Recently I got together up with a friend to form a partnership for a new project. This is quite the undertaking for us both and it’s made me really test the workings of WordPress and what it can do.

It has definitely risen up to the challenge. I already love WP but this process has given me some more reasons to love it and that, in turn, is raising my skill level.

Our NEW BIG PROJECT (that I plan to share with you all when we are ready) involves  memberships. This means we needed to find the best way to secure our content so only members could access it. We also needed to be able to have multiple membership levels for various sections.

I tried out all of the available membership plugins that I could find reviews on (not going to name names) and when I say all, I mean ALL.

Everyone of them had a free trial period so I would read all about it, download and install it, then test it out. Then, after all the tweaking and setting up, I would start playing around with the different features and started finding that the cost for the plugin was not the only cost. Each one was easily integrated with other programs such as autoresponders, payment gateways & affiliate tracking programs.

That’s great BUT, all of those cost more money. So in the end our starting costs would average about $200-400 but then some of those “extras” had a monthly fees. Not my idea of smart business.

Then I happened onto an old forum post that caught my interest. The poster mentioned how this membership plugin did everything I needed but it was all included in the script, no “extras” needed, unless I wanted to use them instead. And you couldn’t beat the price!

So I ventured over to Digital Access Pass and found everything I had been looking for the last few months.

Digital Access Pass (DAP) is the ultimate in membership software. It works so seamlessly with WP but, *BONUS* you can use it on plain ole’ HTML sites too!

They have a complete, no restrictions, 30 day free trial. And their customer service is absolutely the BEST I’ve encountered.

When I first tried to install it on my test site I found that my host did not support one of the things needed to run DAP, I opened a support ticket and Veena was quick to reply and offer to contact my host directly and see if it could be added.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I wanted it, my host could not add this little piece of the puzzle. Bummer!

After having the opportunity to test DAP using a friends installation, I decided moving hosts for the NEW BIG PROJECT site had to be done so I did some research and found a host that worked well with DAP & it was cheaper than my previous host.

I (& my partner) couldn’t be happier with my decision. She is less technically inclined than I and DAP is so user-friendly she will have no problem making changes on the fly.

I fully recommend you go visit their site, look around, read everything you can then hop over to the blog where Ravi(the developer) provides updates on new features, add-ons & future additions.

Good Luck with your membership site and stay tuned for information about our NEW BIG PROJECT!

~Christina

UPDATE: Spiral-Bound Book now available- get the PDF version free with purchase

I don’t normally buy books on WordPress only because I’m stubborn and like to figure things out for myself. I also don’t ask for help usually.

Yes, I am the eternal rebellious teenager, I admit it.

I was intrigued when I heard about the new ebook Digging into WordPress by Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr. Both of who I’ve learned quite a few tricks from.

If you’ve been to this blog before you know that I go out of my way to try and answer your questions in as much detail as possible and with limited “tech-talk”. I had never seen anyone else who did it this way and knew how long it usually took me to find an answer to my questions.

Well, let me tell you, These guys do an awesome job of providing step-by-step, detailed instructions on the ins and outs of WordPress. Starting with setting up WordPress on your own domain all the way to maintaining the finished product.

You can read about all the features here but in a nutshell: You’ll be able to install, customize, secure and maintain your own WordPress site by the end of this book.

And, you’ll understand every word along the way.

At just $27 for the ebook, you are getting way more than that in value. Bonus, you get LIFETIME updates. Which means when a new version of WordPress is released the book will be updated to reflect the changes and you can download it free.

**I was not given anything for this review. All links to the book in this post  are affiliate links so I will get a  few bucks if you click through and purchase. If you prefer to not use those links you can get to the book by visiting http://digwp.com and looking for the link there.**

~Christina