It’s been quite a while since our last giveaway. Now here it comes again. We’re going to give away 3 copies of “Digging Into WordPress” e-book by Chris Coyier & Jeff Starr worth $27 to you.

How to Win?

1. Follow @WPWebHost Twitter.
2. Tweet/Retweet following message.

Follow @WPWebHost and retweet this to win “Digging Into WordPress” e-book. | http://bit.ly/aYK0ht

3. Submit the URL of your tweet at comment section below.
4. You may enter this giveaway multiple times by tweeting the message once a day until giveaway closes. Each tweet is counted as one entry, which will be put into the list of entries.
5. Contest starts as soon as this post is published and ends on 3 September, 2010.
6. Winners will be chosen using Random.org’s List Randomizer after the contest ends.

Notes
• You don’t have to be a customer of WPWebHost to participate.

Earlier this month, we ran WPWebHost New Look Giveaway to celebrate the launching of WPWebHost new website. As promised, we will give away 1 year Elegant Themes membership to 30 lucky winners. This giveaway had more than 200 participants thanks to your great support. =) We have received many useful comments and constructive suggestions to further improve our website. Without further ado, we’re happy to announce the lucky winners are:

xphunt3r
Savio Lopez
akosipau
steve wyman
zodzeus
Ivan
Kevin Tan
Jenn
John Paul
Webbhotell.cc
Eric J Lomeli
Rajeel
OHFREE
Shafar
Rapid Sitemap
EiNS
Eric
Erica St. John
bintar
Setyo
Eric Yap
Rafie
BobbyT
Marcelo
Ravi
Stelian
Terri MacMillan
Samarn
mukmin
zhenyang

Congratulations to all the winners! We will contact you through email soon to claim your prize.

Stay tuned for more giveaways on WPWebHost. Subscribe to our RSS feed so you will receive notification about upcoming giveways and interesting articles right to your email for free. Welcome to follow us on Twitter or become a fan of our Facebook page as well.

To setup domain mapping from WordPress 3.0, you may follow the steps as below.

1. Log into your fresh installation of WordPress 3.0.
2. Add the line as below to your wp-config.php file.

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);



3. You shall be able to found Network from your WordPress tool as image below.



4. Click on the Network link.
5. You shall be asked for set the sub-domains or sub-directories sites to your network, select the radio button of sub-domains.
6. Click on Install button.
7. WordPress 3.0 shall guide you 3 step where you shall create the blogs.dir folder according to the given path, coding to insert to your wp-config.php file and coding to insert to your .htaccess file.
8. Once you have done, relogin again.
9. Next, you shall log into your cPanel and create the wildcard subdomain as detail below.

cPanel => domains => Subdomains =>
Subdomain: * (asterisk) and select your domain name.
Document Root: your WordPress path.



10. Go to the Super Admin panel and select on Sites, add the subdomain.



11. Then select on Edit from the subdomain.
12. Change the value of Domain, Siteurl, Home, and Fileupload Url to suit to your new domain.
13. Edit your wp-config.php file again and change the value as below.

From (assume that you are using domain.com)

define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'domain.com' );

To

define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', ". $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']." );

Yes, we have just redesigned WPWebHost.com! To celebrate the debut of this new website, we’re giving away Elegant Themes membership, with full access to all premium WordPress themes and support services for one year to 30 lucky winners.

How To Win:

• Just leave a comment in Comment section. Tell us what you think about our new website. Like it? Hate it? Or any suggestion in your mind.
• Comments are accepted as soon as this post is published until midnight 22 June 2010 (GMT -7:00)
• Winners will be drawn randomly using Random.org’s List Randomizer after the giveaway ends.
• Winners will be announced on 24 June 2010.

Good luck and we hope you enjoy the fresh new look of WPWebHost. =)

WPWebHost has just launched a brand new look for its website.

To celebrate this exciting fresh new look, we’re offering an unbelievable 90% one time discount for our Freedom Plan. This promotion will start from 3 Jun 2010 morning 00:01 (GMT -7:00). The discounted units are limited and available on a first come first serve basis. So get ready to sign up early before all snapped up!

Share this great news to all your friends and buddies! Banners are available for you if you would love to put one in your website.

http://www.wpwebhost.com/wpwebhost-90-off-promo-banners/

Terms and Conditions

• The promotion is a one-time discount. Hosting fee will revert back to normal rate upon hosting renewal.
• This promotion is applicable to new sign up only.
• You must make the payment within 48 hours after your successful order otherwise we reserve the right to cancel your order.
• The promotion period is based on Mountain Time (GMT -07:00)

More promotion details including the promotional code will be published in Freedom Plan page http://www.wpwebhost.com/wordpress-hosting/freedom-plan/ when the promotion kicks start.

Stay tuned!

As you may have already noticed, WPWebHost has moved forward with a re-branding effort which included a new WPWebHost logo, and icons that are dressed with special costume and each uniquely represent our hosting services.

This has been a long time coming, and we’re kinda excited to release the new redesign of our website. However we put it under beta version because there might be some bugs that we or you guys will notice so we can fix them later. Do let us know if you see any of them.

The new site basically addresses following top concerns, thanks to our readers and customers feedback.

Cleaner and Professional Look

• Blog section has been removed from the homepage for lesser content.
• Interactive sliding panel featuring all WPWebHost hosting plans and services.

Improved Site Navigational Structure

• Smarter navigation with drop-down menus.
• Navigation friendly footer, highlighting easy pathways to all content on WPWebHost.com.

More User Friendly Blog

• All WordPress tips and tutorials are assigned to a subcategory so readers can search for a tutorial under a specific topic easier.
• WPWebHost news, announcements and giveaways posts can be reached easily at WPWebHost Blog drop down menu.

Hosting Plan Comparison

• All hosting plans details are summarized into a page. Customers can now consider and compare the features of hosting plans in a glance.

Welcome stop by the new site and have a look around. We hope you enjoy the new look and thank you for all your support over the last few years. Let us know in the comments below if there’s something you really like or anything you think we missed. =)

Hello guys, another cool giveaway had just ended up and it’s time to announce the lucky winner of Thesis theme in Feedback & Win Thesis WordPress Theme Giveaway.

So the winner is:

Himanshu Chanda

Congratulations! We will further contact you through email to deliver your prize. We would like to extend our gratitude for all the participants who have given valuable feedback and suggestions. We will take all your opinions into serious consideration and make improvement in all aspects of our hosting service.

More giveaways will be coming. Subscribe to our RSS feed you will receive the latest articles and giveaways right to your inbox for free.

May WordPress Hosting Special!

Save 30% for any signup of new WordPress Hosting Plans.

Coupon Code: MAY30

All our WordPress Hosting Plans are backed by 100 Days Money Back Guarantee.

Install WordPress

Most of you might have been already running WordPress and in case you are starting fresh, then follow the instructions to install WordPress:

• Download WordPress.
• Extract and copy the WordPress files to domain root.
• Access the domain in browser (e.g. http://example.com) to install WordPress.
• Click Create a Configuration File, then Lets Go and fill in the database details and click Submit.
• Click Run the install, enter new blog details and click Install WordPress.

If for some reason automatic filling of WordPress database details didn’t work then proceed by following these steps:

• Rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php and open it for editing.
• Fill in the database details.
• Save and access the domain in browser.
• Enter new blog details and click Install WordPress.

WordPress will be installed by now. Your username will be admin and a random password will be generated. Copy the password as you will need it to login for the first time and then you can change it.

Now login with the username and password by clicking on the button Log in. You will see a notification to change your password to one which you can remember. Go to your profile page and change it.

Install bbPress

Download bbPress and extract the zip file and copy the bbPress files to a subfolder in your domain root.

Access the domain in browser (e.g. http://example.com/bbpress/) to install bbPress.

Click Go to step 1.

Fill in the database details and click on Save database configuration file.

Click Go to step 2.

Click Skip WordPress integration for now. We will do it once the bbPress is installed.

Click Go to step 3.

Fill in the details and click on Save site settings.

Click Complete the installation.

Copy the random password generated for the admin username you selected. (The error in the screenshot is because the email wasn’t send being on localhost)

Change the password by click on your username (this will take you to your profile page), there select Edit in the profile menu and at the bottom of the page you will have the option of changing the password.

Integrate bbPress with WordPress

Integration means we will set them to use same user database and cookies so that both existing and new users can have site wide login synchronization. You can further read benefits of integrating bbPress with WordPress.

Adding Keys and Salts

Open wp-config.php file for editing and locate the following lines :

define('AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');

Generate new keys and salts from this url – https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt and replace the earlier ones with these.

It should look like

Now open bb-config.php file for editing and locate the following lines :

define( 'BB_AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'BB_SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'BB_LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'BB_NONCE_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' );

Again copy the keys and salts you just pasted in wp-config.php file and paste those replacing the above lines. Now rename name of each of them to add BB_ as prefix.

It should look like

Save both the files.

Adding WordPress Integration Settings

Now access bbPress dashboard by clicking on the Admin link or by typing /bb-admin/ at the end of the URL when you are at bbPress frontpage (http://example.com/bbpress/bb-admin/).

Go to Settings and open WordPress Integration Settings.

Set User Role Map as what you would like to assign to existing and new users who have no roles assigned in bbPress.

Now enter User Integration settings down the screen.

• Enter WordPress address (URL)
• Enter Blog address (URL)

Next 3 options will be locked as we have already defined those in bb-config.php file.

• Enter WordPress table prefix. It is usually wp_ unless you have changed it.

Leave the remaining options and click Save Changes.

bbPress Integration plugin

• Install this WordPress plugin – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress-integration/
• Activate it.
• Go to Settings and select bbPress Integration.
• Fill in the bbPress URL and click on Save Changes. (Other two will not be applicable if you are following this tutorial only)
• It will provide some code to add in the wp-config.php file.
• Add the code in wp-config.php file.
• Remove the plugin.

Simple Integration is completed now and we will proceed with deep integration now.

Deep Integration of bbPress with WordPress

Open bb-config.php file and add the following lines of code above where you define database connection settings.

/* Deep integration */
if ( !defined('ABSPATH') & !defined('XMLRPC_REQUEST'))
{
define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);
include_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../wp-blog-header.php' );
header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
header("Status: 200 All rosy");
}

Theme Matching

I will briefly explain what are we going to do here. WordPress outputs its theme by calling

• get_header() for header.php
• get_sidebar() for sidebar.php
• get_footer() for footer.php

Similarly bbPress calls bb_get_header() & bb_get_footer.

We will create new theme by copying the default theme code and then changing the function calls to make it use the WordPress functions so that bbPress content is shown inside WordPress theme.

bbPress theme editing

Copy the default theme of bbPress from bb-templates folder into my-templates folder. If my-templates folder doesn’t exist then create one at the same level (root of bbPress). Open style.css file for editing and change the theme name in the starting commented lines so that you can distinguish it from the original one in the dashboard. Activate this theme so that you can see the changes live when you edit it.

Before we proceed, I would recommend using Notepad++ as we will need to do make same changes in all files at once.

Learn how to search and replace multiple text quickly.

Open the main page of WordPress blog and find out which <div> contains the content of the pages by looking in the source code. In Google chrome, you just right click and select Inspect element. In firefox you would need firebug addon for the same.

Here is what it looks like for the default theme :

The grayed line is what we are looking for. It will be <div id=”content” class=”blah blah-blah”> for most of them themes but pay attention, after header and before sidebar (if it has one) or before sidebar, it will contain all the elements of the page.

• Replace bb_get_header(); ?> by get_header(); ?> <div id=”content class=”narrowcolumn” role=”main”> in all files.
• Similarly replace <?php bb_get_footer(); by </div><?php get_sidebar(); get_footer(); in all files.

We have done all of the changes required at the bbPress end. Now we will move on to some changes in the WordPress theme where we will load the bbPress stylesheet and call bbPress functions where plugins can hook up so that no functionality is reduced.

WordPress theme editing

Copy the bbPress theme stylesheet, rename it to bb-style.php and put in the WordPress theme folder.

Inside header.php look for this line

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />

Just before this line add the following line

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/bb-style.css" type="text/css" />

and then look for this line

<?php wp_head(); ?>

Just after this line add the following line

<?php if ( function_exists('bb_head') ) bb_head(); ?>

Similarly in footer.php file, look for this line

<?php wp_footer(); ?>

Just after this line add the following line

<?php if ( function_exists('bb_footer') ) bb_footer(); ?>

Now if you take a look at the bbPress forum, header will look somewhat messed up because of the conflict between the both stylesheets. Remove the conflicting CSS from bb-style.css or use the one I have created for this tutorial (it should work fine)

Download bb-style.css

This concludes our theme matching tutorial for bbPress by using deep integration with WordPress. Our new look is very much capable of using WordPress power without sacrificing anything bbPress has to offer.

Finally when your site has grown to a large userbase and you are looking for optimization techniques, then is the time to create a matching bbPress theme instead of using deep integration as that will help decrease the server load. You can read more about the advantages and disadvantages of bbPress deep integration.

At WPWebHost, we rely on your feedback, and the feedback we receive from all of our customers and partners, to help us keep improving to serve you better. In this giveaway, tell us what you think about WPWebHost. Is there anything we could be doing better for our website, hosting plans or any aspect of our services?

1 winner will get a chance to win Thesis WordPress theme. You can also refer someone to join this contest, and if they are selected as winner, you as the referrer can win the same prize as well.

In short, here’s what on the table to be won:

2 personal edition Thesis Theme worth $87 each (for 1 winner and 1 referrer) | More info

How to Win?

1. Click on the feedback link at bottom right corner in http://wpwebhost.com.



2. Select Other => Other



3. Write and send your feedback in less than 200 words. Is there anything we could be doing better for our website, hosting plans or any aspect of our services? The winner will be chosen base on the quality of feedback. The most constructive comment/suggestion wins.

p/s: Remember to remind your friend(s) whom you referred, to write your full name as the Referrer: Referrer full name in the feedback form. We will further contact the referrer through the winner after contest ends.

4. Fill in your email address so we can contact you if you win.



5. Only one entry will be accepted from each participant.
6. Contest starts as soon as this post is published and ends on 30 April, 2010.

Notes

• You don’t have to be a customer of WPWebHost to participate.
• The prize can be changed to equivalent Paypal cash.