2. Unzip it and upload the entire bbpress folder to your root directory.

3. Change the name of the directory from bbpress to forums and chmod it to 777 if it isn’t already.

4. Go to yoursite.com/forums. “Go to step 1″

5. Enter the same database information that you used while installing WPMU. If you don’t remember what this is, you can find it in wp-config.php

6. “Show advanced settings”

7. Enter the database host information (same as WPMU install) into the Database host section. You can leave the character collation blank and leave the table name prefix set to bb_

8. “Save database configuration file” >> “Go to step 2″

9. “Add integration settings” >>  “Add cookie integration settings”

10. Enter your site’s URL into the first 2 boxes.
i.e. http://www.yoursite.com/

11. Type any word(s) of your choice into all of the key and salt boxes. We’re going to overwrite this later so it doesn’t matter what you put there, as long as you put SOMETHING there. I like to type “THIS STUFF” so that it’s easier to find later.

12. “Add user database integration settings”  Make sure the box there matches the prefix you used during WPMU install. If you made no changes while installing WPMU, this should say wp_

13. Enter the primary blog ID - If this is a normal fresh install, that number is 1. If you want to check just to be sure, you can find that number in your wp-config.php file.

14.  “Save WP integration settings” >>  “Go to step 3″

15. Enter your forum name and URL
i.e. My Site Forums and http://mysite.com/forums/

16. Click the drop down menu for Username. You should see admin. Choose that. If by some horrid twist of fate you don’t have a dropdown, you’ll need to create an entirely new username and use a NEW email address.

17. Name your first forum. i.e. My First Forum or Test Forum or Please Please Work

18.  “Save site settings” >> “Complete the installation”

19. At this point you should see “Your installation completed successfully.” If you get any major errors, try a new install. Do this by first deleting the forum’s bb-config.php file. Only that one file, not the entire directory. Then, open your database and drop all tables that start with bb_

20. If all has gone well, go to your forums.
i.e. http://mysite.com/forums/

21. Log in as admin. Click Admin.

22. On the left side, click Settings >> Writing. Tick the box marked “Enable the bbPress XML-RPC publishing protocol” -Save

23. On the left side, click Discussion under Settings. Tick the box marked “Allow link notifications from other sites” -Save.

24. On the left side, click Wordpress Integration. Give your users roles. The WPMU admin needs to be a keymaster. You can set all other roles to member.  -Save.

25. Download the bbPress Integration plugin. (Currently version 1.0)

26. Upload the bbpress-integration.php file to your wordpress plugins folder. You don’t need the entire bbpress integration folder. Only the single file.

27. Log into the admin dashboard of WPMU and activate the plugin.

28. Left side, click Settings >> bbPress Integration.

29. Enter the full URL of your forums. Don’t forget the trailing slash.
i.e. http://localhost.localdomain/forums/
i.e. on WAMP - http://localhost.localdomain/example/forums/

30. Mark the radio button beside WordPress MU.  -Save.

31. Scroll to the bottom of that page and you will see a few lines of code in a grey box. The number of lines depends on your setup. Copy those codes and paste them to the 2nd line of your wp-config.php file. Save and upload the file.

32. Deactivate and delete the bbpress integration plugin. It’s not needed to make things run but is SUPER handy for getting the extra lines we needed. Remember that extra plugins (even the deactivated ones) can make your pages load more slowly.

33. In your wp-config.php, find “Authentication Unique Keys”  Below that, you’ll see 7 (hopefully 7) different define codes. Copy these codes (full code, not just strings. Copy the full paragraph starting with the first ‘define’) Copy all of them!!

34. Open forums >> bb-config.php Scroll down and find the word(s) that you typed during the forums install in step 11. (i.e. THIS STUFF)

35. Highlight the 4 define codes that contain your word. Then, right click and paste. This will replace the codes with the ones you just copied in step 33.

36. Fix each of the seven codes by putting BB_ at the beginning of each one.
i.e. BB_AUTH_KEY, BB_SECURE_AUTH_KEY, BB_LOGGED_IN_SALT

37. Save and upload bb-config.php

38. Back in the WPMU Admin dashboard, click BuddyPress >> Component Setup. Enable bbPress forums (required) and Comment Wire (optional) -Save

39. On the left menu, click Forums Setup. If you don’t see the link under the BuddyPress menu, refresh the page a couple of times and it should appear.

40. On the forums settings page, enter your forums URL
i.e. http://yoursite.com/forums/

41. Enter your admin name and password -Save (If you had to create a new user during forums install, use that name & password)

42. Clear your cookies and cache.

Your user integration and groups discussion should all be working now. You should be able to log into BuddyPress & be automatically logged into the forums & vice versa. Same with logouts.

Don’t forget to change your permissions (chmod) back to their original settings.

ShareThis

Installation
1. Unzip the file.
2. Upload bp-recently-active-widget.php to wp-content/plugins/
3. Activate the plugin
4. Place the widget into a sidebar via Appearance >> Widgets in your WP dashboard

ShareThis

Now that WordPress MU is getting more popular, the list of possibilites just keeps growing. Add some BuddyPress to the mix and the hundreds of other plugins offered by the community, and the possibilities will blow your mind.

Today I came across a list of 48 Unique Ways To Use WordPress. The post is over a year old but the list is still quite nice. Maybe it will spark an idea in you that could be the next Twitter.

ShareThis

Somehow I managed to remove the options bar & user bar on the settings pages. DUh mE! Good job!!

So, for anyone who is using the  Purple & Black members theme or the Black Red & Grey member’s theme, please take the time to download the new themes and replace your old ones.

ShareThis

This set of themes was created for use with the first official release of BuddyPress. It comes with a home theme as well as a matching members theme.  Themes compatible with BuddyPress 1.0

If you like these free BuddyPress themes, please remember to visit FreeBpThemes.com and vote for them. Voting ends June 15, 2009.

ShareThis

As part of a competition being held at Free BuddyPress Themes, I’ve released my very first set of templates. They’re entitled Black, Red & Grey. How’s that for creativity? *laughs*

This set of themes was created for use with the first official release of BuddyPress. It comes with a home theme as well as a matching members theme. My favorite feature is the popup login box.  Themes are compatible with BuddyPress 1.0

If you like these free BuddyPress themes, please remember to visit FreeBpThemes.com and vote for them. Voting ends June 15, 2009.

ShareThis

Use your favorite editing program to create a file. You can even use notepad for this. Notepad, not wordpad! Wordpad will mess up your code and make you cry.

Create a file with the extension php. Anything will work. i.e. myinfo.php myserver.php sum-n.php thisdumbthing.php Anything will work.

In that file, paste the following code.
phpinfo();

Upload the file to your server and then use a browser to view the page. You should see a big, beautiful, long list of codes and info about your server.

The easiest way to locate the information you’re looking for is to use the Find feature on your browser. Simply type in whatever you were told to look for. And don’t forget to report back to the person helping you. Even if you’re able to fix the problem once you’ve located the info, it’s just common courtesy to not leave the helper hanging.

ShareThis

That $50 coupon taught me a lot about GoogleAds. It actually taught me quite a bit about advertising in general. I watched my Google PR & my Alexa  rank rise. Then, 2 months later, when the money ran out, I watched it all plummet.

With no advertising out there, and with my low ranks, my site wasn’t showing up on search engines anymore. I lucked out by finding a domain that seems obvious to people searching for games. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t be making a dime.

Having those high ranks did wonders for my traffic but it was a catch 22. Without traffic there was no rank. Without rank there was no traffic. And it all pointed back to not having ads out there for the world to see.

Three or four weeks ago I came across a company called Adgitize. The company specializes in blog banners. The price of participation in an ad campaign caught my attention. $14 for a full month. I was impressed but at the same time, I was very sceptical. How could something so cheap offer any rewards?

The program is really geared towards making money online. The way the program works is, advertisers sign up in hopes of gaining more readers. They submit their little 125×125 banners and the publishers put the  ads on their pages.  No big surprise there, right?

Then, all of the members visit the other sites in the network and they have a click-fest. Money is earned for clicking, being clicked and for posting blogs. At the end of the month, some sort of advertiser vs click ratio is figured out and everyone gets paid.

Does anyone else see the huge flaw in this program? I caught it immediately.

If publishers are just flying through sites and clicking banners to make their money each month, how does a blog owner gain readers? Simple. By having more traffic. Remember, more traffic means higher PR and Alexa rankings. And slowly, you can scoot to the top of search engines.

With that train of thought, I signed up for Adgitize and used my personal blog as my guinea pig. Within a few hours of my ad being published, my visitors and page views started increasing.

Within a week I saw a change in my Alexa rank. In two weeks I went from 1.5 million to 412,000. I see an increase every single day. Then a couple of days ago, my Google PR went from PR2 to PR3. Talk about uber happy!

Adgitize non-affiliate link

Web stats screen shot for your viewing pleasure

ShareThis

Logins were working together. Posts were being saved. New groups were being created. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. Until….

He handed control over to the client. Within the hour the site was broken again. BuddyPress groups refused to allow any new posts or groups. We were getting ugly red errors. The sky darkened and the birds gathered their young and went into hiding.

We were assured that the only thing that had been changed since the site was handed over was the addition of a few groups and a password change. The client had no access to the files or database that made the scripts work but that was of little comfort. If no changes had been made, what would break the site?

We disabled discussion for the groups and re-enabled them as instructed by other tutorials. The groups were immediately fixed and we could post topics again. We gave a couple of virtual high-fives and the site was handed over to the client again…. And they broke it…. again…

I started to wonder if a prank was being played on us. How was it possible that no settings or files or were being touched, yet every time the client was given control, the site made a mockery of the people doing the work?

This time, the only change that was made was another password edit. How often does a password change break an installation unless it’s in a database configuration? As far as either of us knew, never. I couldn’t think of a single troubleshooting session where that was the problem. But it had to be the problem.

I ran through my tutorial about integrating bbPress forums and something jumped out at me. One of the very important steps is to tell WPMU and BuddyPress who the administrator of bbPress is. Not only does the install need to know WHO the keymaster is, but it needs… a password!!!

We changed the admin password back to its original state and like magic, the groups were fixed. If the bbPress keymaster’s password didn’t match the settings in BuddyPress’s forum settings, it would break again.

So remember, if you, as the administrator/keymaster of bbPress decide it’s time for a password change, you must also change the password that’s being used in the BuddyPress forums settings.

ShareThis

First, click “Plugins” in your admin dashboard. Depending on your version of WordPress, you may also need to click “Add New” under the Plugins header.

Look for “Plugin Browser/Installer” and choose that option.

In the search box, enter the name of the plugin that you would like to add. A box will pop up with a list of plugins that you can choose from. After finding the correct one, click the “Install” link to the right of the plugin.

Once the plugin is automatically installed, you can also choose to activate it from the same screen. Remember that plugins won’t work if not yet activated.

ShareThis