Press Release: Virtual Assistant wins award for commitment to excellence and business growth

Late last week, I was startled to find that people had been signing up as users on my WordPress site.  This was about the same time that Tawnya Sutherland of VAnetworking discovered that one of her websites had been hacked due to a security breach in an older version of WordPress.  Well, just before Tawnya made her announcement, I had posted my puzzling question on VAnetworking.  The response that I received from member Crystal Pina was to go to my dashboard and then go to Settings>General there is a box there that was checked saying “Membership – Anyone can register.” (more…)

Trusted Email Marketing

The educational process should be a non-stop thing for everyone.  In our society, technology, information and processes are changing on an almost daily basis.  This is why I am always looking for new things to learn and new processes to explore.  Learning WordPress was one of those challenges.  I didn’t take a formal course to learn it; I went through the trial-and-error process, which worked for me.

My next challenge will be to learn all the ins-and-outs of Constant Contact.  I will be travelling to Chicago, on the Metra System to take their seminars titled The Power of Email Marketing and Getting Started with Constant Contact.  I am really looking forward to this.  I love taking the train to Chicago and the seminars are quite the bonus.

I have invited members of the two local chambers that I belong to: the Wind Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Waterford Area Chamber of Commerce.  I hope that a lot of people reply to me with interest in this event.  It would make the experience richer to share this knowledge with some friends.  So far, I have one friend that is going, along with my daughter and a friend of hers, (they are just going to shop, though).

Constant Contact has been quite the impressive program so far.  I downloaded their free trial less than a month ago and have sent out one email so far.  The really impressive thing was that within one hour of my download, I received a call from a tech support person, asking if I had any questions.  I almost fell off my chair!  It was a good thing that he called though; I did have a few questions.  Like “are you going to scrutinize every email and address that I attempt to send out; even to people in my personal address book?” 

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Well, I believe great progress has been made! I am very happy with my new site. If you are into reading, chatting with others, Tweeting, searching, more reading, more talking, re-installing about 8 times and reuploading everything, then learning WordPress is for you!

No, I’m kidding; if you have the patience, WordPress is learnable with a little bit of help from friends. There are many experts out there and they are willing to share tips and tricks. The thing that I really find amazing is the fact that one piece of software could have so many variables! Good and bad. While I was searching for the reason that I was unable to upload pictures to my blog, I came across so many different opinions and solutions. How do you know where to start? I had no idea where to start. So, it was trial and error, documenting each fix and what the results were so that I was able to either reverse the “fix” or pinpoint exactly what my particular problem was. It sounds tedious but it was, (and will be), a learning experience. You will be surprised by how much you pick up while trying to get one thing right; then you are able to use that knowledge for another step you are trying to take.

So stay tuned and let me know what you think of the site. I will be looking for constant improvement ideas and suggestions. Remember, my goal is to become so proficient at site design and maintenance that I may offer it as a service.

I am so excited that I was able to find and implement this bug fix by myself.  Now I can embellish my new site with lots of images.  I found the very simple fix at http://www.ibuyringtones.com/iblog/wordpress/wordpress-uploading-image-problem/.  The one that worked for me was the very last post, suggesting that under the Miscellaneous Topic in the Settings Menu you change “Store uploads in this folder”settings from “wp-content” to “wp-content/uploads”.  I think my setting was pointed to a really complex place.  Lots of numbers and letters.  I simply changed it to “wp-content/uploads” and viola!

I just got through with three phone calls with my web host only to discover the problem that I am having is NOT my problem!  I was trying to add a photo of Niagara Falls to my previous post because it would be nice to look at.  Good idea, right?  Well, every time I would click the Upload/Insert Image button on the admin panel in WordPress, the only thing I would get is an image placeholder!

Now, thanks to my web host, I know how to flush my dns, (whatever that is) and I know that I can change the permissions in my wp-content file, (this one I figured out myself).  Well, none of these attempts solved my uploading issue.  Finally, the last attendant I got at my web host told me he would go above and beyond the services that they offer and talk to “the boys in the back room”.  Boy, am I glad he did.  Turns out that it wasn’t me or my computer – it was WordPress 2.8.  There seems to be a bug in there.

When I have the bug repellant located I will be sure to share it with you.