MatthewWolfe.com

Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

I don’t promote many products to my mailing list. I usually just promote free stuff that will give my subscribers value. It’s usually free eBooks, free videos tutorials, free apps, and things like that. Well Mike Filsaime is relaunching his amazing product called The 7 Figure Code. He’s actually giving it away for free.

I decided that I would try my hand at promoting a launch. This is the first time I’ve ever done it before. I had no idea how my list would respond. I figured it would be good because Mike is giving away a free video to check out immediately. I never imagined that I would end up in the top 10 for generating leads!

He posted today the leaders that are promoting the product… I managed to top a bunch of really big name players. I’m really excited about this. I had no idea that my list was capable of actually being a “player” in the launch game.

Anyway, just wanted to make a quick post because I’m excited.

So I woke up this morning and jumped over to my blog. I noticed that my theme was still installed and that I could still log in to my dashboard but that there were no posts on my front page. All I saw was a “Page Not Found” error. I logged in to my dashboard and saw that every single post and page that I have ever created had been deleted. I have no idea how this happened but everything was gone. The database that held all of the information on my blog had apparently crashed. I freaked out a little bit and then remembered that I had taken some actions to safeguard against situations like this. I spent about 5 minutes reloading my last backup and everything was back to normal again. I may have lost one or two comments that may have come in over night but, for the most part, it’s like it had never happened.

It is scary because if I hadn’t have taken a few certain actions a few weeks ago, I would have been unable to recover my blog. I figured that there are probably a lot of bloggers out there that may not know how to backup their blog or how to recover their blog from a backup. It is really scary because your blog CAN go down at any time for no apparent reason whatsoever! Read this post and maybe you can put yourself in a situation where a database crash is nothing more than a 5 minute fix.

The very first thing that you should do is download and install the WP-DB-Backup plugin for wordpress. It’s a free plugin and can usually be searched for and installed from directly inside your WordPress Dashboard. Get that installed today. Once it’s installed set it up to backup daily and send you an e-mail with the backup. By doing this, you can jump back to any point in time and recover all the information that crashed. If you don’t update very frequently, you can also opt to backup weekly. I prefer daily because I know I can restore comments from the previous day as well.

Now… If your blog ever goes down and you have been doing a good job of backing it up, here is how you restore your blog.

1. Login in to your CPanel account and scroll down until you find phpMyAdmin

2. Find the database that your blog is installed on. The backup files that are sent to you from WP-DB-Backup will share the same name as the database you need to recover. So if you are unsure of which database to open, refer to the filename of your backup file.

3. Click on the tab that says import at the top of the new screen that just opened.

4. Click on “choose file” and find the backup file that you are going to use to restore your blog.

That should do it. Your blog should be back in all of its glory. Having a database failure can be extremely scary! Fortunately, if you take the right precautions from the beginning, it can be a very quick and painless fix. If you only have one plugin installed for your blog, make sure that it is a backup plugin. It will save you someday!

Please feel free to make comments. Have you had your blog crash? Do you have any questions about making sure you are protected against your blog crashing?

I know this has nothing to do with internet marketing or blogging but I just thought I’d share. My wife and I got a new puppy. She’s a black lab mix and she’s about 8 weeks old. We named her Ari. Here’s a video of the first day we brought her home.

A couple of weeks ago I was tagged to write 25 things about myself that most people don?t know. For whatever reason, I just found out about this the other day. So now here it is. One thing that I thought was interesting to note is that I am typing this on a Thursday morning at 10:41 am from the lake next to my house. I?m just leaning against a tree in the shade and typing. Now this is the lifestyle that I quit my job for. Anyway, here?s the list?

1. I used to play guitar in a band. We were a rock band and we played a lot of shows. The largest crowd that I ever played in front of was 5,000 people. We were called Four Chambered Story and we were a punk band that screamed a lot.

2. In the winter time, I take my Suzuki Samurai out to the Borrego Desert and 4 wheel drive around the dunes. It is great because, unlike a motorcycle, my wife and I can ride side by side in the same vehicle.

3. When I was in middle school and high school I played basketball but I?m not a huge fan of watching basketball on TV. I tend to root the Los Angeles Lakers once they get in to the playoffs.

4. My favorite sport to watch is (American) Football and I am a huge fan on the San Diego Chargers. I am writing this at the beginning of football season and we are supposed to have one of the best teams in the league this year. I can?t wait!

5. I have a dog named Alfie and he is a mix breed terrier. We rescued him from an animal shelter and we still don?t really know what breeds he has in him.

6. I have two cats. I have a big white cat named Mickey and a little black cat named Thursday.

7. I own my own home. My wife and I bought it about one year ago when I was 25 years old and she was 24.

8. I was recently married. My wife, Alana, and I got married in May of 2009 and we went on our honeymoon in Cozumel, Mexico.

9. My two favorite shows on television are Dexter on Cinemax and Entourage on HBO. I have never missed an episode of either one of those.

10. My absolute favorite band of all time has always been Blink 182. I listened to them throughout high school and they were the first concert that I ever saw. I saw them in a little tiny venue here in San Diego when they were just a little local band that no one had heard of yet.

11. I used to ride quads and motorcycles frequently in the desert until an incident when Joe Fier and I collided. Since then, I?ve pretty much stuck to just off-roading the Samurai.

12. Growing up, my dream job was to be a jet pilot. My wall was covered with posters of jets and I had a jet bedspread. Somewhere along the line, I became fascinated with entrepreneurship and started focusing on learning business.

13. Two of my favorite movies of all time are Happy Gilmore and The Boondock Saints. I have probably seen both of those movies twenty times each. They never seem to get old.

14. I learned computer programming at the age of 10 years old. My neighbor?s mom was a computer programmer and she loved to teach us how to make simple programs in Qbasic. It always fascinated me and I continued to learn more and more programming languages as I got older. I have never taken a computer class in my life.

15. I created my first website at the age of 15. I used to create websites on Angelfire and GeoCities about my favorite video games at the time. I was even hired to develop a business website around that same time. I have always created websites using Notepad and, to this day, I wouldn?t think of using anything else. (Other than WordPress for blogs)

16. I started experimenting with internet marketing back in 2006. A customer at my previous employer turned me on to a site called ShoeMoney.com. From that point on, I have always been in and out of experimenting with making money online.

17. My first blog ever was about personal finance and entrepreneurship. It?s still online today because it still makes money every month. It hasn?t been updated in quite a while, however. You can find it at HowIWillBeRich.com

18. The only country that I have ever been to outside of the United States is Mexico. It?s actually a 20 minute drive from my house. I want to pretty much see the whole world some day but I just haven?t gotten around to seeing very much yet.

19. I have a very extensive collection of vinyl records. I mainly collect classic rock. I even have records hanging on the wall in my office. Some of my favorites in my collection are Pink Floyd?s Dark Side of the Moon, Boston?s greatest hits, and The Beatles White Album.

20. My favorite book of all time is The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I have probably read it three times now and I have bought it on audio cd to listen to it in my car as well.

21. I am a huge fan of Mexican food. I probably eat burritos at least 4 days per week. When you live in San Diego, and you are this close to the border, Mexican food is everywhere.

22. I used to be a huge video game nerd growing up (as if you couldn?t tell by my fascination with computer programming and creating websites). My two favorite games were Sid Meier?s Civilization and StarCraft. I still play both of those games to this day when I am bored.

23. As of writing this, I am two weeks away from finishing a college degree. My degree is a Bachelors of Science in Finance of all things. I have always been good with numbers and accounting so it seemed like a natural choice. I wanted to learn how to manage investments better and make financially sound decisions.

24. I own a ski boat with my dad. We like to go to the Colorado river during the summer. I am usually the driver and my wife loves to wakeboard.

25. My number one goal in life is to be known by people. I want to be someone that leaves a mark. Even if I am someone who is known online, I will be happy. I strive to be the next Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, Rich Schefren or John Reese. I just want people to have learned something from me and to reference my name when they talk about how they got their start. It?s a lofty goal, but it?s what I strive for.

Those are the 25 things about me. Most of them I haven?t really shared with anyone. Please feel free to leave your comments and I encourage anyone to make the same post on their blogs. I love learning about other people.

BTW, 25 things is a really big number once you get started. It?s really hard to come up with that much!

So I feel a little bit like a hypocrite lately. I am a huge advocate of blogging, I’ve been a blogger for over three years now, I teach a class on blogging, yet it has been a week and a half since my last blog post. I feel like I’m not practicing what I preach. This post is me trying to get back on track. I haven’t fallen off track in my pursuit to make an income online, I’ve just fallen behind on keeping you updated on what I’ve been doing.

If you look at The Goals That I Set For Myself, you will notice that I had three goals that I had hoped to accomplish by August 6th. Well, I am happy to say that I have succeeded in every single one of them. I wanted to launch the paid version of The WordPress Classroom. Well I opened the doors on August 1st. I wanted to make a consistant $100 per day in online income. Thanks to the combination of The WordPress Classroom and a new product that I just released, called Blog Niche Themes, I have achieved that goal as well. It’s not a consistant $100 per day but some days I will make $300 or $400 in one day and some days I won’t make a single penny. When I averaged it all out, it figured out to be about $103 per day. My 3rd goal was to reorganize my office. I was a little late on this one but I have now completely reworked my office. I have new desks and cabinets and the whole works. I feel so much more organized now.

For the first time in my life I feel like I am going to make it in the business. I can honestly say that I do not think I will ever have to work for someone else again. I’m not at a point where I feel like I can ease off yet though. I am still working hard for every single cent that I make. My next goal is turn my income streams in to automated income streams.

To make it to the next level in my business, I have started to build a team. I have hired a graphics guy who I can now call on to get some quick graphics made for any new projects and I have also hired a virtual assistant. My VA is tasked with link building, SEO projects, prospecting potential JV partners, and research for future blog topics and ebook topics. These guys have taken a little bit of pressure off of me but I still have a lot on my plate.

I am working on three more separate video sites. Two of them are with joint venture partners and one of them I am on my own. I am writing an ebook explaining my entire business model and how I managed to get to where I am and how I did it in the time frame that I did. This book will be called “Business And Blogs” (I registered the domain name today). I am also still fielding WordPress related questions on a daily basis and I am considering hire another assistant for the sole purpose of customer service and fast response to WordPress related questions. Do you think this is a good idea?

I just ordered a new video camera. You can see videos that I made myself at My YouTube Account and videos that I made with Joe Fier at the Fier2Wolfe YouTube Channel.

Please leave some feedback. What do you think of the videos? What are your thoughts on outsourcing and building a team? I would love to hear what people are thinking!