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You can upgrade easily from your Dashboard by going to Tools > Upgrade, or you can download from WordPress.org. And of course, it wouldn’t be a major release without a short video summarizing some of the cool things about the new version:

When it comes to WordPress I must admit that I normally am a few releases behind, especially on new verision major jumps. Why? Well some things I just don’t need to be first on. I like beta for testing and then new releases are still for more testing in my opinion.

I simply do not want to get the bugs out with the rest of the users so I normally wait for the .x1 or .x2 upgrade. But for those of you willing to do the debugging (LOL) here you go.

The coolest new stuff from a user point of view is:

1. Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.
2. Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.
3. Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.
4. Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

Wow, you guys freakin’ ROCK! Damn, that is absolutely humbling to think that a idea can be implemented and catch an audience. I never would have guessed that a lone idiot like me would say something intelligent enough for anyone to listen, let alone come back again!

What started as a Wordpress.com blog about my thoughts as a business owner and eBay seller just one year later is really making some noise. We are having a conversation and the results are astonishing.

The funny thing is that I had slacked off June/July and wondered if I was going to continue doing the blog. Then I went to Australia the first week of August and came back rejuvenated. After seeing the excitement about ecommerce those sellers had, I got back into the swing. Those sellers down there rubbed off on me. What they had was spirit and spirit can be awful contagious.

I love what I do, I love ecommerce and I love learning. Its cool that I can put that spirit in a blog post or video and others will join the conversation. You folks ROCK! Thank you so much for hanging in there on our journey. This might seem like a small number to others (10,000) but I appreciate every single reader. I LOVE YOU MAN…..LMAO.

Special shout outs to those who encouraged me and supported the project last year (they did not laugh at me when I told them I was going to blog).

Jeff Braithwaite (he told me to do it and gave me much encouragement, a true friend)

Brandon Dupsky (eCommerce Merchants director was my FIRST interview, he is very supportive)

Scot Wingo (CEO of ChannelAdvisor – he took me to lunch and took me seriously. A W00T! moment)

Phil Leahy (PeSA Australia- Did not know him in the 1st chapter, but he is co-authoring chapter 2)

Scott Pooler (he took a chance and let me be a guest blogger for my first ever blog post)

Dave White (broadcasting mentor)

By Cliff Aliperti

Set it and forget it, right?  That’s the kind of simplicity we all want these days, and Storytlr.com has definitely filled that need for me in pulling together everything I do online.

Founded in 2008 Storytlr comes to us from two person team based out of Belgium and the Netherlands.  From the Storytlr Presskit:

Storytlr is reinventing the personal page by bringing together life-streaming, blogging, and social interactions. It lets you create, aggregate and mashup web content into a highly personalized page. Link it to your own domain, style it, share it. This becomes the place where you define your online identity.

Prior to finding Storytlr I’d been pointing people to my Google Profile to show off all I do online.  Now I definitely believe you should still have a Google Profile because, well, it’s Google, and no matter what you do online your Google Profile is always going to show up on page 1 when someone Googles you.

But that’s just a portal to what you’re doing.  I’d also tried mashing together my online presence with a Tumblr site.  While I like what Tumblr does I prefer the way Storytlr does it:

Beyond pulling in multiple blog posts, Tweets from multiple Twitter identities, my Stumbles, Google favorites, videos, and even eBay listings, what I love about Storytlr is that it allows me to arrange the page exactly how I want to present it to you.

It’s fast and it’s easy to set up.  I think I mention I did mine in one night and it took me about an hour and a half.  It imports all of your old info from the selected sites, allows you to organize it, archive it, and even back it up (worried about lost Tweets?  no more). 

Besides pulling in info from everywhere you are online you can also post links, videos, audio, blog posts direct to your Storytlr site.  There’s simple Disqus integration for commenting and making your site itself more social.

You can even set it up with your own domain name, which gave me the excuse to break out the oh-so-vain cliffaliperti.com.

The most amazing part of Storytlr…it’s free!  Actually, I even prefer the tabbing and organization to the price because (shh, don’t tell them) I’d definitely pay for this service. 

The following video is just under 5 minutes, but it’s enough time to give you a quick walk through both the front and back ends of my Storytlr site.  Have a look:

Sign-up here: Storytlr.com

This one really got me buzzing. I am a "Crackberry" addict and I have not been able to shake the addiction NOR am I trying. I guess the guys at WordPress knows that and made this just for me

WordPress for BlackBerry Public Beta is here and I cannot wait to get this on my Curve. Keep in mind that this version is right now in Beta post so it will have bugs and you need to be prepared for that if you use it.  This  is an Open Source project. Source available at http://blackberry.svn.wordpress.org/ 

Check out the video below to see it in action or click HERE to download it.

To install the beta application: Point your BlackBerry browser to http://blackberry.wordpress.org/install and follow the instructions.

Yeah yeah… I’m displaying my inner geek (which by the way, is well protected in the body of an offensive lineman).  People have asked me many times which platform to use and I always suggest Wordpress over the others, simply because they are push blogging to new levels constantly.

Even though it still in public beta mode right now and the smart minds (geeks) are still in development, I have to say this news is WAY COOL!

I do this ALL the time to simply make my widget get that uniform look, so check it out, you might like it…

PLEASE Rate My Video with 5-Stars DSR!!!

the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 “Baker,” is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. They also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker. Here’s a quick video overview of everything in the new release:

Major New Improvements

First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. They have  changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.

If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. They have  completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings.

Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.

Last week I did a story on Wordpress blogging and how easy it is to get started. I told you to ‘>STOP wasting your $$$ on developers (at least till you know what you are doing). I love Wordpress platform because of all the cool things you can do with it and too it.

Often people ask about the differences between a FREE Wordpress.com and a HOSTED WordPress.org site. My theory is this, ask yourself these 3 easy questions…

1) Do really ‘need’ to SELL stuff on my blog?

2) Do I really ‘need’ to monetize my blog with advertising?

3) Have I ever blogged before?

If you answered NO to #3 then I would suggest you go to WordPress.com first and set up a blog. The reason is, for you to do #1 or #2 (sell or monetize) you first MUST have successfully done #3. Nope I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but contrary to popular thought, blogging  is NOT a build it and watch the $$$ roll in kinda thing!

You MUST have an audience that is interested. And that audience wants good content. So start with the content creation FIRST. Learn that part of blogging and THEN move over to the other phases. With Wordpress.com you can STILL write stories and demo your products, you can STILL tell readers about your web store. And you can still build your rabid viewership while you learn the ropes for FREE. Then when you got your balance right, you can remove the “training wheels” and graduate to a hosted Wordpress.org blog.

YES, everything you do on the .com Wordpress can easily be moved when you want to create a .org blog. This is EXACTLY what I did with ColderICE.com. This blog started out as a FREE Wordpress.com blog! Then once I got my feet wet, learned how to use Wordpress and Plug-ins and stuff, we moved it to its own server.

So how much did that cost to get started and learn WordPress? NOTHING, it was FREE and EASY…So get started TODAY and put up your blog on one of the best platforms out there. Hey, when you do, come back here and add your link in the comments so I can visit YOUR NEW Blog!!!

Have fun and watch the video…

I just got a solicitation call, which has sparked this post. Truly I was trying NOT to laugh during the pitch, but I failed miserably, LMAO

Seems like the latest bunch on of leaches crawling through the pockets of unknowing online retailers, have been the so called “WordPress  Site Developers.” These charlatans are selling canned WordPress blog packages for as much at $1800.00!!!

OMG, WTF? Well I guess there is a sucker born every minute, but WE are NOT suckers! We read the ColderICE.com blog And as such, we simply are NOT fair game for the snake oil sales of the so-called WordPress “experts”

Generally speaking, the installation of a Blog using Wordpress is not an arduous task by any stretch of the imagination. It is designed to be EASY, to allow anyone to set up a blog regardless of technical expertise. That is why WordPress was created and made open source, to keep the leaches out of your back pocket.

But if the task seems too much for you, or you are just not that comfortable with technology, you can actually get it done for you for as little as $35.00. Or you can go buck wild and get a premium customized install for just $135. Doing research for this article, I found dozens of reasonably priced installs to counter the scumbag prices. Come on,  $500 – $1800 for what was meant to be free and easy?!? OMG, if I just had no conscious and could sleep at night, I too could jump into that business and strike it rich I guess?!?

What’s that? That’s the money you could be saving without that WordPress Installer sucking money out of your business!!!

Do not get me wrong, I am NOT saying that all paid professional  that create blogs for businesses using WordPress are fakers, BUT make sure you get what you pay for. Hundreds of dollars for 10 minutes worth of work and a paint on-template? Pleeeze.

On Monday’s Social Networking training, with the guys at Brainstoming Bonanzle, I mentioned how EASY it is to do a WordPress install, and customization. Plus I also said that with WordPress version 2.7 things such as SEO, Plug-Ins and administration just went from 18 year old, do it yourself now down to 10 year old understanding.

After that call, I got some email about “how to do it” and I was going to make a demo video on it. Then I thought better of it. So instead of ME doing the video, I figured I would just show you how MANY videos there really are out there on YouTube (over 2,400) showing you HOW TO DO IT YOURSELF in less than 10 minutes via C-Panel (look for that feature when choosing your hosting platform…I use BlueHost  for ColderICE.com) So here are just a few…

 

 

When it came to moving my blog from Wordpress.com to my own install of Wordpress.org on my server. I looked for some help from others cause I though it would be complicated…NOT!!!

If a big ol dummy like me can do it I know you can! But just to help you along and get you started I made a cool video of my latest install. You guys have submitted so many names already for the new eBay Friends on ColderICE.com that I need to make an entirely new space just to handle it! So if you want to be included on the My eBay Friends section just shoot me an email with your eBay user name and I will have you added for FREE and I will even create the little widget for you!

But back to Wordpress installation….I chose the BlueHost provider cause it makes the process simple and easy for a novice like me. But this will work with other hosts as well. You do NOT have to use BlueHost.

So pick a hosting service with C-Panel and once you have that part competed, you are ready to follow this video!

ColderICE Interview: Sherman Hu

(press play button)

This is an interview that is so HOT baby! I am not kidding, if you do not know who Sherman Hu is…you better listen up man. He is the host and creator of ShermanLive.com This man is about to lay down some tips and techniques to shoot your business blog to new heights.

I was so glad to get a chance to have him talk directly to us about our blogging needs to this audience. He’s got some smoking information the I got for all you WordPress lovers like my boy Scott

About Sherman Hu

Known for his passion and energy in presenting and simplifying technology to business owners, Sherman’s workshops aren’t to be missed. Praised for his patience in coaching beginners, Sherman has a step-by-step, ‘no-question-is-a-silly-question’ approach through his easy-to-use but powerful tutorials.

Sherman Hu was born and raised in Singapore and now lives in Vancouver, BC. Besides his search engine marketing expertise, Sherman’s main focus is as a veteran blogger, podcaster and video blogger.

About ShermanLive.com

ShermanLive.com seeks to be a regular podcast (audio, video and enhanced podcast) show that reaches business owners who desire to embrace new media to build customer relationships, increase sales and maximize profits. 

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Ecommerce edutainment on demand  

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Ecommerce edutainment on demand  

Be sure to subscribe so you do not miss an episode.