Monday, 4 February 2013

6 New Posts

6 New Posts

Link to Tips Blogger

Securing WordPress – Part IV

Posted: 04 Feb 2013 02:41 AM PST

We have been addressing securing a WordPress installation from many angles. Our goal is to cut off as many possibilities as possible for hackers to gain access to your sites files.

Conceal WordPress Version

Hackers will try to glean any information that is displayed anywhere on your site to discover some weakness. That includes the version of your WordPress itself. Believe it or not, this can give the hacker plenty of information about how to go about hitting your site. So you had best conceal it. You can use a plugin to achieve the complete removal or you could do it by hand in the functions.php of your theme:

functioncomplete_version_removal() {

return'';

}

add_filter('the_generator', 'complete_version_removal');

Enforce SSL Login

Prevent the dreaded man-in-the-middle attacks by enforcing SSL communication either for logins only or for the entire admin area as well. To accomplish this you will have to have a dedicated IP for your domain and an SSL certificate set up on it. If you create a self-signed certificate your visitors will receive a warning from their browsers that the certificate was not issued by a recognized authority and that it may not represent a trustworthy connection. You must judge whether this will offend your visitors or if you will have to cave in and buy an SSL certificate.

Once the dedicated IP is assigned, the DNS propagation has run its course, and you have SSL installed, place this in your wp-config.php file:

define('FORCE_SSL_LOGIN', true);

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);

Control Bots and Crawlers On Directories

Google and other bots crawl your entire site unless you tell it to avoid certain areas. If Google indexes all of your directories then it reveals these to hackers all over the world through Google's search engine. So you could put in directions in a robot.txt file to tell the bots what to avoid indexing. The biggest drawback with this is that a hacker can also read the robot.txt and learn which directories are most important to you and, therefore, most product for hacking. If you have a standard WordPress installation, then this is nothing to worry about. Hackers will know by default which directories are most important to attack. You must employ all the other methods we have already given in all parts of this series.

In the root of your site, you should put a robot.txt file there, if one does not already exist. Inside you should add:

User-agnet: *

Disallow: /feed/

Disallow: /trackback/

Disallow: /wp-admin/

Disallow: /wp-content/

Disallow: /wp-includes/

Disallow: /xmlrpc.php

Disallow: /wp-

More .htaccess Seecurity

There are a few more steps to securing your site through the .htaccess file in your root. This is the same file we modified to secure wp-config.php. Now we will protect .htaccess itself, which is typically done by Apache's config by default. We want to make sure it is enforced, so we add it here. Also we will turn off the server's signature and place a limitation of 20M on the size of files that can be uploaded.

<files .htaccess>

order allow,deny

deny from all

</files>

ServerSignature Off

LimitRequestBody 20480000

Eliminate Unnecessary Files

Prune your WordPress installation by hand, deleting all unnecessary files. These permit fingerprinting and sometimes reveal version info. It is best to eradicate them completely. Almost everything comes with a readme.txt or readme.html. WordPress does and all plugins and themes do as well. Just go through and delete these. It will plug up a security hole.

The Final Word

With this step we have gotten all of the basic and intermediate methods for securing a WordPress site completed. Our next entry in this series is an advanced article. Now you can consider your WordPress ready for e-commerce. However, if you want to make sure that hackers are stopped from more advanced hacking techniques, then continue to the next article installation in this series. Finish the job off and rest at night.

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5 Benefits of Attending Blogging Workshops

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 09:00 AM PST

Blogging is one of the most significant new developments in the writing industry, an unprecedented platform that is changing the way we think about journalism and publication. Anyone in the world can start a blog to express themselves, and they can do so without answering to editors or publishers. In a way, blogging is the most liberating form of writing there is. Blogging workshops can be helpful to writers who want to take the next step with their work, but some may be skeptical of the cost and benefit of these workshops. In fact, a blogging workshop can do a lot for your blogging career.

  1. Connect with Other Bloggers
    There are countless bloggers in the world, and they’ve all started publishing their own writing online because they share two things in common–a desire for self expression and a love of writing. Workshops are great places to connect with other bloggers. When you spend too much time in your own head, it becomes too easy to lose focus. Stay fresh and see what’s happening in the world by meeting other bloggers, making valuable connections, and learning from those who have come before you.
  2. Generate More Traffic
    If it seems like your blog has reached a plateau with regards to its growth, you may need to refine your promoting and marketing strategies to generate more traffic. Blogging workshops can tell you all about the latest trends in internet marketing to help you build your audience. In order to grow your readership, you’ll need to publish regularly, stay relevant, and market effectively. A blogging workshop can teach you how to do all of these things.
  3. Learn Important Design Tips
    When was the last time you considered your blog’s design and layout? As technology grows, web design trends change, and it is important to stay ahead of the curve to keep new readers interested. In particular, your blog should be ready for mobile browsing. Over the past few years, internet traffic from mobile devices has increased dramatically, and it’s expected to continue rising. If your web design isn’t up to snuff and your blog is not mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on huge potential audiences.
  4. Start Turning a Profit
    In the upper training seminars of a blogging workshop, you will often find this important topic of discussion coming up: How can I make money from blogging? Indeed, blogging is more than just a hobby for many people. Some are interested in making this their livelihood, and they need direction from experienced veterans to learn how to make that happen. If you dream of turning your blog into a source of income, then a blogging workshop might be the best way to start planning for your goals.
  5. Keep Your Blog Relevant
    Readers in the blogging world can be very fickle. Here today, gone tomorrow. Some blogs, however, manage to build loyal audiences to never go astray, and the reason for that is relevance. Your blog needs to stay relevant over time in order to continue capturing the attention of the audience. It’s not easy to know what is and isn’t working in the blogging world unless you get out and start talking to the pros, so attend a blogging workshop to keep your finger on the pulse and make sure your blog stays relevant.

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5 Ways to Measure Your Blog’s Popularity on the Web

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 09:00 AM PST

Blogging is one of the most popular means of self expression in the world today. Writers, business owners, reporters and passionate people from all walks of life are taking to the blogging world to write with complete freedom. The restrictions of editors and the difficulty of dealing with publishers are now relics of the past for many ambitious writers. However, it is often difficult and confusing to measure a blog’s popularity on the web. Here are 5 easy ways to track your blog’s growth and measure the waves you’re making.

  1. Use Your Free Tools
    Most blogging platforms offer some kind of free tools that you can use to get some idea of your blog’s popularity. Whether you’re publishing through WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, or any of the other most popular services, check your account’s control panel for statistics. You should be able to get general traffic information from here, which will give you some idea of the amount of hits your blog is getting on a regular basis.
  2. Sign Up for Google Analytics
    For webmasters and bloggers alike, the tool package provided by Google Analytics is practically a necessity today. Google Analytics provides you with the best free service available for tracking and managing your website’s growth and popularity. You can figure out where your readers are coming from, and what links are leading them to your blog. Best of all, you can also sign up for email alerts that will notify you of web activity relevant to your site.
  3. Check In with Alexa
    For the bigger names in the blogging world, one of the best ways to track popularity and get information on competitors is through the Alexa web service. This website ranks your blog among other relevant pages to give an idea of your global popularity. You can find out lots of valuable information about your own traffic by running a search through Alexa, and you can pick up your competitors’ statistics as well. Find out what they’re doing to increase popularity so you can respond in kind.
  4. Track Your Shares
    Social media is endlessly important in any kind of online marketing, and that goes double for blogs. Using your own social media accounts to stay on top of shares and trending is one way to manage your popularity in the social media world, but that quickly becomes a tiresome and convoluted effort. Topsy is a great web service that allows you to search for your posts and find sharing statistics to see how far they’ve gotten. Whether you’re writing doctor reviews or fashion news, Topsy is a great way to keep track of social media shares.
  5. Tune In to Technorati
    Measuring your own popularity is infinitely easier when you’re tuned into the blogging world’s main channels. Technorati is a popular blog search engine that can show you important information about your blog’s popularity. Find out how which of your articles are coming up higher in searches, and find other bloggers who are referencing and linking you. Use this and other great tools to track your blog’s popularity and see what you can do to grow your audience.

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How to Select a Reliable Web Host for Your Business

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 08:59 AM PST

So you’re finally ready to step off the sidelines and launch your own blog. Welcome to the club! The internet has become the definitive resource for expression, and anyone with a few dollars in their pocket and a creative idea can see their thoughts reach literally millions of people. Blogging is an art form that has grown in leaps and bounds over the past decade. What used to hang around in the cracks and crevices of niche audiences online now can launch a multimedia star. Blogs are the first step to a book deal, a television show, a recording contract or even all of the above. But none of it is possible if your blog doesn’t stay active. That means the key to the whole thing is quality web hosting. But how to choose? Here are a couple of tips to help you select a reliable web host for your blog.

First of all, you’ve got to determine the scale of hosting that your site will require. In the beginning while your blog is building an audience shared hosting should be fine for you. Shared hosting is run by companies such as GoDaddy or WordPress, and often comes with the theme you’ll build your blog off of as a stock feature. Shared hosting plans are inexpensive, with fees that usually run less than $10 a month, and they’re made to get you up and running that same day. You can pick and choose from a small but useful menu of items, such as email addresses, a calendar or a newsletter function, and you can adjust as you go. But you will also be subject to stiff limits. Shared hosting means you are splitting up that company’s bandwith amongst hundreds or even thousands of other blogs, and if they hit unexpected traffic spikes it could actually crash your website. You’ll be severely limited in the amount of visitors your site can handle in a given day, as well as in the type of content you can post.

The next step up is the VPN, or virtual private network host. This is a more full-bodied option, for the blog that reaches thousands of people each day. Unless you are some sort of public figure who already has a following chances are you’ll grow into this option instead of starting off with it. VPN hosting costs at least $30 a month, and often more than $100. But it gives you a ton more flexibility. You can choose whatever functions you desire, and you’ll only share your bandwith with a couple of other select companies. Each one is kept separate, so your blog won’t be impacted by traffic on another site except in the most extreme cases. VPN hosting is a solid choice for blogs that lean heavily on audio and video entries, as you’ll want those to load fast and smooth to keep your audience coming back for more.

Those are the main hosting options. It is possible to set up your own dedicated host, but unless your blog supports a larger business that also requires an e-commerce solution you probably won’t need to go there. As far as choosing from the hundreds of companies that offer these services, you’ve got to do your homework. Look for a company with a track record, first and foremost. That doesn’t mean they have to be a household name, but you want a company that has been effectively serving clients for quite some time. That way you’ll know you are getting a quality service.

Make sure you check out a number of web hosting reviews as well. Just as you’d look over the Yelp listing before trying out a new restaurant, you’ll want to know how current clients feel about these services. In the end it comes down to a fair price, no secretive fine print, quality customer service and getting what you pay for. After all, there is no web hosting secret revealed by one company that another doesn’t already know and implement every day. It’s a fairly straightforward transaction, as long as you understand what you’re looking for. The future of your blog depends on it.

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Class+ to Get College Students Organized

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 08:59 AM PST

Just about everyone’s got a smartphone these days, and if you’re a college student, you’ve almost definitely got one of those advanced little machines in your purse or pocket. It’s hard to believe that they were first introduced as recently as 2007, and that in less than a decade they’ve come as far as they have in terms of technology and capability. The modern smartphone is really just a tiny computer (many of them with gorgeous displays, to boot) that also happens to make phone calls. This is a great thing, though, as it’s given a lot of people a lot of ways to simplify and organize their lives. No matter what you do, there’s definitely a lot of ways that you can use your smartphone and/or tablet computer to make your life more simple. There’s an app for just about everything these days, and this is great news for college students.

Your college years can be kind of tough. Especially if you’re just getting started with your higher education, the transition from high school can be a little jarring. There’s a lot of information that you have to keep track of and keep together when you’re in college — a lot more than anything you might have ever dealt with in high school. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an application that’s designed specifically to help you handle all this information? Class+ is that application.

Students have a lot that they have to keep track of. If you’re in college, you know: things like schedules, assignments, meetings, and other details can quickly get to be a little bit overwhelming. Having a notebook in which you write down all your commitments can be great, but you might not have an effective way to keep something like that with you at all times. With Class+ all of your organization and information goes with you anywhere you do, right there on your smartphone.

This fantastic application lets you do just about anything a college student could want to do, whether studying at USC or at the University of Alabama Birmingham. You can simply enter all your classes, and then organize the information that’s associated with them in a wide variety of ways. Schedules can be kept for things like homework assignments, exams, midterms, and other important future dates. Reminders can be set so that you never miss an important date. You can also enter your assignments and keep track of your grades, so that you always know where you stand academically.

College can be tough, and it’s nice to have all the help you can get when it comes to staying organized and staying on track of all your commitments and assignments. Now that we live in what could easily be described as “the Age of the Smartphone,” you’ve got a ton of ways that you can make your life a little easier. For just $0.99, Class+ is a great app that can help give just about any college student something of an efficiency boost.

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Facebook IPhone App Adds New Features

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 08:59 AM PST

Social media has grown faster than almost any technological phenomenon in history. The usage of sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr actually spread faster than the early usage of the entire internet, and now these sites make up ecosystems of sharing that add up to the population of whole countries. One of the primary reasons this new medium of interactivity has taken off to such an extent is mobile computing. Thanks to smartphones, tablets and e-readers a member of one of these sites can check status updates, post pictures and share his location from almost anywhere in the world. There are no boundaries other than battery life, and that makes for a perfect fit. Apple is well aware that many people flock to their iPhone and iPad because of the beautiful way they integrate the social networks. And Facebook is always looking for ways to further solidify that customer retention. Just this week Facebook put out an updated app for all iOS hardware, with some great new features.

Along with the usual bug fixes and slight visual adjustments, the latest Facebook app for the iPad and iPhone now includes the ability to record a voice message. And best of all, you can then send that message off to your friends. As with everything on Apple devices it is sleek and intuitive to use. All you do is highlight the name of the friend you want to message, then tap the plus sign on your keypad. A microphone icon will pop up on the touchscreen. Press and hold it with your finger and talk into your device just as if you were using the speakerphone function. Release the button when you want to stop, and the message saves and automatically sends. If you’re not happy with the recording, slide your finger off to the side and you’ll reset the mic to start over.

Fans of Facebook and iOS devices have seen this feature in action for the past couple of weeks in the recently upgraded Messenger app. Just as with other instant messaging services you can choose if you are ‘available’ or ‘busy’ and then chat with your Facebook friends either through text or voice. The difference now is that you can use the voice recording feature whether your friend has activated his messaging service or not. It’s a great way to send a message if you don’t have the time to type it out, or if you need to reach out to several friends quickly with a change of plans.

Another incredible development in Facebook interactivity is built-in video recording. In previous iterations you could record a video and either post it on your wall or send it to your friend, but you had to use third party software to handle the video piece. You’d upload your completed video to Facebook and then spread it around, which is complex and unwieldy to handle on your phone. Yet most smartphones have video recorders that are more than sufficient, making this extra step really the only hindrance to true, realtime video blogging. Now you can launch your Facebook app, click through to the “Photo” section and then toggle from still photos to videos. Record and post easily from there.

The last two upgrades have to do with privacy issues. Neither will help you protect your bubble gadget insurance brand, but most Apple products aren’t susceptible to viruses that cause any extreme problems. You will now be able to delete a post from your News Feed using your mobile device, which should help people avoid embarrassment due to accidental posting. An upgrade to the ‘Nearby’ posting feature has also been made, but it seems like this is just a bug fix from the app release that came out in December.

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at 08:02  

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