I have been playing with the Amember demo and feel that I can ask a few targeted questions that will now help me decide if I should go with Amember or not. First, about my site: It is a Wordpress site running the Thesis theme. It will be a membership site but also free areas as well. The member/pay part: It will be video podcasts hosted at my own site and played via a flash player on the WP blog as well as via Itunes/RSS. I want these to be restricted to only paying members. In addition to the pay content, I will do other posts and videos that will be free for all to see. From what i can gather, I will need Amember and the WP $40 plugin. I am not quite clear on how to protect those videos that will play on my blog...possibly amprotect but I don't want to buy another plugin if I don't have to. What if I put all of the mp4 video files in a protected directory on my site and then use the hidepost method to block non members from seeing them when I post them on the blog? Would doing it that way make it so I would not need amprotect? Also, I assume the Itunes stuff would be protected via RSS/Amember login? Lastly, is there an Amember sidebar login widget and where can I try it or see it? Would I have to have any plugins to make this work? Thanks.
If you want to integrate amember/wordpress, I'd suggest the following bundle: amember wordpress amember wordpress plugin amprotect -yes, it will cost you a few dollars, but it greatly simplifies protection and you arent relying on the hidepost/rolemanager programmers- instead by Ken Gary whose proven himself a solid businessperson who supports his products. Once you have integrated, you can protect your mp3s pdfs etc from "hotlinking" by placing them in amember protected folders (directories) itunes content can be protected with amember htpasswd protection. David