My favourite type of WordPress-related posts are the ones where the site owner has written out a list of the Plugins they use and why they use them.
This is my list of the Plugins that I’m using on my site right now and why I use them. I’ve only listed the Plugins that actually add something to my site (improved functionality) or are useful (for example, by cutting down the amount of time I have to waste maintaining my site). Read the rest of this entry »
I migrated back to WordPress less than two months ago and I’ve already had nearly 700 spam comments.
I know that, to some people, this isn’t a lot of spam. To me, it’s a LOT; I think I only had around 10 spam comments between August and February, back when I was still rockin’ my own script.
That’s what, a 700% increase?
Last Monday, I decided to install the Bad Behavior^ plugin after it had been recommended to me by @abledragon^.
It’s worked a charm. It’s blocked over 1300 “access attempts” (spam attempts?) and only 4 have gotten past that (and they were caught by Askimet). Needless to say, I’m really impressed! 
I’ve moved back to WordPress because I thought it would be easier than modifying my self-coded blogging tool. Easier – ha!
It took about four hours to get my old entries imported into WordPress; first I tried to import via RSS but that didn’t work, so I had to add every single entry manually. And I’ve lost all my comments.
After all that faffing about, I had to download & install some plugins just to get a decent archive page and my Flickr photos back in the sidebar.
Then I started looking for a theme but couldn’t find one I liked, so I decided to butcher the default theme…that little white duck (Whitey!!) on the layout took bloody AGES to draw.
I managed to “complete” everything and was about to move everything off the subdomain and back into my root directory, when I decided to show Myke all the work I did…and he laughed. Because Whitey – and the entire sidebar – had decided to move under everything else. Then I couldn’t get the sidebar and content to sit in the right places in both IE AND Firefox and – what a mess. AND I can’t have comments because the comment form isn’t showing up. Pfft. Fixed!
Anyway, I’m all done. And knackered. G’night.
I actually got up off my arse for once and updated the site. 
LWOB got quite a big update.
In June 2007, LWOB had a security scare, where it would have been possible for someone to exploit your user accounts, using a hole in the script. Unfortunately, the problem wasn’t limited to my script; most button / image linking scripts (including topsite scripts and ad rotations) could also be a risk. It’s up to you to use the scripts but you really must know what you could be letting yourself in for. The type of attack is called a CSRF attack^.
The good news is that I’ve removed the part of the script which automatically shows the user’s chosen image. Instead, they give you the URL to their page full of link buttons to choose and you choose one. You can also upload the button/s within the script, as you’re approving the request.
The upload script checks that the file type is an accepted type (jpg or gif – NO pngs!) and is less than 350kb. It also checks that the image is a valid image. If any or all of these are untrue, the image is deleted from the server.
Anyway, if anyone finds any errors, please let me know. My email address is mail @ lirae.net – I should be back online on Wednesday (although it’ll be brief).
I fixed the problems people were having with deleting questions with EasyAsk&Answer.
You can grab it now. (The other scripts will also be coming back one by one.)
If you’ve already got EAA installed, just reupload the “files/” and “admin/” folders.
If you have any problems with the script, email me at mail[at]lirae[dot]net with “EasyAsk&Answer” as the subject / title.
(About Carlee)Hey there! I'm known as Lirae (but my real name is Carlee) and this is my little home on the web. I'm twenty four years old and live in Plymouth, in the United Kingdom.
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