HACKED!

You may have become a victim like I was. Little automated scripts that scour the web poking their heads into soft spots and setting up shop. These industrious characters get their jollies and your search engine mojo by infiltrating blogs, and planting bits of nefarious code.

 A few quick steps you can kick those malicious good-for-nothing robots out of your hair and out on their butts.

Clean up the mess

Ground zero of the hack. Once inside your database, you’ll quickly know you’ve been hacked. Often these bots leave calling cards. In my case, it was something like hackboys@msn.com. Log into your phpMyAdmin (ask your friendly web host support if you need help), and find the table called wp_users. As you can see below, I’ve renamed my prefixes to gb_, which is important for security, but I’ll get to that a little later. (1) Click on the little box graphic next to wp_users to browse. (2) Then, click the pencil icon to edit. 

 (3) change the default admin username to something more personal, (4) reset the password to something different, and (5) Purge all the nonsense.

Re-install Wordpress

Now, you’ll be back in business. But, you can’t stop there! That wasn’t the evil perpetrated on your blog. The real evil is the scripts left behind. I’d recommend re-installing Wordpress. The best way is to download the newest wordpress, access your web host’s files, delete all the wordpress files and folders, leaving the wp-content folder. Then, upload all the new wordpress files.

Additional Hacks

That should take care of the wordpress system files, but sometimes these sneaky hackers get creative and leave fake images/files in your themes, initiated by database entries. This video will show you how to find and destroy wordpress spam redirect. Also, be sure to scan through your theme files for anything suspicious, and install the Wordpress scanner plugin to catch anything you might have missed.

Added Security

Default settings are exploited by those in the know. Like I was saying before, changing the wp_ prefix is always a good idea. First, backup your wordpress database. Now you’ll have a .sql file on your computer. Open it in your favourite text editor and execute a “Find and Replace” changing all instances of “wp_” to “somethingelse_” (by “somethingelse_” I mean anything, but keep it short there’s a length limit). 

Take the newly saved file and import it back into your database. Make sure you also modify wordpress’ wp-config.php (that file with the database password in it) with the new prefix.

Happy (secure) blogging!

But, for the time being, try the All in One SEO Pack plugin for Wordpress.

By dynamically changing your page titles and inserting important meta information into your pages, this increasing popular SEO plugin for wordpress will increase your chances of your page hitting top search page more often.

The problem: Wordpress is feature rich. It’s great for those who spent hundreds of hours combing through help forums, but all those features can overwhelm those new to the internet.

The solution: Simplify Wordpress for the less tech savvy crowd. I’ve compiled this list of useful links to trim the fat, and make wordpress leaner and easier to use than ever before!

1. Renaming menu items

A plugin named Admin Menu Management will allow you to rename terms like “Write” which makes sense if you’re writing a blog, but less sense if you’re adding news to your front page or a photo to your gallery. Instead I’ve renamed it “Add New Content”, which better represents the intentions of the user.

2. Disable those “Wordpress ___ is available” messages.

Sure, it’s great to know there’s a fancier new version available. But, it’s unnecessary information. It’ll only worry users when everything’s working fine. Disable WordPress Core Update will do the trick in eliminating this warning.

3. Make advanced settings invisible

Install Wordpress Lite and configure the administration panel to show only what’s necessary and make potentially breakable settings out of reach. This plugin goes a long way in simplifying Wordpress user experience. If you download any one of these plugins, this is the one. 

4. HTML editor simplified

TinyMCE, the html editor in Wordpress, is incredibly powerful, but also full of features that go unused.

The formatting menu is packed with settings that can ruin the look of your neat and orderly design. I personally like to style with only one heading, so including 5 headings in the editor just doesn’t make sense. Save your clients the frustration of creativity by giving them only two choices: Heading 1 or Paragraph.

People may say they like choice and variety, but in reality it’s a whole lot less stress with less. So, how do we we trim down the editor?

There are two files. One is in /wp-includes/js/tinymce/

Open tiny_mce_config.php in a text editor, scroll down until you find: 

$mce_buttons = apply_filters('mce_buttons', array('bold', 'italic',
'formatselect','strikethrough', '|', 'bullist', 'numlist',
'blockquote', '|','justifyleft', 'justifycenter', 'justifyright',
'|', 'link', 'unlink', 'gb_more', '|', 'spellchecker',
'fullscreen', 'gb_adv' ));</pre>
<pre>$mce_buttons = implode($mce_buttons, ',');

$mce_buttons_2 = apply_filters('mce_buttons_2', array('formatselect',
'underline', 'justifyfull', 'forecolor', '|', 'pastetext',
'pasteword', 'removeformat', '|', 'media', 'charmap', '|',
'outdent', 'indent', '|', 'undo', 'redo', 'gb_help' ));
$mce_buttons_2 = implode($mce_buttons_2, ',');

Either delete or comment out what you don’t need, like I did below. Everything between /* and */ is skipped in PHP. If you remove “gb_more” you can leave everything in mce_buttons_2 as it is.

$mce_buttons = apply_filters('mce_buttons', array('bold', 'italic',
'formatselect',/*'strikethrough',*/ '|', 'bullist', 'numlist',
/*'blockquote', '|','justifyleft', 'justifycenter', 'justifyright',
*/'|', 'link', 'unlink', /*'gb_more',*/ '|', 'spellchecker',
'fullscreen'/*, 'gb_adv'*/ ));</pre>
<pre>$mce_buttons = implode($mce_buttons, ',');

$mce_buttons_2 = apply_filters('mce_buttons_2', array('formatselect',
'underline', 'justifyfull', 'forecolor', '|', 'pastetext',
'pasteword', 'removeformat', '|', 'media', 'charmap', '|',
'outdent', 'indent', '|', 'undo', 'redo', 'gb_help' ));
$mce_buttons_2 = implode($mce_buttons_2, ',');

The other file is in /wp-includes/js/tinymce/themes/advanced/

Now, let’s change what appears in the format menu pull down. Open editor_template.js and scroll down to: 

theme_advanced_blockformats:"p,address,pre,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6"

It’s in a packed javascript file, so it’s a little hard to see. Search for “theme_advanced_blockformats”

Now, from that line, remove the formats you don’t need. Be mindful of the commas. In my case, the line now looks like this:

theme_advanced_blockformats:"p,h1"

Please note that the changes you’ve just made may not take effect until you delete the javascript cache in /wp-content/uploads/js_cache/ After deleting the file, refresh the browser.

That’s it. Once everything’s configured, it’s wordpress without hours of explanation. 

Simple and to the point. Happy clients. Have any more tips to clean up wordpress? Comment below.

This short video on ABC News explains the importance of picking the right typeface for the job, by exposing possible insights into typeface selection for the latest US presidential candidates.

But, what struck me was something Jeff Bezos said in an interview after the kindle was released. He expressed that no longer should companies spend 30 percent of their time and money in development of the product and 70 percent advertising it. That was the old model. Those numbers should now be reversed. With internet proliferation and closer-knit internet communities, times have changed. He alluded that the kindle was a part of his company’s new strategy, concentrating on making quality products and letting the internet spread the word. This new model will undoubtedly play an important role in the future of marketing.

Having discovered a glitch in the game, a fan posted a video on youTube, calling it the “jesus shot” . Quickly, EA responds with their own video, referencing the username of the original post. This all adds authenticity of the message and allows us to drop our guard. They take what normally would be perceived as a failing in the game’s design (walking on water) and flips it positive, joking that it’s just a testament to the golfer’s talents. It also serves to reinforce Tiger’s brand image as a flawless, unstoppable force on the course. A jesus figure of sorts.

But, In taking this approach, have they gone too far? Has it left a lasting image of failure in the user’s mind? The creators are sure to have mixed feelings about the popularity of the error page illustration, which recently sprouted fan clubs, clothing and other merchandise. I can only imagine the impact of having a constant reminder of your site’s shortcomings adorning the desks of the world’s leading developers.

…with people perceiving complicated font to mean complex food that needs greater skills to prepare…

Designers have known this from the beginning of time. Perception is reality. In this case, the typeface represents the word it sets. Here’s an example of the concept: