Custom Fields in WordPress can be used for many things:

• Assigning images to Posts (featured image or thumbnail)
• Serving as a data source for content to be loaded via Ajax
• Providing multiple content areas for a Page (custom sidebar for instance)

One “gotcha” of using Custom Fields to solve this issue is that the size of the input area is limited. There are possible ways around this limitation, but they’re outside the scope of this Post so we’ll save that for another time. Putting that all aside though, they can definitely help get you to where you need to be.

Custom Fields have two components, “Name” and “Value.” If you’re of the developer mindset, think of it as a simple key-value pair. You can have multiple identical keys even on the same Page/Post. Once you have used a key once it then becomes available from the select box on future Posts/Pages, making it easier to reuse custom fields for similar operations on other pages. You can use get_post_meta() anytime the WordPress core has been loaded for the Page view and you have access to a Post or Page ID.

Let’s take the third example, providing multiple content areas for a Page, as an example in using Custom Fields in your theme. We’ll be using get_post_meta(). Here are some basic steps to move towards putting this all together:

• Edit a Page you would like to add a unique sidebar to
• Add a custom field name of “sidebar”
• Add any content you would like to the value field
• Save your Page
• Create a Page template file inside your theme directory
• At the top of the template file add this PHP code:

$sidebar_content = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'sidebar', false);

Some explanation:

• $post->ID feeds the primary key of the Post or Page that is being displayed by your theme
• ’sidebar’ is the “Name” or key for the custom field you added to your Page in the WordPress Admin
• false tells get_post_meta() to return an array of key-value pairs for the requested key. If set to true, it would return a single result as a string.

From here, adding the extra content to your Page template is fairly simple. Perhaps you have a sidebar

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For starters, we do back up the servers.  It’s important to note though that we are backing up the entire server.  So if something goes wrong with your blog specifically, we can’t roll back the whole server for your site.  That would adversely impact our other users that are on the same server as you.  Our backup routine is in place to protect against a catastrophic disk failure or something along those lines.  We keep a daily backup and a weekly backup.  We also periodically take snapshot backups when configuration changes are being made to the server.

So given that we have the server itself taken care of, that leaves the question, what can you do for your specific site?  Well, there are many tools out there to help with this.  The first, and easiest is using WordPress’s built in XML export of data.  This will get you all of your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags.  If you ever have to restore your site from it, it’s as easy as using the built in XML import.  Unfortunately it does potentially leave out some data.  Some plugins store their data in their own database tables, which won’t be included in the XML Export.  To get that data backed up, you may want to consider using something like the WP-DB-Backup plugin.  It can create a SQL Dump of your entire WordPress database, including table structures and data.  If you ever need to restore from that on WordPress Easily you’ll need to contact us, but we can do it in a jiffy.  A final option, and probably the most advanced, is you can use WP-phpMyAdmin.  This gives you a copy of phpMyAdmin within your WordPress administration panel.  You can export your database from this (which will create a SQL Dump file just like WP-DB-Backup), then if you ever need to restore, you can use WP-phpMyAdmin to import your database.  I wouldn’t recommend WP-phpMyAdmin unless you’re fairly comfortable working with SQL Databases.  But feel free to use WP-DB-Backup and we’ll be happy to assist you with restoring should the need ever arise.

All of that takes care of your database and most of your content, but what about your themes, documents, plugins, etc?  You can use an FTP program to download your site to your local computer.  You probably don’t even need to do the entire site.  If you download your /wp-content/ directory that should take care of anything you need since that is where your themes and plugins are stored, as well as any files you upload from within the WordPress administration area.

As I said, it’s recommended that you get a backup plan in place early and that you practice it often.  You never know when you’ll need that backup.  I am hoping to announce more robust backups of individual sites in the near future.  But until then, know that we have the catatstophy type events covered, and you should always be practicing personal backups as well (even when we do launch the more robust backups of sites).

Until next time, have fun using WordPress everyone :)

All of that is where we come in. Worried about getting WordPress installed? Not a problem, we’ve been doing it for years and can have a WordPress site up and running in almost no time at all these days. Worried about something going wrong? Well, WordPress is pretty self-sustaining, but if something were to go wrong, all you have to do is contact us and myself or someone else will quickly come to your aid.

There are other benefits to hosting your WordPress blog with us as well. Many WordPress hosting sites set you up with an account on what is called WordPress MU. This system is great, but it does have a few disadvantages. The two primary disadvantages would be that you can’t install your own themes, nor your own plugins. Because of how WordPress MU works (and security concerns), you have to use what the admin of the site supplies you with. No need to worry about that here. We’re actually setting you up with an install of WordPress that is just for you. You can upload themes you find from theme authors, plugins you find from plugin authors, etc. It’s all yours to fully customize.

Right about now you might find yourself asking, “So what’s the catch?” Well, I wouldn’t really call any of it a “catch,” but there is some stuff that you should be aware of. When we setup your account, you are indeed getting your very own install of WordPress,. However one way we offer this to you at such a cost savings is by not acting as an Email host, nor a conventional web host. Email hosting can be time intensive on server administrators. That is cost that gets passed onto you in your subscription fee. By passing on that, we can offer you a better WordPress experience for a lower cost. But don’t worry, you can still have email on your custom domain, we’d just recommend you use something like Google Apps for your Domain. Let Google worry about keeping your email flowing. They’re probably better at it then we are anyway ;)

So by offering a very focused service in WordPress hosting, we hope to be able to give you outstanding customer service and a great overall experience with WordPress itself. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get you signed up!