Thelonious (Wordpress 3.0) offers many new features that are great for both begging and advanced Wordpress users. Although I haven’t explored all of the new features, I have explored a few, and I’m going to share two of the coolest ones with you.

MultiSite

One of the coolest things about Wordpress Thelonious, in my mind, is the merging of Wordpress and Wordpress Multi-User. Now, you can manage multiple websites with one Wordpress installation. To do this, however, you will need to follow the tutorial provided by Wordpress.

The Multisite feature isn’t anything huge, but it does make everything a lot simpler. You no longer will have to log into 8 different blogs (on the same root domain name (eg; hotblogtips.com)). It’s a really quick time saver!

Menus

Another cool feature it the new Menus feature. With the menus feature, you can “handcraft your website’s navigation” (quoted from Wordpress release video).

From the Menus feature, you can change the order of pages, add custom links, and add categories all to the navigation of your website. Although some themes allow you to do this without Wordpress 3.0, it is cool for those who don’t own such themes.

The only downside is it is only works with themes compatible with Wordpress 3.0. So, if you are interested in Wordpress 3.0 for mainly this reason, you are out of luck if you’re theme isn’t compatible.

What Are The Other Features?

Now, I only covered two of the MANY features available in Wordpress 3.0, so to see more of the major additions to the powerful version of Wordpress, watch the below video;

(If unable to watch video, click here)

Let me point out the obvious – why this is so dangerous. These links are hidden to us that view the page in a browser but Google and other bots can see it clearly. If Google indexes your site with these links there they are going to remove your site from their search results. You then will have to correct the problem and request inclusion again. Who knows how long that might take?

Once I removed the links it was time to change today’s plans and secure my blog. I spent the better part of the day researching, testing and implementing what I could to make it a little harder to be hacked. I’m a blogger and marketer not a programmer. Many of the online articles are way above my head. Here’s the steps I took and only time will tell if they will do the job:

1. I changed my C-panel/FTP password to one with over twenty (20) characters, numbers and symbols.
2. I changed the user name and password in my MySQL database. Again, over twenty characters.
3. I added a new user for my WordPress blog assigning them (me) administrative authority. I then logged out, signed in with the new user name and changed ‘admin’ to a subscriber. It wouldn’t let me delete the account. User name and password are both, you guessed it, over twenty characters.
4. I added an empty index.html file to my plugin’s directory and used C-panel to protect the other directories.
5. I installed and activated Angsuman’s WordPress Guard Plugin giving me a second layer of protection around the blog’s admin area. Now I have two sets of passwords to gain access the the admin area.
6. I installed and activated the WordPress plugin WP Security Scan.
7. I installed and activated the WordPress plugin Login LockDown that will lock out anyone that fails to enter the correct password after three attempts.

I wasn’t able to do every task I wanted to do but I hope my site is more secure now. Now that one of my blogs is a little safer I guess I better get started on the other six.

Learn from my mistake and secure your WordPress blog now before it becomes an all day ordeal. Start with upgrading to the most recent version and backup everything. Below are a few of the resources that helped me out today:

• 20 Wordpress Security Plug-ins And Tips To keep Hackers Away
• Three tips to protect your WordPress installation
• WordPress Security
• 18 Wordpress Security Plugins & Tips To Secure Your Blog

On this site I installed the WP Cumulus plugin because the word tag widget isn’t available in the theme we use. WP Cumulus adds a cool spinning effect.

I quickly surpassed 45 tags on my personal photo blog and wanted them all to display in my tag cloud on the sidebar. A quick Google search led me to WordPress Tag Limit by Money Making Websites. Ron Killian’s post refers to the Configurable Tag Cloud Plugin which was exactly what I needed. Minutes later I had every tag showing with a few extra tweaks available.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kbgv4bsvLI

ZK of WebTrafficROI offers this advice: Best URL Permalink Structure for your Wordpress Blog

Don’t get in too much of a hurry! First things first. I just spent many hours yesterday trying to get my theme on ExtremeEzine.com to work with WordPress 2.7.1. It turned out to be a single line of code in the header but it made my post categories disappear. I’ have also lost several plugins throughout the many recent upgrades. I decided a post was in order to help others get through the upgrading process with a few tips from experience.

1. Back It Up - Always – always backup your blog, files and databases. I also recommend using your FTP client to download a complete backup copy of your existing blog to your computer too. This step is especially important if you have any custom files in your theme. You want to backup before any WordPress or theme upgrades. [See Back That Blog Up!]
2. Slow Down - If the upgrade is for a security issue then you want to get it taken care of right away but don’t get in such a rush you bring everything crashing down. Give everyone time to catch-up, especially with a  maintenance release like WordPress 2.7.1.
3. Use Google - Google the new version a few days after the release and see what’s what. Blogs and forums are going to be loaded with good and bad comments but you should get a feel of what to expect. I wouldn’t read into a few complaints too much. There are always going to be those that kick and cry about every change but if you find dozens or more posts about a particular problem it might be something to look into.
4. Your Hosting Company - Check Your Web Host for Compatibility. If you need a reliable web host I recommend HostGator which is on the list.
5. Theme and Plugins Compatibility - Check the compatibility lists for your WordPress Theme and Plugins:
   *  Plugin Compatibility List
   * Theme Compatibility List

   If you need to work on your Theme and Plugins I would start with the designer. The designer is probably already ahead of you with an updated version if they’re still active. If you are on your own I would start with Migrating Plugins and Themes section. WordPress.org also has a Codex Help section and of course there’s the WordPress Support Forums.

I don’t want to make your WordPress upgrade a scary ordeal. It’s truly a simple matter. Ninety nine percent of the time it will go trouble free. Even if there is a problem it’s always a small issue and usually an easy fix. A whole bunch of clever people put a lot of effort and time into these upgrades and they know what they are doing. The steps above will help prevent problems and make corrections a little easier.