is available in your member’s area. Log in and click the upgraded member call link in the top menu.

We covered…

• Current recommended plugins
• What’s new with WordPress 3.0
• Traffic strategies (the first in series that will be ongoing)

If you are not a member of Profitable Blog Steps then maybe you should be .

Next training session is scheduled for July 21st at 8 pm edt.

And as a reminder there is still a discount available on blog installs until Saturday at 8am. Save 25% if you grab it before then.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: profitable blog steps, replay, training session, wordpress

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Now it may just be a guy thing. You know the stereotype where guys just won’t ask for directions. They know they can find their way. Have actually done that on an occasion ot two.

Or it may be the number of times I have looked at various instructions available for configuring plugins and been overwhelmed by the technical jargon.

Or maybe finally I have become a techno geek but I kind of doubt that one.

This little button may be the best part of all that has been added to WordPress 3.0 and it is at the top of each and every page in the dashboard in the upper right hand corner.

Over the last few days I have been digging deeply into the things that have changed and how they can be used by my readers. A rare thing has happened. I have been impressed by help files.

The explanations have been clear and they link to the more technical items. Now once you leave the actual help pages inside the dashboard you may run into the technical jargon that can become confusing.

But taking the time to go through the various pages and click the little help button at the top of the page is probably one of the better uses of your time to help you understand the features that are available.

Nobody is more surprised than I am that I would even be writing about that little button. As the features were being written about as WordPress 3.0 was rolling out my feeling was so what about the new help files.

So don’t miss what is probably the best feature of all of them in WordPress 3.0 and as you go through the various pages inside click and read the information.

I did and thus wrote this post today. Yep me the guy who never stops to ask directions unless totally lost. You will have a much better understanding from a few minutes of effort.

If you grabbed Profitable Blog Steps the first conference for those that upgraded will be Wednesday night at 8 pm. Will be covering some great information and would live to have you on it.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: dashboard, help files, technical jargon, WordPress 3.0

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Strange title maybe but this is the first item that I have found to be a problem with the new 3.0. Whenever you upgrade something and it fails your blog gets stuck in maintenance mode.

Now I like that the message shows while you are upgrading but if it is not successful you have a bit of a problem.

To fix this you will have to access your server and remove a small file called .maintenance that has frozen you out.

You may or not be able to see the dot files with your ftp depending on whether you use secure access or not so for most it is best to go into your cpanel. Go to file manager and locate the .maintenance file in the folder your blog resides in.

Delete that file and you are up and running.

You will only get this problem when an update is not successful. Hopefully this will save you aggravation and I used what the screen says as a title to make this post easy to find for those that get stuck.

So now if you see the message above just follow the steps and get back to normal.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: .maintenance, blog, cPanel, maintenance mode

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Have started moving all of my blogs to the new WordPress 3.0. Personally I have had no problems with the plugins and themes that I use in the process. I had already tested all of the plugins and themes that I use on the beta blog so that was not unexpected.

There have only been a few problems that I am hearing about but it is very early in the process and it may change. My gut says that there won’t be a lot of problems because most of the plugin developers have become much more active in the testing phase.

There has been a huge number of plugin updates compared to normal since the first release candidate was offered.

Below is a good video from WordPress.TV that will highlight the bulk of the new features. If you prefer to read I have a list below that.

Here are the features mentioned in the video.

• Set admin user name when installing
• Back office has a new look
• Bulk Updates for installation, themes and plugins from one screen
• Help button on every screen
• New theme 2010 which will take advantage of the new features and supports
  • Custom headers
  • Backgrounds
  • The new menus
• New sidebar widget
• Custom post types
• Short link support
• Integration of MU with WordPress 3.0

Look for a post on the themes and plugins I have used shortly that are working and any problems I run into as I change over more of my blogs.

If you like being on the latest or need some of the new features it is probably okay to upgrade. If not I would not be in a rush. Despite the large number of people that have tested it so far there will be a bug or two that will show up unexpectedly. It always happens so wait a few days and see what the buzz becomes.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: first release candidate, new features, plugin developers, plugin updates, wordpress, WordPress 3.0

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WordPress is continuing the march to the final release of 3.0. After two beta releases they have just issued the first release candidate.

You can see the full announcement here.

Once the release candidate hits the actual release is not far behind. Now is the time to find out the themes and plugins that are not compatible.

So far this has been a very good process for me. All of the themes and plugins that I use have been playing nice with the newest version.

The menu functions seem to be working quite well and I am looking forward to the final release.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: wordpress, WordPress 3.0, wordpress 3.0 rc1

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One of the best ways that I know of to get more traffic to your blog is to guest blog. At the end of last year I put together a blog tour which I called The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour.

I spent 5 days a week posting to someone else’s blog for 8 weeks moving to a different blog each week. It was fun to get to visit with other people’s audience and I had a good time.

I followed the steps Nicole Dean teaches in her “Blog World Tour Guide“.

Well the summer is coming and I think it is time to do it again but I need your help.

To pull this off I need to come up with a catchy name for the tour and I need 4 people that are willing to let me come in and rant and rave on their blog. I am planning this for the month of August.

Now if you would like me to stop and spend the week send in a ticket to the support desk and let me know…

• What topic your blog is on
• Why I would be a good fit for your audience
• Why I should pick you

What you get if selected is…

• 5 days of good content from me
• Promotion from the Squidoo lens I will create for the tour
• Promotion from my blogs as I discuss the blog tour

So if you are interested let me know I need to get this planned now.

Even if you don’t want me to visit I am looking for a kick butt name for this tour and if you can supply it you can win a blog installation from me on your hosting ($120 value) or one hour of my coaching time.

Leave your tour name ideas below and the one I choose will be the winner.

Looking forward to getting back on the road again.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps

Technorati Tags: blog, Blog Tour, blog tour guide, blogs, Nicole Dean, traffic

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