Good news is downgrading Latest Version of WordPress to a older version of WordPress  is very  easy task and that same as upgrading a WordPress to newer version but in reverse way.

Here I going to share my experience with you, how you can install older WordPress on newest version of WordPress. let say installing WordPress 3.0.0 on WordPress Version 3.2.1 without losing  current WordPress setting and data.  Save your time and avoid headache and enjoy reading this most wanted WordPress tip!

1. First make full back up of your site.  Including your WordPress folders and database. You are reading this becase you missed to backup your WordPress before upgrade. Its good practice to backup your WordPress before upgrade or downgrade. You need to have access to your site control panel. Using a ftp program such as Filezilla you can make a copy of all files to your computer. By using a ftp program such as PhpMyAdmin you can  backup  your WordPress database. Also most control panel have a function that let you to backup everything just by one click.
2. Deactivate all active plugins.  Login to WordPress admin area and go to plugins section. Select active plugins and deactivate them. Pretty easy. First time I was afraid to lose my plugins and WordPress settings if I downgrade My WordPress . I write down  all settings of my plugins. It took almost 2 hours.  Good news is you can skip this part! don’t worry you have a full backup. right? ( I hope so!). then you have a option to restore your site to previews state and make a snapshot of setting of bad plugins if needed. Its safe to deactivate your plugin before downgrade. but it can be just fine if you do not do.
3. Delete wp-admin and wp-includes folder. ( make sure no plugin use this folders to save something).
   ( update: I know its little scary to delete these folders. but you can always get these folders back from your backup or you can get a copy of it be extracting latest WordPress zip file. Also  I found another easy and faster way. Some Ftp software such as filezilla allow you to drag and drop folder to another location. Simply create a folder with name  _oldWP and select wp-admin and wp-includes and drag it to _oldWP folder. This is much faster than deleting these folders and same time it allow you to have them at _oldWP folder)
4. get the old version of wordpress that you need from wordpress.org release-archive
   at the writing time of this post, most people like to downgrade from wordpress Version 3.2.1 to wordpress Version 3.1.0! that is because most famous  plugin such as light box! are not ready to get power of latest WordPress yet.
5. unzip your desired version of WordPress and overwrite all files to your website by using ftp program. ( this will copy wp-admin and wp-includes to your ftp as well)
6. Go to your site admin area. This time you won’t see WordPress admin login page. Instead  you will notice a message that say wordpress need to upgrade current wordpress to new one!!. do not worry. It just shy to say it is actually downgrading but it know how to its job to downgrade your WordPress = )
7. login to admin area again (and activate all plugins you need).
   WordPress even tell you what plugin were active before downgrade, So you can activate all of them in one step.

Everything will be fine and you can enjoy old WordPress installation on new on WordPress like you never did a upgrade.I tried to write as much as details I could.  Please share this post, If you found it useful.

If for any reason you are still afraid to do this scary task.  let me know to do it for you. You will need to let me know what is your WordPress admin login details and your ftp login details. Please note this service is not free and it will cost you  50$ that you can pay after successful downgrade using PayPal. I will back up your site first and I take a movie of downgrading process that will show you how I downgrade your site. So next time you can do it your self.

The New Year is coming, There are always some simple task that we missed to do. Some time simple things can be missed for years. One good example is your site copyright date.I noticed while now is 2010 but my site footer date still displayed 2009 and this may remain for 2011 or even 2012. You know not only HeCode. you also can code! let see how to fix this forever.

by using following simple PHP code, your Copyright date will change every year. Add this code once to your WordPress footer and enjoy rest of your life:)

&#169; Copyright <?php
$from = 2009;
$now = date('Y');
if ($from == $now)
echo $now;
else
echo "$from - $now"; 
?> YourSite.com

Make sure to edit $from and set it to the year that your site was launched. Final year is automatically calculated using PHP’s date() function. but it you just created your site. It will display one date.

Do you want to see an example? Then have a look to my site footer. You will love it!

Most of us start to write posts by default admin user. Then  we may have more author. or maybe you have lots of posts under a author but now you wish to move them to another author without deleting the old author?  here is tips how you can do it.

You can do this with two way.

A) Moving post to new author by deleting old author:

at user section of  WordPress admin area, find old author and Delete old author. then WordPress will ask you who you want to assign the posts that was belong to old author. Pretty simple, but you will lose old author user.

If you like keep old author user but move all post of old author to new one. then try following solution:

B) Moving post to new author without deleting old author:

First we need find old author id. You find it by holding mouse on old author username at user section in WordPress admin area

You also can do it via phpmyadmin by using following sql

 SELECT ID  FROM wp_users where `display_name`='old_author_name'

same you can find ID of new author.

Now we move all post from old author to new author . here is the sql code

 UPDATE wp_posts SET `post_author`='new_auhtor_id' WHERE
`post_author`='old_author_id'

There are no plugin to do above. If you enjoined it tweet it!

I backup my wordpress once a month. I recommend  you backup your wordpress  too. You won’t regret  having backup, instead  you will be happy when thing go wrong. There will be always a option to go back. for most having a backup and restore is scary task. but if you do it several time it become habit. I want to explain how you even can make it fun and enjoy having full WordPress backup!

Most important part of your wordpress to have a backup of them is wordpress database and wp-content folder.

you need to make sure you included above in your backup. other section are not much important becase you can always download wordpress core files from wordpress website. or regenerate wp-config and .htaccess  file.

However to mike life easy is best, we create one backup and include all files on server.

Doing full backup of live website

Making backup of database:

Make a database backup using wp-dbmanager wordpress plugin <– good for beginners

other good alternative are WP-phpMyAdmin <–  Good for professionals!

Making  backup of files:

Copy your wordpress files  by using a ftp program such as free ftp filezilla

Restoring from full backup to online website

Restore database from a backup

by using phpmyadmin you can transfer your backup database to online database.

do not worry. there is nothing to lost. because you already have a backup. you may need remove database if you did not checked “ADD DROP TABLE / VIEW / PROCEDURE / FUNCTION” when you did database export.

Restore files from backup to server

This section is easy. again by using ftp program you can copy back or upload all files to your server.

Note:  You can restore your backup to another website too. This way your second website become exact clone of first website. To clone your WordPress to another Domain you need to

• change wp-config file with new database name, user and password.
• Change value of siteurl and home  of wp-option table in database to  new website URL ( using php my admin in new website. or using a text editor and replace the value inside sql file before restoring the database.

How sync my online wordpress with local  wordpress?

As coder the way I do is like this. I sync my online database to my local database. I zip my my online files and after transfer to local storage I extract them in local domain. zipped files are much smaller and copying one file from in much faster and safer  than copy all server files one by one.

To make life easier my local domain and database are same as online domain and database. so I no need change wp-config or database site and home value. So my online website will be 100% exact clone.

Working on exact clone at localhost is very fast and fun. It’s like you have tomorrow internet speed. I sync from server to local one time at end of the month. during month I work at local wordpress. If I were happy with result I transfer them to online wordpress site.

You may want to read my previous post on Simple way to backup your online wordpress website and clone or sync it to local development website by using SSH

Do you have better or easier solution? Please share it with rest of the world in comments.
I hope you enjoyed. If  still you need my assistante , I’ll be happy to help you.

Is your wordpress two slow?  did you get an error that display not enough memory to run current script?did you get error like this one?

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted.

or PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 6233929 bytes) in /home/…/press/wp-includes/cache.php on line 330

or Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 368640 bytes) in /wordpress/wp-includes/class-simplepie.php on line 9575

Then you are lucky to be here! Here are four solution to increase your WordPress memory

1. If you have access to your PHP.ini file, change the line in PHP.iniIf your line shows 32M try 64M or even 128M:
memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)
2. If you don’t have access to PHP.ini try adding this to an .htaccess file:
   
php_value memory_limit 64M
3. Try adding this line to your wp-config.php file:Increasing memory allocated to PHP
   define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');
4. Talk to your host!

Update: Monitor real WordPress memory usage:

do you know how much memory your WordPress needed? how much is your pick WordPress memory usage?
If all need memory for your wordpress is 10M. Why you should be worry to set it to 64M? Thats true I found My pick memory usage was just 8M! That is why wordpress default memory usage is only 32M which is more than enough.

Here are two plugin that let you to monitor and know your WordPress current and pick memory usage.
try them before changing your WordPress memory usage to higher value.

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-memory-usage/
  Simple and light. Show up the PHP version, memory limit and current memory usage in the dashboard and admin footer. You can now simple measure the requirements of your plugins and language files
  
• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tpc-memory-usage/
  More advanced with more report. view the current and peak memory usage of the application. This is extremely helpful when testing new plugins, or if there are a lot of modifications, plugins, or large language files. As of version 0.4, administrators now have the ability to view detailed system information about their web server, MySQL, PHP, and WordPress software. (Requires PHP5)
• 

After Using above plugin I noticed my PHP memory is set to 128M and my max  WordPress memory is set to 32M

Note: If you add  define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’); to the end of WP-config.php it do not work. You have to add it to at top of wp-config.php file (at root of your wordpress directory). here is the final result:

As you see in above screen-shot, My WordPress Memory  limit is set to 64M which is more than enough.

Here is how modified wp-config looks like:

If you are wonder what are rest of the extra gray lines , continue reading simple ways to make youe wordpress faster

Try same yourself. In nutshell you need to do following steps:

1. Check your current  memory by using above  plugins
2. set php.ini memory to higher if needed.
3. Set WordPress Memory to a value equal or less that php.ini memory
4. Check your change is working or not ( by using  above plugins)

If still you had difficulty let me know to help you.

I am sharing my simple SSH script to backup my online server.

• First it remove my last backup. I do not want to keep more than last backup in my server.
• It zip all file of my website ( except excluded directories )  into  mydomainbackup.zip at backup_path
• It zip a dump of mysql into mysqldump.zip at backup path

Now I have full backup of all files and database in my server.  Then I copy it into my local computer. If  needed I clone or sync  it in my local development website. Here is the SSH script:

clear
# delete old backup
rm -rf /backup_path/

# create new dir
mkdir /backup_path/
zip -r -q -9 “/backup_path/mydomainbackup.zip” ” /path_to_my_domain/” -x */dl/* -x */stats/* -x */logs/* -x */fg/* -x */*.kde/*

# backup mysql
mysqldump -u username -p password databasename -c |zip -9 -q > /backup_path/mysqldump.zip

clear
# finished

The way I use is, copy pasting above code into SSH terminal! Above script can be much better. but currently It do the task I needed.

I do backup end of each month. durring month I transfer modified files from local website to online website.This way may online website and local development website will be sync together.  More details  about my working environment coming soon.

Do you feel your WordPress is slow? What happen if  your WordPress  get more than 10,000 visitors a day?  Some hosting providers ban your site for using too many resources. Upgrading hardware such as memory and CPU is good but it is not necessary to purchase expensive hosting plans, when you can improve you WordPress performance with simple ways.  learn how to make your WordPress faster by applying simple tips.

1. Modify post AutoSave Interval ( add this to wp-config.php)
   define(‘AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL’, 160 ); // seconds
2. Disable Post Revisions or Specify the Number of Post Revisions( add this to wp-config.php)
   Example: define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false );
   Example: define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 3);
3. Faster administration area by disabling Javascript Concatenation( add this to wp-config.php)
   define(‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false);
4. Increasing memory allocated to PHP ( add this to wp-config.php read more way here)
   Example: define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’96M’);
5. Empty Trash ( add this to wp-config.php wp29+ You will love this) the number of days before WordPress permanently deletes posts, pages, attachments, and comments, from the trash bin.
   define(‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’, 0 ); // zero days
   define(‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’, 5 ); // 5 days
6. Automatic Database Optimizing (wp2.9  add this to wp-config.php)
   define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);
7. Enable the WordPress Object Cache ( add this to wp-config.php)
   define(ENABLE_CACHE, true);
8. Disable unnecessary WordPress plugins
   This really works. problem is not from your slow server or WordPress fault!.  Most plugin need DNS query to get some info from external sites. DNS respond are normally slow. and so many DNS requests at same time  from different unwanted plugin really makes your wordpress seem very slow!

Advanced ways to make your WordPress faster is coming soon. be a member today and read it first.

I know how it feel, like no one know the solution. You like to pay everything you have, to find out why you can not login into your wordpress from wp-admin. And if you do it will redirect to same page without showing any message. but same time you can login into your wordpress from wp-login.php.  Sometime clearing the browser’s cookies might let us login again but to be honest it’s a pain, and clearing your cookies isn’t a permanent fix and do not work everyone.

Answer is easy when you know the following two solutions.

Solution1:  At   WordPress admin–> Settings–> General Settings:

“WordPress address (URL)”  should be same as “Blog address (URL)”  You will love this simple tip if you are using Wishlist member wordpress plugin. because no one know this except you and me!

Solution2:  Fixing  issue with cookies.

problem is that occasionally on our various WordPress sites the wp-admin.php URL login stops working and we can only login through wp-login.php.

What we need to do is to force WordPress to follow the correct cookie path. This can be done by adding a small line of code to the wp-config.php file located in your WordPress installation root directory.

Open up wp-config.php in your web editor and add this:

/** wp-admin login fix */
@define('ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH', '/');


If you’re unsure, it can go just before the ?> at the end of the php code like so:

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');
/** wp-admin login fix */
@define('ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH', '/');
?>

Update:  Some reported WP Security Scan case this issue. Please test and confirm in comments if you are using WP Security Scan wordpress plugin.

The step-by-step instruction to create a PayPal donation button and start accepting online donation.

A friend asked me how to create a PayPal donation button to collect donation. I have helped him the steps and I think it is good to share with you, too.

1. log-in into your PayPal account
2. Click on Merchant Service tab . then click on Website Payment Standard link on left. And then click on See more feature at the end of the page. Or simply go directly to this page by clicking here
3. You will see different Payment buttons for your website.  Under Donate, Click on create button link
4. Choose button type ( here Donation in fine with us).
5. Give Organization name/service such as your website name.( mine is hecode.com). There are several other optional selection. dont worry, simply ignore them.
6. click on create Button. And then copy past the code to your website.

I should add for advanced user, before step 6, you may customize advanced features  ( optional)

for example:

• Do you need your customer shipping address? (yes, no)  I selected No!.
• Take customer to a specific page (URL) after checkout cancellation. you may fill a URL of your site to display or process something if customer desided to do not donate you. ( Example http://www.hecode.com/donate-canceled)
• Take customer to a specific page (URL) after successful checkout,  same as above but redirect to let say thank you page after successful donate:) (Example: http://www.hecode.com/donate-was-successful

Please notice: after you created your Donate button, PayPal gives you two code to use.

1. First code is for your website.  you should copy past it to your website which let your website users donate you by using PayPal or credit card directly from your website.
2. Second code is for your email. ( like this, donate here. )

I hope this post was useful for you. And helps you to accept so many donate soon.  here you will see my donate button.  This is real donate button!. I created by doing above steps. Feel free to test it and donate me now. I appreciate you donation and thank you so much.

WordPress have some unique feature that let you to split your post to two or more part. It come very handy and powerful when you going to write your post. While it is very basic but most WordPress newbie luckily to don’t know that!

let share another magic of WordPress with you.  On most WordPress websites you may notice  a short description about a post and then a link to whole the post article. This is what I am talking about.  You can do it too. Just spilit your post with <!–more–> Keyword. Texts before <!–more–> become the short description of your post.  The <!–more–> keyword will be replaced by a link that say “Read the rest of this entry >>” by clicking here!.

but wait!  you can go farther by using <!–nextpage–> Keyword.

It allow to split a very long post to more than one page. let say you going to explain how to fried a egg in 5 steps! at the end of each step add <!-nextpage-> keyword.

You may add <p> Next page</p> before <!–nextpage–> Then it will look like this:

Next page:

1|2|3|4  ( numbers will be link to steps)

Good luck!

learn more about styling page and pagination tag here

You may get this error if you try to install new theme or wordpress plugins, or installing update directly from wordpress admin area

Warning: ftp_mkdir() [function.ftp-mkdir]: /public_html/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/: Permission denied in /home/hecode/public_html/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-filesystem-ftpext.php on line 240

Could not create directory. /public_html/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/

Plugin Install Failed. Read the Solution  

Just give chmod 777 to the plugin directory.

And now you are to go!

Try to install  new plugins or theme or wordpress upgrade. you are the winner:)

Update: Yesterday I tried to update my WordPress to latest version by using auto unpdate buttom. While I could install new plugins from admin area, but I couldnt update my wordpress! Then I tried below command from SSH

chmod 755 -R public_html

and everything become fine. and now I have latest WordPress just by one click!

Still have problem? No problem!, I’m here to help you.Please let me know how I can help you.