WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress

Is finally on the market.  It took nearly half a year with over 218 contributors to get it out.  I’ve had the opportunity to test it on 9 different websites and you’re going to love all the new features and the smooth sleek feel of the new default theme.  The new default theme called “Twenty Ten” is a sexy looking theme that allows you to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, short links, custom menus, post types and taxonomies.  In addition it has finally merged MU and WordPress giving us a new multi-site functionality which makes it possible now to run one blog or ten million from the same installation.  You can even upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click.  But the feature that will be get the most praise, especially from beginners and novice’s will be the new contextual Help on every screen with a quick pop down menu.

WARNING: Before you get too excited with all these new features you MUST perform a few functions before you upgrade to the new WordPress 3.0. Read below and don’t forget to watch the enclosed video(below)

WordPress Backup –  2 Easy Steps for Back up

Heed the warning I posted above.  In less than a week I’ve had a dozen clients who upgraded and now they can’t recover their posts…so they’ll have to recreate every post, comment and links they had in their website.  Follow these basic steps and you’ll be able to upgrade and continue on with your website with virtually no issues.

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Back up your WordPress Site includes two parts: Files and Database.

Files: In this first step we’ll walk you step by step on backing up your Files. The easiest way to do this is to check with your Website Host and see if they provide backup software, and if they do simply follow the instructions.  However, if they don’t provide that kind of software simply access your control panel commonly referred to as CPanel and then copy your Files within the public html folder.  And yes, all of them…and save them to your desktop, (you can reduce their size by creating a zip file on your desktop).  If you’re more comfortable using an FTP client, simply create a folder on your desktop and then copy your sites Files using your ftp client software and save them in that newly created folder.

Database: Back up your WordPress “database” should be done regularly so if you’ve never done this, this is a good time to learn how to back up your “database.”  phpMyAdmin is one of the most popular database management systems used by most website hosts.  Simply access your CPanel, Direct Admin, Ensim, Plesk, vDeck or Ferozo.  All of my sites utilize CPanel so I can give you the step by step instructions how to back up your database using this tool.  If you need help with the others…feel free to email me or consult your website host administrators.  CPanel: On your main control panel look for MySQL logo and click the link to MySQL Databases.  On the next page look for phpMyAdmin link and click to access.  Next, click on the “Database” link to open your database…typically you can find this at the top left hand corner.  Look for the database you created for “a” particular website.  If you have multiple database its because you have multiple websites within your Web Hosting account(i.e., I have 5 sites with one hosting company).  Once you’ve clicked on the database you’re backing up you’ll notice an “Export” button at the very top.  Another screen will open and it will require you to select specific boxes…use this list below to select the correct ones:

  1. Select ONLY those that hold your WordPress site.
  2. Check the “Add DROP TABLE” box.
  3. Check the “Complete inserts” box.
  4. Check the “Save as File” box
  5. Check the “None” for compression. If your database is very large use a compression method.
  6. Click Go. The data will now be saved into your computer.

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Once you’ve backed up both your websites Files and Database go ahead and upgrade your version to WordPress 3.0, either within your WordPress dashboard or download the zip file and then manually upgrade using an FTP client.  Use either one of these links below depending on the option you decide:

WordPress Download

Upgrade within your Dashboard

https://videopress.com/v/wp-content/plugins/video/flvplayer.swf?ver=1.21