If you have recently upgraded to 3.0, please open your config file and get new security keys. WP 3.0 uses a different set of security keys than prior versions. It uses the same set as WP MU does, so you will have to get new ones.

You will find it below the database information

WP Authentication-Security_Keys

Copy and paste the link highlighted below into your browser address bar. You will see something like the above , but with the actual keys.

WP Authentication-Security_Key URL

This is what your config file should look like once you copied the keys. then you just save and close in the upper right corner.

Everythings fine in the DB, the posts are exactly as I have written them, links and all.

Unfortunately it’s about 4:30 am here and I’ll have to stare at this with fresher eyes tomorrow. While it’s interesting, in a strange way, it’s just about made my blog useless at the moment… And just when I was link happy giving thanks to everyone in the previous post.

After I hunt down the culprit ( the usual suspects ) I’ll report back here. I think I need to add a “Whoops” category now!

UPDATE

I’ve just noticed that this is happening under the “Posts belonging to Category ‘Plugins’” pages. I think that’s my fault!

UPDATE #2

Well I finally got to delve into where the “code” was misbehaving. The funny thing is that on this current theme, the Categories Widget is using the archive.php file, under /wp-content/themes/eximius. Of course this is the Eximus Theme.
Now the archive.php is using the_excerpt() function to display the post and not the_content() function.

There is a much better description of what’s going on at http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_excerpt

It’s time for a theme change anyways now the site is upgraded to WordPress 3.0.

I’ll give credit where credit is due.

Thanks goes to  Artem Russakovskii and his post on wordpress-plugin-development-how-to-include-css-and-javascript-conditionally-and-only-when-needed-by-the-posts

And as a follow up from the good folk from the WP Codex – http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_enqueue_style and also regarding a new look on CSS and styling Anchor Tags – the Proper Way…. as shown by Anatoly Lubarsky at http://blogs.x2line.com/al/articles/159.aspx

To all of the above, a big thanks. I went from “hey how do you go adding in CSS with a plugin” to having it working in about 20 minutes, including research and dreaming up new stuff.

That’s another step forward in the Plugin “How To’s”.

First, how do blogs get hacked in the first place? Because of it’s design, there are many vulnerable areas in a WP site.In brief:

• Outdated plugins and themes
• Using plugins from unknown sources
• using an older version of WordPress
• Weak passwords
• using admin as your username
• insecure or incomplete installations
• leaving certain files on your server, such as the readme.html
• not removing your WP version from various areas on your site.
• keeping the default database prefix.
• and several other ways that we’ll cover another time.

Fortunately, WP has several plugins that make doing many of these security measures a breeze.

Here’s a list of my favorite ones

Login Lockdown ~ records the IP address of every failed login attempt. If more than a set number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP range, then the login function is disabled for all requests from that range. Currently the plugin defaults to a 1 hour lock out of an IP block after 3 failed login attempts within 5 minutes. This can be modified via the Options panel and admisitrators can release locked out IP ranges manually from the panel.

WP Secure ~ does a multitude of functions that used to have be done manually, such as:

upgrade to the last version of wordpress
check plugins that are out of date
Remove error information on login-page
Hide your wordpress version(frontend & dashboard)
Remove really simple discovery
Remove Windows Live Writer
Remove core update information
Remove plugin & theme update information
Add index.php for plugin directory which hides your plugins folder
Change the default admin username & tests the strength of your password
Restrict access to wp-config.php file, wp-includes & wp-content folders
Restrict wp-admin for only your Ip
–> Restrict access to wp-admin Manual
–> Check files and folder permissions

Secure WordPress ~ does pretty much the same thing as WP secure, plus it also provides a  free malware and vulnerabilities scan with SiteSecurityMonitor.com

WP-MalWatch ~ is a scanner designed to help alert you when hackers have been at work inside your blog. WP Malwatch does not protect your blog, it only logs suspicious events and alerts you possible security breaches.

AntiVirus ~ scans your blog for exploits and spam injections and provides anti-virus protection for your blog. Although it’s a very useful plugin, many themes will show a false positive, because it doesn’t recognize some of the code that is used.

WordPress File Monitor ~ monitors your WP site for added/deleted/changed files. When a change is detected an email alert can be sent to a specified address. Be aware that whenever a plugin updates, or creates any change, you will be notified.

There are many others out there. As I test them out, I will tell you what I think.

Look them over and choose the ones that you like best. I have them all installed and have not had any compatibility problems so far.

There is a plugin for just about anything you want you website to do.

If you can’t find what you are looking for then you need to find Tim Brownlaw. The code guru of the internet. By the way did I mention that he is the owner of www.advancedwordpresstutorials.com

There are some good sites which explain this with some example code.

Some good examples are available at: http://wpengineer.com/wordpress-built-a-widget/

If you do want to try out the example on that page you’ll need to do a couple of things.

1. Create a new folder under your ../wp-content/plugins .
2. Create a new file to save it in.
3. Add the Plugin Header – The example on the page doesn’t show one – it’s an example!
4. Add a registration function to keep things happy. What is there won’t work – or it didn’t work for me so needed this addition.

Now this example code worked after I performed the changes above ( Yes I am going to describe them in a moment!) . As it is an example – you are going to have to make some decisions on what you are going to call it etc.

Step 1.

Now as this is an example of a Multi Widget – I created a folder called multi-1 ( when I’m experimenting/Developing – I always put my plug-in code in Folders ).

Step 2.

Next is to copy and paste the sample code into a file – again I called this multi-1.php and this lives in the previously created folder with the same name.

Step 3.

Add in the following Plugin Header – Remember this is an example bit of code we are just seeing what it does…So some of the info doesn’t matter. The one that does is the Plugin Name.

Plugin Name: Multi -1
Plugin URI: http://www.somewhere.com
Description: Example of a Multi Widget
Version: 0.1
Author: Multi-1
Author URI: http://www.somewhere.com

The important line here is Plugin Name: Multi -1 as this is what you are going to see in your Plugin page – the plugin name called Mutli-1 – so you can find it to activate it. That always helps.

Step 4.

Add the additional registration code.

This is a snippet of the original code from the example.

?>
<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>">Title: <input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($title); ?>" /></label></p>
<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('entry_title'); ?>">Title for entry feed: <input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('entry_title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('entry_title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($entry_title); ?>" /></label></p>
<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('comments_title'); ?>">Title for comments feed: <input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('comments_title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('comments_title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($comments_title); ?>" /></label></p>
<?php
}
}
register_widget('My_RSS_Widget');

And this is the code with the added function. Again this is just one way to achieve this…

?>
<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>">Title:</label>
<input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($title); ?>" />
<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('entry_title'); ?>">Title for entry feed:</label>
<input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('entry_title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('entry_title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($entry_title); ?>" />
<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('comments_title'); ?>">Title for comments feed:</label>
<input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('comments_title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('comments_title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($comments_title); ?>" />
}
}
add_action('widgets_init', 'My_RSS_Widget_init');
function My_RSS_Widget_init () {
register_widget('My_RSS_Widget');
}

The bit we changed is…

add_action('widgets_init', 'My_RSS_Widget_init');
function My_RSS_Widget_init () {
register_widget('My_RSS_Widget');
}

So after you’ve done all that, you can go into your Plugins panel and activate the plugin called Multi-1 . Then go into Appearance -> Widgets and install a few instances of Multi-1.

One thing I did check was the table – wp-options – to see what the new entries were. This new wp_widget class takes care of  the creating and destroying of each widgets values. Which if I were to do this the old way.. I’d have to write the code to achieve the same thing. This is where this Class really shines. So now I ( and you ) can get busy creating multi widgets and not worry about all the “housekeeping” code.

Just remember…

This new class only works with WordPress 2.8 and above. Can’t say it works in the upcoming WordPress 3 as it’s not around yet… Everyone should be running the latest versions of WordPress anyway so if they want to use your new Multi Widget – they’ll have no excuses not too!

Ok, I think that covers most of it.. If not, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you on it.

What I have described here is exactly what I have done and it works a treat. So it’s a very good “framework” to build upon. Have fun!

It’s been a slow start in getting this website up and running. As you can imagine, there is a lot of information out there regarding WordPress and it takes time to learn it and then provide that information here for you. The aim is to make this a central location that will reference as much of the information “out there” as we can and add our own explanations to make things clearer when required.

And not  forgetting our contributors who help provide the content and keep me under control, a big thank you to you.

I’m out looking  for more contributors… If you are interested, just drop me an email.

Last but not least, to all those individuals and companies that have given so much information and guidance on their own websites, a big thank you. It’s the combined efforts of many that makes the internet the Rich information resource that it is.

If you have a “WordPress” related site, please drop me an email and I’ll get you and your site included on here. “Sounds like another plugin is needed..A Resource review Page.”

So again, have yourself a very Happy 2010 and we look forward in providing you with more great information and helping you get the most out of your WordPress Experience.

Cheers

Tim Brownlaw and the AWT Team.

Domain Name remains the same

If you are moving the site onto a different server and using the same domain name, then it’s a simple matter to export(backup) the site files and the Database and import them onto the new server. Made much easier if the hosting account has Cpanel.

Moving to a different URL

If the installed version is living on a domain that is different to the one it’s being moved too, then it gets a little more complicated.

WordPress Stores absolute URL’s inside the Database itself so if you change the sites URL, things won’t match up.

There is an easy solution.

The team over at Justcoded.com have come up with a little script that performs all the necessary changes for you. You can read more about that, and get the script from

http://justcoded.com/article/wordpress-tips-moving-site-to-another-server/.

I’ve not yet tried it, but I  will because I’ll soon be moving some of my development sites I have installed on my onto some of my hosting accounts. Plus I’m sure some of my students will want to do the same thing at some stage.

Thanks to the “JustCoded” Team for providing this and some other useful tips on their site.

(I’m not affiliated with JustCoded – I just like what they have done. So if you do get to use them for any projects, I don’t get anything in return.)

While that’s fine, the replacement functions – in this case -  register_widget_control,  do not seem to  have the same functionality!

Which makes me wonder… Is there some undocumented way to achieve the same things using these “recommended” functions? Are they frowned upon?

This was noted in a blog I was reading regarding creating Multiple Widgets which also noted that the WordPress Widgets API has a heading for this with a few words but nothing more…

And here I am quoting from http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/WordPress_Widgets_Api#Widgets_-_One_or_many

Widgets – One or many

Widgets can be coded so that they can exist one time or they can exist multiple times. WordPress is doing the work for you to instantiate your Widget multiple times if you follow some rules.

And those rules are…… lots of white space on a webpage. Hmm, I must need new glasses or get some fancy filter for my LCD to show “Secret WP Stuff”!

So do I use the ‘wp’ versions and be able to achieve what I want, or do I follow the recommendations and just say “Sorry, I can’t do anything useful like I want to”?

Well, I’m up for the challenge and as long as these “not recommended” functions are there,  I’ll use them. It’s certainly vague, at best, as to what the WordPress Coders have in mind!

The worst thing that can happen is everything breaks! Hmm , I’ve never experienced that before!

Let’s see if  I can get my head around this Multi Widget stuff!

Of course there are other ways to “Skin an animal” – preferrably not a cat!

Addition: I’ve just found that in the resources on the wordpress codex page is the link to the site I’ve been referring to.

You can also Check out the party they had Dec 2009.

Update

Well I have found the reason! The reason is that from WordPress 2.8 and beyond,  multi widget functionality has been implemented using a new class called WP_Widget.

This is explained in the post – Mulit-Widgets

Cheers

Tim

It wasn’t that long ago that I was installing WordPress 2.7 on my sites. Which I might add, was when I was woken from my WordPress Slumber.

I think the last time I had used WordPress was way back when version 2.3.1 was around. What a difference a few versions make. WordPress 2.7 was magic. The admin panel was simplified and it all just worked.

Then along came 2.8 and now 2.9 is amongst us. One thing this shows is there is a lot of serious work going on. The gang are madly working away on 2.9.1 to correct some issues which is a very good sign.

Those issues being the breaking of the PHP Curl extensions. Read more at http://wordpress.org/development/2009/12/wordpress-2-9-1-beta-1/. Again they are busy resolving that issue plus a few minor ones.

I’ve been having a bit of cruise around the internet to see what others think of WP 2.9 and there are some interesting sites on the subject.

This one in particular – 10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress 2.9 is a very good review on the new features in WP 2.9. It’s well worth a read.

I know that it’s been at least since 2.7 that everything could be done from the admin panel ( correct me if I am wrong).

So you can easily install new Themes and Plugins from the comfort of your sites dashboard (wp-admin). So you could easily just start off from scratch and get your themes and plug-ins you need quick smart without having to work too hard. The only danger is all the new themes and plug-ins you’ll come across each time as new ones are being added all the time.

So if you do have at least 2.7 (again I could be wrong) upgrading is now a breeze! I’ve still got a few sites with the “OLD” Dashboard which I’ll have to upgrade the painful way. Well I’m hoping it’s not, and get everything up to speed.

WordPress is certainly coming into it’s own and you can’t really call it a blogging script anymore. It can do whatever you want, just about, and what it can’t do – yet, you can make it do it. Well, hopefully I’ll get my tutorial sources up on this site to show you how.

Have a Happy New Year. Not many sleeps to go now.

Cheers

Tim