How To Blog

Here we go again - another WordPress Update to fix a security vulnerability

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO:

http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/here-we-go-again-another-wordpress-update-to-fix-a-security-vulnerability-286.htm

Please update your bookmarks to reflect the new, permanent location of How to Blog.  Comments and trackbacks on this post are now closed.  If you wish to comment on this post, please visit the new site!  Thank you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boy – this sure is starting to sound like a broken record.  WordPress 1.5.1.2 has now been released to fix a security vulnerability.

According to the developers:

It has come to our attention that under certain circumstances there is a security vulnerability in WordPress that may be triggered if you’re running the default template. We were able to respond very quickly (under 40 minutes) and update the download to 1.5.1.2. You can upgrade by overwriting your old 1.5 files or if you would like to apply the fix manually it is relatively simple:

1. Open the wp-includes/template-functions-category.php file in a text editor like Wordpad.
2. Go to around line 103 where it says get_the_category_by_ID.
3. Create a new line after that and paste in $cat_ID = (int) $cat_ID;

One note, even if the vulnerability was present in your blog, you would still be safe if your host ran mod_security on their servers. It is an Apache module which can provide very high-level protection against everything like the vulnerability above to comment spam. We will be updating the hosting page shortly to reflect which hosts there support mod_security or not.

So, if I understand what they’re saying correctly, the vulnerability only affects users who are running the default template…?  Nonetheless, I’d go ahead and make the upgrade (or just do the manual fix) – never want to chance having a security hole.  Oy.

Troubles getting BlogJet to work with WordPress? You need to upgrade to WordPress 1.5.1.1

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO:

http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/troubles-getting-blogjet-to-work-with-wordpress-you-need-to-upgrade-to-wordpress-1511-285.htm

Please update your bookmarks to reflect the new, permanent location of How to Blog.  Comments and trackbacks on this post are now closed.  If you wish to comment on this post, please visit the new site!  Thank you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5/20 update – the problem was indeed a bug in wordpress and requires an upgrade to WordPres version 1.5.1.1.  Then you’ll be happily blogjetting your way along!  Yay!

5/12 update - despite the comment that indicates this is a bug in WP that is fixed in the nightly builds,  wordpress 1.5.1 has been released and after upgrading to it, I'm still experiencing the same problems with Blogjet not working with wordpress.  However, the below workaround I came up with still works w/1.5.1

4/27 update - I've come up with a workaround, that, while annoying, does allow me to use BlogJet to post to WordPress 1.5.   Basically, I make my posts in BlogJet and then from the Blog Menu choose the item 'Post as Draft'.  Then I have to login to WP, click 'Write' and click each draft and then click publish.  Yes, pain in the rear.  But it works...   I prefer BlogJet's editor because it is wysiwyg without using up a lot of resources on my webserver (I've heard the wordpress plugins that allow for wysiwyg are very resource intensive), which is why I post from BlogJet - but the having to go and label as draft and then republish and all that may make it not worth the effort.  Original post follows:

---

I’ve been enjoying my trial of BlogJet to make these posts to TypePad, but before I figure out whether it’s worth buying the program I needed to test it on other blogging platforms.

So I decided to start with this new WordPress powered site I’m just launching called absurdness.com, (which will have tons of funny pictures, quotes, and jokes when I’m done with it…partly it’s a test to see if it gets traffic as quickly as my typepad powered funny pictures site did, because I’m still wondering if typepad powered sites just seem to rank better in the search engines…I think it has a lot to do with typepad’s list of recently updated blogs..and while I’m off on this tangent, does anyone know if there’s a plug-in for wordpress that does the equivalent?)  Anywhoo – back to my trials and tribulations posting to wp from blogjet — wouldn’t you know it – I can’t get the darn thing to work.  It’s very bizarre, because when I create a post in BlogJet and then click to publish it to WP, the post shows up in my WP dashboard’s list of posts – yet trying to view the post brings up a 404 error.  When I duplicated the post but created it from within wordpress’s own UI, the post worked fine (except for the fact that I was hosting my images on yahoo photos, so half of them aren’t even showing up – need to host my images elsewhere and maybe go for a flickr pro account..)

So has anyone else had success posting to a wordpress 1.5 blog from BlogJet?  I know I’ve configured it correctly because, as I mentioned, the BlogJet posts are being listed as posts when I log in directly to wordpress, but they don’t seem to have actually been published (even though they’re labeled as such – it’s more like they’re drafts)

Yet another WordPress update - 1.5.1.1 is out

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO:

http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/yet-another-wordpress-update-1511-is-out-284.htm

Please update your bookmarks to reflect the new, permanent location of How to Blog.  Comments and trackbacks on this post are now closed.  If you wish to comment on this post, please visit the new site!  Thank you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shortly after the release of WordPress 1.5.1 (which came out shortly after 1.5…) we now have a new update: WordPress 1.5.1.1

From the dev team:

“Update: In our effort to optimize we made two mistakes in 1.5.1, one related to feeds and one related to trackbacks and pingbacks. We’ve updated the download with 1.5.1.1 which corrects these bugs and a few others.”

I’m all for bug fixes, and I really love WordPress (I’m having fun playing around with the semiologic theme over at my tools and hardware review site), but it’s really frustrating to have to keep updating all of our wordpress files in such a short time span.

We’ve no idea which files have been updated, and are just told to “Just overwrite your old WordPress files and be careful not to delete anything important in your wp-content folder.”  At this point in time, while annoying, it isn’t too much hassle to do.  However, many people have chosen to make modifications to the code (there are numerous hacks discussed in WordPress Support) and now they’ve got to remember what changes they made and where and reimplement them in the new release (as some folks complained about when told to upgrade to 1.5.1-- see the following lengthy thread for example – wait til they find out they’ve got to do it all over again!  Yikes).  For those who’ve done a lot of hacking, this is a lot to ask for in such a small time frame – that’s why there’s a difference between nightly builds and what we’re told is a ‘stable release’.

It also makes all of the the plug-in developers and theme developers need to go back and check their compatibility (and possibly update their code) with the latest version 1.5.1.1.

On the flip side, I have just installed the upgrade on my tool reviews site, and have already noticed a change for the better speed wise, which I assume must be somewhat related to the problems with trackbacks and pings -- sometimes it would take forever just to publish a simple post...

So, kudos to the WordPress team for working so hard to get the fixes out so quickly, I just wish they had done a better job of testing both 1.5 and 1.5.1 before causing a lot of trouble for numerous users in the WordPress community (although many experienced no problems with either upgrade).  I think the moral of this story is that if you don't wanna be on the bleeding edge, perhaps it's best to wait after a new release comes out before you automatically jump to upgrade (ESPECIALLY if you've hacked the code at all so that an upgrade becomes more work than just copying files over), and hanging out for a while (days would be a good idea) in the WordPress support forums to see how smoothly the upgrade goes for other users.  Remember, most of the people who post in the support forums are the ones having problems, so it's not necessarily representative of how users feel as a whole -- those without problems are likely not to be posting in the support forums.  What it comes down to is a personal decision -- how difficult is it for you to do an upgrade, and how frustrated will you be if it breaks some of the functionality of your previous version.  If your current installation of WordPress is working perfectly for you, might be worth waiting a few days to see if there's any fallout before upgrading.

That said, one of the reasons we were told that version 1.5.1 was a necessary upgrade was because it contained a security fix (which has yet to be identified to the public), so while many were hesitant to do the upgrade, many went through with it anyway because they feared the security flaw in version 1.5, especially since we didn't know what the security flaw was or how dangerous it was...

it's a strange situation -- how can you fault the developers for having released a buggy version too quickly when they're working for free... don't ever forget this awesome software is free.  And that said, the sad fact is that all software has bugs -- commercial software included.  I used to work as a software quality assurance engineer before my injury (which basically means I tested the software as the developers wrote the code, trying to find the bugs, and often with each bug fixed either a new bug would arise or something that previously worked would break as a result of the new bug’s fix -- it's kind of the nature of the beast in the business) and it was pretty much do whatever it takes to get the product out on time, which generally amounted to shipping a product with known bugs, so long as they were not likely to affect a large number of users and would not cause the program or the computer to crash -- and even then, sometimes disasters happened -- and this is for software that people were paying for.

I’ve kind of gone off on a tangent and rambled a bit, and while I'm at it I might as well just throw in a little whining because my wrists and neck have really been hurting me lately from working too much, so I'm back to using voice recognition software, but for some reason it doesn't work with BlogJet (it doesn't allow dictation in the post body, but it will let me dictate the subject -- what's up with that?)

Oh yeah -- and now that my RSI is acting up and I'm dictating my entries using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, please forgive me if there are any weird dictation errors that I didn't catch -- although I would have to say that it's amazingly accurate compared to versions of years ago)

Plugins for WordPress 1.5.1

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO:

http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/plugins-for-wordpress-151-283.htm

Please update your bookmarks to reflect the new, permanent location of How to Blog.  Comments and trackbacks on this post are now closed.  If you wish to comment on this post, please visit the new site!  Thank you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the greatest features of WordPress is the vast extent to which users can customize (through plugins, themes, and hacks) the look, feel, and functionality of their weblogs – allowing your blog to be simultaneously powerful and unique.  As stated in the codex:

“Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress. The core of WordPress is designed to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat. Plugins offer custom functions so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs”

WP plug-ins can do anything from addg technorati tags to your blog to grabbing your latest furl or de.li.cio.us links and automatically displaying them on your site to generating teaser previews of your posts.

But where do you get plugins for WordPress?  Well, if you know PHP you can make them yourself, but most will probably want do download the plugins that others have authored and made freely available to the wordpress community. 

I’ve found the following pages to contain links to many plugins.  However, it is often unclear whether a plugin was designed to work in v1.5 or if it only works in older versions of wp (it is up to each individual plugin author to decide whether they want to update their plugins), so for now you’re just getting a bunch of links out of me, but I have plans to go through them all and put together a comprehensive list of plugins that work in wordpress 1.5+.

Sources for wordpress plugins:

• The WordPress Plugin Directory
• The WordPress Plugins Database (provides wp 1.2 & wp 1.5 compatibility information, although I haven’t always found it to be accurate..)
• Blogging Pro's list of wp plugins
• The Wordpress Plugin and Mod Competition Blog and Wiki
• MundoGeek's wordpress plugin list – seems very comprehensive, but it’s in spanish (also does not give compatibility info)
• Plugins « WordPress Codex

Be warned though, some plugins do not play well with others, so if you experience a problem simply deactivate the plugin through the plugin manager (or, if for some reason you cannot access it, rename the file in your plugins directory)

 

WordPress plugins are generally easy to install, only requiring you to upload them to your wp-content/plugins/ directory and then go to your Plugin Manager and ‘Activate’ the plugin of choice. 

For information on customizing the look and feel of your wordpress site make sure to read the following articles on templates and themes:

• Comprehensive list of 280+ WordPress 1.5 Themes / Templates available for download

• How to customize an existing WordPress 1.5 theme just the way you want

 

WordPress 1.5.1 Strayhorn released with bug fixes and enhancements

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO:

http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/wordpress-151-strayhorn-released-with-bug-fixes-and-enhancements-282.htm

Please update your bookmarks to reflect the new, permanent location of How to Blog.  Comments and trackbacks on this post are now closed.  If you wish to comment on this post, please visit the new site!  Thank you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The latest version of WordPress is out so it’s time to upgrade to 1.5.1!

From the website:

“ What’s new? Our crack documentation team has put together a short, technical changelog but to summarize this release has a ton of bug fixes, enhancements, and an important security fix. (Thanks again to Thomas Waldegger.) Plugin authors especially will love all the new API hooks and functionality we added to make advanced extensions to WordPress even easier. As a user you’ll find WordPress will run faster and make the world an even better place. Many thanks go out to our amazing testing and development team, who together squashed over 170 bugs!”

Much thanks to everyone on the wordpress team for all their efforts in producing such an awesome, easy to use, feature rich blogging system FOR FREE!

To upgrade, “Just overwrite your old WordPress files and be careful not to delete anything important in your wp-content folder”.  You can get more detailed upgrade instructions on the Codex if you need them.

Customizing existing wordpress themes continued

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO:

http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/customizing-existing-wordpress-themes-continued-281.htm

Please update your bookmarks to reflect the new, permanent location of How to Blog.  Comments and trackbacks on this post are now closed.  If you wish to comment on this post, please visit the new site!  Thank you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for the delay in getting this out there, but Urban Giraffe has come through again and given us even more tools in the quest to modifying wordpress themes to better suit the desired look and feel of your site.

Check out part two of Dissection of a WordPress Theme:

"Part two of this WordPress dissection continues to try and explain the basic workings of the software, how this relates to the layout, and how anyone can personalise their blog.

The focus will be on finalising the basic layout from part one, and then finishing the header and footer sections. Both of these are important as they stylistically define a blog and act as visual focal points – do it well and people will want to read your blog, do it badly and they may not even bother."

And when you've digested that, be sure to finish with Dissection of a WP Theme Part 3:

"This part will focus on the sidebar, the navigational centre of a blog, and flesh out its raw contents to be more functional and attractive.

The sidebar is where a visitor first looks when they have finished reading a blog posting. It tells them what else your blog has to offer, how to find it, and where to go next. It can be a great aid in directing visitors, or it can confuse them entirely. A confused visitor is not likely to return and so we should persuade them to stay as long as possible."