I just got another ticket off someone that is using a cache plugin and experiencing issues with a plugin.

BTW – Do you recommend NOT using W3TC? And, if so, is there a better one?

Here’s my response, maybe if you read it here then I wont have to type it again in a ticket!

oh that is a biggie! w3 total cache by definition will serve old copies of pages. That is what all cache plugins are designed to do.

it is quicker to serve a html copy than to generate one with php which is why they make sites faster.

unfortunately, blogs are dynamic sites with plugins that require freshly created content which don’t really work well with copies of pages that were made hours or even days ago.

static business sites that are there for information work really well with cache plugins because they rarely change but blogs with new posts and comments and ‘real time’ plugins installed don’t do so well.

w3 total cache is not yet final. That is why it is not showing as version 1.0 yet. You and me and all the others that use it are test subjects!

you have to decide if you want a fast broken blog or a working one.

there are blogs (including mine) that have w3 working with everything else but each blog is different and has different plugins active so you will have to find your own set of settings that works for you.

unforunately, w3 is the best (or the least bad) of the cache plugins but like I said, cache plugins are designed to serve old content and blogs are designed to serve fresh content. that’s the issue that comes up again and again with any cache plugin and a blog.

sorry I can’t help more but w3 is a beast of a plugin and the author keeps changing the core code so I can’t add things to commentluv to work with it, the last time I tried it worked but as soon as he updated his code it broke every commentluv blog so I don’t try any more.

the best advice I can give is to optimize your site first before considering a cache plugin, you’d be surprised at how much that can help.

and if you do decide on a cache plugin, test test test!

• If you do not know what a cache plugin does then you do not need one!
• If you have a slow broken site, a cache plugin will not fix it!
• If minifying breaks one script, it breaks them all!
• Scripts that are already minified (jquery.min.js) do not need to be minified!
• You should optimize your site before you try to speed it up with cache plugins!
• test test test .. experiment with settings to see what gets you a working site and then test test test again!
• Switching every option to MAX and then expecting it just to work is not really gonna happen on shared hosting with a free theme and a bazillion free plugins.

Here’s a way for you to add a countdown offer timer to your site so offers and other exclusive content gives your readers and extra push to click through to them. If you want to make a wordpress countdown coupon offer then this is the plugin that you need.

WordPress Coupon Plugin makes it easy

Just use the plugin to make an embedded youtube video inside the offer box and you’ve got a ready to go solution for creating a scarcity type offer.

It’s only ten buckeroos at the link above.

Split Test Your Site

Just recently I got bullied in to setting up an A/B split test for my CommentLuv Premium homepage. Well, not bullied but guilt tripped.

I got another email preaching about why split tests are such a good idea so finally, at long last, I decided I would set up a split test to see what type of sales page worked better for me.

I wanted to try a different page than the huge video as the focus one and so as the B part of the split test I tried a new variation that uses mainly text to describe the main benefits of the plugin.

Google Website Optimizer Makes it Easy to Split Test!

It’s dead simple to set up a new A/B split test experiment with just a little bit of help from the Website Optimizer that Google provides.

You just need to identify what page is your original (your A) and your alternate page (your B) and your conversion page.

Add a bit of script that Google gives you to each page, verify them and let the experiment run.

I could give you a blow by blow tutorial here but to be honest, you get a very good one on the site which goes in to much more detail than : Website Optimizer Documentation

Winner winner chicken dinner!

I let the experiment run for a whole week and at the end, the results were undeniable!

This is the original page

This is the variation

Guess which one won?

Yup, the first one did! by a factor of 2. It converted exactly twice the number of visitors as the variation so the conclusion is (as you might have guessed) that video sells twice as much as text!

In next weeks split test

Now I know which page wins, I can move on to multivariate testing where I use the same page but jiggle the things about to see if below the video a guarantee seal works better or a testimonial would convert more people.

I’ll let it run all this week and see what happens and report back. oh how exciting!

Get your own split testing done!

You can see a whole bunch of split test results here which will open your eyes to some cool things that you wouldn’t think would make a difference but do!

“Awesome Features”

CommentLuv Premium allows you to unlock advanced backlink features on 10′s of thousands of blogs. It has been shown to increase comments and traffic to blogs that install it and helps to make your posts go viral by integrating with twitter, facebook and google plus.

It combines 8 plugins in to 1 which all work in harmony to reduce spam, provide stats of where your links are being clicked, deny trackbacks from spammers, allow users to use keywords in their name, leave their twitter name in the comments, showcase your top commenters and more.

The plugin has many new features :

• Integrated anti spam measures that prevent almost 100% of botspam
• Dofollow readers links with advanced rules so you look after your most loyal readers
• Unique social enticements which helps your posts to go viral on Twitter, facebook and Google+
• Integrated twitterlink functions to allow readers to leave their twitter names on comments
• Improved version of Keywordluv with much tighter control over who gets to use keywords
• Integrates trackback validation with improved heuristics
• Exclusive top commentators widget with advanced display control
• Dashboard and advanced stats that show you where your links are getting clicked
• Free updates for life using the easy one click automatic update system
• more being added all the time!

You can find out more about CommentLuv Premium at CommentLuv.com

Warning! Geekiness ahead

Ok, so just had a wonderful time trying to set up a way to automatically backup my hostgator VPS to Amazon S3.

I did it with the help of some googling, head scratching and tricky bastardness so I thought I’d better document it here to remind me how to do it when I need to do it again.

I got most of the information from the post here and in the comments. Although, I had to piss about a lot to get it finally working. Mainly because of curly quotes in the original page, windoze line breaks and my monkey heritage.

(this is for VPS on Hostgator running Centos 5)

1. Create AmazonS3 bucket

Easy bit here, just create a bucket

2. Install S3 client for Linux

First need to install s3tools repo

cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://s3tools.org/repo/CentOS_5/s3tools.repo

Next need to install

yum install s3cmd

Answer the questions with Y

3. Configure s3cmd

s3cmd --configure

Enter in the access key and secret key from Amazon Security Credentials

4. Enable daily backups from WHM

You can select which accounts by clicking the button marked ‘select’

If it’s already configured, find out the backup directory by typing

grep BACKUPDIR /etc/cpbackup.conf

5. Create the log directories

mkdir /var/log/backuplogs

6. Write a script to automate the backup and save it as /root/dailybackup.sh

You should change the email and bucket name to reflect your own values

#!/bin/bash

##Notification email address
_EMAIL=youremail@yourdomain.com

ERRORLOG=/var/log/backuplogs/backup.err`date +%F`
ACTIVITYLOG=/var/log/backuplogs/activity.log`date +%F`

##Directory which needs to be backed up
SOURCE=/backup/cpbackup/daily/*.gz

##Name of the backup in bucket
DESTINATION=`date +%F`

##Backup degree
DEGREE=3

#Clear the logs if the script is executed second time
:> ${ERRORLOG}
:> ${ACTIVITYLOG}

##Uploading the daily backup to Amazon s3
/usr/bin/s3cmd -r put ${SOURCE} s3://yourbucketname/${DESTINATION}/ 1>>${ACTIVITYLOG} 2>>${ERRORLOG}
ret2=$?

##Sent email alert
msg="BACKUP NOTIFICATION ALERT FROM `hostname`"

if [ $ret2 -eq 0 ];then
msg1="Amazon s3 Backup Uploaded Successfully"
else
msg1="Amazon s3 Backup Failed!!\n Check ${ERRORLOG} for more details"
fi
echo -e "$msg1"|mail -s "$msg" ${_EMAIL}

#######################
##Deleting backup’s older than DEGREE days
## Delete from both server and amazon
#######################
DELETENAME=$(date --date="${DEGREE} days ago" +%F)

/usr/bin/s3cmd -r --force del s3://yourbucketname/${DELETENAME} 1>>${ACTIVITYLOG} 2>>${ERRORLOG}

7. Grant execute privilege to the script

chmod u+x /root/dailybackup.sh

8. Set up a cpanel hook to run the script after the backup has completed

nano /scripts/postcpbackup

enter this as the contents

#!/usr/bin/perl
system("/root/dailybackup.sh");

make it executable

chmod u+x /scripts/postcpbackup

That’s it!

In case of disaster, copy the file from Amazon s3 with

mkdir restore
s3cmd -r get s3://yourbucketname/2011-02-32/filename.gz restore

Notes
I changed the bash script so it only copies *.gz files
I wanted to change the time at which the cpbackup occurs so I went to ‘manage plugins’ in WHM and put ‘install and keep udpated’ tick on ‘cronconfig’ and then went to ‘configure cpanel cron times’ and set the time I wanted cpbackup to run.

Weekend Warrior!

I’ve been working feverishly to get premium commentluv ready for beta testing over the past 3 weeks and to give me a break on the weekends, I’ve been working on another premium plugin that I’ll be launching to the warrior forums with my JV partner before releasing it to the wild.

What is it called?

It’s got a working title of WP Aweber Gate

What does it do?

It allows you to protect post and page content from being viewed and downloads from being accessed by readers unless they are on your Aweber list.

Why would I want that?

• Run a membership site without all the trouble of having members register to your site
• Offer ethical bribes to people to join your list and know that only people that have subscribed can access the bribe
• Prevent your premium content from being shared with non subscribers
• Add bonus materiel to your site for your list subscribers only
• No need to change your theme to a membership theme just to have subscribers only content
• No need to buy expensive plugins like wishlist or DAP (this plugin will be MUCH cheaper!)
• There’s probably a lot more reasons that I haven’t thought of!

How does it work?

Just 4 easy steps to get your subscribers only gateway working:

Upload, activate, authorize, configure.

1. Upload
   Upload to your plugins directory or use the plugins page link in your dashboard
2. Activate
   Ummm, click activate!
3. Authorize
   Click the link to authorize the plugin to access your Aweber account
4. Configure
   Choose your desired list (or set to check all) and what you want to happen to non subscribers (off with their heads!).
   • You can show them a message which can contain HTML
   • You can automatically send a subscription to your desired list
   • You can forward them to any page on your site
   • You can forward them to any URL on the web

Let me see!

Here’s a set of video instructions on how to rebrand my recent premium plugin called WP Mail Ads, you can also download a free bonus plugin for commentluv users called The Dashboard Luvver Widget which shows a list of last blog posts from the people that have commented on your blog so you’ve always got somewhere to go and visit to get some luv!

You can only access the videos and downloads if you’re an email subscriber to one of my lists. Chances are that if you have downloaded the commentluv plugin or seen some of my videos you are already so all you need to do is enter your email address in the box and click the button, if you are on my list it’ll show you the content and cookie you so you can access all the locked content and downloads, if you’re not on one of my lists then it’ll auto subscribe you and then you just need to click the authorization link that arrives in your inbox. Sweet huh?

When can I get it?

I’ll be releasing it in a week or two once all the sales bumpf and bonuses have been put together! watch out for it!

btw… I have installed premium commentluv to comluv.com. You can read about it here. Premium CommentLuv Beta Testing

Hey! did you realize that you’re leaving money on the table? If you have registrations enabled or subscribe to comments activated on your WordPress blog then that’s exactly what you’re doing!

This is my first paid plugin release and I’m putting it out there for a fantastic price. Go and see at the warrior forum

I’ve been using it for my own personaly profit for over 1 year and my launch partner convinced me to release it as a plugin so others can leverage the space in the emails that people always open, those are the WordPress generated emails that tell them there’s a new reply to their comment or for resetting their password or.. well, there are lots of plugins that cause your blog to send emails and WP Mail Ads will allow you to monetize each and every one of them!

Video Intro

Here’s a 3 minute video that gives you all the details

hows that for a descriptive title eh? haha, that’s the exact term I used when I ran into trouble with some wordpress meta boxes on a custom admin page I was making for the new CommentLuv. I am using the WordPress functions for add_meta_box to add, you guessed it, meta boxes to a settings page.

Draggable killed the radio bar

ok, lame Queen song title parody I know but it’s true. I had a bar of radio buttons in one of those meta boxes and if I dragged and dropped the box to a new place, it lost it’s radio button dots!

When I dropped the sortable meta box, the happy little dot in the radio input would disappear which messed things up when I saved the settings because the form would not have a radio input with a status of checked any more.

jQuery rescues jQuery!

jQuery is frickin awesome and I love it. It’s the sole reason CommentLuv was able to become the plugin it is today. It’s also sometimes a little finicky and it does things in a particular way which causes some mild issues. This is one of them, it’s all due to jQuery cloning the contents of the sortable box when you drag it and then when you drop it, the radio button loses it’s happy little dot.

I did a mammoth amount of searching and could only find 2 instances of it happening elsewhere (here and here) and both instances said it was a bug/feature and didn’t provide a solution.

Geek me up, I’m goin in!

As a means to procrastinate, an unhealthily strong stubbornness bone and a burning sensation in my pants whenever I can’t do something that I want to do, I set about trying some code to re click the radio buttons after the meta box had been dropped after dragging.

Here it is, I hope you find it useful! (change the two instances of .wrap to whatever container your sortables are in)

// global script for commentluv premium settings pages
// workaround for bug that causes radio inputs to lose settings when meta box is dragged.
// http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/16972
jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    // listen for drag drop of metaboxes , bind mousedown to .hndle so it only fires when starting to drag
    jQuery('.hndle').mousedown(function(){
        // set event listener for mouse up on the content .wrap and wait a tick to give the dragged div time to settle before firing the reclick function
        jQuery('.wrap').mouseup(function(){store_radio(); setTimeout('reclick_radio();',50);});
    })
});
/**
* stores object of all radio buttons that are checked for entire form
*/
function store_radio(){
    var radioshack = {};
    jQuery('input[type="radio"]').each(function(){
        if(jQuery(this).is(':checked')){
            radioshack[jQuery(this).attr('name')] = jQuery(this).val();
        }
        jQuery(document).data('radioshack',radioshack);
    });
}
/**
* detect mouseup and restore all radio buttons that were checked
*/
function reclick_radio(){
    // get object of checked radio button names and values
    var radios = jQuery(document).data('radioshack');
    //step thru each object element and trigger a click on it's corresponding radio button
    for(key in radios){
        jQuery('input[name="'+key+'"]').filter('[value="'+radios[key]+'"]').trigger('click');
    }
    // unbind the event listener on .wrap  (prevents clicks on inputs from triggering function)
    jQuery('.wrap').unbind('mouseup');
}

Why guest blogging on ComLuv.com

I’ve just finished making a video presentation explaining why guest blogging really works, especially if you do it in the right place!

In the video, you see how Jane Sheeba of Find All Answers blog got a page 1 on Google for a term that has over 1.2 Billion results for her guest post on how to do business on facebook

Over the moon!

It’s not just Jane, lots of guest bloggers are over the moon with their search results! there are multiple page 1 results for some very popular terms.

I’m about to embark on the coding of the premium CommentLuv so I wont have time to make many blog posts so it’s a perfect time to encourage people to write them on ComLuv.com which helps me and helps them. awesome.

what do you think of the video?

It’s about bloody time! The new CommentLuv plugin is out there and getting lots and lots of downloads. Over 5000 in the first week actually which is a pretty big number!

The plugin is now standalone which means it will no longer require my expensive dedicated server to work which also means there’ll be no registering to my site to add a feed url or buy additional urls and static links.

Hurray! do you know what that will do to my support tickets? it’ll virtually decimate them! No more pointing people to the member page, no more spoon feeding them their feed urls or explaining how www.something.com is different to something.com . Oh, and no more crashed server in the middle of the night due to excessive load.

Actually, it’s the excessive server load and regular crashes that motivated me to turn the whole CommentLuv thing on it’s head and make it standalone. Once I do that, I can move away from dedicated hosting and put all my sites on a VPS that is scalable, a VPS that’s a bit closer to the majority of visitors to my sites. USA! USA! USA! lol

What’s next?

Well according to the stats at WordPress.org, it takes about a month for most people to update their plugin when they get the notification in their dashboard and so when the end of the month comes around, I’ll switch off the CommentLuv API for the wordpress plugin and set it to send back a message about having to upgrade to the latest plugin.

That’s sure to piss off a few people but, seriously, I can’t keep paying for this server out of my own pocket and I just don’t have the time to maintain the server. I just wanna make plugins!

I’m itching to do a cool facebook plugin, multi author blog plugin, the premium version of CommentLuv plugin and much much more but so far, I’ve been stuck fire fighting the bloody server! time to say goodbye and within this month!

But, before that can happen

I have to transfer all my existing minor sites to the new VPS

And then, design a new theme for comluv.com which is still going to be an awesome guest blogger site with oodles of pagerank and traffic and then move that to the VPS and then code the premium commentluv and then design the site to handle the purchases and then I have to launch the premium plugin and to do that I have to make the videos and to do that….. arrrrggh!