Improved Security When Upgrading WordPress Not Automatic

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One click WordPress upgrades are convenient. They fit right in with how I describe blogging platforms to the uninitiated: They make web publishing simple for people of modest technical means.

Some web hosts include the Fantastico module which also allows for one click upgrades of WordPress. I’ve used it many times. It is (usually) faster than upgrading manually.

However there is a serious shortcoming with the one click upgrades and it involves security.

Security Problem

The good folks at WordPress are very security conscious. They are continually improving the platform to make it more secure.

Trouble is some of the most important security enhancements are completely left out of one click upgrades. In fact, they may even be left out of manual upgrades.

The issue involves the wp-config.php file. This is the WordPress file that sets the login information to the data base that houses all of your blog’s information.

This file does not get updated automatically when WordPress is upgraded. In fact, the file isn’t included even when you download WordPress to upgrade manually. With good reason.The good folks at WordPress don’t want every upgrade to overwrite database passwords and lock folks out of their blogs.

Instead they include a different file name with generic info in it called wp-config-sample.php and this file gets overwritten every time WordPress is upgraded.

The problem is some of the biggest security upgrades involve modifications to the wp-config.php file, so they aren’t happening on a lot of WordPress blogs as they are upgraded. Read more

Chris Brogan is on a Roll

Social Media rock star, Chris Brogan, is on a roll with his blog posts these days.

Yesterday he posted links to ten posts representing his Best Advice About Social Media.

Then today he followed it up with his Best Advice About Blogging.

If you aren’t familiar with Chris’ blog, you should definately check it out. Subsribe to his RSS feed.

Chris Brogan has his finger on the pulse of the social media world. And one of the things I like most about Chris is that he doesn’t have a huge ego about it, either.

He is very open about what he knows. And he tends to ask as many (or even more) questions than he answers.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with both Chris Brogan (and Chris Garrett) at SOBCon this past spring. They are two of the most genuine folks around.

And I made sure we got a photo of the three of us, well, it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Sure it was a Chris thing. Maybe you wouldn’t understand.

Delicious Gets a New Look and a New Domain

One of my favorite social media sites, the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us, got a major overhaul about a week ago. Not only did the site get a whole new look, but they’ve cast off their strangely unique domain name for a more conventional one.

Delicious Bookmarks

If somehow you aren’t familiar with Delicious then you are missing out.

Back in the day the only way we had to save a link to a web page we wanted to be able to referr to down the road was to “Add to Favorites” in our browser. Trouble is that method quickly became unwieldy.

With the hierarchical organization of most browser favorites folder lists it grew harder and harder to keep bookmarks organized in a way you could find the page you wanted when you wanted it. Browser favorite lists weren’t searchable.

Then along came Del.icio.us with their funny domain name. With Del.icio.us you can save as many bookmarks as you wanted. They are searchable. And because you can add a few tags to each bookmark to make them even easier to find.

Very nice. Read more

KnowMoreMedia - Demise of a Blog Network

This has been a sad week for the blogging world. KnowMoreMedia, a major blog network with over 100 blogs focused on the business world, effectively went out of business as of Thursday.

Well, they laid off all their employees anyway. I suppose technically that’s not exactly the same thing as going out of business.

But it might as well be for the folks who are no longer being paid.

Postmortem

I can’t imagine autopsies being fun.  Nor do I understand we’re so prone to slow way down when passing a highway accident to be sure we get a good look.

Yet we do slow down to get that good look. And I can’t help asking some questions as I look at the apparent downfall of one of the larger niche blogging networks out there.

And as an aside let me say that I completely admire what KnowMoreMedia did for blogging as a medium and for bloggers individually. I consider Easton Ellsworth, their now former Senior Editor and longtime author of BusinessBlogWire, a good friend.

I take no pleasure in their demise. But I do have lots of questions. Read more