Blog Archives - ShaneMcDonald.ie

5 ways to secure your WordPress Blog & avoid downtime

by Shane McDonald | Sep 23, 2012 | Internet & Technology, Software

Securing WordPress

There are millions of WordPress blogs around the world. If you host WordPress yourself you will know that there is often some maintenance to be done. However, many people don’t know and many security issues can affect their blog. Most self-hosted bloggers are surprised to find out that there were things they could have done to prevent the downtime. These are 5 ways to secure your WordPress Blog & avoid downtime. My shanemcdonald.ie site is based on WordPress and rarely do I have issues.

1) Update your WordPress Plugins

Your hosted WordPress installation will have some plugins installed and from time to time these will be patched, improved and in some cases be given security improvements. You will know if an update is due on your WordPress plugins as a circle with a number will appear after the Plugins section on the left hand column of your WordPress Dashboard. Simply click into the Plugins section, select the plugins for upgrade and hit the Upgrade button. It is a straight forward process which is worth checking for every few days.

If you are finished using or no longer use a certain WordPress plugin, delete it from your system. It reduced clutter and also other risks of unsecured plugins.

2) Check your WordPress Installation Updates

Occasionally WordPress itself will be upgraded, at the time of writing this post version 3.4.2 of WordPress is the latest stable release. You will know if an upgrade for WordPress is available as it will be highlighted across the Top of your WordPress Dashboard. This Notification should not be ignored as it usually gives security improvements plus new features. The WordPress upgrade process may include a database backup advisory so if you don’t back up your WordPress databases you should and there are some excellent plugins which allow you to do this.

3) Check for WordPress Framework Updates

If you use purchased or 3rd party WordPress Themes, these may come with a Theme Framework. These framework updates are sometimes overlooked and people don’t even know they are there. Most often if you click Appearance -> Themes you may see an extra dropdown for Update Framework…this may also appear further down the Dashboard left column under Theme Options. you should always know what theme you are working with so that you don’t inadvertently delete or change settings for the theme – also if you are on twitter / the web you may see notifications or alerts for certain themes saying that updates are available for potential security loopholes etc.

4) Check your file and directory Permissions

This is one of the biggest problems on sites which have been attacked or hacked – people don’t set the correct permissions on files and folders. Setting permissions using chmod 777 which is read, write and execute for everyone is one way of asking for trouble. Its like leaving your backdoor open and wondering why you got robbed. There are plenty of tutorials online which explain file permissions and correctly set permissions allow WordPress and you (as the web admin) access, but no-one else.

5) WordPress Table naming and Admin usernames

One other way of protecting WordPress is when installing the system to avoid calling your tables wp_ (this is the default for WordPress) and also by not allocating admin as the username but by choosing something else. This helps avoid attacks on known tables / usernames.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these 5 ways to secure your WordPress Blog will help you avoid downtime. It might help you maintain a safer installation of WordPress, the worlds best Blogging software.

Protect your WordPress Blog with WPSecurity Scan

by Shane McDonald | Nov 30, 2011 | Internet & Technology

Protecting your Blog with WPSecurity Scan

If you have a WordPress blog then you will be aware that from time to time plugins and WordPress itself require occasional updates to be processed. These updates fix security flaws and often provide extra functionality, all of which lead to a better and safer WordPress experience. However, many people forget to update, leaving these security holes open to potential exploits. Once a WordPress blog is open to these exploits, the site is then open to being compromised by a faceless hacker. There is an excellent WordPress plugin called WPSecurity Scan.

WPSecurity Scan can help by prompting you to what might be wrong with your sites WordPress installation. Many website attacks are caused by automated tools which try and determine software versions before launching exploit code. WP Security Scan removes your WordPress blog version in order to discourage some attackers and to mitigate virus and malware programs which rely on software versions.

WPSecurity Scan checks your WordPress website/blog for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions such as:

Passwords
File permissions
Database security
Version hiding
WordPress admin protection/security
Removes WP Generator META tag from the core code

You can also visit the WebsiteDefender Blog for more information.

If you haven’t updated your version of WordPress, then do so now!

I have used WP Security Scan on my site and I found it useful. It was a good source of information for me in relation to areas of the code, updates, file infrastructure or the database which may pose a security risk. This post is an old one which I have left here for historical/reference reasons. If you plan on using this plugin please ensure you have the latest version and that the plugin is suitable for the version of WordPress you are using. I am not responsible for others using this plugin but I myself have found WP Security Scan to be of use. This is not a sponsored post.

How to Install WordPress : Installing WordPress

by Shane McDonald | Mar 28, 2010 | Internet & Technology, Software

WordPress Blogging software is one of the best and one of the easiest to Install and Setup. This is a basic How to Install WordPress guide ideal if you are installing WordPress for the first time. This is a very quick guide to installing WordPress is aimed at those who already have a working knowledge of concepts such as FTP, Config Files, MySQL Databases and have access to their own web server. This WordPress Install Guide is guided towards Apache servers running on Linux with PHP installed and a MySQL Database available. For version 2.9.2 (version available at time of writing this install guide) the minimum requirements for installation are PHP version 4.3 or greater and a MySQL database version 4.1.2 or greater. If you are unsure contact your website hosting company or check your control panel (e.g. cPanel). You will also need FTP Access to your web server and FTP Software – I recommend FireFTP which is a FireFox Plugin and is quite a good FTP Client.

Step 1 : Download WordPress & Extract WordPress on your PC

WordPress is Free and you can download it at http://wordpress.org/download/ The software downloads as a compressed ZIP file and is about 2.2Mb which would take under a minute on decent broadband. Once Downloaded, you can extract this on your PC. Depending on your PCs setup you can usually right click on the zip file and select “Extract Here…” – a folder should then appear with all the source code in the root directory and 3 subfolders.

Step 2 : Upload your WordPress code to your webserver

Next you need to connect to your web server by FTP. Usually you will be brought into / or if you are lucky /public_html/ The /public_html/ directory is where your homepage’s files are located – if you want your blog to be your homepage you can install the software here – Be warned if you already have content in this directory overwriting it could stop your current site from working. However if you want to have www.yourdomain.com/blog then create a folder called “blog” in /public_html , and upload the code into that directory. You can call the directory anything – but if you are writing about for example Social Media, a good address would be /social-media-blog/ giving you keywords in your web address (always try use keywords in your web address) Uploading the code to the server could take up to 10 minutes. Only when your files have been uploaded , visit the web address where you installed your blog, e.g. www.yourdomain.com/blog If everything was uploaded correctly, you will be presented with a screen telling you that you have to create a configuration file – click the button to create your WordPress config file on-line.

Step 3 : Config – Setting up the WordPress Configuration File

You will be asked for the following; – Database Name … This is the name of the database which you want to link to – Database Username … This is the username for your WordPress database – Database Password … This is the password for the database you wish to use fro WordPress – Database Host … usually localhost but some hosting providers may differ – Table Prefix … set to wp_ but you can change this if you wish for security. If you have entered the details correctly you will then be able to run the Install Script – click the button to start Installing WordPress.

Step 4 : Final Parts of Installing WordPress

For this next step you will be asked for the following; – The Blog Title, e.g. “My First Blog” or “Shanes World of Social Media and Blogging” – Your Email – as administrator you will be notified of major events on the blog – All blog to appear on search engines – Make sure you tick this box so that the WordPress Blog notifies search engines when you post new content. Click Install You will then get a username of admin and a cryptic password. Very important that you now copy this password (ensure it is copied) and click Log In. Log in as admin with the password you got above. Thats it – Installing WordPress is finished … Congratulations you now have a WordPress Blog installed. I hope to extend this install guide to cover how to add plug-ins and themes in the future.

WordPress iPhone App – The ideal iPhone App for WordPress Blog Owners

by Shane McDonald | Jan 11, 2010 | iPod / iPhone Apps

If you run a WordPress blog and you have an iPhone (or indeed an iPod Touch) then the WordPress iPod App is for you.

You can run multiple blogs using the same App. There was a previous version of the WordPress App but if you had this old version WordPress for iPhone 2 or 2.1 won’t automatically update the old app to 2.0.

The new WordPress App has a better user interface overhaul, some improvements to the software, some bug fixes, as well as some requests.

The WordPress App 2.0 and 2.1 allows you to add and update your posts and blog pages.
The updates in the 2.0 / 2.1 version of the app are.
* A better user interface making it easy to view comments, posts, and pages with a brand new comments interface
* Posts are automatically saved and restored if network connection is lost during publishing
* The WordPress App re-opens in the blog you last used
* You can manually enter the XMLRPC endpoint for non-standard setups – other XML issues resolved.
* Fixed edge case where local drafts were sometimes not saved WordPress App Posts Page
* Fixed the order of photos so that they’re displayed in the order they’re uploaded
* A post or page can be deleted by swiping across its title in the Posts or Pages list
* People who made comments, their email addresses are now visible
* Fixes for the link helper, errors in using the more tag, Comments section and URL issues.

The benefit of this great App is that you can compose a few blog entries even without WiFi or 3G connection. As soon as you have connection you can just hit the post button and update to your hearts content.
You can Download the WordPress iPod App from the iTunes App Store.
http://itunes.com/app/wordpress2

FrontPage of WordPress iPhone App