by Jonny | May 12, 2013 | Updates
I recently started a few new blogs and I used an automated installer to install WordPress via cPanel. However, when I created the site I noticed a few issues had arisen and that had made it impossible for me to login to “wp-admin” and “wp-login.php”, so I wondered what could have gone wrong, as every time when I tried to access those URLs, I encountered “Not found”, even though the directory does indeed exist. I knew it was a .htaccess issue, so I looked at one of my older blogs where I have none of these issues and copied my .htaccess file into the directory of my new site.
I copied this .htaccess:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>\
# END WordPress
… into my blog’s new directory and the problem was fixed.
If you have this problem then this is most likely the fix!
by Jonny | Apr 27, 2013 | Updates
Wix is a free web service, similar to what Geocities was, and that provides people the methods and means to open up websites using one of their pre-made templates. Last week I gave my first impressions of their affiliate service. Today, I’ll be sharing my progress with their affiliate service that I’ve been using on my Simple Templates website.
I thought I’d give an update on the Wix affiliate program that I recently signed up with for one of my sites. It’s been under a week or so since I’ve been using Wix’s affiliate program.
Have I struck any gold with them?
Not yet. I’m still working on that.
Currently, I’ve only signed up 7 people, out of the 36 people who have clicked on the Wix affiliate ads. Obviously, to gain any affiliate sales, I need those 7 people to be spending money on subscriptions with Wix. This simply has not happened yet & I’m not sure if I’ll be with Wix any longer because my site, really, caters to those who are looking for free stuff. They aren’t people whom are looking to pay for hosting, templates or anything. I’m not sure that “affiliates systems” will work for the site in question that is working these ads. I’m still going to leave the Wix affiliate ads on for an indefinite period, as I don’t know much about affiliate marketing and this is some first hand experience into this market.
Feel free to comment on any affiliate techniques that you have or if you’ve been using Wix’s affiliate service. Thanks.
by Jonny | Apr 22, 2013 | Updates
I recently signed up for Wix.com’s affiliate program, and you can see it in action on my Simple Templates website.
I’ll go ahead by saying that the program does not seem to be setup well. Why? Well, for starters you have to host their advertisements [images], and unlike AdSense or Commission Junction (I think), you don’t get a generated piece of code to insert into your website. While that wasn’t a problem, it was a little troublesome. I’m also not enjoying the affiliate control panel, as it looks horrendous and you really have to trust their data is in order. I’m thinking of testing this affiliate system for a month or so, and if I see NO sign ups at-all, then I’m switching back to Google Ads. We shall see how this goes.
Onto the details…
- They will pay via PayPal
- They have packages that range from $4.95-$19.90 per month. – They’ll give you 45% of the revenue made out of those amounts. It doesn’t clearly state whether that’s on an on-going basis or just a one time payment. Would suck if it’s just a one time payment.
- They offer packages that gives Wix’s users access to their premium themes. Wix users can buy packages that give them 30 themes and Wix will give you $40, 31-50 premium themes and Wix will pay you $60 or 51 premium upgrades and Wix will give you $80.
- Sign ups are tracked. Like with most other affiliate programs, any sign ups are tracked. If a purchase is made using your reference ID link then you’ll get the sale and the commission.
- Minimum payout is $200. 😀 – This a shocker and I think the amount should be way lower. Perhaps in line with Google AdSense, at the $100 mark.
I’m actually not sure if I should be sticking with these guys as I’m not getting anyone purchasing from the referrals I’m giving to them. So far, I’ve only got 12 people to sign up. I’m going to give it a full six month trial and if it’s not making me anything then it’s simply not worth it. Especially with such a high minimum payout.
by Jonny | Apr 21, 2013 | Updates
There has been a large earthquake in China. So far, there have been 207 deaths, 11,500 injuries and 960 serious injuries. A 6.6-7.0 magnitude quake struck Ya’an (雅安) on the western side of the Sichuan province (四川). While it’s not the biggest quake China has suffered, it’s definitely a very serious issue and the Chinese government seem to be taking the issue quite seriously. According to a few articles that I’ve read, I’ve come to conclusion that the Chinese government sent 8,000 PLA soldiers, 1,400 provincial rescue workers and 180 emergency response doctors to the affected areas.
I can fill nothing but sorrow for these people as very recently in Taiwan a minor 6.0 quake struck Taichung (The city I live in) and I felt the power of mother nature then. The shaking only lasted 10 seconds or so. However, reports are that the shaking in China in the Sichuan province lasted for a minute straight and the shaking was obviously at far greater magnitude. If I remember correctly, the death toll pales in comparison to the 2008 earthquake that killed 90,000 people in the Sichuan province. – Though I believe that was a 8.0 magnitude earthquake that struck the area in question back in 2008.
Here’s a great video that the BBC produced that explains what went on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ySVHB4hEA
by Jonny | Apr 14, 2013 | Updates
I haven’t done a review of a hosting company in a while now and I remember when I used to use dedicated servers and VPSs that I used to do periodical reviews of them to ensure that they’d keep their quality.
Ever since becoming a shared hosted user, I’ve never really done a review for shared hosts as I didn’t consider them that important. That is, of course, far from the truth. However, I’ve got to give my current host credit as they have recently, or especially this year have been very good.
Last year, however, I had a few bad experiences and I very nearly switched web hosts.
Those bad experiences included my entire web directory being exposed for a brief period on an aggregate directory.
I was, however, compensated for that and I actually haven’t had to pay any hosting bills, for the past 5 months, as they credited my account with $50; my web hosting monthly bill is only $3.95. – I still have 3 months of free web hosting left.
While the host has not been perfect, they haven’t done anything else to make me switch to another web host. However, I still am thinking very hard of switching hosts due to other reasons.
In 2012, however, I faced serious problems with things being slow and I asked if I could be moved to another server. They did this and I saw improvements. But, as I’m writing this now, I’m getting really bad loading times on my websites. It has made me want to move hosts and I’m still thinking about moving.
I’d like to add that for the first 3-4 months or the majority of 2013, things have been running smoothly. I haven’t really had any problems. However, I can’t always monitor my site and at times I do get rather annoyed with how slowly my sites are loading. Whether it’s a user on the same server using a lot of CPU or their servers not being up scratch; well, I don’t know.
While their servers speeds have been an issue, their support is superb. I’ve been with Stable Host since December 2nd, 2011 and I whenever I’ve needed to contact them, I haven’t been left stranded and they do reply. After checking my support tickets, they seem to respond within the hour, which is pretty decent for a shared host. I remember the last host that I left in-place for Stable Host responded within 1-3 hours.
I’m quite content and happy with their response times; however, this year, I haven’t really had to contact them all too much as their service, for the most part, has been going well. Aside from periodical slowness, I can’t complain too much. But that is also a deal-breaker for me. If my sites are running slow then people won’t like browsing my sites and that simply is not good. Are their servers being overused? Who knows. Are they pro-actively taking care of it? I don’t know.
While I think this host is ‘okay’, I definitely think they need to make improvements. I would rate this host 3 out of 5.
Armour.ws – Website that debates/posts news updates on current world affairs and armoured military vehicles.
Political website that talks about the US president and his election win.
My personal blog, which you are browsing right now! 🙂
My
photography website. I take pictures with my Lumix FZ-28 and post them up on that site!
Download 3 of the best
simple templates you’ll ever need to use. (Slight exaggeration)
by Jonny | Apr 8, 2013 | Updates
WordPress has a content delivery network called “Photon” and what this content delivery does in WordPress’ own words:
Give your site a boost by loading images in posts from the WordPress.com content delivery network. We cache your images and serve them from our super-fast network, reducing the burden on your Web host with the click of a button.
I’m not sure what the issue is. However, on the site that is having the issue with Jetpack’s Photon module, well, it only has 600+ images and that’s including generated thumbnails. So, I’m really not sure what the problem is. Also, after scouring Google to find out if others are having issues, I found results suggesting that I was not alone.
From what I gathered the WordPress staff or people who’ve worked on WordPress plugins were saying the issues could range from a wide variety of issues. It could be that my site has another plugin which is conflicting with the Photon module, it could be that the design of my website is not compatible with Photon, or it could be that my images are too large. It could be anything essentially, which doesn’t really help. So for now, I’ve disabled it until I can find or come up with a solution.