Da Blogmother

Editing an encoded WordPress footer

 Did you ever download a theme you really wanted to use for your business, but you found the theme's footer contained a link to, say, a site promoting "Triple XXX Rated Adult Toys".  And when you went to edit the link out of the footer, all you could see was a string of encoded characters?

Searching the web, you will find many sites, including the WordPress Forums,  talking about Base64 decoders.

There is a simpler way.  Your ~internet browser~ can decode the string; otherwise you wouldn't be able to read it as you visit the website.

Here's how:

1.  Upload and activate the theme.  Remember that for a few minutes, as you do this little procedure, your site will be live with the spammy link, unless you are using the Theme Test Drive plugin.

2.  Click Appearance - Editor

3.  Click on Footer.php.  See it?  There's the string of encoded characters that we need to convert to ordinary HTML so we can edit them.

4. Up at the top of the WordPress Dashboard, click Visit Site; you will be viewing your WordPress site with the theme installed.

5. Once your site is up on your screen, in your browser's menu bar click View -> Source.  (It Firefox, it is View -> Page Source)

6.  A second window (or tab) will open displaying the HTML code for the page.  Scroll down until you see some thing <!-- Begin Footer --> or  <div id="footer">

7.  Copy everything in that Footer section ... all the way up to the </body> tab and paste it into a text editor.  Notepad will do just fine. (A word processor, such as Word, will farkle it up.)

8.  Now edit the footer section as needed.  Yes, you will need to know just enough HTML to recognize link code <a href=> and to write out your own link.  But that is not too difficult, trust me on that.

9.  Go back to the WordPress Dashboard.  Click Appearance -> Editor, and click  Footer.php to open it.

10.  Delete the entire contents of Footer.php (all the encoded stuff), and paste in the new footer code you just edited.  Click update.  Click Visit Site to check the final product.

One important point:  I always leave links to the original creator of a theme.  It's work.  The person deserves credit for his or her work.  If the theme's creator has links to special causes, I leave those, too. (Chris Pearson's NeoClassical Theme contains a link to Open Education, for example, although Chris does NOT encode any of his theme files.)

I just want to get rid of any links that might seem inappropriate for a business site, and I usually also want to add a credit for myself.  Hey, if I hacked the theme beyond recognition, that's work, too!

Installing WordPress MU on GoDaddy - Yes! It Can Be Done!

As a real estate broker, I have been toying with the idea of using WordPress MU (multiple user) to handle my single property web sites.  One WordPress Installation, One Hosting Fee To Pay,  Many Different Blogs.

So, one of the first questions was .... could I do it on GoDaddy?  If you search the web and the WordPress forums, you'll find a lot of conflicting information.  And some people saying it can't be done, period.

Well, I did it.  And it is not Rocket Science.  :-) 

This is my Holiday Gift to the WordPress World.

Forget everything else you have read.  This is how I installed WordPress Mu on GoDaddy:

There are just four key items:

1. Use the "Deluxe" hosting plan
2. Purchase a "Dedicated IP Address"
3. Use PHP5 (not 4)
4. Add a wildcard record to A (Host)

To implement, login to your GoDaddy Account.

If you have already purchased a domain name and  a hosting plan for your MU site, these are the changes you need to make:

Click Hosting in the left column, under "My Products".

In the "Hosting Account" column, click on the particular domain name that you plan to use for the MU installation.

In the "Account Details" right column, click "Upgrade/Downgrade Hosting Account".  Upgrade the account to  "Deluxe Hosting - Linux" .   Yes, it costs about $2.00 more per month than Economy Hosting.

Then click "Apply Dedicated IP Address".  Dedicated IP Hosting is an additional 2.99 per month, on top of the per month hosting rate. 

Choose a time period, and proceed to check out.

Leave GoDaddy and wait.  It takes a few hours for the  Dedicated IP Address to get setup.  Once it is setup, you will see the information in the right side "Account Details" column.  Make note of the numerical IP address.

After you purchase the Dedicated IP Address, you might need to go back to the "Account Details" right side column and click "Apply Dedicated IP Address" again.  (If the item in the column already reads "Remove Dedicated IP Address, do NOT click it!)

After the Dedicated IP Address is set, click on "Domain Manager" in the left column under "My Products". 

Click on the particular domain name that you plan to use for the MU installation.

Click "Total DNS Control and MX Records"

In the A (Host) section, click the "Add a New Record" button.

You are going to create a wildcard host record in addition to the @ host record.  Type an asterisk * in the "Host Name" box.  Type (or better yet copy and paste) the numerical dedicated IP address in the "Points to IP Address" box.

Now  return to the "My Products" column, click "Hosting".  In the "Control Panel" column, click "Manage Account" beside the particular domain name you plan to use for the MU installation.

Click "Content" , then click the "Addon Languages" icon.

Make sure you are using PHP5.  Change the setting, if necessary.

There is one more step to take at GoDaddy, a step which is necessary for either a MU or single user installation:

At the "My Products" column, click "Hosting".  In the "Control Panel" column, click "Manage Account" beside the particular domain name you plan to use for the MU installation.

Click "Databases", then click on the "MySQL" icon.

Click create database

Create the database name and password.  Tip:  I use the same name and password as I created for the hosting account.

After the database is set up, it takes a few minutes, click the pencil icon.

Select and copy the "Host Name".  Paste it into a simple text file, and keep it handy.  You will need it to complete the WordPress MU installation.

The rest of the process follows the much same steps as installing the single user version of WordPress on GoDaddy:

FTP the WordPress files to your host server. 

Run the  WordPress install function.   If you installed WordPress in the root directory of your server host, simply going to from http://www.mysite.com/ will open the WordPress installation page.

The Host Name you copied earlier; paste it into the "localhost" box when prompted by the WordPress installation function.

The screens shots in this post are no longer current, as both WordPress and GoDaddy have changed their appearance, but the information is still valid:  http://www.queenofkludge.com/installing-wordpressorg-on-godaddy-yes-it-can-be-done/

Legal Disclaimer:  This works for me.  I cannot guarantee it will work for anyone else.  Use at your own risk!

And since you've managed to read this far, here are a couple of the single property singles hosted on one of my WPMU installations.  I haven't mapped the domain names yet, I haven't really tweaked their appearance.  But, hot damn, they are working! (The theme is Chris Pearson's NeoClassical with some serious hacking)

 http://2109lomavista.bob-taylor.net/

http://6044laprada.bob-taylor.net/

http://1823gillettecrescent.bob-taylor.net/  

  

Happy Holidays, Chris Pearson

Over the last several months, I have customized a bunch of WordPress Themes.  I found the free themes with the cleanest code, and therefore the easiest to customize were Chris Pearson's:  Copyblogger, Cutline and NeoClassical to name a few.

Anyway, I figured I owed Chris one, so I purchased a developer license for his premium theme, Thesis.  I know there are several agents now using Thesis and loving it.

But, did you know that if you want to hack Thesis, you need to learn WordPress Hooks?  Heck, I wouldn't know a Hook if it walked up and kissed me.

This Hook Tutorial for Dummies seems like a good place to start.

Just what I needed.  Something new to learn. 

I think I'm kinda sorta grasping the concept as: 

All the little code tweaks you make to customize a theme ... the "old way" is you put some tweaks in the header.php file, some in the sidebar.php, maybe even some in the index.php file.  The HOOK way, you put all those little tweak snippets in the custom_function.php file.  The tweak itself is still whatever code snippet you wrote ... the HOOK is what tells Thesis where to put your snippet.

And then again, I could be all wet.  :-)

Styling Divs - Hey this worked!

This is magic, miraculous code!  The two divs actually sit nicely side by side with one floated left and one floated right:

<div style="width:65%; float:left; padding-left:30px; padding-top:10px; padding-bottom:10px;"><img src="http://www.goldenbrewski.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brickranch00.jpg"> </div>
<div id="image_flicker" style="width22%; float:right; padding-top:20px; padding-right:20px;"></div>