I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “Thinking positive will create positive outcomes,” or something similar.

Uh . . . yeah, whatever.

I am a believer that part of being successful is having a positive attitude, but to create successful outcomes and win in business, you need to do more.

I know times are rough these days not only for entrepreneurs, but for nearly everyone. Gas prices are still hurting businesses, people are afraid of spending too much, credit companies have tightened their lending rules; heck - even here in Las Vegas where there are a number of huge hotels and casinos, jobs are hard to come by.

If you’re a small business owner and struggling to make ends meet, you probably see two options ahead of you: close up shop or try to weather the storm. Of course, times will get better. They always do.

But what do you do while money is tight?

Article by Theresa Hoff

One of the hardest things for new business owners to figure out when forming a new corporation or partnership is how to split profits.

Often times 2 or more entrepreneurs will enter a business venture with the notion of sharing profits 50/50. But what happens when one person does 90% of the work while the other only contributes 10%?

Is this still a fair split?

To complicate things even further, what if your business partner was a family member or close friend? If you’re the one doing 90% of the work but only receiving 50% of the profits, how do you go about approaching your partner with a request that you take home more of the profits?

Here’s one possible solution.

Do You Have The Right Business Structure?

This is where so many people who try to save a dollar and incorporate themselves without really understanding the different business structures can do more harm than the pros of saving a few bucks.

Image by Roo Reynolds

We’ve reached the end in our series on how to better secure your WordPress blog. It’s been a bumpy road, but we made it.

The techniques I’ve shown here are by no means exhaustive and I don’t want to give you a false feeling that your blog is fully secured. However, the steps I’ve laid out should provide a decent amount of protection.

Many times these attackers are nothing more than kids who have a program which finds hundreds, if not thousands of login pages all accessible on the Web and will run a set number of algorithms to hack these sites while the kid pulls his corn dogs out of the microwave and gets back to his Play Station game.

The key here then is to accomplish two things:

1. Create a series of road blocks and redirects for anyone other than you who tries to access sensitive WordPress directories (like your login page).

Imagine if there were a file where anyone could go to and easily see such things as your:

• Password
• Database Name
• Server Name
• Information About Your Database

Doesn’t sound like the kind of file you’d want just laying around easily accessible, does it?

Well I got news for you, there is such a file that exists, it’s called wp-config.php.

By default, web browsers shouldn’t be able to display the contents of a .php file, however, as we all know, nothing is set in stone. Obviously, this is an important file you are going to want to protect if you run a blog powered by WordPress. Here’s a quick way to limit access to your wp-config.php file using .htaccess.

Protect wp-config.php With .htaccess

As we saw in Post 4: Setting Up .htaccess in this series, the .htaccess file is vital to the security of your website. It’s also relatively easy to set up - just create a file and name it .htaccess and then paste in some code.

Down Fluffy, down!

Your blog is an extension of you.

It learns as you do. When you need a break, it takes a break. And if it had a lower back it would probably hurt just as yours does.

You’ve spent precious hours, months, even years building your blog to what it is today. Though you felt guilty not spending more time with the family, you knew in your gut what you’re doing here is to help your family in the long run.

It’s morning and the sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon to wake the world up. You sit at your desk, turn on your computer while sipping your Kona coffee - life’s great. You head over to your blog ready to read and answer comments when suddenly your stomach tightens and you feel as though the oxygen has been sucked out of the room.

Locking Down WordPress Image by Mr. Mo-Fo

Thus far in our securing your WordPress blog series we have seen:

• Fluffy’s helpful tips and a security login plugin - post 1
• How to change your username for added security - post 2
• How to obscure your database tables - post 3

Today I want to talk about one of the most important security features you can set up for your blog - the .htaccess file.

Why This Is Important

I bet many bloggers and some home-schooled web developers have seen this file mentioned before and know it’s good, but it frightens the heck out of them. This is probably because the code is foreign to them and they know messing it up can limit access to their websites, so they just avoid it all together.

Not good.

We have been talking about strategies for securing your WordPress blog from possible intruders trying to access your files. In case you missed them, here are the first two posts in this series:

• Post 1 (showcasing a great security plugin)
• Post 2 (How To Change Your Username)

Of course nothing is full-proof; all you can do is make things difficult for someone with ill intentions. The idea though is to create multiple layers of road blocks and speed bumps which will make hacking your system a pain which hopefully encourages them to move on rather than spending all day on your site.

Today I’d like to show you how to customize your database some which WordPress uses for its files. This is known as security through obscurity. It’s one of those “speed bumps” as opposed to a “road block”, I guess.