Very early in the installation process, your system is scanned to determine compatibility issues. When there are possible conflicts detected, the installation process pauses and provides a list of the incompatible hardware and software apps. In my case, there were several items that were identified, including:

• Audacity
• Symantec Endpoint Protection
• Dell 725 printer
• Compaq iPaq ActiveSync Mobile Device
• Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Flash Media Controller

And there were a few others as well. The error message icon next to the TI controller was scary, a big red ‘X’. Since this is integrated hardware, it’s not something I can necessarily upgrade. A bit of research seemed to lead me to the possibility that a driver upgrade would be sufficient. I downloaded the driver to my desktop but decided to wait until the need arose to install it.

In some instances, as in Audacity and a couple of other programs, I simply had to upgrade the application to get rid of the error message.

Before the installation, I had used Symantec Endpoint Protection to do a full system scan, after which I disabled it.

I was no longer using either the Dell 725 printer or the Compaq iPaq, so I decided to leave that part of it alone for the time being. I proceeded with the installation.

Nearly four hours later, during the very last portion of the last step in the upgrade to Windows 7, the installation bombed. Thinking that maybe it was a fluke, I tried again. Same thing, nearly four hours later.

I decided to uninstall Symantec. It could be replaced with another anti-virus program (there are some excellent free programs available). I also wanted to get rid of the Dell Printer. However, the uninstall program (via control panel) didn’t work – although it appeared to work, right through the reboot. It just never went away.

Time for some minor hacking. I removed the Dell Printer subdirectory in the Program Files folder, and then used TuneUp Utilities to clean the registry, and defragment it once again (I’d done this during the pre-installation preparation, as noted in the Upgrade Vista to Windows 7 post).

I was not able to uninstall the Compaq iPaq device driver or ActiveSync software because it was no longer there. I suspected that there were some stray references to it in the registry (Windows programs don’t always do a good job of cleaning up after themselves). I moved forward with the installation once again.

Once again, it failed. I was starting to have a sinking feeling about this. I tried to change my attitude toward Vista, which it seemed like I’d have to keep living with for awhile longer. I began some serious research into the Compaq iPaq/ActiveSync issue.

One complication is that with Vista, the supporting application changed from ActiveSync to Windows Mobility Center, so now it seemed I had two parts of the problem to chase down. My initial research led to no clear path.

Time for some major hacking. First I created a restore point, and backed up my registry to the desktop.  I then searched through the registry for all references to Compaq iPaq, and deleted all the associate keys that I could (not for the faint of heart). There was one key that wouldn’t delete at all, giving me only one of Windows’ sonic alarms. I also deleted some of the data associated with the keys, anything at all with the Compaq reference.

Things were getting messy, and I wasn’t feeling like I’d nailed it. I restored the registry, only some if it didn’t restore properly – another error message. Ick. At that point I decided to restore my system back to the saved restore point.

I did a complete system search for all references to the phrase ‘Compaq iPaq’, and another search for ‘ActiveSync’.  Several files with the prefix ‘wceusbsh’ showed up in the search results. Some Google research indicated that I should delete all those files. Not being sure, I hesitated.

More research. This time I found a forum that suggested that I run a utility called USBDeview.exe. The forum post was addressing a different concern, though, as someone was having difficulty syncing their iPaq with Vista. I decided to give it a try.

The utility is a self-executable, so no installation was needed. The purpose of the utility is to display the various ports and list the hardware that is currently assigned to the port. Seems that even though the associated hardware, drivers, and software had been removed, the port assignment remained.

There were two port assignments to the Compaq device, and I deleted them both.

To clean things up a bit, I defragged the registry once more, and initiated the Windows 7 installation once again.

Bingo! This time, after going through the compatibility check, the installation did not halt. For the next several hours I kept my fingers crossed, but I had a good feeling about it this time. In the end, success.

So now I’m happily learning my way around the Windows 7 OS. It was a frustrating challenge, but in the end, there’s a measure of satisfaction in having figured it out.

If you, too, have compatibility issues, keep digging. Don’t take on anything you’re not comfortable with (get help if you need it), but keep at it. As long as you meet the minimum Windows 7 requirements, and Windows 7 is a valid upgrade path for you, there is probably a solution at hand. Good luck!

Why Upgrade Vista to Windows 7 Operating System?

The first question to ask is why you want to upgrade Vista to Windows 7. Vista is known to have many inherent problems, and perhaps you’re frustrated with those issues. For example, Vista has always had compatibility issues, both with existing applications and the hardware that you may have installed on your computer. The hardware problems come in the form of lack of proper driver support for common devices such as printers. Suffice it to say that the printer industry reaped some new profits when Windows Vista was introduced back in November 2006. There have also been performance issues, security problems, and privacy concerns associated with Vista.

If you’re planning to purchase a new computer within the next year or so, it may not make much sense to upgrade Vista to Windows 7. Your new computer will come with Windows 7 installed, so it may make more financial sense to put the upgrade cost toward the cost of the new computer.

Is Your System Compatible with Windows 7?

Before attempting to upgrade Vista to Windows 7, you first need to make sure that your system CAN be upgraded.

The first step is to make sure that your system meets the minimum requirements for Windows 7. The core requirements are as follows:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Complete information is available here:

Windows 7 System Requirements

The next step is to run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. This downloadable tool will scan your computer and identify any potential issues with your hardware and applications. It’s available here:

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

In my case, there were some incompatibilities, but nothing significant. I uninstalled a couple of programs, and updated others. You may also need to update some device drivers. It’s best to get everything as up to date as possible before proceeding to update Vista to Windows 7 OS.

Get Ready to Upgrade Vista to Windows 7

So you’ve decided to upgrade Vista to Windows 7. While it’s tempting to just pop in the Windows 7 CD and click on ‘upgrade’, you need first to properly prepare your computer. By this point, you’ve already determined that your system meets the minimum requirements, and have taken any necessary actions recommended by the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

But there’s more to do. While some of these steps may not be required, they do constitute a best-practices approach to your upgrade.

Here’s what I did, and what I recommend you do as well before you upgrade Vista to Windows 7:

1. Run CCleaner, a free utility that will help optimize your system by removing cookies, history files, temporary files, and more. It’s available here: CCleaner by Piriform.

2. Run a virus scan on your system and then disable your anti-virus program. I use Symantec Endpoint Protection, and performed a complete scan, not the Quick Scan. I then disabled it.

3. Defragment your registry. I use TuneUp Utilities for this.

4. Check your hard drive for any disc errors. Perform a thorough scan, not an abbreviated quick scan. Again I use TuneUp Utilities, but this can be performed equally well with the command line instruction, chkdsk, or from within Windows. See Run Check Disk in Vista for instructions.

5. Defragment your hard drive. Again, I use Tune-Up Utilities, but this can be easily run directly through Windows (go to Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Fragmenter.

Ready? Set? Go!

Now that you’ve cleaned up and prepared your system, you’re clear to proceed to upgrade Vista to Windows 7.

One very important caveat. At the beginning of the installation process, you’ll be asked to choose between an ‘upgrade’ option and a ‘customized installation’ option. The ‘customized installation’ is essentially what’s known as a ‘clean install’ – your hard drive will be wiped out, and Windows will be installed with the customization options you select.

If you want to preserve your existing files, programs, and settings, you MUST select the ‘upgrade’ option.

OK, now you’re ready to say goodbye to Vista and upgrade Vista to Windows 7.

What Is An Avatar?

An avatar is a small image, either a photograph or other image of your choice, that you wish to associate with your online profile. It will then appear next to your name or online handle when you post to blogs, forums, and other websites. Most people select an image for their avatar that in some way represents or characterizes their persona – a photo of themselves, an animal or flower, a company logo, and the like.

Until somewhat recently, if you wanted to add an avatar to different websites, blogs, or forums, you had to create your avatar and then upload it individually to each website – a bit of a hassle. What has since become very popular is the use of gravatars, or ‘globally recognized avatars’. The gravatar is an avatar that will follow you from site to site across the web.

Creating an Avatar

The standard size for an avatar is a small square, 80 x 80 pixels. However, there may be some websites that utilize a 128 x 128 pixel square, so it may be better to begin with an image that size, and let the system scale it down for you. That way, the resolution of your image will be retained. If you start with a small image and the system scales it up, you are likely to lose resolution and the image will appear fuzzy.

The other consideration is to select an image that will provide adequate contrast when reduced to 80 x 80. Avatars are small, so when you add an avatar, you’ll want to use an image that looks good at that size. At that small size, you still want to be able to clearly see what it is.

How to Add an Avatar to Blog Comments and Forum Posts

Here’s how to easily add an avatar that you can use across the web.

1. Go to Gravatar.com and create an account.

2. Upload the image you want to use for your avatar.

3. Link the image to the email address you used upon signup.

Then, whenever you submit a blog post or comment using the address stored in your Gravatar account, the image associated with that email address will automatically appear in your post! No further uploading is necessary.

If you have multiple email addresses you can utilize the same or different gravatar simply by adding the email address to your Gravatar account, uploading another image, and linking that image to the new email address.

For instance, some people may want to use one image for ‘personal’ posts, perhaps a photo of themselves, and use a different image, like a company logo, for more business-related posts. Once uploaded, all you need to do when posting is use the email address that is linked to the image you want to appear in that post.

With respect to older versions of WordPress, there are plugins that can be used to assist you in creating your Gravatar. You can download one such plugin here:  WP-Gravatar. However, as of WordPress version 2.5, plugins are no longer needed (at least for basic avatar management), since gravatar functionality is now built-in. See the WordPress Codex for more information on using gravatars.

As you can see, it’s easy to add an avatar that can be used in blogs, forums, and other sites across the web. However, as a webmaster or WordPress blog administrator, there may be some downsides to the use of gravatars on your site. Look for that in an upcoming article.

Method #1: Exclude Pages from WordPress by Modifying Code

Before you modify your theme code, be sure to backup the file to be modified. Usually the code to be modified will be found in the header, footer, or sidebar. Locate the following code:

<?php wp_list_pages();?>

When the parentheses are empty as shown above, all pages will be displayed. However, you can selectively exclude pages in WordPress by specifying the page IDs within the parentheses, as shown in the following example:

<?php wp_list_pages('exclude=14,27' ); ?>

Notice that you have to use the ‘exclude’ condition and must also specify the IDs of those pages you wish to exclude. In this example, pages with the IDs of 14 and 27 will be excluded from the header, footer, or sidebar.If you’ve modified your permalink structure as I’ve suggested you do (see the post entitled The BEST Permlink Structure for WordPress), the page ID will not be displayed in the URL of the published page. But it can be easily seen when you’re in page edit mode.

To find the page ID, click on Pages in the left column of your WordPress admin panel, and click on the page name whose ID you’re looking for. The ID will be displayed within the URL in the address bar (look for ‘post=xx’, where xx is the page ID number). It will look something like this:

http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/page.php?action=edit&post=96

Save your modified file, and you’re good to go. Bear in mind, though, that if you change your theme, you’ll have to modify the same files in the new theme.

Method #2: Exclude Pages from WordPress with a Plugin

While modifying your PHP code as described above is pretty straightforward, I always choose not to mess with code if there’s an easier and equally effective alternative.  A very effective plugin to easily exclude pages from WordPress is the Exclude Pages plugin, readily available from the WordPress plugin repository.

Once installed and activated, this plugin will add a checkbox (to each page or post) entitled ‘include this page in menus’ , which is checked by default. To prevent the page or post from being displayed in the usual areas, uncheck the box and click the Update button (or the Publish button if not previously published).

You can also exclude pages from WordPress with the pageMash plugin, which allows you to perform other page management tasks as well.

Method #3: Exclude Pages from WordPress with an Enhanced Theme

This last method is one in which you have only indirect control. There are some themes whose design allows you to modify menu structures without touching any code. If your theme offers this option, you’ll likely find it under Appearance > Menus.

I can’t provide you with specific usage instructions for this, as the interface design would be theme-dependent. But it’s pretty intuitive, almost like the drag-and-drop widget area that you’ve gotten accustomed to seeing. Once again, the caution here is that changes you make to a theme will be lost if and when you change themes.  It would be wise to create a site backup so that changes can be easily restored if you change your mind.

For a terrific backup solution, keep an eye out for my upcoming review on the BackupBuddy backup/restore/migrate plugin.

And what’s amazing is that you can pay whatever you want! In Dave’s own words:

At this time, you can have all of my workshops for whatever you’re in the spirit to pay.

Dave is simply asking for a minimum of $20, and you’ll get all eight training packages – each of which had been priced at $197. Here’s what’s included (descriptions are direct from The Launch Coach website):

Creating Products that Sell

From coming up with highly marketable ideas to creating the audio, video and text content that people want to buy, you’ll learn it all here. If you’re new, there’s step-by-step to get you started. If you’re a product-making veteran, there are advanced strategies to learn as well.  Was $197.

Building A Responsive List

You’ll be walked through how to create a online following that trusts you enough to buy from you repeatedly. This will step you through how to set up a list, get people hungry to get on it, and get them opening every email you send. And when you’ve learned that, I’ll show you how to get them to click your “buy now” links when you’re ready to sell to them. Was $197.

High-Conversion Sales Pages

My sales pages convert very, very well and I’ll share techniques for writing great sales pages – even if you have no experience at all. You don’t need to be a $10,000-a-page copywriter to sell effectively, and I’ll show you exactly how to make writing solid copy much, much easier. Was $197.

Mastering Your Sales Funnel

Every customer’s readiness to buy from you is different at different times, and if you want to make more sales it’s important to develop a number of offerings across the price spectrum. I’ll show you how to bring people into your “sales funnel” and make multiple sales to more customers, boosting your bottom line. Was $197.

Optimizing Your Blog For Sales

If you’re not making it easy on customers to buy from your website, you’re missing out on a lot of sales. In fact, you need to make it more than easy – you need to guide visitors through specific paths that get them to become customers. I’ll show you intelligent ways to engage visitors more so that they’re eager to purchase what you’re selling. Was $197.

Becoming Incredibly Productive

Packing in all the things you need to do isn’t easy, but I’ll show you how to make it easier – and to accomplish more than you ever thought possible.  (And I won’t stuff a system down your throat – these are strategies you can customize for the way you like to work.)  Was $197.

Becoming A Big Player In Your Niche

The more influence you can develop in your niche, the easier it will be to run large product launches, create lucrative joint ventures and get more of what you want in many other areas of your business. Influence building isn’t rocket science, but there’s a definite art to it. I’ll show you how to grow your stature quickly and effectively. Was $197.

Getting Affiliates To Sell For You

A big percentage of my sales came from the promotional efforts of my affiliates, and I’d like to show you how to experience the same in your business. Attracting and managing affiliates isn’t as easy as some marketers would have you believe – it takes finesse and hard work – and I’ll show you how to use your time and effort most effectively. Was $197.

****

Once you purchase the complete Launch Coach training, you’ll be provided with a password and a link to the training area. You can download everything from there – audios, videos, PDFs, and mindmaps. Each Launch Coach training package is massive (I know – I bought it) – so clear off your hard drive!

The Launch Coach Free eBook Offer

At $20 (more if you can) for $1576 worth of product, purchasing the Launch Coach training workshops is extremely low risk. Moreover, my understanding is that Dave has encountered some very difficult challenges in his personal life, and is truly grateful for your donation.

But this isn’t about charity. This is about building your business. Yes, you’ll be helping Dave – but in doing so, you’ll be receiving information that could make a huge difference to you in your business-building. I made a donation and downloaded every worksheet, mindmap, video tutorial, and audio file that was available. I’m blown away by what’s included. This is an opportunity that simply doesn’t come around very often.

You can grab this amazing package here:

The Launch Coach

Please hurry and get this while it’s still available.

And speaking of your business, Dave is offering four business-building ebooks, all Launch Coach consultation-quality, for free. The topics covered are:

• 7 Steps to Playing a Much Bigger Game
• 7 Steps to Networking Your Way to A-Listers Fast
• 7 Simple Income Streams (That You Can Actually Create)
• Start Making Money with Your Products in Three Days

To get your free ebooks, just go to the Launch Coach Library, plugin your email address, and you’ll receive your dowload link via email.

Get it all while you still can!

Quick post today, as I want to get this information in your hands as quickly as possible. Until January 31, 2012, iThemes is offering 44% off all of their products.

Their products include a full suite of superb premium WordPress themes, as well as an array of plugins, including the popular WordPress backup and migration tool, BackupBuddy.

Their themes are among the most powerful and easily customizable WordPress themes available. With iThemes Builder, you can actually create your own layouts and perform other customizations, all without touching a line of code.  You can even have different layouts on different pages, unlike most themes which provides a ‘one size fits all’ layout.

The themes are functional and beautifully designed. You can view all of their themes here:

iThemes WordPress Themes

Find the theme you want, and then use the iThemes coupon code ‘community’ during checkout (code is not case sensitive).

The iThemes coupon code will also slash 44% off the cost of all of their plugins as well, including BackUpBuddy, which is the backup solution I use here on this website. BackUpBuddy doesn’t just back up your database, as many plugins do, but also backs up your themes, widgets, plugins, and more. In addition to being able to backup and restore your entire website, Backup Buddy is a complete migration tool as well. Need to migrate your website from one server/web host to another? Backup Buddy can do it.

I’ll be doing an in depth  review of BackupBuddy in an upcoming post, so look for it. In the meantime, checkout the full features on the company website:

BackupBuddy – WP Backup, Restored, Migration Plugin

Select the version of BackupBuddy you want (single site license, 10-site license, or unlimited license) and use the iThemes coupon code ‘community’ during checkout.

There’s a ton of stuff on the website, lots of other plugins and some educational materials as well. I believe that the iThemes coupon code will work for any of their products.

Here are a couple of freebies they offer:

Free iThemes EBook

Free PluginBuddy EBook

So if you’re looking for a flexible and professional WordPress theme, or want to protect your blog from hackers with an effective backup solution, take advantage of the iThemes coupon code while you can.

Once again, the iThemes coupon code that will get you the 44% discount is ‘community’.  They only offer these huge discounts twice a year, so don’t delay.

If you do a Google search for ‘best permalink structure’, the top search result (as of today) will tell you to do exactly what you should NOT do. And that blogger is not alone. The same advice can be found all over the web. But did you know that a bad permalink structure can adversely affect how your website performs? For that reason, it’s important to peek behind the curtain a little, so you can understand what the best permalink structure is, and why.

First, a simple definition. The term ‘permalink’, or permanent link, refers to a URL on your site that points to a specific blog post or page. These URL locations for your blog posts and pages are intended to be permanent links that would remain unchanged indefinitely, for one very good reason: so that you can continue to gain the SEO benefit from the backlinks that you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

By default, WordPress uses a simple numeric structure that’s based on the post (or page) ID. The code for the default permalink structure is:

/%post_id%/

And it would yield a URL that looks something like this:

http://www.blogforfunandprofit.com/?p=123

The ’123′ at the end is a variable which will match the number of the post or page ID. The advantage to this structure is that it can be processed very quickly by WordPress. The disadvantage is that it carries no SEO benefit whatsoever. In designing the best permalink structure, the idea would be to incorporate a keyword phrase into the permalink URL.

This is why there are so many who recommend one of the following as the best permalink structure:

/%postname%/
/%category%/%postname%/

While both of these permalink structures can provide the SEO benefit that you seek (by incorporating your desired keyword phrase), there’s a different price to pay. That’s because while WordPress is adept at processing numeric values in a URL, it doesn’t do as well with text characters.

Essentially WordPress needs to know whether your URL is referring to a blog post or a page. In trying to make this distinction, there’s some processing going on behind the scenes. When the interpretation is ambiguous, a lot of extra code is stored in the database to try to make it clearer. Only then can WordPress locate the right URL.

If you have a small site, you can probably get away with this. But over the long term, as the size of your website grows, it will take longer for WordPress to query the database and figure out what it needs to display. To your visitors, this means increasingly longer page load times.

For those of you interested in some of the more technical details of this process, there’s an excellent discussion of it here:

Otto on WordPress

So What Is the Best Permalink Structure?

The best permalink structure is one that will both provide you with the SEO benefits that you seek and at the same time, make it easier for WordPress to process the URL request.

From the WordPress Codex itself:

A note about performance: Permalink structures beginning with %category%, %tag%, %author%, or %postname%, require more server resources to resolve than structures such as, Day and Name, Month and Name, and %post_id%-%postname%.

In other words, the best permalink structure is one which starts with a numeric field, such as the year or post ID. A couple of examples:

/%year%/%postname%/
/%post_id%/%postname%/
/%year%/%month%/%category%/%postname%/

Note that each example begins with a numeric variable and ends with the name of the post (%postname%).

It’s really important to determine what the best permalink structure is for your needs and use it from the outset. Permalink structures can be modified, but when you do that, the individual URLs on your blog will change, and all of the backlinks you’ve built will be rendered invalid. There are ways to to redirect the old links to the new, but if you’ve got a large site with hundreds of pages, the process of doing this is cumbersome at best.

Once you’ve concluded what the best permalink structure is for your needs, it’s easy to set up. In your WordPress Dashboard, click on Settings on the left panel and select Permalinks. You’ll see something like this:

Notice that in this example, the Custom Structure setting is selected, with a value of /%year%/%postname%/.

Now that you know what the best permalink structure to use on your WordPress blog is, take a few moments to set it up properly. You’ll be glad you did.

What’s a Favicon?

The term favicon, which stands for “favorites icon”, is a small graphic, typically 16 x 16 pixels in size, that is used by websites as a sort of branding image. This small image is displayed in the browser’s address bar, or next to the website’s ULR in the bookmark list. In those browsers that support tabs, the favicon is also displayed next to the website’s title.

How to Generate, Locate, or Create a Favicon

Before you can add a favicon to WordPress, you have to either make one or generate one. There are some websites that will generate a favicon for you with an image that you provide (uploaded from your computer). One such service is located at FreeFavicon.

If you use such a service, remember that you don’t have a lot of space to work with, so don’t choose an image with a lot of detail. You should also start with a square image, since the resulting favicon itself will be square (16 x 16 pixels). Or, you may use the cropping tool in any image editor to modify your rectangular image, and/or to home in on the desired section of your stored image.

The same site also has an abundance of freely downloadable favicons, organized by category, that you can use. You may find other free favicon collections by doing a web search.

If you can’t find a free favicon to your liking, use an image of your own, or create one with a graphics program. You can find a free graphics program at Gimp.org. It may be a bit of trial and error at first, since the 16 x 16 pixel space allotted for the favicon is pretty teeny.

Be sure to save your downloaded, modified, or created image with the file name ‘favicon.ico’. Without that specific name, the image will not be recognized as a favicon.

So by now you’ve either downloaded a free image, or created your own by:

1. Cropping the desired image to make it square

2. Resizing it to 16 x 16 pixels

3. Saving it as ‘favicon.ico’.

How to Manually Add a Favicon to WordPress

OK, you now have your downloaded or created favicon.ico.  Now how do you add your favicon to your WordPress blog? Easy as falling off a log. You simply need to upload your favicon to two locations on your website. Fire up your FTP program and then do this:

1. Upload your new favicon.ico to the main folder of your current WordPress theme. This will enable the browser display of your favicon (address bar, bookmark list, and browser tab).

2. Also upload the file to the main directory of your website (http://mydomain.com/theme/ if your blog is at root level, or http://mydomain.com/blog/theme if your blog is located in a subdirectory named ‘blog’). This will allow for the display of your favicon in your RSS subscribers’ feedreaders.

3. In many cases, you’ll need to edit the header.php file of your theme to make the favicon appear. In the theme editor, open header.php, and just below the <head> tag, paste in this line:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/favicon.ico" />

Save your changes and refresh your browser to view your favicon.

Huh? Were you thinking that you don’t like messing with code? Can’t blame you there. So I’ve saved the best till last.

How to Add a Favicon to WordPress with MaxBlogPress Favicon Plugin

It really doesn’t get any easier than this.

1. Go to MaxBlogPress and download the favicon plugin.

2. Log into your WordPress admin panel, go to Plugins, and upload and activate the plugin.

3. Go into the plugin settings, and fill out and submit the short registration form. Once submitted, you can select an icon from the library included with the plugin. Alternatively, the plugin allows you to upload your own icon.

4. Save your changes. Refresh your browser, and voila! You’ve added a favicon to your WordPress blog!

Though it seems like an incidental point relative to the importance of creating great content for your website, a favicon lends a sense of professional to your site, and helps you to brand your image. It will be far more meaningful than the default favicon of your browser software that otherwise will appear there.

The software works by performing an automatic content search on your computer and backing it up to a USB storage device, such as a flash drive or external hard drive. (Given the amount of content on my computer, I’ll be using the external hard drive!).

The device you back up to does not have to be a dedicated device; that is, you can still use it for purposes other than backing up.

You can get more information about the product here:

Clickfree Automatic Backup Software

This was a special the company was running during the week of the Consumer Electronics Show (last week). But when their servers crashed due to overwhelming demand, the company decided to extend the offer for a few days.

You can get it for free right now by going here:

https://sites.fastspring.com/clickfree/instant/clickfreepersonal?coupon=CESFREE

But please hurry, as there’s not much time left. And incidentally, that’s no affiliate link. It’s just a great deal I wanted you to know about.

And after you download the Clickfree Backup software, don’t let it just sit on your hard drive. Start using it!

Why Turn Off Comments in Your WordPress Blog?

There are a number of reasons why bloggers may want to know how to turn off comments in WordPress. Here are just a few:

1. With WordPress continuing to grow as a robust content management system (CMS), business owners want their WordPress site to look more like a static web site. In such cases, creating and maintaining a thread of communication becomes secondary to the direct delivery of products, services, and information.

2. Some blog owners may want to turn off comments simply because they don’t want the level of involvement and maintenance needed to read and reply to comments.

3. Other site owners may simply be frustrated by the amount of comment spam they’ve been receiving (though there are better ways to increase the signal to noise ratio).

4.  There may threads that are outdated, or have obtained so many comments that the thread of conversation is cumbersome to follow, or other threads whose time has simply come – the conversation has matured and reached its logical conclusion.

5. Certain types of entries simply don’t need to be commented on.  Site owners may want to elicit feedback and questions, but probably not so much on an ‘About Us’ page or on a ‘Contact’ page, for example.

Depending on the situation, the blog owner may want to either turn off comments site-wide, or do so with selective pages or posts. Here’s how to do both.

How To Turn Off Comments Globally

1. Log into the WordPress admin panel.

2. On the left sidebar, click on Settings and the select Discussion.

3. In the Default article settings section, deselect the option to Allow people to post comments on new articles.

** Note that if your blog already has some posts or pages with comments, those comments will remain. Comments will be disabled from this point forward, but old comments will not be removed.

How To Turn Off Comments by Post or Page

1. Log into the WordPress admin panel.

2. Open the post or page for which you wish to disable comments.

3. Click the Screen Options link on the upper right to reveal a list of features you can apply to your post or page. Place a check in the Discussion box.

4. Scroll down to the bottom of the post or page, and turn off the comments options that are now displayed. To disable comments for this single post or page, uncheck the Allow Comments box.

Note that checking or unchecking an option in Screen Options does not itself enable or disable the feature. Rather, it allows the feature to be displayed on your post or page screen. Once displayed, you can then choose to enable or disable the feature.

By the way, you’ll notice that I have not turned off comments for this post. So…talk to me!