Wordpress 2.7 Is Available

The latest version of Wordpress, the much-acclaimed and much-publicized version 2.7, is finally available to the general public. I’ve been a Wordpress user for over a year now, and I’ve suffered through six or seven upgrades to the software. I REALLY hope this is the last upgrade for a while. It has become quite a chore to do major upgrades on six blogs every other month.

With that said, Wordpress 2.7 is OK. It is a complete redesign of the Admin pages. It’s really how Wordpress should have been designed ages ago. So I like it, but it will take some getting used to. You can catch a sneak-peek here, with this video.

Since this release is a major, major upgrade, I have a few recommendations. Hopefully, you can avoid the major bumps and hurdles.

• BACKUP your data files!!!!!! Never, ever, EVER upgrade or do anything serious to your blog without backing up your data first. I backup two separate ways– I use the Wordpress admin way (Dashboard>>Manage>>Export) to download an XML file of all my posts, comments, etc. Know that this kind of backup will only backup your written data. It will not backup your theme nor your images nor your plugins. That’s why I have two separate backup systems. The second backup system I use saves all that data– through my web host’s cPanel Backup Wizard. Every host and cPanel is slightly different, so consult your web host for more details on how to do that.
• Before upgrading, ALWAYS manually disable your plugins. Plugins can cause problems. Plugins are almost always the cause of upgrades gone wrong. There are just so many different kinds of plugins each with their own coding– do yourself a favor and manually disable them before you tackle an upgrade. After you’ve upgraded, activate each plugin, one by one, to check and see if a plugin causes compatibility problems.
• Go to the Wordpress development blog and read about this new 2.7 version. It will save you a lot of headaches later. This version is a major change, and at first look, the new interface is very complex. Get to know the software a little before you take the leap. It will make your transfer much easier.

I tested upgrading to WP 2.7 on my test blog. I used a plugin called Wordpress Automatic Upgrade 1.2.2 plugin. Author’s page here: Wordpress Automatic Upgrade 1.2.2, and everything went very smoothly. The new Wordpress 2.7 has included its own automatic upgrade system, so according to the Wordpress Dudes, we no longer need to use separate plugins to upgrade our blogs. I have not used the new WP upgrade feature.

There was some discussion at the Wordpress Forums that upgrading using an upgrading plugin caused problems. It didn’t for me. Be sure to take a peek at the forums for a heads up on problematic issues and how to avoid/solve them.

Enjoy your new software!

How To Switch Web Hosts Without Downtime

I’ve switched web hosts twice in a year, and I have intentions on doing it agan in the near future. It’s not that I LIKE to switch hosts– I hate it– but I’ve become dissatisfied with certain aspects of my web hosts. And I feel it is in my interest to branch out a little; I don’t like having all my blogs on one host, because when one blog goes down, they all do. :-p

So I’m slowly gathering information on how to do this seamlessly. I thought I’d share some links to some excellent posts on how to do this. I’d write my own, but I don’t think it would be any better than what’s been written already.

How To Switch Hosting Providers Without Downtime This is a nice and concise list of what you’ll need to do.

How to Switch Web Hosting Companies without any Downtime This is an extremely detailed tutorial. It’s good for the blogger who wants to know everything about everything. Like me who, you know, is curious about the mysteries behind tape drives data versus digital data and everything in between, lol.

How to Change Web Hosts with NO Downtime This is written from a first-person account. It has tidbits of information that are helpful, that you may not find in a more technical tutorial.

Overall, the secret to providing a seamless transfer without any downtime is that you must retain your service at the old web host for a while after purchasing a new account at a new web host. The two services will overlap for a while (2-4 weeks is the recommended time).

Hotlink– Please!

The time has come! Wow I found a terrific website! I think it’s about time for something like this, and I am very excited to use it! It’s called AcoBox.com. It’s a portal for bloggers who love to have blog pictures within their posts (like me). The problem with a blogger (like me) posting photos the “old way,” is that I have always had to search for an image (and make sure its not copyrighted from me using it), save it to my computer, upload the photo to my photo hosting site, fanagle with that, and insert the code into my post. It is a tedious chore.

Well, here comes AcoBox.com. They already have a large selection of photos to choose from. You register to use the service (if you are a blogger, you need to include your blog url in the form), and you can hotlink their photos on your blogs. All their photos are licensed and optimized for websites. And the photos are very nice, too. Here’s one I tried:

It’s a pretty cool service. I’m all for efficiency– I see so many of the same photos clogging up places! And I hate tinkering with endless photos all day long.

Sneak a Peek at Email

I get a good amount of spam. You probably do, too. UGHHH! I hate it. I HATE the stuff and I HATE hashing through it. It’s also not safe to open it unless you know exactly who has sent it. But sometimes it’s really hard to tell. How do I know for sure that the email labeled “Your Order Has Been Shipped” is the real discount furniture I ordered, or is it a scam? And is that “PayPal Receipt” is really from PayPal and not a phisher?? Well, here’s a little tip for you:

Right click on the suspicious email and choose “Properties.” A new window will pop up. You can see the sender’s email here. Now see that tab that says “Details”? Click it and you will see all the techincal information about the sender, his IP, his email, your email, and other tidbits of information. Look for the “Received from” and you can see the sender’s email source and his IP. If you take that IP and search for it using Whois or a tracing site, it will give you a general idea of where the email is coming from. So that email may LOOK like it’s from Uncle Bob in Kansas, but the IP is showing an address in Russia. Hm.

Now this is not 100% fail-proof. Emails go ’round and ’round various servers. And if Uncle Bob uses Hotmail or Gmail, hgis location is going to show the location of the Hotmail or Gmail server. So sometimes knowing the IP address is unhelpful. You can view the message without opening the email. In the Properties window, where you clicked the Details tab, you can see a button that says “Message Source.” If you click that, a new window will appear, with the message content in text form. All html source coding (and any pixel spies and also all images) will not show. You can scan the message. You’ll also see alot of html code in there for images or special font characters.

The “Properties” element in menus is one of my favorite features. I use it all the time to see what’s underlying!

When You Can’t Get Enough About WP Themes

In my searching for some new themes for my blogs, I came across a a terrific tutorial about how to create your own Wordpress blog! It’s How To Create Themes From Scratch. The tutorial is done by Kailoon, whose art and design I’ve admired recently. He has written a very comprehensive tutorial (he is self-taught in all of this!) from someone who has “been there.” I hope to be able to set aside my virtual luggage (I have been SOOO busy lately that I could scream!) and read it. When I get the housework done. And the posts done. And finally find a new template. And get the reviews done… and…

lol.

Hotlinking Protection Messes With Htaccess File

Live and learn. And I usually learn the hard way, lol. Nothing like experience to aid a little lesson along.

I’ve discovered that toggling on and off the hotlinking features in my cPanel (where I host my blogs) messes with my blogs’ permalinks. This seems to be a common problem. What happens is that the hotlinking changes the coding to the .htaccess file of your blog.

For your information: “hotlinking” is the term we use for the stealing of bandwidth. Let’s say you upload a photo of your weight loss pills to your web host’s server, in your image folder. You then post the photo onto your blog. That photo is being hosted by your web host, at your expense. (Sites like Flickr and Photobucket host your photos for free). Hotlinking is when a person takes the url of your photo from your web host, and puts it on their website. The “energy draw” for the photo at your site and at the thief’s site is coming from your web host and thus using up your bandwidth– a service you are paying for. You are being robbed. You can prevent hotlinking by turning the feature on at your web host’s cPanel, but you risk changing your .htaccesss file, and ruining your permalinks. (Basically what toggling the hotlinking feature does is it deletes the line “RewriteEngine on” line from your .htaccess file. Adding this back in to your .htaccess file will restore your permalinks.

But you DO want to stop the hotlinking of your images. So I found some sites with information about it. Mind you, I am still learning about the process! But so far, preventing hotlinking is working for me for one of my blogs. I just have to get around to adding the code to the rest of my blogs’ .htaccess files.

Using .htaccess to Stop Content Theft
Protect Your Images with .htaccess

Remeber– ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS back up your files before changing them. Your .htaccess file is crucial to the functionality of your blog. Don’t mess with it unless you know what you’re doing and until you’ve backed it up.

How to Hide the Blogger NavBar

Many Blogger blogs have the Blogger NavBar– that horizontal bar at the very top of Blogger blogs. It’s not changed in many years– it’s either black, blue, silver, or tan, and gives you the ability to browse other Blogger blogs (NOT a recommended habit, by the way) or to search the current blog. I believe its usefulness has passed.

Most new blogs now have their own search feature, and I do not recommend surfing Blogger blogs (too risky for malware). And besides, the old Blogger NavBar looks soooo tacky. It’s the same old bar that’s been up there for more than five years.

If you want to hide the NavBar, it’s as easy as putting in a “do not display” command in your HTML code. Here’s a great tutorial video I found at Blogger Templates:

Remove Blogger Navbar - video powered by Metacafe

Hope this helps! Let’s make the blogosphere a prettier place!

Hide Your Plugins Files

It’s becoming more common so perhaps you’ve heard of it happening: someone’s Wordpress blog was hacked. Usually it is by a spammer, who inserts malicious images and coding. There are weaknesses in Wordpress, because it’s open source software, and because users often don’t know all the security holes.

Here’s one quick and easy tip to help secure your Wordpress site: hide your plugins files. Plugins are so convenient but they can be a security risk. I recommend using only plugins you really, really need, and hiding what you have.

If you were to type in an unprotected blog’s address, like this:

http://BLOGNAME.com/wp-content/plugins

you’d see something like this:

This is basically an open invitation to a hacker, advertising what plugins you have and what possible versions (non-updated). The hacker can exploit any open doors that the plugins may have, and therefore he can gain access to your blog/site through them. You want to block anyone from seeing your list of plugins. Here’s what you do.

Open up Notepad. Save the document as index.html. You can leave it blank if you want. You can type in “Hello” or “Don’t hack me” or your blog address, whatever. I use a blank file.

Open up your FTP program and upload this index.html file in your plugins folder. So after it is uploaded, you’ll see all the folders for your plugins and this little file named “index.html.”

That’s it! Your plugins folders will not be seen.

How does this work? Wordpress is programmed to access index.html files first thing. So when your Wordpress plugins are accessed, it will go to this blank index.html file and move on to your plugins afterward. The index.html file is like a blanket, covering all your plugin goodies. Your plugins will still work just fine, they will just be concealed to everyone.

I hope this helps protect you. Happy blogging!

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