WordPress eCommerce Plugin Permalinks show 404 error

While working with WordPress 2.6 and the WP-ecommerce plugin, I came across a situation where my permalinks were not displaying correctly. When I went into ecommerce settings and Updated the Page URLs, it showed the correct URL, but the page was showing up as a 404 error.  When I clicked to “Fix Product Group Permalinks” it changed the permalink from ’store’ to 115-revision-2. Well, I knew at that point that it was the new revision feature in WordPress 2.6 that was causing the problem.

The first thing I did was edit my wp-config.php file and include the following code:

define(’WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false);

This turns off the revisions in WordPress 2.6 and was based on a suggestion from My Digital Life. There’s also a WordPress plugin that will do this for you so you don’t have to edit the config file: WordPress No Revisions Plugin.

That fixed part of the problem.  Although my revisions were turned off, effectively preventing more revisions from being created, I still had a ton of revisions clogging up my database and breaking my permalinks.  To fix this, I installed the WordPress Revision Removal Plugin.  It’s a great little plugin that does exactly what it was intended to do.  It helped me remove the revisions from my WordPress database, and when I clicked on the WP-ecommerce plugin option to “Fix Product Group Permalinks,” it worked, and my pages no longer displayed a 404 error.

I hope that helps for anyone having a similar problem.  Peace!

Using Screen Capture Software to Create Marketing Videos

Everywhere I look now, people are putting video on their site.  And why not?  It’s highly effective and much more personal than reading text. Today, creating your own video is fairly inexpensive. All you need is a decent digital video recorder and you can post your video to a video sharing site like YouTube or
Viddler and it doesn’t cost you anything.

Online video is a perfect opportunity to share your knowledge with people, while making your site feel more personal. I’ll be using this approach with my Yoga and meditation website. But I’ve also been playing around with something new…

It’s screen capture software called Camtasia.

Camtasia allows you to record whatever is on your computer screen while also recording your voice in real time, giving you the capability to create video presentations or video tutorials. It’s also great for creating howto videos as well as adding audio to a PowerPoint presentation and posting it on a website.

Camtasia has some amazing capabilities, and I’ve only touch the surface of it, but you can see the work I’ve done with it to create these WordPress training videos. The piece I like the best is the ability to create a “theater,” where you can link videos, one after another in a series. This allows you to create training video presentations, and also include a table of context that allows users to jump ahead in the video presentation series. See an example of that with this online video tutorial

The power of Camtasia is it’s ability to pack powerful features into an easy to use presentation. The learning curve was very low for this product. I was able to plug in my microphone, watch one Camtasia video tutorial, and I was on my way to creating video tutorials. And Camtasia comes at a reasonable price, just $299. I’d expect to pay a lot more for something this powerful.

If you’re looking to add video to your site, I’m working with a local videographer who can utilize digital video or HD technology for your video project. Conact me to find out how we might work together to add video to your site, or create a video product to enhance your product offerings.

How to Edit a Post

Video Tutorial - How to Edit a Post

This video tutorial will explain how to edit a post on your site. 

[display_podcast]

1. LOG IN - Log in to your site (click here for login instructions) 
2. MANAGE - Click on ‘manage’ along the top navigation bar
3. A list of posts will be displayed with options to the right to ‘view,’ ‘edit,’ or ‘delete’
4. EDIT - Click on ‘edit’ and edit the post as you desire following the guidelines for how to write a post

How to Find a Post

Sometimes, you have hundreds of posts to sort through, so you may use the search feature to narrow your options.

1. SEARCH TERMS - type in the word or words that may be contained in the post you’re looking for
2. STATUS - Use this to select only drafts, making it easier to go back to those unpublished posts and finish them
3. AUTHOR - If you have multiple authors, pulls up posts by author
4. MONTH - If you know the month the article was written, use this option
5. CATEGORY - If you know the category to which an article was posted, use this option

*Use any combination of the above selections to narrow your search.

How to Write a Post

Video Tutorial - How to Write a Post 

This video tutorial will take you through the process of writing a post.  To view the video, click on ‘play now’ or ‘play in pop up’ the player below.

[display_podcast]

Left Side

1. Log in to your site (click here for login video tutorial)
2. WRITE - Click on ‘Write’ along the top navigation bar.  This takes you to the ‘write post’ area
3. PAGE TITLE - Enter a title where it says ‘Page Title’
4. PICTURE - Browse for a picture in the area titled ‘Yapb Image’ or leave it alone if you don’t have a photo.  Use .jpg format. 
5. Uncheck the box ‘Post date from image exif data if available.’  If this box is checked, the article will post the the website with the date of the image, not the date of the article.
6. CONTENT - Enter the content where it says ‘Page Content’
7. TAGS - Enter tags where it says ‘Tags.’  Tags are words that are found in your content, and are similar to the words you’d find in the index of a book to help your reader find information.  Use the suggested tags area if you need suggestions for tags.
8. UPLOAD - Use to upload a file, for example, a pdf.
9. OPTIONAL EXCERPT - This area is for an excerpt of the article, usually the first 55 words by default.
10. TRACKBACKS - you won’t need to do anything with this
11. CUSTOM FIELDS - you won’t need to do anything with this
12. All in One SEO - This is what Google and other search engines see.  Type in the title of your article, a short description about the content, and any keywords.  The keywords may be similar to your tags, along with any other prominent words that represent what your article is about.

Right Side

1. CATEGORIES - Check mark the category box you want.  Multiple boxes may be selected.
2. DISCUSSION - Leave the boxes checked to allow comments and pings 
3. POST PASSWORD - Add a password here if you wish to password protect the page
4. POST SLUG - A slug is the words that come after your url.  The default is the name of your post, so you don’t need to do anything here.
5. POST STATUS - When we click the ‘Publish’ button, the post status will automatically change to published, so we don’t need to do anything with this.
6. POST TIMESTAMP - If you want to change the date that the article is published to the website, you do that here.  If you change it to the future, it will hold the article until the date, and then automatically publish it at the date and time specified.
7. POST AUTHOR - You can change the post author here if you wish.  Default is the username you logged in with.

Finishing Step

When the article is complete, you have three options, located below and just to the right of the ‘tags’ area:

1.  SAVE AND CONTINUE EDITING - I recommend using this a lot if you are writing content directly into the content area.  Otherwise, if you lose your Internet connection, you will lose all your work.  Once the article is complete, choose one of the other two options below.
2. SAVE - This will save the article for later editing without publishing it to the website
3. PUBLISH -This will publish the article to the website at the date and time in the ‘Post Timestamp’ area.

How to Log in

Video Tutorial - How to Log in

This video will explain how to log in to the administration area of your site.

[display_podcast]

Instructions for logging in

1. Pull up your Internet Browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari)
2. Type in the url of your site, followed by /wp-admin (for example: www.magicinthedesert.com/wp-admin)
3. Enter your user name
4. Enter your password
5. Click ‘login’

OPTIONAL - Check the box that says ‘Remember me’ to have your username and password stored so you don’t have to log in every time.

Forget your password?

1. Click on ‘lost your password?’
2. Enter your username
3. Enter your email
4. Click ‘Get new Password’
5. A new password will be sent to your email address

Next Page »