40Tech

Last week, we covered two tools to help you scan your website for malware. Another method to determine if your site has been hacked is to look at changes in your server files themselves. That, though, can be time consuming if you do it manually. If you use WordPress (the self-hosted variety), and you want to use an automated tool that detects changes to files, take File Monitor Plus for a spin.

Yesterday we compared Squarespace and WordPress, and I indicated that as slick as Squarespace was, 40Tech was going to remain on a self-hosted WordPress installation. Bloggers using a self-hosted instance of WordPress, though, need to make sure that their blogs are secure. That includes making sure that your blog isn’t already compromised. How do you do that? The easiest way to do that is to use external tools to scan your site. There are two that we use here at 40Tech, and recommend.

Earlier this month, we took a look at 4 ways to backup your WordPress blog.  That post covered steps you could take to backup your site, including the use of WordPress plugins.  We’re always on the lookout for better ways to get things done, and when it comes to backing up a WordPress blog, we’ve found a gem.  Updraft is a dead simple plugin that will backup the contents of your site to the cloud (such as Amazon S3) or to an FTP server.  You can even have the backup emailed to you.

If you run a website, content may be king, but speed is the cook that keeps the king fed.  Recently, we talked about WhichLoadsFaster, a site that compares loading times of two or more website.  How do you improve your site’s chances of being the site that loads faster?One of the best tools for speeding up sites, and one that we use here at 40Tech, is W3 Total Cache, a caching plugin.  W3 Total Cache not only speeds up your site, but it can also save you bandwidth.

If you have a website or blog, you probably have the same worry that most blog owners share – what would happen if the unthinkable would happen, and all your data would be lost?  Would that be the end of your blog?  You can reduce the risk of disaster if you have a backup plan in place.  Here are a few methods for backing up your site, along with a few pointers as well.

Have you ever gone onto an image-heavy site and marveled at how fast it loads; at how the images just “fade in” as you scroll down the page? Cool, yes? While it may seem, to the average Joe/Josephine, that this nice little bell and or whistle is the result of a fancy and expensive tool created just for big sites like Mashable –  it’s actually just a little jQuery script. It doesn’t take too much to install, either, especially if you have a Wordpress site. In fact, there are at least two plugins for Wordpress that make it extremely simple for you to do too.

If you’re a regular visitor to 40Tech, you’ve probably noticed the new look. The look is largely due to a new theme by WooThemes. A few months ago, the 40Tech team decided that a new look was needed in order to grow the site and to implement some upcoming new features that we had in mind (stay tuned for those). After searching around for a new WordPress theme from numerous sources, all signs kept pointing back to WooThemes. While the beauty of WooThemes’ designs was what sealed the deal, it was the support I ran into after the sale that impressed me the most.

If you’re a blogger, you know that one of the beauties of WordPress is the sheer number of available plugins.  There are the "old standbys" that many blogs use, such as WP Super Cache and All In One SEO Pack.  But are you familiar with some of the lesser-known gems?  Here are five WordPress plugins [...]

If you’ve visited 40Tech since its inception back in June, you may have noticed a few changes to the system for visitor comments.  We’ve been searching for the "perfect" system, and we’ve tried out Disqus, Intense Debate, and JS-Kit Echo on this site and a test server.  For a few reasons, 40Tech is now back [...]

My personal site runs on WordPress, and hosts family photos, videos, and news.  I’ve just switched to running NextGEN Gallery to power the photo portion of the site.  The hardest part of the switch was figuring out the difference between an “album” and a “gallery” in NextGEN Gallery.  This might be because the terms have [...]