Giveaway: 5 Lifetime Subscriptions to Monitive Site Uptime Monitoring Service

Posted: 02 Oct 2012 08:30 AM PDT

In this giveaway, we’re giving away five subscriptions that will never expire to Monitive’s Platinum subscription plan (normally worth $990 a year).

Monitive is a reliable site uptime monitoring service that will notify you when your websites go down and/or are back up online.

Read on to see how you can be one of the five lucky Six Revisions readers to win this wonderful prize!

About Monitive

Monitive is a reliable uptime monitoring service that checks your sites from all around the world, notifying you quickly when they go down or back up.

Some of Monitive’s other features include:

Website performance monitoring
Email and online reports
Automated site diagnosis
Monitoring of various Internet web services like HTTPS, FTP, MySQL, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, DNS, and just about any TCP service using their custom TCP Service Monitoring

You can use Monitive for as little as $5 a month. (Check out Monitive’s subscriptions plans to see your options).

Don’t forget to follow Monitive (@monitive) on Twitter and check out their Facebook page.

The Platinum subscription plan is designed for large companies, allowing you to monitor up to 100 services. The Platinum subscription plan also has unlimited SMS, email and Twitter alerts so you’ll quickly know when your sites or web services goes down.

How to Win

For a chance to win a Platinum subscription plan, simply answer the following question in the comments below. Tip: Browse through Monitive’s website and Features page to help you with your answer.

How would you benefit from Monitive’s Platinum subscription plan?

Giveaway Details

This giveaway ends on Tuesday, October 9, 2012 after which the comments section on this post will be closed and you will no longer be able to leave a comment. Please leave a valid email address when filling out the comment form so that we can contact you if you’ve won. Please only comment once. The winners will be randomly selected using the same method as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The winners will be announced on a separate post and you’re advised to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you can be quickly notified when the winners announcement post has been published. Please note that comments are moderated and so your comment may not show up right away. Please also note that comments that do not follow the instructions on how to participate (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

5 Tools for Managing Multiple WordPress Sites from One Location

Posted: 02 Oct 2012 03:00 AM PDT

Advertise here with BSA

If you run more than one WordPress install, or if you have clients that run WordPress sites that you’re responsible for, then you know how much of a pain it can be to log in to each site every time you need to do things like update plugins, themes, or WordPress core itself.

With the release of WordPress 3.0, we now have the ability to create a network of WordPress sites with one installation through the multisite feature. However, your needs may go beyond what multisite allows you to do, and so you may need to explore other options.

Fortunately, there are a number of solutions out there that will let you manage multiple WordPress websites from one central location. In this article, I’ll share some options with you and give you a brief overview of each.

1. WP Remote

WP Remote is a simple and free solution that will allow you to do a few basic tasks related to managing multiple WordPress sites.

While you do need to install the WP Remote plugin for each WordPress installation, your administration panel for managing your sites is in one central location on the WP Remote site.

Here’s a look at the simple control panel on the WP Remote site:

WP Remote Features

Bulk update all WordPress installations
Create off-site backups
Update plugins that can be updated via the WordPress plugin page
Update themes that can be updated via the WordPress themes page

2. InfiniteWP

InfiniteWP is on a freemium model. (In other words, basic features are free, but you’ll need to pay for other feature upgrades such as auto-scheduling of WordPress site backups.)

Below is a video by the creators of InfiniteWP that will give you an idea of what the tool looks like:

InfiniteWP Free Features

The basic features of InfiniteWP are basic indeed, but they’re also pretty handy, and so many of us may not need the premium/paid features this plugin has. The basic features include the following:

One-click updates for the latest version of WordPress
Install and manage themes
Install and manage plugins
The ability to restore, download, and delete backups

InfiniteWP Premium Features

There are currently six available premium features available (with three more in the works). These are the currently available addons:

Install WordPress
Clone a WordPress installation
Schedule automated backups
Back up to repositories
Manage WordPress users
Save and run custom PHP code on multiple sites
Brand the InfiniteWP plugin with your company name or hide the plugin altogether

The premium addons currently in the works are the following:

Integration with Google Analytics
Manage posts and comments on multiple sites
Bulk create Posts, Pages, and Links

3. ManageWP

ManageWP has an array of free features (e.g. one-click updates and a centralized admin dashboard). This tool allows you to manage up to five websites for free. There are also three premium plans that start at $4.00 (for up to five websites) that give you access to ManageWP’s premium features.

Here’s a video from ManageWP to help give you an overview of the tool:

ManageWP Free Features

One-click updates
All sites in one dashboard
One-click automatic login to your WordPress sites
Install and manage plugins and themes
Remove spam comments, post revisions, optimize databases
Pageview site traffic statistics
Email notifications for available updates
IP address access restriction
Two-factor login authentication via email

ManageWP Premium Features

There are three paid plans above the free plan. With each paid subscription plan, you can have as many sites as you like. The difference comes in the features available. Check out ManageWP’s plans and pricing web page to see the difference between subscription plans. (By the way, you can try all the features for free for thirty days.)

Below are a few of the more important premium features available.

Manage users
Bulk add new posts and pages
SEO analysis
Integration with Google Analytics
Uptime monitoring
Scheduled backups

4. Worpit

Worpit allows you to manage a network of WordPress sites in one central location. A couple of Wordpit features are instant backup and recovery and bulk updating of WordPress plugins and themes.

You can manage one site for free with Worpit. There are six different paid subscriptions, ranging from five sites for $1.60/month, up to 500 sites for $160/month.

Below is a video of at Worpit in action:

Worpit Features

One-click login for each site under a single admin dashboard
Update your installations with the latest WordPress versions
Automatic daily backups
On-demand backup and restore
Built-in WordPress installer (install new sites in 60 seconds)
Auto-install your preferred plugins and themes to new sites

5. CMS Commander

CMS Commander, in addition to letting you manage multiple WordPress sites, also lets you manage multiple Drupal, Joomla, and phpBB sites as well.

You can use CMS Commander free for up to five sites. After that, prices go from $9.90/month for 10 sites, all the way up to $64.90/month for 200 sites.

Here’s a video tutorial on how to add WordPress sites to your CMS Commander account:

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CMS Commander Features

Plugin management (update, activate and deactivate)
Theme management (update, activate and deactivate)
Automatically create site backups
Clone a site
Automatically insert affiliate links
Post management (view recent posts, approve/delete drafts, etc.)
Comment management (review, approve or put comments in spam)
User management
WP Settings management
Categories management
Autoblogging and bulk posting (not available for free accounts)

Conclusion

All of the solutions above have some type of free version available, which makes for easy testing.

It should be noted, however, that many of these tools aren’t simply plugins (even though you may need to install a plugin as part of the set-up process).

And so if you decide to test them out, it may take a little more time to get them going than a regular WordPress plugin would. In the long run, however, you’ll save time by being able to manage multiple WordPress sites easier and better.

About the Author

Joe Foley is a writer for WPMU WordPress tutorials. He enjoys checking out WordPress plugins and themes, as well as providing how-to’s and tutorials for WordPress users. If you’d like to connect with him, you can do so via Google+.

GRT FREE STUFF!!!!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012