Month: June 2011

WordPress Plug In SPAM alert – Post Page Associator 1.3.21

The Webernets4 Comments

This is so disappointing. Dennis Hoppe has written a really really good plugin. Post Page Associator allows you to create a “page” in WordPress, and place content from one, or multiple categories on it, and by modifying the associated CSS file (or creating your own template) you can make it look just the way you want. It truly is a great plug in. There is a paid version, and a free version. The free version is where my issue with this plugin begins. Now, WordPress is created and made available for free, not to be sold. Even though some plugins on third party sites are commercial, plugins that appear in the Official WordPress Plugin Repository are also meant to be free. This plugin appears in the repository HERE. On the authors own site, he bills the program as free from the repository:

Dennis Hoppe Site GrabSo imagine my surprise when I activated the plugin and saw this in my Dashboard:

Dashboard Spam Screen Capture from WordPress DashboardNot only did it appear in the Admin dashboard, it also appeared under the “Editor” permissions group as well. Thankfully, I don’t have “subscribers” activated on this particular site, as I expect (but can not confirm) it would appear in the subscriber dashboard panel as well. If this isn’t bad enough, should you choose not to donate to the author, and click the button in the bottom right labelled “No thanks, Remove this box now!”, as expected the box goes away……..and so does the plug in!  It de-activates itself!

RANSOM and ULTIMATUM! Pay up, don’t use it, or live with a very large obtrusive and ugly nag screen in everybody’s dashboard,  that’s your choices.

I believe this is a violation of the spirit and terms of WordPress, and I call this “Dashboard SPAM”. I have no problems with plugin authors including a “Donate” button on their plugins “settings” page, or an advertisement for their plugins paid version, and its benefits over the free version, but I feel what the author has done in this case oversteps the mark. At no point during my selection and installation of this plugin was I asked to accept this term/condition.

I have just been looking to see if the author has made a note anywhere about how to remove the spam part, and I stumbled upon THIS thread. The first thing that caught my attention is that the author does indeed provide a way for you to remove the spam when asked – his answer:

How To Remove Spam GraphicAnother suggestion in the thread states that removal of the “donate.php” file is all that is required to make it go away. This may have been true of previous versions, but in the current 1.3.21 version, no such file exists. In the current version, the author has renamed this file to “contribute.php”, and now, simply deleting this file will crash your entire WordPress install. The author has written it in such a way that there is code in this file that code elsewhere in other files looks for, and if it doesn’t find it, it WordPress crashes.

Post Page Associator is not, and will not be used on this site.

 

WP-Secure Plugin for WordPress

The Webernets0 comment

I should have known by the “what others are saying” on the WordPress Plugin page for this plug in HERE.

What Others Are Saying Screen GrabI have been testing a lot of security plugins lately, and even though this one rates poorly, and the comments aren’t flattering, I thought I would take a look anyway and make my own decision. As I installed it on a hosted server, here’s what I got:

Supenssion ScreenNot only did this plugin crash my WordPress site, it got my hosting account suspended! Upon liaising with tech support at the hosting company, it turns out that this plugin created infinite loops which pushed server load beyond acceptable levels, and in a hosted server environment earns you instant suspension in the form of a “terms of service” violation.

Modifying WordPress’s Tag Cloud Widget

The Webernets0 comment

Wordpress Tag Cloud WidgetWordPress ships with a Tag Cloud widget built in. Unfortunately, this widget is not customizable from the admin panel. You need to modify one of the systems .php files.

To modify the widget, you need to get into your WordPress installs files using your favorite FTP program , and in the “wp-includes” folder you will see a file called “category-template.php”. This is the file we will be working on, so please make a backup copy of it and store it in a safe place before you start. That way if something goes wrong you can recover quickly and easily by re-uploading the known good file. Once you have a backup tucked away, open up the file in your preferred editor ( I usually just use the Text Editor on Mac, or Notepad on Windows) and look for (or search for) “Display tag cloud”. This is the beginning of the part of the file we need to edit, and you will see by reading the commented out text, that there are a few parameters you can adjust. For this article we will look at the font sizes, and the number of tags that  appear in the cloud.

The default settings are:

'smallest' => 8, 'largest' => 22, 'unit' => 'pt', 'number' => 45,

As you can see, the smallest tag size is set to 8 points, the largest is 22 points, and the number of tags in the cloud are the top 45. Feel free to enlarge or shrink your font sizes, and ad or subtract the total number of tags displayed. The font sizes are ok for me, but I did increase the number of tags displayed to 150 for this web site.

Once you have made your changes, replace the category-template.php file on your server with the file you just modified, and when you refresh your browser you will see your changes in place.

No Concerts for You!

The Webernets0 comment

Steve Jobs

FRIDAY:

Like him or hate him, Steve Jobs is easily one of, if not THE best CEO’s, and visionaries of the modern Tech world. Now, I know you are going to label me “Fan Boy” after reading that, and to an extent you are correct. But I confess to being a “Fan Boy” only within the boundaries of my own productivity and prosperity. My Mac Pro allows me to edit HD video, and process my photos with color calibration, in a way that Windows and Nix’s are not quiet able to do yet (If you see it differently, please comment – I would love to hear your thoughts). Please keep in mind though, as a newly labelled “Fan Boy” by you,  if one of my dogs was sick, and as I was carrying it through the car park to the vet surgery and my iPhone fell out of my pocket, I wouldn’t look back, and I wouldn’t think twice, even if a car ran over it. I am not one of “Those” people who “Would Just DIE” without their iPad, You know the type. Even though I love my Mac Pro, I do have Windows XP and Puppy Linux set up in VMWARE Fusion Virtual Machines on my Mac Pro, and I do use them both more than often, especially to view my web creations on non mac browsers like IE, Konquerer etc.

Today, Sir Stevie of Jobby-Land decreed that thou shalt not be able to film concert events with thine iPhone!

Immediately the media were on this, and it does raise some interesting questions. All of which are valid.

The way I see it, I expect the RIAA, Sony BMG, RCA etc have gotten into Sir Stevie saying that the iPhone is a piracy device. Now, to Sir Stevie’s credit, I don’t think that would bother him. He has “flipped off” the RIAA before – remember when iTunes was born? But in this case, I think Lord Jobbyness stepped up to the plate as the greatest CEO in the Galaxy, and put his company and his shareholders first, and told the RIAA and the record companies, that he would oblige, and fit their infrared anti piracy, anti music stealing, anti seal clubbing, anti granny/cop killing laser to the death star to protect the universe from the scrappy band of rebels who want to pay hundreds of dollars (or half a weeks wages) to go to a concert and record P!NK on her Trapeze thingy!

Because GOD HELP US ALL IF THAT GOT OUT!

But why?

Why would the universes greatest CEO who has proved that he is not scared of the RIAA in the past put his beloved “fruit company” in harms way, and jeopardize the companies good name to it’s customers by restricting the device and not allowing them to use it to record live performances?

I don’t believe for a second that Sir Stevie would allow this issue to make it to the global media if there wasn’t some bigger picture that we all don’t quiet see yet. Again, love him or hate him, he is just too smart, and has proved dozens of times that he is able to manipulate and control the media to his advantage.

(my prediction)

MONDAY:

Some wonderful new reason justifying why everything that’s wrong in the universe is suddenly right, and we can all smile, feeling re-assured that Apple would never hurt us, and go back to listening to U2 (soon to be renamed “I2″……..I just made that up 🙂 ) on our iPods and iPhones,  with our iMacs, taking a iDump on our iToilet…………..

He’s the “Wolf in sheep’s clothes (with a liver he purchased from a third world country)” today, but next week his “Grand Plan” will all become clear, and as a result we will all want to go and purchase new iPods/iPhones, and some Beatles music from iTunes as icing on the cake.

And just for a giggle,

Lets take a look at the App store shall we!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/concert-recorder-cd-quality/id338045354?mt=8

Apple Concert Recorder

 

Apple iPhone High Quality Concert Recorder

Download it while you can!

Awesome File Merge Utility on your OSX Disc

The Webernets2 Comments

Mac File Merge UtilityI wrote yesterday about how there are some really cool things in the Mac Applications-Utility folder, but if you have ever purchased a Mac OSX operating system disc, there are also some pretty cool programs on it that aren’t actually installed by default. The first one that comes to mind is FileMerge. Its a app that allow you to take two files or folders, and compare them side by side, and it will highlight the differences between the two.

Mac File Merge UtilityI used this recently when Greg Smith of Cyberhawk Designs modded a WordPress template I created and put three widget positions in the header! I just HAD to know how he did it, so I used file merge to compare my original files with the modded files he sent back! Cool Huh!

Greg has since written a tutorial about adding the header widgets, and you can take a look at it on his cool Cyberhawk web site HERE.