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The Definitive Answer on VaultPress and WordPress Multisite Pricing

UPDATE – April 9, 2012:  The Boles Blogs Network is now back on WordPress.com.  We are keeping this article published in case it might help others in the future.

If you’re running your own WordPress Multisite installation, you know having a proper and secure backup plan is a must in today’s wretched world where bad people love to tear down good things instead of building them up from scratch. Backing up your WordPress files and database on a regular basis are not tough tasks, but they can become cumbersome and gruesome if your schedule overcomes you and if you then allow your self-serving security needs to become lackadaisical.

Enter VaultPress! VaultPress is built by Automattic to cleanly and invisibly secure your WordPress installations and VaultPress now supports WordPress Multisite. The catch is that pricing for WordPress Multisite VaultPress protection is confusing. Today, I have the proper answers for you in detail.

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How to Migrate Your Blogs from WordPress.com to WordPress Multisite on Pair Networks VPS

UPDATE – April 9, 2012:  The Boles Blogs Network is now back on WordPress.com!  We will write another article explaining the why and how of moving back.  We’re leaving this article online because it might benefit someone else seeking to export their WP.com blog to a standalone WordPress installation.

Welcome to my first new article since the Boles Blogs Network had to leave our hosting setup on WordPress.com because of a strange billing anomaly that threatened the viability of our publishing network core.

Here’s what happened…

Two years ago, when I moved my blogs from a self-hosted Movable Type installation over to WordPress.com, I had the expert help of Automattic employee Lloyd Dewolf (Budd) — who is no longer with the company — to get all my thousands of posts imported into WordPress.com blogs.  As a blogs-warming gift, Lloyd waived the fee for domain mapping for the first year for all my imported blogs.  We added a few other blogs during that first year, and I paid the domain mapping fees.

A year passed.

I paid for another year of domain mapping upgrades for all 14 blogs.

Another year passed.

I am now unable to renew, and pay for, my domain mapping upgrades as you can see in the screenshot below.  There was a major “Upgrade” to the way WordPress.com now handles their shopping cart that somehow broke my ability to pay my way on the service. Notice there’s no “Renew Now” button for me to click for BolesBlues.com?  The domain mapping says it was purchased by “wpcomvip” and not me and that’s a problem.

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Staring Down the SOPA Threat from the Public Square

SOPA is one of those sudsy scandals that don’t easily wipe off in the public wash.  Once you claim you’re all-in on SOPA, it’s difficult to recant and back out and say you didn’t mean it, and GoDaddy is learning that sticky lesson in heated spades:

GoDaddy was one of the few tech firms to back SOPA but it took its name off the public list of supporters following pressure by big web names and many angry customers.

Wikipedia said it would move its domains away from GoDaddy, as did the Cheezburger Network, owner of Lolcats, and image hosting firm Imgur.

In a statement explaining its change of heart, GoDaddy boss Warren Adelman said: “Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why GoDaddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better.”

In an interview with tech news site Gizmodo, Mr Adelman took a neutral stance on SOPA but said the company might support it if there were a consensus among net firms on its wording.

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WordPress.com is a DMCA Safe Harbor for Blog Publishers

There are moments when, as the publisher of the 13-blog strong — Boles Blogs Network here on WordPress.com — I find something on the web that instantly sickens my stomach with anger.  Yesterday was an example of that sort of “Immediate Internet Illness.”  I read an alarming article from Wired.com’s Threat Level concerning Righthaven — a “Copyright Troll” — and their purposeful, chilling, delight in making money by filing lawsuits against, what amounts to, fair use and freedom of speech by bloggers and online forums.

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Windows Live WordPress Spaces: Is Microsoft Buying Automattic?

Yesterday, it was announced that 30 million Windows Live Spaces blogs were being moved over to WordPress.com as Microsoft gives up the ghost of their free blogging space to Automattic.

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