Posts Tagged ‘plugins’
July 17th, 2010
Google has announced that it has acquired Metaweb (and Freebase). Metaweb TopicBlocks is a WordPress Plugin which has been available for a number of months that helps to included data from Metaweb into Blog posts.
The Plugin may be Setup to either automatically include Metaweb data when certain words or terms are included in a post or Metaweb data may be manually included in the post. Unfortunately the data included by the Metaweb TopicBlocks Plugin doesn’t display very well in posts.
Below is an example of the data that is included when a Metaweb TopicBlock with the term Freebase is included:
[topicblocks id="/m/021ympy" comment="When you publish this post, this WordPress shortcode will display the TopicBlock you created about 'Freebase'." params="blocks=%5B%7B%22block%22%3A%22full_info%22%7D%5D"]
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Tags: content, freebase, google, Metaweb, Metaweb Technologies, plugin, plugins, WordPress, Wordpress plugin | 
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May 23rd, 2010
Recently one of my Websites was hacked (not this Website!). The hackers had managed to populate the WordPress site posts (Blogs) with iframes that redirected visitors to a suspicious Website. It appears that a SQL script was run on every post to replace the contents of the posts with the redirecting iframe (WordPress and all plugins were fully up-to-date with the latest patches). Fortunately my AVG security software detected the unwanted iframe which was prevalent on both the hacked Website and the Feedburner RSS feed from that Website.
I have no idea how the hackers accessed the database however I have learnt that using shared hosting (the hacked site was hosted with GoDaddy) may increased the chance of being hacked; if one of the shared Sites is hacked then it may be more simple for the hackers to gain access to the co-shared Sites.
Recovering from a hacked WordPress Website is a time-consuming task and if recent (unhacked) database backups aren’t available then, well, the trouble in recovering is multiplied significantly. There are some good articles out there describing how to recover from a hacked WordPress Site but, more than anything, preventing being hacked is far simpler than recovery. Here are six absolutely essentially tasks related to your Site and Malware:
- Create secure passwords (for WordPress, MySQL, FTP etc.) and change them occasionally.
- Keep WordPress, Plugins and Themes well as all software on your PC/MAC updated to the latest releases and patches.
- Backup your WordPress files and MySQL database regularly.
- Check every one of your Websites at least daily for any suspicious data or redirection (an easy way of doing this is subscribing to the RSS feed from your Site)
- If your Site has been hacked immediately take action to restore it.
- Advise the Search Engines of Malware recovery if necessary.
I am certainly looking forward to using VaultPress which should further minimise the chance of being hacked.
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Tags: AVG, godaddy, google, hosting, iframe, iframes, malware, mysql, patches, plugins, rss, search engines, security software, VaultPress, websites, WordPress, wordpress plugins |
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February 20th, 2010
I have mentioned previously that I have been doing some work with the Constructor Theme for WordPress. Unfortunately there is little helpful documentation out there in the form of ‘how to’ tutorials in relation to the Constructor Theme.
A common question appears to be how to get the slideshow option in the Constructor Theme to work. Here is a quick guide using the NextGen-Gallery Plugin.
- Install and activate the Constructor Theme (i.e. Constructor must be your WordPress ‘Current’ theme).
- Install and activate the NextGEN-Gallery WordPress plugin.
- Download ‘JW Image Rotator‘ to your computer and unzip.
- Copy imagerotator.swf from the unzipped ‘JW Image Rotator’ to the nextgen-gallery folder on your WordPress install/server (this will be under the ‘plugins’ folder).
Go to Options in the Gallery menu of WordPress.
Click the Slideshow tab.- Click Search now >> to the right of the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field.
- Wait until the path is filled for you in the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field. and click Save Changes at the bottom of the Window.
- Create/Add a Gallery with some images/photos (David Potter has a handy guide).
- Go to Appearance – Customize then the Slideshow tab
- Ensure the following:
- Enable Slideshow is checked
- At least one of the Options is checked (i.e. either/both and/or Show on single post).
- You click/select the Gallery you created in NextGen at the end of the Window to the right of Slideshow
- You ‘Save Changes’
Your slideshow will now appear on pages and/or posts (depending which you selected in the Constructor Theme Slideshow options.
Click the image below to enlarge and see an example of the Options used to enable a NextGen-Gallery to be used as the Constructor Theme Slideshow:
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February 14th, 2010
WordPress is awesome (yes, I am a big WordPress CMS fan). One of the huge advantages of GPL software (e.g. Moodle) is that a huge community often contributes code to the core software. In WordPress, the most common form of community contribution is in the form of Plugins and Themes.
I have been ‘playing’ recently with the Constructor theme by Anton Shevchuk. Although there are many good (and some great) WordPress themes (e.g. Theme Hybrid), the Constructor theme has immediately become one of my favorites for it’s vast array of options and ease of use/configuration.
One question about the Constructor theme that I have noticed on a few Sites is how to change the default Constructor Footer text which looks like this:
‘© 2010 [NAME] Blog is proudly powered by WordPress | Constructor Theme
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).’
Well this is how to amend the default footer text:
- Ensure that your Current Theme is set to Constructor.
- Log in to WordPress as an Administrator.
- Go to Appearance ->Customize.
- Click the Footer tab
- Enter the text you want to appear in the Footer (or just enter a space if you don’t want any Footer text)
You’ll notice that the text you entered above has replaced the default footer Text!
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Tags: Anton Shevchuk, blog, gpl, how to, hybrid, moodle, plugins, Software, WordPress, wordpress themes |
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December 21st, 2009
WordPress 2.9 was recently released. There are some great new features in the latest release of WordPress including the ability to update multiple Plugins at the same time. Back in the ‘old days’ one would manually have to download each Plugin requiring upgrading, uncompress then upload to the appropriate file on the Webserver. In later versions came the ability for a ‘one click’ update for each Plugin from within WordPress itself. And now, with the newest WordPress release it is possible, as previously stated, to update all Plugins requiring an update simultaneously (this saves a lot of time and needs far fewer clicks than previously).
There is one small ‘problem’ with the new ‘update all’ functionality; it is not entirely logical where it is placed so can cause some angst in trying to find and use the new functionality. Here is how to upgrade multiple Plugins at the same time in WordPress 2.9:
1. Login to WordPress Admin (i.e. www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin)
2. In the left sidebar click Tools (if not already expanded):
3. Click Upgrade:
4. Click the ‘check box’ next to ‘Select All’ to select all Plugins:
5. Click ‘Upgrade Plugins’:
That’s it! Your Plugins should all now be up to date.
As a note there appear to be a few issues with some Plugins not being updated via the method above. For those unhappy Plugins it will be necessary to go into the Plugins menu and update the particular Plugin.