Archive for the 'WordPress' category

Some advice provided by Donncha for those who would like to move from PHP4 to PHP5 on a server supporting WordPress exploitation. Nothing big, but it is always good to check the items she points at:

• Location of PHP.INI
• Update to mysql and gd libraries
• Compatibility with WP-cache

Authors of a web site sometimes (more and more often) find themselves in the difficult situation where the content of their site is “borrowed” by someone else. I just found a very helpful and detailled post by Lorelle (”What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content“) that explains what to do and how to react. My best recommendation to any blog writer.

It is well known that the human brain has pattern matching capabilities much further advanced than those of the best equivalent software programs. This explains that failure rates of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program may be as high as 1% (or even 2%) of errors, which is requiring later human proof-reading to ensure a reasonable quality for document scans. But when the document is old, badly printed, or degraded, error rates may climb further into the unusable (even more so when we address the scan of thousands of documents like is done by libraries and cultural institutions all over the world).

On another issue, the SPAM problem on the Internet became a major problem: Prorams try to make believe that they are human beings in order to insert advertisment anywhere a user can write (in the messages of a forum, in the comments of a blog, etc). For some time now, it became common that human users must identify themselves by their capacity to recognize a badly written word. Theoretically, this is a very efficient Turing test allowing to differentiate a human from a machine only by the results of their actions. Practically, the abilities of software programs have become so impressive that SPAM is slowly coming back again through those filters named CAPTCHAs (those images that you must read and copy back in order to be identified and approved for a specific action).

The problem appears to be: create CAPTCHA tremendously difficult for the automated software and, simultaneously, bring human beings to the task of checking scans of documents difficult to read by program.

The solution: reCAPTCHA.

The idea is to provide a CAPTCHA service to thousands of bloggers and forum administrators (WordPress, phpBB, etc.) Users are invited to recognize two words specifically difficult to read (profesional OCR programs failed during scans done by Carnegie Mellon University). The user must recognize them both. One is used to check that this is a human being, the other will fill a database of OCR translations that will be used to deliver even more CAPTCHAs and to improve the quality of a document scanned by Carnegie Mellon. Dual core technology: efficiently fight spammers and deliver millions of human users to improve the scan quality of thousands of ancient documents (without using slave labor).

Example of a difficult to read/scan document:

One of the key advantages is that most pro OCR programs can tell when they fail to recognize a character or a word (when they are not confident enough).

Being propulsed to the home page of a famous web site like SlashDot or Digg is intensely satisfying for the author of a blog, but it usually results in an intense traffic storm for your server that may not survive to the typhoon even if it comes from friends.

DownloadSquad grouped some ideas on how to optimise your WordPress site around this risk or when you fall under that kind of pressure.

I just installed a WordPress plugin to make Roumazeilles.net usable from a mobile phone (WordPress Mobile). If you want to test and tell me about problem, you’ll be thanked.

When, as I do, you want to include some bits and pieces of software code in a WordPress post, it starts to become a serious headache. As a matter of fact, WP has not really been prepared for this and it creates a number of issues. Those I already encountered here:

• The <?php tend to disappear (unless you start juggling)
• Some charcaters would not display at all (or badly)
• The overall presentation is pretty bland if you use <code>

So, I looked for a plugin (nearly everything in WordPress is done by adding on of those marvellous little code gems that can be included in a few seconds into the basic configuration) adapted to this task, easy to install (I don’t want to be stuck with heavy maintenance just for this), easy to use.

Here is the summary of what I checked and my opinion regarding them.
(more…)

Favicon’s are those little icon files that you place at the root of your web site. They display in Internet Explorer along with your bookmarks, in Opera and Firefox on the address bar near to the address of the site you visit.

When you want to produce a favicon for your web site, you probably do not want to loose a lot of time. I selected a small free software that takes a few simple graphics and transforms them in a small icon (it tells you the best choice of size and colors for a true favicon):

Simple and to the point. Exactly what you need in such a case.

I did not yet have time to evaluate it formally but, on the paper, it seems that YAPB (Yet another photo blog) is a plugin allowing ot easily build a photoblog based upon WordPress (the size of thumbnails is configurable, WordPress themes are still usable, but there is no galery).

One rule: One image, one title, one description.

Worth evaluating. Worth downloading.

In the spotlight: Sony Alpha 900 Canon EOS 5D Mk II Nikon D700 FX Download Nero for free

Webcron is an automated task service at set hours. If you know Unix or Linux you already heard about the Crontab. Webcron is a Web adaptation of this well-known Crontab. But nothing complicated at all!

Webcron allows you to do tasks at set hours by looking for a page on your website. For example, save your database, therefore you only have to prepare a script database_save.php that saves the database to a file. Add then a task to you Webcron to do the http://www.domaine.com/sauvegarde_base.php request.

Very simple and recommended.

I recently checked the log files for my web site roumazeilles.net and I stopped to look at the share of the different tools used by the users of the RSS feeds of the site:

It seems that the FireFox users are clearly in love with RSS feed (independently of the Operating System they use).

I am currently wondering whether I could add forums to roumazeilles.net (you can give me your opinion on this). It would extend the possibility of commenting posts with even more freedom since people could even talk to each other on issues choosen quite freely.

Requirements

For this,I started to check what solutions are available for a WordPress web site adminsitrator in order to stay well integrated into the original web log, with an interface as simple as possible, but providing a very good protection against SPAM (even if you nearly never see them, SPAM messages are still a pain in the neck requiring permanent attention and tools to protect the web site against the flood).

Comparison

The table below give a general idea of the characteristics that I tried to check in the various products I found good enough to be detailed.

Others

Conclusion

For the time being, I would favor bbPress because it is supported by a very active community and because -even if edges are still rough- rapid progress can be observed going in the right direction.

See also

List of plugins for WordPress forums.

If you have installed WordPress v2.1.1 (precisely this version), you should urgently download the version 2.1.2.

A cracker succeeded in inserting a malicious code in the downloadable copy of this version and it means that your web site may be open to a vicious attack.

Do not wait and check the WordPress web site.

Google sells advertising. There is some of it on my web site pages. Normally, as a web site owner, I don’t really look at the price ads are sold (I don’t buy ads to publicize and market my web site). But, nonetheless, I was curious about the price ads are sold to Google customers. More precisely, I tried to identify the ads that are sold at the higher price.

To scrutiny those, I used AdWords, Google’s tool for vendors; It allows to evaluate prices. The result is nearly shocking if you look at the highest scores. They are systematically grouped in a few narrow categories:

• Loan financing or refinancing – often to pay college
• Automobile insurance
• Attorneys and personal lawsuits

First, we can notice that this is significantly skewed towards the American way of life. But these are obviously related to commercial topics linked to professions and skills that can earn you A LOT of money if you can sell them right (isn’t it the main purpose of any publicity and advertising?)

I collected a list of the most expensive search words I could find.

(more…)

If you look at the left-hand side menu on this page, you will notice that there is a link to either register yourself (Register) or login (Login). These links are here to give you the ability to identify yourself when your are visiting the Roumazeilles.net web site. It is a two-step process:

1. Register yourself, for us to know your pseudo and to know how to recognize you
2. Login, to identify yourself when you are visiting the web site

But what are the advantages for you? There are several of them.

Once you are identified, you can directly send replies or comments to the various posts. Without further ado, you can help other readers with your experience relating to an existing post that you are just reading. Just click on the comment link you will find with each post/article. If you are identified and reading the special page for a post, you will also see a large empty box to type your comments.

When you are identified, you have access to the web site administration (Site Admin). One important possibility here is that you can write a new post/article. It will be submitted for approval and may end in the web site front page, like some other people did. In that case, your name (or pseudo-name) will appear along with the post/article.

If you are worried about providing personal details, don’t. We request only a very limited amount of data. The only compulsory information is a username (or pseudo) that you can choose freely and an email address that is not shown to the visitors. If you indicate a web site address, it will be associated to your username any time it is displayed (isn’t it a nice advertising feature for your own blog?). You will be provided a password that will protect your access rights, and that you can modify later by accessing your account.

Summary of the possible actions (available from the menu)

• Register to register yourself (and choose you pseudo)
• Login to identify yourself using your pseudo and password
• Logout to leave the site
• Site Admin to submit a new post or modify your account