WordPress Security…

With all the recent press about global brute force attacks on WordPress I decided to install the Better WP Security plugin last Sunday.

It includes loads of security features, including the big ones mentioned in the recent attacks:

  • Changing the name of the “admin” user.
  • Changing the ID of your renamed admin user.
  • Changing the table prefix.
  • Max login attempts lockdown.

Of the 5 blogs I manage, 4 worked straight off with this plugin. Unfortunately, one required a few attempts, so remember to take filesystem and database backups before you start or you may not end up in a happy place.

Over the week since activating the plugin I’ve been quite interested/scared by the results. I’ve been getting several emails a day telling me of user lockdowns due to attempted brute force attacks originating from USA, Russia and the Netherlands.

If you have a self-hosted WordPress installation, you really need to take some basic steps stop yourself becoming a victim. There are a number of security plugins available, which I’m sure work equally well, but I only have experience of this one.

Good luck.

Cheers

Tim…

UltraEdit for Linux/Mac v4.0 Beta II

Hot on the heels of the recent UltraEdit v19 release for Windows, comes the UltraEdit v4 Beta II release for Linux/Mac.

I’ve just started using it and so far so good. They usually progress through the betas pretty quick. I didn’t have time to install the beta I before this one dropped. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

The problem with free and RSS…

The internet has been awash with people bemoaning the decision by Google to close Google Reader. Probably the next biggest talking point has been people asking what they can use to replace it when it’s gone. I’m planning on giving TheOldReader.com a test-drive, once I can get my feeds imported. 🙂

The problem with free

This highlights one of the problems with free stuff. It’s not (always) really free. Google spent a few years building stuff, some of which was pretty cool, and most of which was free, but sooner or later they needed to find a way to monetize this stuff. That’s one thing that never happened with Reader, so not surprisingly it joined the growing list of things that have been cleaned away to make room for the more profitable stuff. It’s a pity Google didn’t first ask people if they were willing to pay a fee to keep the service. Like many others, I would have been willing to pay for the privilege of retaining it.

The problem with RSS

It also suggests that RSS was never really that popular. It’s easy when you are a tech-blogger to think the whole world reads blogs and cares about RSS, but the truth is most people just don’t give a crap. I use RSS to keep on top of things going on in the industry. If I relied on Twitter, Google+ or Facebook I would miss out on loads of things because the UK timezone doesn’t really fit with the vast majority of publishing in my chosen profession. Also, the signal:noise ratio of my RSS feeds is much better than that of most social media channels I subscribe to. So being one of the vast minority of people that actually do care about RSS has left me in a bad situation.

I’m interested to hear any thoughts on ways of ridding myself of RSS, or any other tools you’ve seen that might help me out of my current predicament. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Update: I’ve decided on feedly.com for the moment.

 

 

 

 

I’m so bleeding edge…

I forgot to mention the really big news from this last week at work. I have been upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7! I feel so bleeding edge now. I switched to classic theme, so it feels like XP. 🙂

I’ve also been switched from Office XP to Office 2010, so I now have that ribbon thing. I think I need a bigger monitor now that ribbon takes most of my screen. 🙂

Joking aside, the transition has been really easy and things seem to be working fine. Not sure how long it will take before the first official installations of Windows 8 hit our place. I’ll happily stay behind the bleeding edge on that one. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Nexus 4 & 7: Android 4.2.2 Updates

Android 4.2.2 dropped a couple of days ago and the updates of my Nexus4 and Nexus7 went without a problem. The reason for this post is to point out something I found amusing about my usage of the Nexus4…

I just attempted to send a text message and noticed my Nexus4 was not connected to my phone network. I don’t think it’s been connected since the update two days ago. When I noticed, I did a search for the phone network, found it and played catch up on a couple of old messages.

What I found amusing is it shows how little I actually need a phone network. I am almost continually in wifi range and most of my communication is via email, twitter and skype, so having no data connection for two days went unnoticed. I’m glad I only pay £8/month. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

UltraEdit on Fedora 18…

I was using UltraEdit 3.3 on Fedora 17 with no problems. After the upgrade to Fedora 18 it continued to work fine. Then I noticed there was a newer build of 3.3 on the IDM website, so I downloaded and installed it. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I guess it was a later build for Fedora 17, not a new Fedora 18 build.

I dropped the guys at IDM an email and they did a new build straight away and it worked fine. This build is available from the website now.

It’s nice when people write cool apps and back them up with good service when you need help!

Cheers

Tim…