Installation is pretty simple.  You simply download the add-on and add it to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.  Then, activate the plugin from the Plugins menu inside of WordPress.  You have the option to insert the code automatically or via a shortcode.  The choice is up to you.

You can pick up the Google +1 plugin for WordPress from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

If you think Vanilla looks like an awesome forum script, but your not sure if you can get things together as far as installing it yourself – you are in luck.  If you don’t have a web hosting account or you would rather get Vanilla as an all in one package, try out their hosted installs of the script.

Much like how WordPress has a hosted version of it’s script at WordPress.com, Vanilla does the same thing with VanillaForums.com.  There you can get the same Vanilla forum script that others can download and install, but yours will be pre-installed for you.

The prices are pretty reasonable,   and vary depending on what you need.  You have the Basic plan for $19 per month, the Plus plan for $49 per month and the Premium plan for $199 per month.  If you just want to test things out first, they also have an ad supported free version you can try too.

Head over to VanillaForums.com and sign up.  If nothing else, you can try the free version out and see if it is something you would like to pay for or possibly install on your own web hosting plan.

So, you want to start your own website where people can upload videos of dogs of skateboards? A few years back, this would be nearly impossible. These days though, finding a script that will clone many of the best features a video sharing service like YouTube has is pretty easy.  There are a lot of duds out there though in the world of YouTube clone scripts so I have gone through the trenches to find you the three best scripts for the job.

ClipBucket

ClipBucket is a free open source script that will not only let you get started with creating your own video sharing service, but it also provides a lot of great social networking features too. Customizable templates and plugins are readily available for any ClipBucket powered website.  So this means it should be fairly easy to get a unique template designed and to customize your ClipBucket install to meet your own vision of what you want your video sharing website to be. Check them out at clip-bucket.com to learn more.

PHPmotion

PHPmotion is another great free video sharing script to try. With both video and audio support, this script looks to deliver a lot when it comes to features too. There are a number of great looking themes for PHPmotion that are well worth checking into and a reported user base of 100,000 webmasters – so the support for this script should be phenomenal too. With little to no knowledge required, you can start up your own video sharing website. Go visit phpmotion.com to download it for yourself.

ClipShare

ClipShare promises to be the ultimate video script for starting a highly profitable video sharing community.  While it is not free, it might give you the proverbial “step up” if PHPmotion or ClipBucket do not seem a professional as you would like them to be.  Over 20 video formats are supported in ClipShare, videos are converted on the fly and you get a fully brand-able video player that other people can embed on their websites. The website, clip-share.com is where you want to go to learn more about this amazing premium video sharing script.

Now, this is not to say these are the only three choices out there. These however seem to have the best resources, reviews and simply look the best overall.  I think if you mix a great FFMPEG hosting provider with ClipBucket, PHPmotion or Clipshare you will have great success when it comes to getting your own YouTube-like website off the ground and on the Internet.

Time to take a look at another hosting term you might have heard of but didn’t really know what it means.  FFMPEG hosting is the word up for review today. This is a term that is used to refer to any time of hosting that provides an assortment of of recording, converting and streaming tools for audio and video on the server side.

FFMPEG is an open source project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data.  When it is on a hosting server, it’s job is primarily to handle the online conversion of video or audio formats into another audio or video format that is more suited for the web. You can then embed the multimedia file into a player to be played on the website itself or to be taken elsewhere and played on another website.

So, to give you the short version – it is the server-side technology you need to run your own YouTube clone script, like PHPmotion.

So, what are the basic requirements for FFMPEG hosting? Usually, you need a dedicated or semi-dedicated server to do these types of work because the audio or video conversion is often taxing on the server.  However, many VPS hosting accounts should be able to handle it these days too.  There are even a handful of shared hosting plans out there that say they are fully compatible with the whole FFMPEG hosting setup too.

FFMPEG hosting is just one more flavor of web hosting to look for out there.  For webmasters who want to start up their own video sharing websites, it is the basic foundation they need to get up and running.  For the rest of us though, we can really live without it.

Search for “blog hosting” and you will get millions of pages and thousands of web hosts that would love to have your business.  What features, scripts and more should you be looking for when it comes to moving your blog to a new web host or starting one from scratch?  Here is my own personal must-have list when it comes to blog hosting that I hope comes in handy next time your searching for real blog hosting help.

Here are something you need to take in consideration when it comes to finding the right blog hosting provider for the website you run or the website you want to run:

Blog Hosting CPU and RAM Needs

The first thing you need to be able to narrow down is what is the size of your audience, and how often are they going to be hitting up your blog – looking at posts.  Many web hosts still sell on the promise of unlimited disk space and bandwidth, but these days, those two features are not the most important ones.  As soon as a blog really takes off – you want to know how many server resources you are using.  If you are starting a new blog, this is a little harder to figure out, but if you are currently hosted some where, your web host should be able to hand over this information.  This would be the amount of the CPU power and memory (RAM) you are using on the server.  If it is too high, changing to a new shared hosting plan somewhere else might not be enough.  You might want to start looking into virtual private server hosting.

Free Blog Migrations from Web Host to Web Host

Another feature I like to have when moving a blog or starting a new one would be free migrations.  Web hosts that will help you move your website from an old provider to themselves, as the new hosting provider are priceless.  Moving websites from host to host can be a pain – so anybody who will do this for you is providing you a really valuable service.

One-click Install Blogging Scripts

What scripts will the web host provide you with?  If you are not sure which blogging script to use – make sure you see which ones are available first, and then do your homework and see if you like any of the blogging scripts they provide.  These days though, you can’t throw a rock in the hosting universe without hitting a hosting service that will provide WordPress installs with “one-click” so this should be less of an issue these days.

Blog Hosting Upgrade Options

Blogs have a way of growing on you, so no matter if you are moving your current blog or starting up a new one  – you should always see what your upgrade options are for the future.  You might need to upgrade in a month or you might need to upgrade three years from now.  It is always better to plan in advance – so be sure to see what the costs and advantages are when it comes to upgrading your blog hosting.

That just about covers what I would consider to be the most important features you should look at when it comes to blog hosting.  If you have any others not on the list, that you feel are important – be sure to include them in the comments.

If you want to start your own virtual store out there on the Web, you don’t have to go through all the hard work of setting up a shopping cart, lining up shippers, processing credit cards and all those other headaches that are often involved with e-commerce.  You could sign up with one of these free online storefronts instead.  While they might take a cut of the profits, in the long term – they might also save you money too.

Cafe Press

Now Cafe Press is probably the one service I am the most familiar with so I will start with it first.  Back around Christmas time I used Cafe Press not to mass market my goods, but to instead create some simple Web Hosting Show swag to give away to friends and family members.  At Cafe Press you can create your own posters, mugs, tote bags, t-shirts, hoodies, hats, bumper stickers and more.  Then, to make a little money – you just hike up their basic price for the goods you are selling.  Anything extra made (minus the costs of the goods) is yours to keep.

Zazzle

Like Cafe Press, Zazzle is another online service that lets you set up a free online store in a matter of minutes.  All you have to do is upload your logos or images, decide what products you want to print them on, and then point people to the storefront URL.  They too have a large assortment of products to slap your image on, and their shipping is a little ‘bit faster than Cafe Press too.

Lulu

Last, but not least I also wanted to mention Lulu.  This service is a little different in comparison to Zazzle and Cafe Press due to the fact that it is more focused towards printed works, like books and calendars.  You can set up the same free storefront interface, but Lulu gives you the tools you need to sell books, ebooks, calendars and photo books.  Through Lulu, you can also distribute your book through place like Amazon, by getting an ISBN number. As soon as I get my next ebook done, I might very well be selling it through Lulu too.

All three of these services as great when it comes to giving you a unique way to sell your own goods and services online.  No matter if you just want to put your logo on a t-shirt, or you want to publish that book you have been writing.  If you have any more great online store tales or suggestions – be sure to leave them in the comments.

There is a lot when it comes to setting up your own online store on your website.  If you are serious though about becoming an e-commerce entrepreneur though, I will give you the basic things you need to have before you get started building your own online storefront.

Now, let us assume you have already found a web host to host your website.  So what is the next step?  You need to find a shopping cart script to install.  A shopping cart script will give you the kind of online catalog look and feel you are looking for.  Some scripts you might try out are:

• OpenCart
• osCommerce
• Zen Cart
• Magento

So now that you have one of those set up, are you done?  Not exactly.  Online stores require a few more basics before you are ready to set up and sell.

Dedicated SSL Certificate – This is a service that you can buy on your own (or through your web host, if they will give you a better deal) which is there to protect and secure the transactions on your website and through your online store. It might be a little expensive, but it will look more professional than using your web host’s shared SSL certificate.

Dedicated IP Address – A dedicated IP address, which and often be gotten through your web host, is simply needed for the dedicated SSL certificate to work.

Payment Processor – You will also need a way to process payments from your customers on your website.  Often, going through PayPal is the easiest route to go however you might look at some of the payment processor providers out there to see what services they can provide to you for your store.

Once you get all four of these services in place; then you will be ready to start promoting your e-commerce business.

How should you handle somebody else out there stealing content from your website?  This happens a lot with blogs, because the content is so easily ripped from one source so it can be reproduced somewhere else.  Most of the time, it is best to content the copyright thief first before going to the web host of the thief.  So here is a better way to stop copyright theft of your website’s content.

The first thing you will want to do is find some contact information for the person who is stealing your content.  This can often be done by looking at their about page, the contact page, in the footer of the website, or even in the meta tags or source code.  Once you have a name or e-mail address, you can take the next step.

Note: A Whois search on their domain name could be used to,  but it is not recommended since it could be privatized or providing false details about the person.

Now, you are ready to contact the thief.  Remember, your main goal is to inform them of the theft, open discussions about it, gather information and save everything you do – just in case you need to turn the conversation over to the webhost of the thief.  Also, keep the conversation professional and to the point.  Do not go out of your way to be mean or rude, because then chance are you will be even less likely to get a response.

Remember, you want to:

• Ask them to remove the plagiarized material as soon as possible (give them a 4 to 5 day window of time to get this done)
• Show them the source of their copyright theft, and your proof it came from you and it is your content
• Maybe let them keep the content up if they link back to you or by some other deal you could negotiate between the two of you

Now if this route does not work, and you do not hear anything back in a week or two it might be time to move into sending a cease and desist and also contacting the web host for the offending website to start discussing the DMCA violations at play in your situation.

For more information, I would suggest checking out this great guide that Lorelle on WordPress has put together.

This should at least help you get started (and take care of about 75% of the content theft you deal with) when it comes to protecting your unique content online.

Want More? – Check out the rest of the DMCA conversation in Podcast 210!

Let me share with you my tips on how you can faster web hosting support, with any web host out there on the planet.

There are three central points you need to make when you contact your web host when you notice a problem with your web site.

• Verification
• Details About the Problem
• What You Have Done to Troubleshoot the Problem

I can guarantee you that if you include these three things in your e-mail or help desk ticket to support, you will get a faster resolution to your problem.

Verification

The reason verification is important is because every web host wants to make sure they are talking with the account owner or somebody that has the authorization to give the thumbs up to them mucking around with the website to fix the problem.  Always include your primary domain name on the account, your first and last name, and whatever the web host uses most often for verification.  This can sometimes be the last four digits of the credit card you have on record, the first and last digits of your password or some security question like, “What is your mother’s maiden name?”.  If you are unsure, it might be a good time now to check with your web host to see how they handle account verification when support issues come up.

Details

Next, you want to include the details about the problem.  Do not just write, “I can’t see my website, fix it!”.  Give exact details about the problem.  Include details like:

• Exact Error Message You Got
• What Time Did the Error Happen
• What Changes Did You Make Prior to the Problem
• What Scripts and Services are You Running

Think of it as reporting a crime to the police.  You do not just tell police, “Hey, a guy stole my wallet”.  You tell them where your wallet was stolen, what your wallet looks like, what the thief was wearing, and more.  The more details police have about the situation, the faster they can find the guy who robbed you.  The same could be said for giving information to a web hosting support team, so they can fix your problem.

Troubleshooting

Now, this last nugget of information is one that is often overlooked by many when discussing problems with a web hosting support team.  What have you done on your own to troubleshoot a problem.  You want to make a list of things you have tried to fix the problem, so the web host does not turn around and suggest things for you to try that you have already tried.  Make it clear that you have already tried to do this, that and the other, so they can be eliminated as solutions to the problem.  This helps the web hosting support team to narrow down the issue causing the problem and the troubleshooting steps needed to be taken to find the problem.  Rather than tell you to do A, B and C – you have already done A and B, so they only have to suggest C now.

They key thing to remember when contacting any support team is that information is the most important thing you can provide. Remember to always verify you are the account owner, give details about the problem, and tell them what you have done to fix the problem.  This will make for shorter back and forth conversation with a web hosting support team and will lead to your problem being fixed faster.

What exactly does it mean to be using too many server resources in a shared web hosting environment?  Web sites can often get suspended for using too many server resources, such as RAM or CPU usage.  To put in the simplest terms, your web site might be overloading the server to an extent where no other accounts on the same hosting server can continue to function.

How Many Server Resources Do You Have?

When your web site is hosted on a shared web hosting server, you share certain elements of the web hosting with other people that are on the same server you are on.  The metaphor might be a little old, but think of it as being virtual neighbors with other web hosting clients like yourself. Each neighbor has to share the same amount of the server’s RAM and CPU processing power.

Now the limits on how many sever resources you can use might vary from web host to web host, so check with your web host for the hard numbers and statistics.  Now the next question is, how do these problems happen?

Causes for Server Resource Usage Suspensions

There are many different events that could cause you to use too many server resources.  Here are just a few common examples:

• Hacked or Security Related Issues
• Script or Plugin Vulnerability
• Sudden Burst of Popularity
• Out of Date Script or Plugin
• Badly Written Script or Plugin

Anything that is over working the server could be considered a cause.

I hope that helps to explain what it means to use too many server resources in web hosting.  As long as you are proactive about how much RAM or CPU power your web site is using, you should never run into a big server resource usage problem.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.