January 18, 2008
I’ve been maintaining the website for our church and we use the WordPress blog script to display our meeting updates and other items. Since our blog is written in Simplified Chinese (GB2312), I had several problems restoring the MySQL database used by the blog and yet still display the Chinese characters right - if you go to one of our earliest posts, which has not been fixed for the problem, you know what I am talking about.
Basically some of the Chinese characters have been replaced by “?” (the question mark) and this makes certain phrases completely unrecognizable.
What were the causes for this problem? Here they are…
(1) The blog installed in the beginning used the charset of “latin1” and collation of “latin1_swedish_ci” in the blog’s MySQL database. But since version 2.2.x, WordPress uses “utf8” in MySQL database. To comply with this, I had to save the database in the non-compressed sql format and used a unicode-supported editor to replace “latin1″ with “utf8″ throughout the file. In several cases I used an editor that does not support unicode well to do the job, thus corrupted quite a few Chinese characters.
(2) The funny thing was, the problem still occurred even when no WordPress upgrade was carried out. It happened when I had no choice but to restore the database that was either saved or backed up from the control panel. For some reason, the MySQL database was not backed up properly by the server control panel - in this case the website is hosted on a server running DirectAdmin as the control panel. I tried one of the database backup plugins out there and still did not backup and restore properly.
What I found worked was the manual database backup using phpMyAdmin and then manual restore - again using phpMyAdmin. I have yet to find a way to do this automatically using a cron job on the server.
If you know a better solution to this, please let me know using the comment form below. Thanks!
Posted in Miscellaneous 
1 Comment »
January 16, 2008
Simple Machine Forum (SMF) is a pretty popular forum script but for some reason it lacks any RSS feed link in it. Now I have found an interesting article showing how to create RSS feeds by adding a few querystrings to the forum’s URL.
See how I use it to display five most recent posts of my bulletin board (using SMF) on one of my websites at DiaSolid.com - scroll down to the bottom to see the constantly updated five new posts.
Neat, huh?
Posted in Miscellaneous No Comments »
January 16, 2008
When you install the WordPress (WP) blog script fresh, you may or may not realize that it is not Search Engine Optimized (SEO). Mine was not until I installed this WP plugin called All in One SEO Pack today.
It took me only five minutes to do it - from downloading this handy WP plugin, unzipping it, uploading it to my WP plugins folder and then setting it up from the Options area after admin login
If you want your WP blog optimized for search engines, you should check out this plugin. There are other WP plugins that do similar work, but this was the one I picked and it is also the first one on WordPress’s list here.
If you find a plugin that is better than this one, please let me know. Thanks!
Posted in Handy Online Tools 1 Comment »
January 14, 2008
I’ve just received a private press release from Derek Gehl and the folks at The Internet Marketing Center, and I’m absolutely ITCHING to tell you what it says…
But I can’t!
The door to this groundbreaking announcement isn’t cracking open to the public until January 24th at 10am.
What I CAN tell you is this:
On this day, prepare for the unveiling of a full-on revolution that will finally level the playing field for regular people who want to escape the rat race, strike a clean slate in 2008, and make REAL money online. I’ll reveal more closer to the date as information trickles out of The Internet Marketing Center…
For now, watch a short video and get yourself a sneak peek here:
http://clicklinkto.com/at/2008video
To your success in 2008!
Aubrey
Posted in Announcements No Comments »
January 13, 2008
Dave Isaacs and Aaron Leighton have just released a brand new report that they are allowing me to offer to my blog visitors at NO COST.
They’ve also put together a 7-part ecourse detailing other helpful tips to build your online business.
I’ve just read the report called “Cash Pulling Blog Tactics Revealed” and must say, it’s very impressive.
You can grab your copy directly from: http://clicklinkto.com/at/cashblog
Oh and by the way, they’ve thrown in some really HIGH QUALITY UNADVERTISED bonuses too - one of which could help you to earn some extra cash almost immediately 
Posted in Miscellaneous No Comments »
December 31, 2007
I’ve just got a word from ClickBank super affiliate, Andrew Fox, that he has opened up his ‘hands on’ affiliate marketing training website where you will discover his huge success formula with FULL MOTION video, PDF guides and much more. He is going to close the door soon, as soon as certain spots are filled. You are now invited to check out his CB Affiliate Formula by clicking the following link:
http://clicklinkto.com/at/cbfomula/
Do it now before he closes his training which is very very affordable - just $47!
Oooops, that was the price I bought his training at, yesterday. Now it is $97! Check it yourself
Posted in Sell Others Products No Comments »
December 31, 2007
Armand Morin has just released a new video demonstrating how to generate massive traffic to your website. As of this writing, the video is located on the first page of his website. If it is pushed to another page, please browse the pages to find the video entitled “Massive Traffic” - click the following link to watch Armand’s video:
http://clicklinkto.com/at/armand
Note: it is free to watch this video - no cost, no opt-in, nothing attached. And you can even leave comments with a link back to your website 
Posted in Webmaster Tips 1 Comment »
December 25, 2007
Oooops! I see that you have entered a wrong visual verification code for one of the contact forms used by my websites.
Please click the “back” button on your browser to the previous page and refresh it before entering a correct verification code.
Posted in Miscellaneous Comments Off
December 16, 2007
I just got a copy of Russell Brunson’s new link brander online software, and am loving it. For years I have been looking for a tool like this. So what is it? Here is a short list:
- It is a link cutter - it shortens your long referral link
- It is a counter - it tracks how many people have clicked your link
- It is an affiliate link guard - prevent others from stealing your hard earned commissions.
- It is a power link cloaker - unlike other link cloaking software, this one makes sure your cookies stick and it even works with ClickBank Links!
- It is a viral marketing machine - it advertises your link inside others links as well as invite others to use it with you as the direct referrer.
This online tool is valued at $147, but you can download it free today at:
http://clicklinkto.com/at/linkbrand
BTW, this is a real link I just created with Russell’s link brander - click on it and see how it works. It should link to a website selling water splitting devices to be used on your car as supplemental fuel. Note that the actual link is loaded inside a frame but my affiliate ID gets saved as cookies before it is put inside the frame.
Posted in Handy Online Tools No Comments »
December 10, 2007
OK, let’s review the traditional way to selling ad space on your website. It is this… directly dealing with advertisers out there. This way is hard because…
- You need to have a busy website to attract advertisement opportunities - getting a lot of steady traffic to your website is not something you can do overnight.
- Even you have a busy website, you need to install a script to automate the ad submission and displaying process.
- You need to manage the ads and payments regularly - at lot of work even you have automated the whole thing.
So what is the quick and easy way to sell parts of your website space for ads? The answer is, join an online advertising network and just copy and paste a few lines of javascript codes on your website, then they will pay you to do that.
There are several ways they pay you for doing that, to list a few, pay per click (PPC), pay per impression (PPM), pay per play (PPP), etc.
The most popular one is Google’s Adsense program which uses the PPC model for serving ads related to your website content. However you get paid only when the ad link is actually clicked by your website visitors. No click, no pay - as simple as that.
Just recently a new PPP ad program starts to get popular. It uses the PPP - pay per play - platform to deliver audio ads on your website. It displays only once when a certain page containing the program codes loads so it is not that annoying. Better still, since it is PPP they pay you every time the ad is played. In other words, you get paid on 100% of your website traffic with NO CLICKS REQUIRED.
This is truly a Google Adsense alternative program with no clicks needed. It allows any webmaster to make money on every single visitor to their website with NO ACTION required from the visitor.
The closest example is TV advertising where big companies pay huge amount of money to show just a few seconds of a TV ad. The only difference is that the computer speaker of your site’s visitors is the ad display platform. Right now they are doing audio ads only. I am sure they will include video ads in their service lines.
This PPP ad program in now backed by one of the Top 5 major search engines. They even have a free built-in 2-tier affiliate program that everyone can join and get paid both ways: (1) displaying audio ads on your website and (2) referring others to its program and earning parts of the referrals ad displays. Click the following link to check for more information:
http://clicklinkto.com/at/ppp_ads/
Note that they are currently in pre-launch and their services will be available in a few weeks. So it is good to check it out and join early before the launch - what you heard the moment you came to this very page are just some sample audio ads. When they launch shortly, they will be replaced with real audio ads.
They say they will open the pre-launch for free signup for a limited time. When a certain numbers of accounts are filled up, they will close the door and you have to pay to get in. So join while it is still free!
Please leave your mark and comment on this using the form below. Thank you!
Posted in Sell Ads on Your Site No Comments »
I am a father of three kids with my dear wife Margaret. I started internet marketing since 2000 and now have gained enough experience and technical know-hows to share with you. Enjoy!
