Tag Archives: plugin

Must-have WordPress Plugin: wp-db-backup

Posted on by John Rockefeller
"Add New Post" page of the WordPress...
Image via Wikipedia

I run a number of WordPress sites around the web, including the official Synn Studios Inc. blog, the Synndicus site, the iN Magazine site, and the blog you’re currently reading, Digital Oasis.

Trying to maintain a backup schedule for numerous blogs is a full-time job if you’ve got to do it all manually.

Thankfully, backing up your WordPress database is made simple by installing and using the WordPress plugin wp-db-backup. This handy plugin lets you download a copy of your WordPress database at that moment or schedule a backup to happen automatically. For my sites, I choose the latter.

A typical WordPress database backup is quite small and is easily E-Mailed. Once the plugin is installed, I set wp-db-backup to E-Mail my Gmail account a zipped copy of the database every day.

From there, I set up a Gmail mail filter to automatically Archive and label the zip as a backup. Whenever I need to restore a backup, I just open my Gmail and click the “Backups” label.

What sort of tools or plugins have you found to help you maintain your WordPress sites?

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Add Jack of All Links to Social Bookmarking Reloaded

Posted on by John Rockefeller

If you use the WordPress plugin Social Bookmarking Reloaded then you can benefit from the addition of the Jack of All Links social search engine icon on your pages. For the uninitiated, check out the previous article I wrote about the service. Otherwise, follow these instructions to add Jack of All Links support to Social Bookmarking Reloaded:

 

1. Update your sites.xml file.

Add these lines to the bottom of your “sites.xml” file just before the </social_sites> tag. The file “sites.xml” is located in the “./wp-content/plugins/social-bookmarking-reloaded” directory.

<site>
 <name>Jack of All Links</name>
 <url>http://www.jackofalllinks.com/action/submit?url={link}</url>
 <img>jackofalllinks_mini.png</img>
 <key>jackofalllinks</key>
</site>

 

2. Grab the Jack of All Links mini icon.

Download this image to your Social Bookmarking Reloaded directory (“./wp-content/plugins/social-bookmarking-reloaded”).

 

 

3. Enjoy!

After you do these two simple steps, logging into your blog’s administration panel will give you the ability to select Jack of All Links as one of the icons to show in your “Bookmark to:” bottom bar on each of your posts. For an example, look at the “Bookmark to:” bar on this post!