Hello, today I’ve managed a major accomplishment that has been nagging at me for more than a year. On my personal blog, which is powered by WordPress, I have been running an ‘old’ version of WordPress. Most of the core features between these releases were the same, though the backend experienced many upgrades to the user Dashboard allowing one change post titles, categories, tags, and publication statuses much more easily. However, the process of manually updating an old version of WordPress requires several steps and potentially takes several hours. But once you’ve upgraded to a new release, you will never have to go through this tedious process again. That is because newer WP versions care updated automatically with the click of a button! Certainly a great feature to have, and sure beats backing up all your files, MySQL database, and replacing all the files manually. Yet this is what I did today, on a Mac no less. Here are some of the most important tutorials you will need for manually updating WordPress:

Updating WordPress – Excellent tutorial explaining how to manually update your installation.

Before updating you should check the requirements and backup your WordPress installation directories as well as the MySQL database. It is critical to do this step correctly, and verify the backup’s integrity. I backed up the original WordPress installation on my local hard drive as well as making a backup copy of the installation on my server, as well.

Backing Up Your WordPress and MySQL Database

Here is a link to the extended update instructions (which I found unnecessary). In a nutshell, to perform a manual update you will need to:

• Download the latest release here
• Delete the old wp-includes and wp-admin directories, but save your wp-config.php file aside
• Upload the new WordPress wp-includes and wp-admin directories you’ve downloaded from step 1, and replace all files in the root directory of your host

You are basically done!

Westburydiagnostics.com

- Westbury Diagnostics, Inc. is a biotech company specializing in microbial testing, antibody generation, and consulting. We worked directly with the President on marketing and branding the business online over the last three years.

I wanted to share this highly effective WordPress plugin with you, called Contact Form 7. It was developed in 2009 and runs well with the newest version of WordPress at this time, version 2.9.2. The plugin allows you to design a custom page where the user can enter data into the form and email you. It is extremely simple to set up through the WordPress Plugins by clicking on the plugin and customizing your fields. The User Guide is extremely clear and the plugin itself has been rated very highly (4/5 stars) on the WordPress.org webpage. Some cool features are that when you build out a contact form, you can simply copy and paste a compact snippet of code into your page to display the form and that forms completed and entered on your website are sent directly to your email address. Look at our page here - Contact Us, to see an example of the plugin in action.

This year we have been integrating social networking features into our clients websites more than even. Here are three popular tools we use to increase traffic.

Rootsoncampus.org

- Designed to impress potential donors, increase professional image and attract participants. Non-profit 501(c)(3) youth group in operation for +3 years. Worked with founder and director to make vision a reality.

Fobip.org

- Educational program run by the Center for Biotechnology. Mini-MBA for scientists, preparing professionals for industry careers. Taught by business leaders & executives. Website launched in ’09 covers news, events, and job opportunities.

Sbraunion.org

- Set up wordpress blog for org and trained members. Website used in information outreach campaign, achieving 1,000 unique hits/day. User’s are now fully autonomous and can update their site independently.