I am not the quickest on updating my wordpress usually.  It takes me a week or two, between law school and work its a little hard to dedicate the time to upgrading when I am terrified I am break something.  In the meantime, while I am lagging behind updates, its important to make sure that hackers have not been exploiting security holes patched by the next upgrade.  The best way I’ve found to monitor this is by using a great simple plugin called “wordpress exploit scanner.”  You can get it here, just put it into your plugins folder, go to plugins off your dashboard, and run it.  Just a quick note, it will pick up the names of exploits in the plugin file when you run it, so don’t get scared when things come up, just follow the file path and see if its from the plugin, or your blog.

Good luck, hope your blog is safe.

Made a few changes to the homepage of the website.  Changed the archive list in my sidebar to be by year rather than by month, to shorten the laundry list of items on the side.  If you would like to make yours by year as well, change the code in your sidebar to read:

<?php wp_get_archives(’type=yearly’); ?>

I also added a new page - Monthly Archives.  Used the manage feature to make a new page and then used the phpexec plugin to copy this code onto the page to list the archives monthly:

<?php wp_get_archives(’type=monthly’); ?>

Next I copied the link to my Monthly Archives page and added it under my yearly archive list, in case someone looking in the sidebar under Archives would like to see the monthly list instead of yearly.

Next, I got rid of my ShoppingAds ad box in my sidebar.  It was making money but just a little too bulky for my current theme/layout.  If you are looking to make a little extra money you should check it out, sadly its just not for me right now.  I may add it back when I redo the look of the site.

Last but not least I added a new section in the sidebar -  Where I get great deals!  There are three links there now, go check them out.  This area will grow over time!

A new program just launched for blog advertising called BlogRolled.  I signed up and got my blog accepted this morning, we’ll see what kind of income flow it ends up having.

One catch, no affiliate program… Yet.

This is the beginning of a multi-part post about making money with your website or blog.

First off, you should probably have a website or blog to monetize (check out some of my earlier posts that can help you get started:  Create an Icon / Favicon for your website;  Discount on Hosting; Simple Guide to Website Promotion; Optimizing For Search Engines; 5 Ways to increase Blog Traffic; Blogging Guide Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)

In addition to the tips and instructions regarding SEO and Promotion above I’m going to each day outline 1 income source of mine.

Today:  ShoppingAds 

How does it work?  You display a small ad (you have choices as to the size and display style).  This ad will show ebay ads (pick keywords and it shows ads tailored to those words).

How do you make money?  As users click on the ebay item ads, and purchase them, you get paid a % of the purchase price.

Does it actually make money?  Yes.  There have been days where I have made $13 just on one click/purchase.

Try it out!

I just noticed the massive interface changes over at blogging.la

Sure I’ve been busy lately, and haven’t been reading my usual blogs, but wow, how did I miss that.  Where have I been?

Upgraded to Wordpress 2.3.3!

Though i don’t have the time now, at all, to do this… I think it would be fun to give the blog a new look.  Clean it up a bit.  Add a section on the side for most popular posts, things like that.  I use Wordpress  and that would not be changing.  I am very happy with wordpress.  I should, however, upgrade the version of wordpress I am running and take advantage of the new features available on the new versions.

As for the new look, the dilemma is do i create my own new look? Do I get a blog designer?  Do i just use a preset template?

The best would likely be to edit a preset template to my liking.  Man I’m tired.  Time to go veg out and watch some tv.  I’m still shocked that Heath Ledger passed away today.

2008 has started off pretty great… USC just won the Rose Bowl.  Fight On Trojans.  49-17.

The year is winding down… Just feels like a good time to recap the most popular Mofomon posts.

Here are the top 5 wildly popular posts (not including the blog homepage):

1. Funny Things Said In Court
2. Corporate Lessons
3. Preschool Test That You Won’t Pass - Which way is the bus traveling?
4. How Smart is Your Right Foot
5. Tricks For Your Body

If you haven’t visited them all yet you should do it, everyone else did! Oh, and they enjoyed it too.

So I was looking through my google stats to see why users are coming to my blog, what they find interesting, where I can improve, and I found out a few interesting things. Turns out the last two weeks users have either come to my site looking for Malibu Fire Pictures or Information, or some (I’m sure sadly disappointed users) have been coming here looking for a Monica Leigh video, since we share the same first name, but I don’t have anything here about Monica Leigh. Didn’t even know who she was until I googled her a second ago…

Its always interesting to see how/why people end up here.