Fatal error: Call to undefined method WordPress_Module::_weak_escape()
in ../wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 473

After a little bit of playing around I found the cause… The Redirection plugin…

The cure is simple: Delete the or rename plugin folder in the “wp-content/plugin” folder and refresh the blog login page (had to do it twice because the first time round WordPress had to disable the plugin (reset the database).

After logging back into the blog it was a simple matter of uploading the folder and reactivating the plugin.

Moral of the story?

Deactivate plugins before doing an upgrade – it saves a lot of headaches (by eliminating a major cause of upgrade errors).

Click here to watch The Conversion Blogging Video

It is actually quite simple to do. Create a new post and place your cursor in the position you want the affiliate image link to appear and then follow these intructions:

How to Add An Affiliate Image Link to A WordPress Post

Perhaps not, but there’s a lot you can do with WordPress RSS feeds.

First you need to know how to create the feeds, and the great thing is the WordPress RSS system can make just about any feed you want. All you have to do is use the correct url’s.

So here goes…

WordPress Category RSS Feeds

If you are using a custom permalink structure, to create a category specific RSS feed you use this type of url:

http://your-blog.com/category/the-category-slug/feed

Just replace ‘your-blog.com’ with your actual blog domain and ‘the-category-slug’ with the actual category slug from your blog.

The category slugs are easy to find – run your mouse over the category in your blog’s sidebar and look in the lower left hand corner of your browser window (in the status bar). You’ll see the category slug at the end of the url.

There is another way to create a category specific RSS feed, but first you need to go into the ‘Manage Categories’ section of your blog admin and get the category number. You can either right click over the category name, and copy the link, or run your mouse over the category and look in your browser window status bar for the url which will look similar to this:

http://your-blog.com/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=56

The bit you want is at the end – the cat_ID number – 56 in this case.

Next you create the RSS feed like so:

http://your-blog.com?cat=56&feed=rss2

It doesn’t matter if you change the order:

http://your-blog.com/?feed=rss2&cat=56

Placing the ‘cat=’ number at the end makes it easier to create other RSS feed url’s.

WordPress Tag RSS Feeds

The latest WordPress version has tagging built in. You can create an RSS feed for each tag:

http://your-blog.com/tag/tag-slug/feed

or

http://your-blog.com?feed=rss&tag=tag-slug

The tag-slug can be found in the ‘Manage Tags” section of your blog – it is created by adding a hyphen between each word in the tag, so if you know which tags you’ve used you don’t really need to log into your blog to get them. Another way to find tag slugs is to run your mouse over a tag and view the url in the browser status bar.

WordPress Search Term RSS Feeds

You can also create RSS feeds by using a search term. The difference with search terms is you add a plus sign between each word:

http://your-blog.com/search/search+phrase/feed

or

http://your-blog.com/?feed=rss2&s=search+phrase

So how does all this help you?

Here’s the magic of WordPress RSS feeds…

You can mix and match the RSS feeds from your various blogs using Yahoo Pipes. You then submit your ‘mash ups’ as they are known using an RSS submitter like RSSBot.

Initially you won’t get much traffic from submitting your mash ups, but you will get back links as other webmasters use your RSS feeds.

The thing to remember is each of your mash ups is made from RSS feeds which have links to the articles on your blogs. Over a period of time these back links will help your blog rankings in the search engines, and that is when your traffic will increase.

The key is to get creative with your mash ups. Create niche related mash ups and submit them.

You could even create auto blogs out of your mash ups and use them for backlinks or even flip them for cash – there’s no limit to what you can do with your WordPress RSS feeds.

I have had a fantastic week and want to share it with you by letting you in on a two for one offer on any niche website purchase you make over the next few days.

Simply click the following link:

http://InstantNicheWebsites.com (opens in a new window)

Then enter the following special offer code into the “Enter your Coupon Code >>” text box on the shopping cart:

sb02d

When you click the “Update Cart” button the price on every alternate website will be reduced to zero.

Instant Niche websites also has an affiliate program – you can earn 50% commissions on all purchases made by your referals.

I’m not sure whether the issue is with Fantastico or my hosting, but the latest upgrade to WordPress 2.5.1 is not available, and from what I have read it is a very necessary upgrade…

So I decided to give the WordPress Automatic Update Plugin a go, and see what happened on a fantastico installed WordPress blog.

It worked… sort of…

The only issue I had was when you are asked to update the database. The page opens in a new browser window, and after the database update you are asked to login again – I’m not sure whether logging in from that page would have made the process work, but I went back to the Automatic Update page and clicked the “next” link and was presented with a login screen.

This meant that the automatic update sequence was broken and none of my previously active plugins were re-activated (and I test plenty of them, so I had no idea which ones I was actually using at the time).

So my advice is to login on the database update screen and then go back to the automatic update window to continue with the update…