Everyone wants to have Good look and feel for their own blog. WordPress is providing really nice blogging platform which is used by many people like me. I used to share Blogging Tips which can help you make your blog better and sometime I used write about WordPress plug-in which can help you to improve your blog look or performance.

Today I would like to share revive of Cu3er Post Elements which is WordPress plug-in based on cu3er technology. This is plug-in is good to show Image plays. If anyone is having Image Blog he/she can use this plug-in to show as Slider or one can use it to Portfolio.

What is Cu3er ?

According to the developer of this plug-in  : CU3ER : flash 3D image slider you will love! CU3ER is:

• FREE
• EASY to set up
• CUSTOMIZABLE via XML
• TAILORED to provide a UNIQUE look & feel
• INSPIRING
• FUN-to-USE

WordPress Cu3er Plug-in

If you talking only about Slider then Smooth Slider is my first choice but if you are looking for something really Stylish yet simple then Cu3er Post Elements is really good choice.

You just need to define from which category you want to publish the post, how many post you want to publish, height & Wight of the slider and few other setting.

Cu3er Post Elements (WordPress Cu3er Plug-in) Review

Personally I feel this plug-in need to add few more features but still it really useful for newbie blogger or not techy bloggers.

Positive :

• Easy to Use
• Fast Implementation
• No Coding require
• Auto fetching Images & Text
• User Define Slider size

Need to Improve:

• Customer Selection for specific post
• Images is not comes in centre (User define Image location )
• More control control for look & feel.

As I mention earlier this plug-in is really good for them who are using Image Blog, newbie, Don’t know much coding etc. If you can check my other post on How to protect content Theft ? or How to add Google Buzz etc.

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When we are writing some good Innovative things as blog post and if some still it and post on their blog like their own content it huts. Don’t you think so ? Recently I wrote an Article at Internet Marketing Journal about Reconsider 5 Things for Google Adsense. It take two years to understand Adsend logic better, I did lot many experiment and not more do know about Google Adsense but with in a Day It got Still by one Gentleman, who is Blog url is having nice word “Legend” , I got surprise if he is really Legend then he need not to copy the content.

Content Theft is one of the big issue in blogosphere now. I was looking for solution how I can come out form this issue and I got one nice Plugin WP-CopyProtect. This plugin is easy to Install and do nice job. WP-CopyProtect will Disable Right Click Section and Disable Text Selection so you are out of basic worry. Still this is not 100% way out but of course It helps a lot to get it theft in very easy manner.

I would like to say thanks to Chetan Gole for making this wonderful Plugin. I had install this plugin Today and it seems good as of now. If you want to share your experience about Content Theft, Blog Post Protection or about this Plugin just comment here. Share your views about using this plugin as well.

This is guest post by TOM

For years, WordPress has been known for its weak security. The security issues WordPress has had is a laundry list of hacks and exploits that malicious users can use to access personal information, post unauthorized content or simply wreck your site, none of which you want to suffer.

Simple things like changing your default password and changing your mySQL table prefixes are the preventative measures that most webmasters can do, but you shouldn’t stop there. Hackers can intercept data exchanges between your server and your computer and user’s computers to get passwords and other information. Your themes and plugins could be compromised, sending sensitive information to outside computers or even allowing hackers access to your server. Spam attacks, iFrame injections, mySQL injections, and a host of other security risks associated with WordPress can leave your blog open to disaster. Fortunately, a number of plugins are available that will automate these security tasks and make your blog less vulnerable to attack. Below, you will find 10 plugins that you can use to lockdown your WordPress blog. You can click the link to go to each plugin’s Web site to get more information about how the plugin works and how to install the plugin into your WordPress site.

1. Angsuman’s WordPress Guard Plugin This plugin protects your WordPress blog from brute force password attacks. Brute force is where a hacker will attempt possible password combinations until it finds one that works on your site. It also exploits that attack outdated plugins and software that can give hackers access to your blog.

2. Bot Block This plugin prevents automated registrations on your site. It blocks multiple users from signing up from the same IP address and also looks up user IP addresses on a blacklist. Any blacklisted IP addresses are not allowed to register.

3. AskApache Password Protect This plugin adds additional filesystem level password protection via .htaccess files, making it easy to set and change the password for WordPress directories on your server itself to prevent unauthorized attacks that can occur outside WordPress.

4. WP Blogsecurify WP Blogsecurify works in several ways to harden WordPress. First, it forces logins to occur via SSL, reducing the chance that passwords and user names can be intercepted. Second, it prevents the leakage of session identifiers so that they can’t suffer from hijack exploits. Finally, it conceals database error information, so that information can’t be used in an attack.

5. WP Security Scan This multipurpose plugin will hide your WordPress version so it doesn’t advertise what specific vulnerabilities apply to your installation. It also checks for permission and password issues that leave your blog at risk.

6. Login LockDown Login LockDown logs all unsuccessful attempts to log in to your blog and records the IP address and time of each attempt. It will lockout IP ranges associated with failed logins to discourage malicious attempts to access your site.

7. WP-SpamFree This plugin works in a similar manner to Akismet to identify comments that are spam so they are not displayed on your blog. Spam comments can include links to malicious Web sites, or malicious code that can execute on your blog. This is an effective tool that helps deal with the WordPress comment spam problem.

8. Admin-SSL Admin-SSL funnels all your administrative activity through SSL, locking it down so no information can be intercepted between your computer and your blog. This works for both dedicated SSL and shared SSL configurations.

9. Anonymous WordPress Plugin Updates Since WordPress transmits information useful to hackers as it looks for plugin updates, Anonymous WordPress Plugin Updates can be used to remove identifying information such as your WordPress version and the URL of your blog. By keeping your plugin updates anonymous, you can make it harder for people to attack your site using data from plugin Web sites.

10. Theme Authenticity Checker This plugin checks to see if a theme you’ve uploaded contains malicious code. Since so many free themes are out there, you never know if someone has embedded back door access that they can use to manipulate your site.

Tom is a designer and writer who works for a UK based specialist offering HP Deskjet cartridges, toner, paper and other print accessories. You can read more of his posts on their blog.

Hope you all now using Google Buzz. There are lot of Buzz on Blogosphere about Google Buzz. You can read official post at Google Blog about Google Buzz.

My first hand experience with Google Buzz was pretty Good.  The way they introduce it’s nice, very seamless connectivity with Gmail (my all-time favourite mailing services ).  I hope you also loves Google, Gmail and other services.

You might be feeling that I am going out of the tract and you can’t hold your temptation for knowing that How you can add Google Buzz to your WordPress. I know you are looking plugin for Google Buzz. Then Don’t worry you are at right place.

www.clickonf5.org is coming up with Google Buzz Plugin for WordPress. Sanjeev Mishra and Tejaswini are people behind this site and these guys are doing wonderful job. They all ready gave Plugins called Smooth Slider, Instant Weekly Roundup, Cute Profiles.

Just check what is Google Buzz button for WordPress (Plugin) according to developer of this Plugin.

Google Buzz is launched and many publishers, webmaster and web addicts has already started using that. If you are having a WordPress site then you can add “Google Buzz Button” thru a simple wordpress plugin to let other people share your posts on their Buzz. Google didn’t release any official button yet but we have released a WordPress plugin to add a button on a post/page. Once your visitor will click on this button, they will be taken to a page where they can add some note on your post’s link and title and share that on their Buzz. This way your post/page’s reach will increase by huge amount.

Download this Plugin from Clickonf5

Disclaimer : I haven’t tested / tried this plugin yet. But Planning to use it soon. I had used their plugin Smooth  Slider and It was Good.

Internal Links is not a new word for them who keep in touch with SEO or Internet Marketing. Still who are new to this field should know following definition.

An internal link is a hyperlink that is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document or to another document that may be on or part of the same website or domain of the internet.

Internal Linking

Links are considered either “external” or “internal” depending on perspective. Generally, a link to a page outside the same domain is considered external, whereas one in the same domain is considered internal.

However, these definitions become clouded when the same organization operates multiple domains functioning as a single web experience, e.g. when a secure commerce website is used for purchasing things displayed on a non-secure website.

Similarly, a blogging website might have thousands of different blogs, in which

context one might view a link as “internal” only if it linked within the same blog, not to other blogs within the same domain.

Source – Wikipedia

Improve Blog :

Keep in mind that Internal Links will help you and your reader to keep updates about some old and related article / post / information from your blog. This will help visitor to discover some more information about your blog. This will help you to improve your page views, reduce bounce rate and make user friendly navigation system.

Focus on you target keywords:

Many times we are not understanding value of internal links. Try to be focus on Anchor Text too. I am sharing an example for it.

Option 1 : Did you check my article about Canonical URL ? No Just click here to know more ..

Option 2 : Hey ! Why don’t you check my article about Canonical URL

What’s the different between Option one and Option two ? virtually nothing. I want to focus you attention for my article about Canonical URL but what is the best practice to do ? the second option as I am using that as Anchor Text and I am killing two birds with one stone. Getting Internal Link and tell search engine that this links is about Canonical URL.

Use Breadcrumb :

Breadcrumb will help visitor to navigate easily and also help you for internal navigations. It makes your blog internal link reach blog.

Use SEO Smart Link Plugin :

Feel bored that need to find each keyword from article and link with relavant links. No worries You can go for SEO Smart Link WordPress plugin. You just need to feed your required keywords with their links. When you wrote post and make it online this plugin will do the needful.

Keep linking with your internal blog will help you to gain more PR, More authorities and more internal links means win – win situation.

WordPress is undoubtedly number one Blogging Platform for bloggers. But now It’s not limited to blogging people are stretching WordPress for some unique and off beat use also. Even you will Clone WordPress theme for some famous sites like Digg, Google etc.

I used to search a lot for WordPress and Internet Marketing things as I love this both things. I had a encounter with several Versatile thing about WordPress themes and offbeat wordpress usages. So I feel let collaborate all and share with friends.

Well many of themes are free but some Premium theme can burn your pocket. So just keep checking Theme Info link this will give you more idea about particular theme. The list is as follows.

WordPress Clone Themes

We like many site for their look and feel as well as their features. Some geeks are too creative to make clone of their look and that also in some fantastic manner. I am amazed some time to see that. Let’s explore some this kind of WordPress Clone themes.

Digg Like themes – Clone of Digg

Live Demo – Theme Info

Google Like theme – Woogle

Live Demo – Theme Info

Facebook Clone theme – Facebook Lover

Like me, many people are Facebook Fan so We have some more theme which are develop as clone of Facebook for WordPress. Bye the way are you become my Fan at Facebook ? Not Yet ? Just check sidebar and be my fan at Facebook.

Live Demo – Theme Info

Facebook Clone theme – Facebook WordPress theme

Live Demo – Theme Info

Facebook Clone – Cry Book

Live Demo – Theme Info

Twitter Clone Theme – Fresh Tweet

Live Demo – Theme Info

I am also planning to add more theme not only WordPress Clone themes but also WordPress alternate use themes like an Article Directory. I will publish WordPress The Versatile Part 2 some time during next Week. I will appreciate if you can post a comment about any missing wordpress clone theme or any unique / offbeat theme for WordPress. This will help me to enhance this list. So wait for WordPress the Versatile Part 2.

I must feel regret not be regular updating my site. I was busy due to my commitments and some other issues. Now a day’s my schedule is too tight so not be able to write regular, on top of that my all sites get Virus attack so me and Dhaval (my younger Bro – Who is PHP techy ) was very busy to control the situations. Now all fine and I learn a lesson that How we can secure our Blog / wordpress Site.

Today I want to share my personal experience about how to secure your blog from Hacking, Virus Attack and from unauthorised access.

After attack on my site, I had visited many sites which talk about WordPress Security. The conclusion as well as common things are as follows.

• Keep latest version of WordPress and keep it updated time to time. You must keep visiting WordPress official blog or subscribe for it. This will help to get an updation about WordPress. Don’t waste time to update the WordPress patch if it “Security Patch”
• You must change default password which is generated by WordPress and Password should not be easy to remember. Password should be combination of Special Character, Numeric and alphabets.
• You should block Search Engine to crawl your WordPress related folders. Now don’t think much how to do this just add following line to your robots.txt

Disallow: /wp-*

• Did you ever realised that people can check which plugin you are using. Got shocked ? check just yoursite.com/wp-content/plugins/ If your hosting provider is good service then you will get an error else you will get shocked. Now what to do ? Confused ? Don’t worry guys. Say thanks to Matt Cutts he has shared brilliant idea. Just make one blank file named “Index.html” and put it at same folder. Now any one visit this folder they just get blank page or Install plugin named “Secure WordPress”
  

  Secure-WordPress-Plugin

• You must remove WordPress version information line from Meta : That line is look like following string (

If you had installed “Secure WordPress” plugin then you need not to worry too much this plugin will do the same. )

<meta content=”WordPress <?php bloginfo(‘version’); ?>” />

• Now you must lock your Login Page to make sure no one unauthorised person will login into system. Need not to worry you can check this plugin : Login LockDown . This will block your login page if any one try to hack for certain bad attempt.
  

  Login LockDown WordPress Security Plugin

• Now finally you want to implement multiple level of security then you must look at AskApache Password Protect “This plugin doesn’t control WordPress or mess with your database, instead it utilizes fast, tried-and-true built-in Security features to add multiple layers of security to your blog. This plugin is specifically designed and regularly updated specifically to stop automated and unskilled attackers attempts to exploit vulnerabilities on your blog resulting in a hacked site. ”   (This will work if you are using Apache Server)

This will provide your blog to more security and more reliability so that you can focus more on your work and feel protected.

Check Official Update from WordPress Blog : How to Keep WordPress Secure

Want to move from blogger to wordpress site ?

Blogger to WordPress Redirection

Many bloggers who start bogging for understand the things, getting used to with these termilogy, earn money without investment and so many other reasons, mostly they start with Blogger.com which is free utility by Google. Even I am one of them. But when you are used to with these and at that time you feels that I should start my site with WordPress self hosted site as WordPress has many advantage in terms of SEO, Plug-in etc. But now great question is my blogspot blog is very popular and now I don’t want to loose my visitors while moving to new domain blog. Did I got trapped? No dude there is still a way to come out from it and make 303 redirect to your blogger blog to your self hosted blog.

I am sharing my own experience with you how I did the same. I was having blog about Mr. Narendra Modi, CM, Gujarat and leading politician of India. It’s url is thenarendramodi.blogspot.com and now it is http://www.thenarendramodi.info

If you are also planning to move your blogspot blog to wordpress selfhosted site then you have two options :

1. If your blog is too much popular and having good PR (Page Rank) and you want to maintain it and don’t want to loose much on PR as well as back-links (in some cases). In this case you must have patience to wait for 3-4 months for things going set. This is a bit long procedure but if you have time to wait then you must follow this procedure. Find detailed procedure at http://www.devilsworkshop.org by Rahul Bansal.
2. You can’t wait for your new adventure (website) and you are not much concern about your PR then you can move your blogspot blog to new selfhosted site in maximum half an hour to one hour. It’s it cool ?. Well this will be post to post conversion, I mean if any one try to open any of your blogpsot link like http://thenarendramodi.blogspot.com/2008/05/mukesh-ambani-praises-narendra-modi.html will automatically redirect to your new site like http://www.thenarendramodi.info/mukesh-ambani-praises-narendra-modi/ This will be explained in detailed at http://www.devilsworkshop.org by Rahul Bansal.

What I did for transfer my blog ?

• Purchase new domain & web space. You can get good deal for the same from my hosting provider.



• Install wordpress CMS from wordpress (One of the best CMS, I had ever seen till date)
• Transfer all post from blogspot blog to this site using wordpress import blog feature.
• Install Blogger To WordPress 1-2-1 Redirection Plugin and couple of other plugin
• Update my blogspot blog as per instructed by Rahul @ Blogger To WordPress 1-2-1 Redirection Plugin guide page.
• Cross my fingures and search for my blog and click on the result.
• That result link will lead me to my new blog and I just cheer up.

I must admit here this is very easy procedure is explained by Rahul Bansal and one can do it easily if he / she is bit technical person.

So what are you waiting for? Just start your own site, just buzz me if you are looking for any help or support from me. If you have any technical queries you can post comment at Plugin Page Rahul will revert you shortly.

Cheers !!! Keep Blogging.