It’s that time again, folks. Wordpress has released version 2.8 – Baker. This new version kicks it up a notch in the widgets area as well as allows theme selection and upload via the Wordpress Dashboard. How sweet is that?!
They’ve also fixed almost 800 bugs in this version, so upgrading seems like a must-do for me. Any client who would like assistance (for free) with the upgrade, please contact me via the site’s contact form. If you’re running an outdated version and need help upgrading, please email me for a verra low cost quote. 
Have a great Friday!
Security. If you’re not worried about it, you should be. Just because Wordpress.org says that wordpress is secure doesn’t mean something can’t happen and a hacker can’t weasel his (or her) way into your wordpress installation and cause some havoc that can take a lot of time and money to repair. Here are a few of my favorite Wordpress security plugins:
Stop Bot Registration: (From the coder’s blog)
While BadBehavior and WebProfessor do very good jobs at keeping bots from registering on your WordPress site I wanted the control WebProfessor gave me and the automation that BadBehavior gave me but neither did both.
So here is a plugin to help keep bots from registering on your website. It will log all registration attempts and tell you why it bounced any bots.
You can blacklist domains, emails, and ips.
It will automatically block anyone whose ip shows up more than once, who is listed in spamhaus, or who you’ve blacklisted. If you hosting company allows ‘file_get_contents’ calls you can uncomment the StopForumSpam and check their list as well.
Anyone pretending to be a browser but whose ‘accept’ line is wrong will also get bounced.
Block Scarpers Hackers and More: (from the designer’s blog)
This is part 2 of a 3 part security suite for WordPress. This part blocks cross-site script attempts, ip numbers of ill behaved people and bots and bans bad user agents. Since trouble is always changing this plugin allows you to adjust who you want to block. I’ve started you out with every bad bot I caught on my site this past month. You can remove bots, add bots and add and remove ips and requests.
Many internet websites list bad bots, or you can just watch your access-logs to see who is causing problems on your site. Several tools for finding weaknesses in your WP to hack are blocked and you can add more to the list as new ones appear on the net.
Cross site scripting attacks often contain .txt? .txt?? .txt??? or ?_wp_http_referer in the request. If new cross site scripts show up, you can easily add them to the list.
Anyone who’s bot or request shows up on your black list has his ip automatically added to your blacklisted ip list.
This plugin creates a page under ‘Manage’. On it you can blacklist ip numbers, user agents, and requests that you don’t want on your site.
If you have the TTC User Registration Bot Detector installed, both plugins will use the same bad ip list to make things easier for you.
The management page will also give you a list of all attempts at registration and if they were bounced and why.
Tripwire: (from the designer’s blog)
The final plugin of the three part TTC ( TimesToCome ) WordPress security set is ready. This one acts as a tripwire. If a file is changed by you or more importantly someone other than you you’ll know.
Simply install and activate the plugin. Once activated go to the plugin management page and tell it you want a list of all files changed in the last 0-99 days ( pick your day ) and it will bring up a list of altered files for you.
Login Lockdown: Locks logins after three failed attempts. Get it HERE
Secure Wordpress: Does a few tweaky things to make your installation that much more secure. Get it HERE
With all of this security in place, you have to remember that nothing is completely secure on the internet. With that in mind, I also recommend that you backup your installation at lest once per week using WP-Backup.
All of the above now come standard with any custom wordpress theme from Get Cesigned. If you’ve got an installation and don’t know how to add plugins, ping me and we’ll get you sorted out.
Until next time…
Celia
So, what happens when authors (or anyone else) creates a bit of code for an advertisement. Say… at The Romance Studio.
Now, TRS allows members to code and post their own announcements to the front page. Tres cool, yes? Very. Until you realize you don’t know what the fruck kind of code they accept or what it is.
I got your back.
First, let’s make the system insert your image:
<img src=”http://linktoyourimage.com/linkyimage.jpg”/>
That bit basically says “hey! I’ve got an image for ya. Now, go look HERE”. And the computer looks THERE. Exactly where it’s told. Only problem is that it’ll just stick the image there with no sense of style. We’re going to add style.
<img src=”http://linktoyourimage.com/linkyimage.jpg” style=”float:left; padding: 5px;”/>
Now, we’ve got style. The above states that the image is going to be on the left, just floating around. Here’s where you have to think of words as water and the image as an inner tube. The image is floating around to the left and the words are the water, flowing AROUND the image.
The affect of the above is the following:
Special thanks to Bonnie Rose Leigh for use of her cover. Ravishing Raine releases 0n June 15th from Extasy Books. How cool is that!?
And look, my text is swishing around the image like water. 
Here’s ze blurbage!
Raine Nolan has worked hard to be seen as more than just a pretty face. After her promotion to Fire Chief of Serenity she believes she’s finally reached a place in her life where anything is possible. When a series of arsons breaks out in her small town, her dreams of living a quiet life go up in a puff of smoke.
Drayven and Ryker Murphy, police detectives and the newest residents of Serenity, are shocked to discover their mate when they report to investigate the scene of an arson. When their mate, the Fire Chief, starts receiving threatening letters in connection with the case they’re investigating, they know that it will take more than just the two of them to protect her. The pair call in their older brother, Jakob, a bounty hunter who isn’t afraid to step over the line to protect the innocent.
As the arsons in town escalate, and the messages left for Raine become more personal and threatening, the three men will do whatever they must to ensure nothing and no one harms their mate, even if that means breaking the laws the men have sworn to uphold.
For my first tutorial, I’ll be answering one of the questions posed by a recent client who is new to Wordpress. To view a full size version of the images, please click on the thumbnail. Many of them are too large to view on the blog itself.
Adding Links
1) Login to your website. You’ll first be shown your dashboard:
2) Click on the menu item to the left titled Links:
This will drop the Links menu items down so that they are viewable.
3) Select Add New from the Links menu.
4) You should now be viewing the Add New Links screen.
5) I will now go through each area as numbered below, explaining the purpose of each section.
- Name – The word/phrase/name that should appear on your list of links. (ie. Celia Kyle) This is the name for the link, not the link iteself.
- Web Address – This is where you’ll put in the website address (ie. http://www.getcesigned.com)
- Category – Select your category from here. If you don’t see one you like, you can add it. We will look at a closeup of this at step 5b.
- Target – If you want it to open up within the same window, leave this section alone. If you want the external link to open in a new window, choose the _blank option
- Keep This Link Private – Do you want others to see the link? If not, click the button next to “Keep this link private” and no one can see it on your website.
- Add Link – Once you’ve gone through everything and are happy with your choices, click Add Link.
5b) Add categories by clicking the Add Category link in the category section and typing in the category name of your choice. Once done, click the Add button at the end of the text entry line.
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