Tag Archives: The-Site

Regular WordPress Backups a Must!

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21

wordpress-logoLet me be the first to tell you that it wasn’t easy getting this site back up and running at all. It all started with my former hosting service closing down my site due to bandwidth issues. Apparently, the site was receiving too much traffic and disrupting other sites hosted on the same server.

It got worse when my former web host screwed me over and gave me a corrupt SQL database. I asked three times and they gave me alot of run around. I tried uploading the latest database when they finally provided it to me, but in the end I had to use the backup I made for myself in mid-July. The database provided was just no good. After this experience, I was glad that I made so many backups on my own. It saved my site!

As for 7milesdown.com itself, well its lost a ton of traffic, some good posts, and some entrecard drops, but I hope everyone will show a little love and support and help me get this blog off its feet again. I have most of the files for my custom template, but I’ll mess with that over the weekend. Right now I just want to savor the fact that my site is live again.

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Rotating Headers and Video for my WordPress

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7milesdown - Making Magic happen on a little Island Paradise_1216043600483While surfing the net today, I noticed a few simple features that I’ve been wanting to add to my site but never had the time to do.

The first feature I’ve always wanted was rotating headers. I’ve never been a fan of Flash headers because of long loading times on slower internet connections so I wanted something as simplistic as possible. This nifty script from Ma.tt was the perfect solution and was actually quite simple to use. Currently I have around ten random banners on rotation and plan on working on a few more as soon as I find time to do so.


The second feature I wanted to add was a bit harder to find. I love movie trailers and wanted hi-res ones for all my current film reviews. I had thought about using a Youtube plugin for the site, but none of them did exactly what i wanted and the trailers on Youtube were not very clean streams. After looking at several Youtube specific plugins, I decided to search for an independent script using google. After several hours of searching, I ran across the perfect solution for my needs. The Minds Chew Toy had a great script to pull hi-quality movie trailers from IFILM (SPIKE.COM). Through the use of custom fields allowing all my reviews to have their own unique trailer on the sidebar. It was the perfect solution.

If you have any suggestions to improve the site be sure to share. I’m always looking for ways to make my blog more enjoyable for all my readers.

How to stop Comment Spam

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askimetI’m not sure what everyone else uses, but the most reliable service to stop comment spam on my site has been the Askimet plugin for wordpress. I dont know what I would do without it. A little over six months ago I got hit with some serious comment spam and I had to do a few hours of manual deleting to get all the comments off my site. After this experience I decided to fight back in ensure my site was protected.

So far Askimet has really made a difference in the spam moderation on my blog. I don’t know why I decided not to use it from the beginning.

If you don’t have this installed, you definitely should consider it. You can download the most updated version here. Its has really helped with all the comment spam I’ve been getting. I’m not too sure why this is, but it has almost tripled in just a little over the past three months.

How much spam do you get on your site??? Any ideas to why I get so much?