Who is this post for?

This post is specifically showing how to install and use the Developers version of Hello bar, Hello Bar Solo. If you want to use the client version please visit the main website. http://hellobar.com

What is a hello bar?

What’s so good about the developers version

As I write it is only $29 for unlimited sites which is incredible value for developers to offer a current tool for clients without any ongoing costs.

What’s the catch

The regular version is easier to install and tracks all kinds of stats which many clients will love.

You will have to do the styling yourself via css and read up on codes to use to perform different tasks. There is lots of good info on how to do all that on the developers page 

How to install it

1. First you need to go and purchase the developers version Hello Bar Solo.
2. You will get a link to download the zip file in an email after your purchase is completed.
3. Unzip the file, it creates a folder called hellobar-solo but to confuse things you actually need to use a folder within this one with exactly the same name. So get the folder within the first one called hellobar-solo
4. upload the the folder and its contents where your theme is eg :http//website.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/
5. add this code to the header code area. (with headwaythemes.com theme for example you get there via 
   Headway Options -> Scripts/Analytics) Here is a zip file with code below to insert to website below in case it doesn’t render correctly

   <link type=”text/css” rel=”stylesheet” href=”http://www.websitename.com/wp-content/themes/theme-name-here/hellobar-solo/hellobar.css” />

   <script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.websitename.com/wp-content/themes/theme-name-here/hellobar-solo/hellobar.js”></script>

6. add this to the footer code

   <script type=”text/javascript”>// <![CDATA[

       new HelloBar( '<span>Read my pitch and then click on my</span> <a href="#">Call to Action!</a>', {

           showWait: 1000,

           positioning: 'sticky',

           fonts: 'Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif',

           forgetful: true

       }, 1.0 );

   // ]]></script>

    

7. Now all you have to do us customise the message in the 2nd section and style the css via the css file in the folder you uploaded earlier.
   There are examples and the code needed to customise everything here – Hello Bar Solo.

This can be needed for a number of reasons:

• relocating to new web hosting
• for web developers – moving a staging site to the live site url
• rebuilding after a site has been compromised / hacked
• restoring after the web host has lost a server (unusual but can happen especially if you bought it from a smaller operator)

Setup iThemes BackupBuddy Stash account

Install BackupBuddy plugin

Add a new destination via backupbuddy on the website you are copying which we’ll call Site A

Add BackupBuddy Stash account details

Make full backup of Site A

Setup importbuddy password

Download importbuddy.php file to your computer

Upload importbuddy file to Site B folder where the website will be installed

Enter in the following address to you web browser: http://www.siteb.com/importbuddy.php

Select Stash option and enter BackupBuddy Stash account details

Select backup made from Site A previously

Now wait a minute or 2 for the backup to be copied from Stash to your SiteB hosting (maybe more for larger sites)

You will see the message below when its done.

Files will now be unzipped for you.

Finally add the database name, username and password that you will need to create via the control panel of the Site B web hosting

By default it’s turned off would you believe so every single PayPal user needs to make this change in the setup stage.

Very  handy reference manual for PayPal Standard, it has lots of screenshots and even though a few years old still valid as PayPal has not changed most of their screens for years:
PayPal Standard Guide (PDF)

This is based on using the PayPal Standard style of account.

Step 1 – Edit profile

Actual PayPal link: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/customerprofile/summary.view

Step 2 – Select my selling tools

Step 3 – Select website preferences – update

Actual PayPal link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-website-payments

Step 4 – Set PayPal Account Option to ‘On’

Further reading about this setting on official site: https://www.paypal.com/au/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/pop/help-account-optional

Other useful setting on the same page

There are a few more items on this page that are used in the e-commerce setup that you may need. They are:

Auto Return for Website payments:

Auto Return for Website Payments brings your buyers back to your website immediately after payment completion. Auto Return applies to PayPal Website Payments, including Buy Now, Donations, Subscriptions and Shopping Cart. Learn More

You also need to add a the URL where you want your customer to go back to on your website after a successful transaction.

For WooCommerce the return URL is:  yoursite.com/checkout/order-received/

PDT – Payment Data Transfer

Payment Data Transfer allows you to receive notification of successful payments as they are made. The use of Payment Data Transfer depends on your system configuration and your Return URL. Please note that in order to use Payment Data Transfer, you must turn on Auto Return.

More useful links to WordPress shopping cart plugin resources

WooCommerce plugin

Paypal Standard guide : http://wcdocs.woothemes.com/user-guide/payment-gateways-user-guide/paypal-standard/

WP e-Commerce plugin

Paypal Standard guide: http://docs.getshopped.org/documentation/paypal-payments-standard/

Create / find an icon

for the service that is a png file that is 16×16 pixels and upload to the website via media upload and use the link.

Locate the sharing code

The code you will need for the particular service in this case it was here: http://bufferapp.com/extras/button

Work out which part of the code to use

Add it in the right format as explained here (ignoring the [source] code which you don’t use at all: http://ryanmarkel.com/2010/08/26/adding-a-custom-sharing-service-to-wordpress-com/

Now go to the sharing settings and ‘add new service’

This is how it should look

How it looks  at the bottom of a post

What the hell are plugins?

• accessories to add to your vehicle
• php/javascript injection for dummies
• written by people smarter than me
• I have ADPHPD (Attention deficit php disorder)
• I also like wheels other people make, why re-invent them

How to spot a good plugin

How to choose a good WordPress plugin

Free plugins can be…

• free to stop being updated
• free to brake for extended periods of time
• free from developer contact information (sometimes anyway – I’m being dramatic ok)
• free to go offline when the developer gets over of at all the whining from internet marketers wanting it fixed yesterday for nada

OK free plugins can be awesome too, if…

• the have a large benevolent company behind them
• are a loss leader for a paid version
• connect you to a commercial 3rd party product (eg sales force form)
• are supported by a Buddhist monk who is hoping to attain enlightenment through perfect code and self sacrifice
  (Nothing against that Buddhists either, they rock)

If you pay for a plugin (or theme)

• you are supporting WordPress developer/s who will then maintain the very plugin that is making you look great
• inspiring more plugins to be built
• subsidising the support system
• putting people through college/uni

Backup plugins

• vaultpress (premium – vaultpress.com – $15/month)
• backupbuddy (premium – pluginbuddy.com – $75/year for 2 site licence, $100/year for 10 sites, $150/year unlimited sites)
• BackUpWordPress (free – wordpress.org)

SEO plugins

• WordPress SEO by Yoast
• SEO Ultimate
• SEO Rank Tracker
• 404 Redirection – divert all 404 error to main page, improves user experience and improves google rank for home page
• SEOPressor (premium – http://seopressor.com – $97)
• Analytics360 – Google and mailchimps lovechild

eCommerce plugins

• WooCommerce (the new up and comer)
• WP Shopp (premium – http://shoppplugin.net )
• WP eCommerce (the original)
• Ecwid Shopping Cart (use with facebook too)

Security plugins

• Limit login attempts
• Firewall 2
• Block Spam By Math Reloaded
• WordPress file monitor
• wp-ban
• Timthumb Vulnerability Scanner

Images plugins

• Lightbox Plus (popups instead of a blank page)
• NextGEN Gallery

Training and support plugins

• Video User Manuals ($24/month on unlimited client sites)
• WP Help

Content plugins

• Organize Series
• Shortcodes Ultimate
• TinyMCE Advanced
• WP-chgFontSize
• YARP Yet another related post
• Duplicate Post
• Easy Content TemplatesReplace Featured Image with Video

Form plugins

• Gravity forms (premium – http://gravityforms.com -

Caching plugins

• WP Super Cache
• W3 Total Cache

Search plugins

• Search Everything
• Relevanssi – A Better Search
• Google Custom Search

Live chat plugins

• Zopim Live Chat
• ClickDesk Live-Chat, Help Desk & Live-Call

Event plugins

• Event espresso (premium)
• All-in-One Event Calendar
• CalPress Event Calendar

Social media plugins

• The social links
• facebook (not perfect, still needs to work)
• Simple Facebook Share Button
• jetpack

Dashboard customisation plugins

• Whitelabel CMS
• Adminize
• TM Replace Howdy

Membership plugins

• S2Member
• S2Member Pro (premium)

User Management plugins

• Import Users from CSV (import a lot of users from one spreadsheet)
• User Switching
• QuickLogin (popups for login pages so you need to leave the page you are on)

Custom post types plugins

• My Content Management (collection of custom post types pre built, eg faqs, people, testimonials, locations, quotes, glossary, etc)
• CustomPress (premium – http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/custompress )

Widget plugins

• Widget logic
• Spectacu.la Page Widget
• WP-Cumulus
• Widgets on pages (add javascript to a page via shortcode that won’t dissapear)
• Executable PHP widget
• Custom sidebars
• Widget Entries (use with Custom sidebars)
• Duplicate Widget (Ditto)
• PHP Code Widget

Developer back-end plugins

• Friends Only
• Revision control
• Velvet Blues Update URLs
• Page and Post Lister
• Redirection

Calculator and quiz plugins

• CalculatorPro Calculators – (204 different calculators)
• WP Survey And Quiz Tool

wp plugin shopping cart

WordPress is one of the top choices available today for web owners to use as their website. This is due to its many attractions, including plugins and its numerous customizable features. Other than widgets, plugins extend the functionality of the website and increase its effectiveness. What is more, web owners can find many important plugins, such as the WP plugin shopping cart. This plugin will convert a regular website or blog into e-commerce. Thus, if an owner wants to sell products or services, the WP shopping cart plugin is ideal.

A WP plugin shopping cart can bring many advantages, including:

• No cost. As an open source, this free plugin costs nothing to integrate with the WordPress theme. This makes it ideal for businesses that carry a small to medium quantity of inventory. It is popular amongst sellers who offer products such as T-shirts, e-books or subscriptions.
• Easy to install and uninstall. What is attractive about the shopping cart plugin is how easy it is to install. Owners can log into their administration page or dashboard, and search for the most suitable one. Next, they can click the install button. If the plugin does not meet their business’ requirements, they can uninstall it easily without hassle.
• Great support. The plugins are built by a community of developers, thus web owners will have no difficulty finding technical support. Each cart is well documented, and owners can obtain more information and updates from the developer’s site, or through the WordPress forum.
• Integrates with popular payment gateways. The plugins offer a complete e-commerce solution, such as the ability to accept online payments. The cart is integrated with PayPal and many other popular payment gateways. Sellers around the world will find it easy to use.
• Great for marketing. With all the essential features, the online store is search engine friendly. It is an effective marketing tool. For instance, the shopping cart plugin can be set to allow for free or reduced shipping charges, discounted prices and coupons. This will attract more potential customers. Furthermore, the shopping cart is also integrated with social media and email. This helps to increase the effectiveness of the owner’s preferred marketing strategy.

In conclusion, the WP plugin shopping cart is:

a convenient e-commerce solution for startups and existing small business owners who are on a budget. This cart helps to facilitate their online business to success and make it profitable.

Read my other posts about 10 great shopping carts

WP Table of Contents manually or with a plugin

How to create a WP Table of contents manually

When you have a WordPress blog or wp site, you might rely solely on the internal navigation links provided, such as “older posts” or “newer posts.” However, to create a content site that really engages your readers, construct a WP Table of Contents that clearly outlines your site’s pages and categories of topics. The dual-faceted content or page creation are makes this a very easy process. You don’t even need to know HTML coding to make a very striking Table of Contents page.

WordPress Sidebar

Your login will take you to your WordPress Dashboard. Along the left side, you should see your WP sidebar. Locate the entry entitled, “Pages.” If you prefer a smaller than full-screen browser, the icon appears as pieces of paper just above the comment bubble. Click the icon, then scroll to “add new.”

Title your page as you wish. For example, you could use “My WP Table of Content” or include the name of your site. After entering the title, determine if you want to use the font and element bar that shows the font and table effects or if you want to code them in yourself. Use the Virtual tab for the former or the HTML tab to code your own font, table and list affects. Create your content for your WP Table of Contents page.

For example, your page could resemble something like

• Blogging
• Surfing the Internet
• Reading

Category 2: Things I Dislike Doing

• Laundry
• Washing Dishes
• Housework

You can continue your WP Table of Contents, adding entries as you wish until you are ready to save your basic draft. Once saved, you should create internal links for easy navigation.

To embed a link, simply highlight the word you want to use as your anchor text. For instance, linking to your Categories list, you would want to highlight in the above example, “Things I Like Doing” and insert the page address or URL in the box that opens. Title it the same as your category name.

Be sure to include your landing page or index page to your Table of Content. Adapting a famous movie line, “There’s no place like Home page.”

Then you might further link to a blog entry for your Laundering entry, then to your Washing Dishes entry and so on. Link from page to page as well. One in-content body link per individual post is quite sufficient.

Your internal linking may seem time-consuming, but the easier you make your navigation for your readers, the more often you tempt them to return.

Simply update your WP Table of Contents page as you add categories or content blogs. Save the draft and preview the page, adjusting as necessary.

Additional Tweaks

If your new Table of Contents will be your landing page, you want to make it a “sticky” page, ensuring it rests in front of your content pages.

If you want your page to appear in your site legend in a particular order, set the sequence number below. This will not change the order of page appearance, merely the menu order that is often near the top of your site.

How to create a WP Table of contents automatically with a plugin

There are a number of plugins out there you can use. which are listed below

WordPress Folding Category List - http://azuliadesigns.com/focal/

This is more for use on each and every post rather than for one main table of contents page.

I use this one and its been great. As it automatically uses heading you habve less control than doing it manually so it won’t suit all situations.

WP Table of contents - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-table-of-contents/

Not updated since June 2011, I would give this one a miss. The developers site is offline too so you won’t get much support either.

WP Table of paginated contents - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-table-of-paginated-contents/

Worth exploring if you have a lots of sections to one article that you want to put in multiple posts that link together with a WP table of contents.

Kalin’s Post List - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/kalins-post-list/

Another option to explore with more advanced controls over what gets listed on a specific page or in a widget. Pretty popular with over 6000 downloads.

Web Fiction Table of Contents Sidebar Widget - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/web-fiction-table-of-contents-widget/

Now this plugin has a lot of potential for writing serialized posts for a web styled book or just a series of posts that get tied together beautifully.

WooCommerce Plugin Conflicts

WooCommerce plugin conflicts

WooCommerce seems to be the best eCommerce plugin these days so its important to know about things that can hamper its capabilities.

It important when you get stuck to know about potential conflicts with plugins as part of your fault finding process.

My goal is to continue to add to this post whenever I hear about a WooCommerce plugin conflicts or conflicts with any of the extensions.

I just experienced this myself and it was stopping payments from processing so you can imaging how important it was to find the problem quickly.

Conflict listing (to be added to as I find or hear about more)

WooCommerce Extension: e-Path Gateway (Australia)

Symptoms: Was not opening the epath page to collect credit card details

Conflicting plugin: Shortcodes ultimate

Result: desctivated plugin and all worked perfectly again

WooCommerce plugin conflicts further reading

10 great WordPress shopping carts

WordPress.org support forum plugins and hacks section

WooCommerce plugin conflicts

How to transfer a domain to crazydomains

When you got your website did you register the domain name yourself? If you left it to the web developer you need to regain control as one day you may part ways and then it gets hard to sort out.

It’s like buying a car and registering it in the car dealers name, its yours so it needs to be registered in YOUR name.

The easiest way is to transfer it to a reliable well know domain hosting company which is very cost effective too and manage it yourself.

This is not a post about web hosting that’s different

Think of domain hosting as a just a place where your web address is registered, no files live there. The actual website files are store with your web host company.

I have written a post about that called ‘Why use mediatemple.net web hosting‘

Simple steps to regain control

A quick step by step guide on how to transfer a domain to crazydomains you have previously registered with another domains company or the web developer who built you website.

NOTE: this has nothing to do with the web hosting it is purely the domain name we are working with here.

Go to crazydomains.com.au and select transfer domain from main menu at crazydomains.com.au

http://crazydomains.com.au

How to transfer a domain to crazydomains

Enter the domain you want to transfer to crazydomains.com.au

here is the page you end up on which you could go straight to if you wanted to skip the previous step http://www.crazydomains.com.au/domain-names/transfer/

Click on add to cart on next screen

Enter the password for the domain name, a critical step when learning how to transfer a domain to crazydomains

This is the password that you would have been emailed when registering the domain name originally.

If you don’t have it you will need to request it from the previous domain hosting company

Wait for email confirmation

After the correct password has been accepted the email address you used to originally register the domain name with will be send an email to confirm the transfer.  You need to click on a link to approve the transfer. This is the last step in how to transfer a domain to crazydomains.

Now wait up to 7 days for the transfer to complete

It takes time to do theses transfers, up to 7 days in fact. The good thing about crazydomains.com.au is they copy the settings from the old domain host so if you had the domain pointing to some web hosting those details will be duplicated.
For the technical people: the nameserver settings are also copied over so that there is no downtime for the domain name or email acounts.

 I hope you have enjoyed learning how to transfer a domain to crazydomains

Using mindmapping tools to plan or review a website

I use this mindmap whenever preparing to

• quote on rebuilding an existing website
• planning to build a new website from scratch the same elements must be accounted for

It shows the main areas anyone thinking about a new website needs to think about and take notes on. Using a mindmap allows me to take a broad overview and then focus on the details when I need to. It all collapses right down to an easy to manage page

If you open this link you will be able to look at my mindmap in details and zoom in and out.
http://www.mindmeister.com/174499778/website-analysis-planning

Mindmeister is my favourite mindmapping tool

This is a totally online tool, accounts with www.mindmeister.com are $5/month for 1 user which allows you to have unlimited mindmaps you can access from any computer or ipad (via app).

Cropped view (too large to completely fit here of course. Use link above to see the whole thing.

mindmap of how to analyse and plan a website

Anyone can now use this template, its been added to the template library!

I submitted this minmap to Mindmeister as a template and they have now included it for all to use which is great.

To use it after logging in to your account create a new mindmap and you will be shown the templates available. Go to the technology section and there it will be. Its called Website Analysis.

How do you prepare to build websites?

Please leave a comment to share with others.