This week, a client asked a good question. How to they make these menu links open in a new window? Well the good news, this is super easy and no extra tweaking required. Here’s what you do.

Logged in to your WordPress site (with administrator rights). Go to Appearance > Menus

Then on the top right corner under your name, you will see a tab called Screen Options. Click that to expand the options panel

Check the Link Target box. You may click the Screen Options tab again to minimize the panel.

Now, expand the menu item you want to edit. You will see a Link Target drop down. Default is set to Same window or tab. Simply change it to New window or tab.

And that’s it. Pretty painless right?

Here’s what. If you have created custom tabs for your Pages and you host these customized tabs yourself; Or, if you used a WordPress plugin to create content for your Page, guess what? You most likely have created a Facebook app. You didn’t know you were a developer did you

How to be sure?

Step 1: Go to your own Facebook Page. Take a peek at the tabs (links) down the side on the left. Are there any tabs there that you created yourself?

If there are and you used a Facebook app to create it – and you are pretty sure you didn’t create this app then go ask the app creators or check out their pages and web site to see if they have taken steps to support this change. They should.

If you still have no idea whether you are hosting the content on the tab yourself, using Firefox or Chrome, click on the tab. Right click anywhere on the tab content – make sure it’s not on the Facebook portions – select “Open Frame In New Tab“.

On Chrome it would be “View Frame Source”

You’ll see your content or the source of that content in your browser. Take a look at the URL in the address bar. If it is your site – bingo! You need to make this page secured.

Oh no! Now what?

Relax it is truly not as difficult or scary as you might think.

Step 2: Determine which domain the page lives on, then go purchase an SSL certificate for that domain. You can purchase this anywhere really. I purchased ours through our web host. So the best people to ask is them. There is no need to spend hundreds for a top level cert here. Get the most basic one.

SSL certs get really expensive if you want wildcard SSL and extra checks on your business. Wildcard SSL certs is for when you want it to work on both www, non-www and any sub-domains you have or may create in the future.

For something like this is not necessary. Pick with or without www and remember to stick to it because https://yoursite.com and https://www.yoursite.com are not the same thing for SSL certs.

You also need to purchase a dedicated IP from your host. There is no way around this. All SSL certs have to run on a dedicated IP. In short there will be an extra expense involved every month some hosts only charge a couple of dollars extra and some charge more. Bottom line – get up with your host, have them install both. You really do not want to do this yourself.

Once a certificate is purchased, you may be asked to verify or complete some information that is normal and required. After all, that’s the point of a secured certificate, that your information is verified by a third party and hence much more trustworthy and those without.

Got it! What’s next?

Step 3: This will be easy. Go to Facebook developers. This is a direct link to your apps. Click on the app that is used to display the custom tab.

Then,  Edit App.

Scroll to where it says Page Tab. In the box next to Secure Page Tab URL – simply change out http to https. If you have a canvas that refers to your site, you’ll have to do that for the Secure Canvas URL box too.

Save your changes.

Check it

Step 4: Make sure you test it. I like to open up a browser I rarely use – like Internet Explorer , clear all the browser cache, saved information, and certificate caches. Then visit my Page and click on the tab in question. You don’t have to do that of course but doing all that lets me start from fresh and simulate a user who has never been to my sites or Page before.

If there are no complaints from your browser about some information is secured and others are not then you’re good.

Multiple tabs and domains

What if you have multiple pages with a bunch of different tabs hosted on several domains? You have two choices. Purchase a cert and IP for each of those domains (ouch!) or you can simply think ahead before starting everything and purchase a certificate only for one domain. Then host all your Facebook Page tabs on that domain. The down side to that is, if you’re using a WordPress plugin, the SSL will only work on the domain you purchased the certificate for.

Unfortunately, there is some thinking and planning to be done here but a secure certificate is always a good thing. Especially if you sell stuff and host the cart yourself. Here’s an idea. You could also turn your paid content areas like the download or members’ area into secured pages. Not many membership sites do that but your members might appreciate you if you did.

You don’t have to upgrade to patch the software and they do give you clear instructions how to apply the patch. Although it is always recommended you upgrade. We had to perform several of these this week since the patch involves the affiliate program – something all our clients uses heavily.

If you need to do this, don’t know of someone who can do it for you and are nervous about doing so, head on over to our sister site TechBasedTraining for a short training video  how to upgrade aMember.

I have 81 CSV files that needed to be merged into one huge file.  I had all of them in one folder and sure as hell didn’t want to sit here copying and pasting 81 files.

As someone who loves automation and tries to batch my work as much as possible, I had to dig for a solution and found one using good old fashioned DOS.

You know, I love modern computing and the snazzy interfaces but at the same time a lot of ‘real computing’ knowledge like using DOS commands is also lost. I’ll admit I’m no where near a DOS ninja I don’t know how to do many things in DOS plus this stuff is kinda scary. However, this was easy.

First, I opened command prompt. If you’re following along, you’d go to Start >> Run >> type cmd in the box and hit Open

Then, I navigated to the folder where all my files are. For convenience and less typing you could simply move the folder containing all the files you want to merge to the top of your C:\ drive. Let’s say your files are in C:\mergefolder, you’d type this in command prompt.

cd \mergefolder

Once in the folder and you can tell because your prompt is now C:\mergefolder>

Now, type this

copy *.csv newfilename.csv

Then hit enter. In a second maybe two, I got a new file (newfilename.csv) with all my content from 81 folders in it.

And now in my folder I’ll find this brand new file named newfilename.csv. Of course you can name the file anything you want.

SO neat and a huge lifesaver. I know this may not be useful to you right this moment but it is one of those posts you will wish you had bookmarked when you find yourself in my shoes later on so go ahead. Share it so you will have it in your stream for later, bookmark using the tools at the bottom of this post or clip it to Evernote.

1. Log in to your cPanel. Locate the Password Protect Directories icon/link
   
2. You may be asked what directory you want to open into. If unsure you can simply click the Go button
   
3. Select the folder you want to protect by clicking on it
   
4. In the first block here, check the password protect this folder box and enter a name for the folder this name is shown when people are presented with the log in dialog box. Click Save.
   
5. You should receive a confirmation like this. Click Go Back.
   
6. Your next step is to create a username and password so people can access the folder. When you click back on the screen above you will be returned to the previous screen. At the bottom you will see the option to enter a username and password. Enter whatever username and password you desire.
   
7. If you can’t think of a good password, clicking the Password Generator button will give you this dialog box. Copy the password, click I have copied the password box and click Use Password. It will be copied into the fields for you. Then click Add/modify authorized user.
   
8. When you return to the folder list, you will know you have password protected a folder because there will be a lock icon next to the folder name.
   

If you want more than one username and password you can repeat step 6 (7 optional).

The Beginner’s Way To Password Protect Your Downloadable Product

This process is as you can see very manual. And therefore not great for membership sites. So how might this be useful when selling a product? Well, not everything has to be complicated or use expensive software. If you’re just starting out and you are selling your very first eBook, cheat sheets, tracking sheets or any downloadable item, here’s how you do it.

You create a folder on your site and upload all your paid products into the folder. Then you use the process outlined above to password protect this folder and create one authorized user.

In your thank you email or your thank you auto responder message, give people the URL to this protected folder and the username and password they can use to access their downloads. If you wish, you can also put this up on a public thank you page but that sort of defeats the purpose.

Once in a while you could change out the password if you wish and that is all there is to the process. Super simple, not complicated. In fact, that’s how I did it when I started selling my first digital product.

As with any shopping cart or order system you really want to customize the design. You don’t always have to go all out and make it super fancy but sometimes just a little bit of header and footer matching will do wonders. The great part about aMember – you can theme it any way you want to.

All the theme files are located in the aMember/templates folder. For simple header and footer customization, you’ll want to edit – the header and footer templates of course.

If you are adventurous, you can even edit every single one of those template files. And if you really know your way around Smarty template system you can actually build a new theme from the ground up.

It’s really not all that hard. Don’t let the Smarty code intimidate you. If you focus on the regular HTML, you’ll have a new theme or ‘skin’ in no time.

Want more hand holding? Then you want to pick up the aMember Customization training pack. This short, easy to follow course shows you every step how to match aMember to an existing site template you may have. It also includes a custom built theme in four colors that you can load to save you time. Also covered in the training is how to edit the theme files in a way that won’t get overwritten when you upgrade aMember. That alone will save you hours of re-doing and money.

Lucky for her, this is super easy to do. The only caveat is, it might not work if your browser has Javascript turned off. Ready? Here’s the code.

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<a onclick="window.open('http://yoursite.com/url-to-your/downloadable-file.pdf')"
href="http://yoursite.com/url-to-the/redirect-page">Click here to download</a>

Told you it was simple. You can also make it link to an image if you prefer.

Like in the last two tutorials, this rollback method is based on the assumption you backed up both database and files the way we showed you. There are many ways to do this but for us, this is one of the easier manual methods we use.

Warning! This method will involve deleting the existing database and WordPress files do not proceed without making sure you have a back up of the original pre-upgrade files and database. You can also backup the failed upgrade again just to be doubly sure. We also encourage you to practice on a copy of your site beforehand. By following this tutorial you agree not to hold us responsible for any problems or loss of data. Proceed at  your own risk.

Restore old database

This is the nice part. Because the database was not downloaded to our computers, we don’t have to spend time re-uploading and re-inserting it. All you need to do is swap the existing (upgraded one) for the old like this.

Log in to cPanel

If you want to backup this upgraded database follow the steps how to backup a website database. Otherwise, skip to the next step – warning, you will be deleting the existing database tables.

Look for phpMyAdmin icon, click it

Click on the existing database

While in the Structure tab, click Check All to select all the database tables

In the drop down, select Drop

You’ll be asked if you really want to do that. Warning! There is no undo

If you click yes, you’ll get a success message. Don’t worry. Your site will be down for a very, very short time while you swap the database out the faster you can do it, the faster the site will be back online.

Select the backup database

Click the Operations tab

In the Copy database to box, enter the name of the existing database. Uncheck Create Database before copying. Click Go

A success message will be displayed. Select the existing database to check, and re-load your site in your browser it should appear normal.

Restore WordPress files

Still in cPanel, find the File Manager icon, click to launch File Manager

Select all the WordPress files – hint folders starting with wp- and the index.php

Sidebar: This is the reason why I prefer to run WordPress in a folder of its own even if the site will run on nothing but WordPress it makes restoring and backing up super easy because during backup, all you need to do is make a duplicate of the folder and when you want to restore, just rename the existing to something else and rename the backup as the existing folder. It is even easier than this method we are showing you.

Click Delete. Warning! There is no undo.

Click on the backup folder name to open it

Select all the WordPress files in this backup folder

Holding down the Ctrl key, drag and drop into the /public_html/ folder. IMPORTANT! If you originally installed WordPress in a folder e.g. /public_html/blog then drag and drop the files into the /blog/ folder. Whatever you do, just make sure you copy the files back to the exact same folder you deleted the files from a moment ago.

That’s it. You should be done. Check your site, log in. If you did it right it should be a success.

Additional resources

1. Part 1 – Backing up website files
2. Part 2 – Backing up website database

In the previous post, we shared how to manually backup your files and folders via cPanel that you might want to check out first. Those of you who know cPanel fairly well may wonder why I don’t use the backup feature within cPanel itself.

Ahh! There is a method to my madness. Because, sometimes all you may want is selected files – like when you’re backing up WordPress to get ready for an upgrade, you don’t want everything else. Also, when doing upgrades, I do not want to download the files to my computer. This is time consuming and seriously I do not want to store so many backups on my computer. I think backups should be stored off my computer like on Amazon S3 but that’s a whole other story. Another reason I like to keep files (and as you will see shortly the database) on site at least during the upgrade process is so I can roll back quickly without having to re-upload everything – once again waste of time and bandwidth. What about backup plugins? – Same issue. I don’t want to download anything.

In this post, we will only walk you through on-site database backup. Here we go.

Log in to cPanel

Locate and click the MySQL Databases icon

Create a new database – it helps if you name it similar to the one you will be backing up. There’s no need to create a user for it since this is for backup purposes only.

Once the database is created, copy the name that is given on the screen, set it aside and return to Home

Locate the phpMyAdmin icon. Click to launch phpMyAdmin

Click the name of the database you will be backing up

Click the Operations tab

Under ‘Copy Database To’, paste the name of the new database you just created. Uncheck the box that says Create Database before copying and click Go

The tables will be copied over to the new empty database.

To check if it is there, click the name of the new (backup) database. All the tables should be there.

You’re done!

Next in this short 3-part tutorial series, how to reverse a WordPress upgrade.

Click for part 1, how to backup your website files and folders

1. Backing up files and folders
2. Backing up database
3. Reversing a WordPress upgrade

You may wonder at the third one. It does seem like an odd topic and not related to website backups but it is very relevant because in order to revert to an older version of WordPress, you will need to begin with backups and the method of backup we will show you in this series will make it a whole lot easier to restore a failed WordPress upgrade.

In this tutorial, we will be demonstrating the backup and restore using cPanel because that’s what we use and that’s what we like. There are many ways to do a backup. There are also plugins to help you and make it all automatic and easy. This tutorial will show the manual (and free) way because… let’s just say, I’m the type who believes that you should know how to light a candle or a lamp if your power goes off

Now we’re ready, let’s go!

Objective: To backup website or WordPress files only, i.e. images, html files, php files, themes, plugin files and such.

Log in to cPanel

Locate the File Manager icon, click it

The File Manager will open in a new window

Click on the home folder (the one with the house next to it). The right pane will refresh and put you in the folder above the one you were before.

Click ‘New Folder’

In the dialog box enter ‘backup’ and New Folder will be created in field blank. Click Create New Folder

You should see your new ‘backup’ folder in the list

Now you’re ready to copy the files you want to back up. Click on the ‘public_html’ link

Select the files and folders you want to backup.

Press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard. Now, drag the selected files/folders into the ‘backup’ folder – remember to keep holding down the Ctrl key while you do it.

Once the files are over the ‘backup’ folder, release the mouse and Ctrl key. They will be copied into the ‘backup’ folder. To check they are there, click the ‘backup’ folder’s link and you should see the contents on the right pane.

Congratulations! You have just backed up your files and folders. If you do not plan on downloading your backup, you can stop here.

Storing backups on the site itself it not always a great idea though. So downloading it would be a good idea for the longer term. To do that, click on the home folder again to bring you one level up. On the right pane, select the ‘backup’ folder.

Then click ‘Compress’ from the toolbar

In the dialog box, select ZIP and you can leave the rest as is. Click Compress.

When it is done you will see a screen like this with the results and a zipped file in your /home/yoursite/ folder named backup.zip

You can click on the ‘backup.zip’ file and then click Download and save to your computer.

Next, we will walk you through how to backup your database.