About four months ago I did some damage to my right elbow while writing for my Blogs, and I had to lay out for awhile until I could heal. A condition I apply named “Europa Elbow”. Man, it was painful.

I’m not really sure which was the greater of the challenges: taking care of the injury or trying to catch-up on all the writing for the Blogs. The time away was great, but trying to catch-up was not so great. The only good thing about the mess was that the story line….”Europa Elbow”…. took off in the search engines; and I now I rank number 1 in Blogs for the term “Europa Elbow”. It makes a Blogger proud to know that he’s reached the pinnacle of the search engines.

Well, here I am at the cross roads again, injured once more. I’ve been inexplicably struck with “Europa Foot.”   No ….. I wasn’t trying to type with my toes. I fell and broke my foot! Ouchhh!!!

I really just want to lay in bed and hurt. As you can see, I’m still able to punch the keys; but I’m afraid that I’m going to have to let the content slide for a while until I can get back-up on my feet. I’m not really one for roasting my lap with a laptop, so ………. I’ll just take it a day at a time.

You can leave your condolences, sympathy and cash offerings in the comments section below.

I was doing some Blog hopping today and was looking at the “QuickPress” in my own WordPress Dashboard, kinda at the same time. I just figured that the “QuickPress” thing was just a little to small for me to fool with, although I wanted to take a test drive.

As I said I was Blog hopping and saw a news feed for “WordPress For BlackBerry”. BlackBerry or WordPress or both are updating its WordPress Software for the different Smartphones and now you can do just about anything you want on a Blackberry that you can do on the desktop. I kid you not!

I decided to take a look at the downloads so far and for the first couple of weeks there were only about 70 downloads for the WordPress Software for the incredibility popular BlackBerry. 70 downloads! You’re kidding, right? I mean I gave up on “QuickPress” because it seems to me just to be to small and here are 70 mis-guided soles downloading WordPress for BlackBerry.

Every so often I have to display my Blog to others in a public place, usually a restaurant and the only way to do this is with my BlackBerry Storm. For the record, it’s a pain, it’s just awful. Slow downloads, no flash, not to mention tiny screen. I mean, I know I can magnify, but it’s just too cumbersome to work with. It’s also interesting to watch people’s reaction to my Blog on a BlackBerry. They look at me like I’m nuts. Maybe it’s my Blog. But I have a sneaking feeling that they were wondering why I would put them through the experience to begin with.

WordPress on a BlackBerry. You’re kidding, right? What next? Internet Marketing on a shoestring?

I was kinda knocking around today looking for kinks in the armor and checking links; all the housekeeping stuff that has to be done from time to time to keep a Blog well oiled.
And I hit on the RSS Feed. My Feed is handled by “FeedBurner” of which I have never really been that fond of, however they have a killer “RSS Reader”.

As I was looking over how the content was displayed in the FeedBurner RSS Reader, I could not help but think that this Reader looked as good as my Blog! I think the way it displays images is really cool.

FeedBurner not only allows you to subscribe with the most common of web based news readers, but also lays out the entire content of a Blog from A-Z, making it extremely easy to read. I’ve noticed that the number of people who read my Blog through some sort of an RSS Reader has been growing by leaps and bounds.

RSS Readers or RSS and Atom files provide news updates from a website in a simple form for your computer. You read these files in a program called an aggregator, which collects news from various websites and provides it to you in a simple form. But what aggregator to use? Here are some choices:

Top Picks

Windows: SharpReader
Simple, but gets the job done.

Linux: Liferea
A simple Gtk newsreader.

Mac OS X: NetNewsWire
This elegant Mac-like aggregator is easy to use and powerful.

Web: feeds.reddit
Check all your feeds from any web browser. Plus, vote on items and get recommendations about other feeds you’ll like. Plenty of choices at top of page.

Web: Bloglines
Simple two-pane interface, like email.

Runners-Up

AmphetaDesk
A news aggregator you access through a web browser. (Mac/Win/Linux)

FeedDemon
A more complicated aggregator for Windows. (Win)

FeedReader
Like SharpReader, but sporadically updated. (Win)

NewsGator
Read the news from within Microsoft Outlook. (Win)

News Is Free
Lets you create your own customized news page with feeds from the sites you’re interested in. (Web)

Novobot
A smart headline viewer and news ticker that can also process almost any website. (Win)

Radio UserLand
A full-stregth news-reading application, on your desktop. (Mac/Win)

rss2email
Reads RSS feeds and sends each new item to you as an email. (Unix)

Straw
The GNOME news aggregator.

I’ll be trying to update this list in the future, probably as an individual section here at Bloggers Market. So keep your eyes peeled for that! This is the best that I can do for now as I just don’t have the time to build a new section and provide a solid foundation for this most interesting and important area of Blogging.

I’ve got a direction with my next product, really its just a product re-launch. I’m finishing up on the double checking today. I’m going to be re-launching the E-Book Cover design instructions for the GIMP software. This will be it’s second edition and I’m really, really pleased with it. I’ve split this thing into two halves. The first half will deal with building your own E-Book covers from the ground up starting with nothing. The other half will deal with building your E-Book cover on top of varies templates that you can find on the Internet from time to time these days.

I’ve about got the “WordPress Secrets Basic HTML” about ready to go and I have several other products that are close to being finished. I was thinking this morning about all of these different projects that I have started to bring together that I am sure will have a good market. The only problem is they shouldn’t!

I’ve got two different products that jump to mind when I think of unnecessary E-Books. The first is a product I’ve got for Aweber and the other is for the E-Junkie affiliate site. Both of these product launches will have a good market, but they shouldn’t.

Both of these Websites are popular with Bloggers, hence my products for the two. But I shouldn’t have to do a product for either of them. I can remember that when I started to work with Aweber I was just stunned and with E-Junkie, well ………. I couldn’t even get started before I had left the site and gone for libation.

I’ve got a very high tech project underway for; let’s say for sake of understanding this post, a software program for flight. I came up with the idea when I was meet with the same numb feeling when I visited one of the better known Private Jet Websites that I had experienced at both Aweber and E-Junkie.

Software should be intuitive, period. Unfortunately it’s not. Not yet anyway. I’m not sure what the hang-up is really, but it keeps me in E-Book projects and product launches.

How bout that James Cameron? Man, …….. Titanic, Aliens, Terminator, True Lies and now Avatar! Do I have this right? Avatar is the top grossing film ever? Let’s go to the beach and celebrate that one! Every man should take time for reflection. And with Avatar, I would image there is plenty to reflect upon. For James Cameron, that’s not the case or his way. He’s ……… I think what they define as a type A personally. Instead of coasting on his success, get this …….. he’s planning a re-launch of Avatar.

If a re-launch is good enough for James Cameron to undertake, all Bloggers who have their own products should learn a lesson here. Product re-launches are not new of course, but they are not really as popular as one would think. For Bloggers and Internet Marketeers, as soon as the product is launched, most are ready to move on to the next gold mine.

I’m facing my first big re-launch of “Bloggers Market WordPress Secrets – Set-up And Installation” in the next few weeks and this will be a totally new experience for me. I’ll have to admit I’m pretty hyped. For one, the original launch was mucked up due to product permissions and two, the actual product I’m launching is being released in two different formats and it’s a truly terrific product for the Newbies and has some tricks for the old salt. Now if I only had the budget that James Cameron has ……….

I’m also working on two different re-launches of products that I released earlier this year. The first is an E-Book Cover Design manual that is now in it’s second edition, nearly double the size of the first edition. And the other is my first manual from my Blogging 2010 series which has to do with dealing with the initial considerations of launching your own Blog. Here’s hoping that product re-launches are my charm!

I was lucky with my rebuild this week at Blogger Extreme. Could have been a lot worse. I was able to re-build the MySQL tables instead of the entire MySQL Database. Here’s how I did it.

WordPress builds 10 tables when you install WordPress 2.8. I think they have 11 now with 3.0.1. These tables should be understood so that you can work with them at a future time. I’m not real big on using the different WordPress plug-ins that let you work with the database in one shape, way or form. After all this is the brain to the Blog. I like to go hands on with the database and while I’ll admit it really is no fun at all, with a little work and concentration you can work effectively with this database software affectionately know as MySQL.

Here is a run down on the tables and what they do! ………. (Man, I wish the editors would hurry up with the WordPress Secrets project!)

• # Structure wp_comments
• # Structure wp_links
• # Structure wp_options
• # Structure wp_postmeta
• # Structure wp_posts
• # Structure wp_terms
• # Structure wp_term_relationships
• # Structure wp_term_taxonomy
• # Structure wp_usermeta
• # Structure wp_users

1. Comments: Stores all the comments that other make to your Blog Posts.
2. Links: wp_links table is used to store the blogroll – your Blogs or Websites list of links.
3. Options: All of the different options and selections for your Blog such as URL, E-Mail Address, etc.
4. Postmeta: This table is used to store custom field names and values and other information about your posts.
5. Posts: This table stores all of the Blog Posts that you write for your Blog.
6. terms: To categorize and manage posts and other contents, WordPress uses various taxonomies like categories, tags and link categories.
7. term-relationships: The wp_terms_relationships includes two numbers – a term id and a post id. By grabbing every term that uses a post’s id, WordPress can immediately identify all of the appropriate categories and tags to use.
8. term-taxonomy: In the wp_terms_taxonomy field, each “term” is defined as either a tag or a category.
9. Usermeta: You can keep all sorts of things for each registered user here, birthdays, contact information, etc.
10. Users: WordPress uses this to store registered users. User ID, login, encrypted password, full name, registration date, and things like that.

I’m not really big on playing in traffic as it usually winds up with my being road-kill on the Information Superhighway (that’s me against the curb in the image above). So I am always a version or two behind when it comes to my tech writing. I make this clear over at Blogging Extreme, but thought it would be good to mention as I go through these post on the WordPress database. So what I am writing about today has to do with WordPress 2.8 and I have noticed that things have changed with the database in WordPress 3.0.1. But hang with me and I think you can limp on down the curb on the rim.

When I tangled my database lately with the installation of a forum, I wanted to uninstall the whole thing. Easier said then done. I have had to re-build databases from scratch and I wasn’t looking forward to doing it here. I had the advantage of having a recent install (within the last year) so if I could just rebuild some of the tables I might be able to get away with a 6 hour upgrade. If not, I could look at a possible 60 to 70 hours to re-build my site. Big difference isn’t it. Newbies beware!

I have a big problem with most of my Blogs that were built on 2.whatever, with the fact that I can’t transfer the database or tables to a newer version of WordPress or MySQL.
So I have to do the 60 to 70 hour thing with those Blogs. Arghhh………….

WordPress has 10 database tables with the installation of its software. So in this instance (where I am trying to re-build the database for Blogger Extreme) I thought I would take a shot at rebuilding the tables …………….. It worked!!!!!

Tomorrow I wind-up my totally boring series on the WordPress MySQL database, by explaining to you how I did it. Oh Joy!

I can remember back when I was just a lad growing up on the farm …………….. you know ………. the good old days. The days when you installed a program to your computer and if you didn’t care for that program or it didn’t function, well …….. you were just struck. Man, I really miss those days of working with the computer for a couple of days until I realized that I had hopelessly tangled my programs and had to re-install Windoze.

The security companies changed all of that with their Anti-this and Anti-that, by finally offering and “UNINSTALLER”. Of course the first attempts at anything are likely just an attempt at making you feel like you are actually accomplishing something. And the first Uninstallers just removed the icon from the desktop and removed the folder from the directory tree. Mission accomplished. However after about 3 or 4 years of this nonsense, these uninstallers got really good at what they did, even going as far as removing trace evidence of the offending program from the registry of Windoze.

Fast forward to 2010 and it would appear that WordPress is still back in the stone age or at least those good old days that I spoke of at the beginning of this post. When you go to remove or uninstall a totally useless plug-in, WordPress will inform you that it is deleting and removing all the files to the plug-in. Basically removing the mention of it in the “Plugins” area of your WordPress Dashboard. Only problem is that when you have a plug-in such as a forum for your Blog, man, it writes files everywhere in your WordPress install and in your MySQL Database.

Such was the drama with my “Blogger Extreme.com” which is my personal diary. I had installed a forum for the use on another Blog that I was selling and need to make sure it functioned first before I committed to it so I used Blogger Extreme as my guinea pig. Really big mistake!!! Tomorrow the drama revealed. I just bet you can’t wait!

I thought I would pick-up where I left off yesterday, with the discussion of WordPress Databases. I understand that that this is not good material for the Newbie Blogger, but it is all that I have to write about at the moment.

Yes, don’t forget to back-up that database, and think before you leap when adding any new plug-in. It seems these days the trend is to avoid plug-ins. Indeed with the rise of child themes, the focus tends to be in integrating those plug-ins that are deemed critical. Even the WordPress Software is integrating some of these ideas with every upgrade.

Which brings me to my point for the day here. When you go to upgrade your WordPress Software, you should make a check of your database. It doesn’t take long before the database becomes outdated itself. As of the first of next year I understand that WordPress will no longer support MySQL 4.0, announcing an end of life on July 23, 2010.

WordPress will be dropping support for MySQL 4 after WordPress 3.1. Fewer than 6 percent of WordPress users are running MySQL 4. The new required MySQL version for WordPress 3.2 will be 5.0.15. As of the date of this post I’m running 5.1.48. So as you can see, WordPress is not going to be that far behind on the development of MySQL.

WordPress is actually in the process of developing a special tool, ( I’ll call it software for now, instead of a plug-in ) that will give you all of the critical information as it relates to your Blog and MySQL. Noting that if you are not in compliance, your Blog will not work.

You don’t necessarily have to upgrade your database when you go to upgrade your WordPress Software, but it’s a pretty good idea. I like to “match” the latest version of WordPress with the latest version of MySQL. So when I upgrade WordPress; I upgrade MySQL. I don’t rush out and upgrade everysingle time. About once a year does it for me; at which time WordPress has gone through about four or five upgrades, but you really don’t need the latest and greatest. That’s inviting real trouble!

Doing things this way will give you an adrenalin rush and let you know that you are alive for sure. But I’ll mention this ……… I have never had a technical problem with one of my Blogs when I keep everything up to speed under the hood. And who needs a WordPress crisis at any point in time?

I’ve have got so much going on this week, that all my Blogs and Blogging is getting tangled up in my mind. As I stated last week I just can’t break away from what I am doing with the Product Launch, yes the saga continues with “WordPress Secrets”, and with the rebuilding of most of my Blog inventory. If you recall I have a huge database problem with most of them that has to be straighten out before I move ahead with any of them. And that takes time.

I thought that while I do this work I might take you along for the ride as boring as it might seem, if you follow my post you will pick up some cool tips. So for now and for the foreseeable future, I going to be doing the “Blogger Extreme.com” and the “Blogging Extreme.com” thing over here at Bloggers Market becuase I have nothing else to write about.

Blogger Extreme.com if you remember is my personal log and it got tangle up with a “Forum” that was meant for another Blog that I was building for a client of mine. It crunched my database. I kinda figured it would. That’s why I was using it over at Blogger Extreme instead of the site that I was building. I was on a time line to finish the new site and I figured if anything went wrong it would be better if it happened on a site that I could come back to later.

I know, it sounds like a real stormy romance. Indeed it is. But I would like for you to take this with you when you leave. All of what you do on WordPress, all the posts, all the artwork, all the coding, everything just about, goes right to the database! So if you deleted your Blog from your server or host and reinstalled a brand new version of WordPress, the whole thing will come back up just the way that you had it, if the database is not deleted or damaged.

WordPress is just the software we work with, it’s the database that is the brain of the whole mess. It will pay big dividends for you to backup your database and when you have a few spare minutes, forget about reading about the newest plug-in and do a little study on database management. You’ll be glad you did.