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Zenphoto – doing an update the right way, manually ..

ashish — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:19:22 +0000

After experimenting with various photo blog kind of interfaces (including the use of Gallery2 and other plugins that work along with WordPress), I finally found something that I liked – namely, Zenphoto, that I have started to use to build a photo site called Tourist Photos (photos from different tourist locations) (primarily to find an outlet for the number of photos I have taken in different countries, with photos + some text provide feedback to people before they even visit a place, so that they have some idea of what to expect).
Now, my web host provides me an interface called SimpleScripts that provides a simple interface to do this upgrade process. SimpleScripts makes the process of update so simple:
1. You log into your Web Host account
2. If there are any updates, there is a message that SimpleScripts has an update available
3. Click that link, it gives an interface where the interface provides information about the current version and the future version(s) that are available. And you can proceed on the upgrade path
4. Once the upgrade is done, the user has an option to review the website to see whether everything is fine, or if things are not fine, there is an option to go back to a previous version of the application.
A lot of people try the above option 4 as a formality, and do not check. If you care about your site, then you need to do that check in the following way (atleast based on my experience):
1. Before running the upgrade, do a backup of the site and the database and save these files locally
2. Check whether site is launching
3. Check whether there seems to be any performance problem in the site
4. Login into the Admin area of the site and see whether the initial dashboard comes up
5. Check for existing plugins and other widgets, and see whether there seems to be any problem
When running updates for my sites, I go through the above checklist and it has proved necessary in some cases. I have been using SimpleScripts for many of my sites, and there have been many cases where the update has completed successfully, and then the site has had serious problems.
I encountered this problem more recently when I was trying to update my Zenphoto page, and my current version was version 1.3.1.2 with a recommendation to update to version 1.4.1.4. I went ahead, and after the update, things did not work (the site refused to load). So, after an initial round of panic (I already have around 2000+ photos added to the site), I went for the rollback and the rollback worked fine.
Next step, went to the Zenphoto site to check up their instructions for creating a new site / upgrade (link) and found the following text over there:

NOTE: We do not support and do not recommend installations or upgrading done with helper scripts like SimpleScripts or similar some providers make available. If you have any problems after using these please contact the maker of the script.

So, atleast for my Zenphoto site, I will go ahead and do a manual update with the steps written on the page and stop using SimpleScripts for any updates of Zenphoto.

WordPress security tips (part 9) – Plugins to secure your blog

ashish — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:22:53 +0000

In continuation of an earlier series of posts towards making your WordPress installation more secure, here are some more plugins and steps to increase the security of your WordPress installation. An important plugin that can help in ensuring that you are able to detect the security leaks in your WordPress installation is called “WordPress scanner”.

WordPress scanner (learn more at this link).
Running it is fairly simple, you have to move a plugin to your plugins directory and activate it. The plugin will add a link to your WordPress template. Once you are done, you need to disable the plugin (and be sure to do so). Once you have activated the plugin, you need to go to the wpscan page (link) and enter your blog details.

In addition to plugins, you need to evaluate the following.
- Check with your web hosts about whether directory browsing is allowed by default, if no index.html file is present. A lot of hosts have turned that off by default, but if it is on, then you should add an index.html file in your plugins directory; you don’t want people to know which plugins you are using
- Keep your WordPress installation updated, and one way to do the automatically is by using the “WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin” (link) – Also, WordPress 2.7 onwards has an integrated update feature which you should use.
- Check for the security levels on your Forms / Comments input page. Use a more secure mailer for WordPress (Secure Form Mailer Plugin For WordPress)
- Don’t use plugins without reading a bit more about them. Plugins are made with the best of intentions, but it is quite possible that a plugin can lead to a security hole.

Upgrade your WordPress blog frequently to keep it more secure

ashish — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:13:09 +0000

There are a large number of people who want to start blogging, don’t like using a shared platform such as Blogger, and install a WordPress blog on a shared hosting service. And once installed, they start adding new content, generating more user visits. However, a huge percentage of these people do not upgrade to the latest WordPress version, with many of them having versions of WordPress that is many versions old. It does not even occur to many of them that is infact a security risk. A security risk ? How come ? One would think that maybe you can lose out on a few new features by not upgrading, but how would this be a security risk ?
Well, not upgrading your version of WordPress is like not installing the periodic security patches that come with Microsoft Windows. These security patches are meant to close holes that have been discovered in Windows, and not installing them means that you stand to risk somebody being able to hack into your system. Similarly, WordPress is an evolving software, with holes being discovered, and the WordPress community patching these holes through more recent versions. Consider the following page (link)

Right now there is a worm making its way around old, unpatched versions of WordPress. This particular worm, like many before it, is clever: it registers a user, uses a security bug (fixed earlier in the year) to allow evaluated code to be executed through the permalink structure, makes itself an admin, then uses JavaScript to hide itself when you look at users page, attempts to clean up after itself, then goes quiet so you never notice while it inserts hidden spam and malware into your old posts.
2.8.4, the current version of WordPress, is immune to this worm. (So was the release before this one.) If you’ve been thinking about upgrading but haven’t gotten around to it yet, now would be a really good time. If you’ve already upgraded your blogs, maybe check out the blogs of your friends or that you read and see if they need any help.

The above example is a live example of why you would want your WordPress installation to be upgraded to the latest available version. Who wants to be in a position where you have to fix your blog after you find that the worm caused lots of problems ?

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WordPress Plugins: Use a plugin to update your plugins

ashish — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:16:17 +0000

If you have a blog on WordPress (or multiple such blogs), there are a lot of extensions you can make for your blog. You get a cool theme, and then start looking for plugins that give your blog additional features, whether these be administration, or allowing users to tag or search, or the plugin shows other related posts and comments. Okay, so your plugin is now in place, and your blog is ready. What happens a couple of months down the line, when the plugins you use may have some updates, such as having some bug fixes, or some new features, or the plugin has been updated to work with a newer version of WordPress. How long will you keep on trying to track down updates, and manually updating these plugins ? This can be pretty painful, and take a lot of effort.
So, there should be some way to automate the process, or at least make it simpler, and there is an answer – Single Click Plugin Updater WordPress Plugin (site).

This plugin extends the plugin update notification feature introduced in WordPress 2.3 by adding an “update automatically” link to update notifications. When you click the link, the new version of the corresponding plugin is downloaded and installed automatically. It also lets you know which plugins have update notifications enabled.

There are a lot of comments in the page, so if you have a problem, it should be easy to find the solution.

In addition, you can read more at this page on wordpress.org (link)

Single-click plugin upgrades in WP 2.3 and up. The techniques that this plugin uses are slightly different from the built-in plugin upgrade feature in WP 2.5, so it’s possible that on some blogs the plugin updater works and the built-in updater doesn’t (or vice versa).
Quickly determine if there are any pending updates and how many plugins are active. This plugin displays that information right below the “Plugin Management” headline.

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Using a plugin to upgrade WordPress automatically

ashish — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:08:41 +0000

The previous post talked about doing an upgrade of WordPress through a number of steps. I can just hear the moans and groans; this is complicated, can take effort. A lot of people would claim that this is complicated, and would prefer a single solution, if possible, a one click solution. On the other hand, even if a very simple solution is found, there is always a certain amount of risk associated, and you would like to have a backup of your current installation so that the situation can always be reverted.
Well, there is a way that you can do a automatic upgrade of your WordPress installation, and at the same time get a backup. There is this WordPress plugin called ‘WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin’ (link), and it does exactly what you would expect it to do. You can also download it from the location of the creator of the plugin (link)

What are the steps that the plugin takes ?
1. Backs up the files and makes available a link to download it.
2. Backs up the database and makes available a link to download it.
3. Downloads the latest files from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip and unzips it.
4. Puts the site in maintenance mode.
5. De-activates all active plugins and remembers it.
6. Upgrades wordpress files.
7. Gives you a link that will open in a new window to upgrade installation.
8. Re-activates the plugins.

You need to get the Plugin from this location, unzip the file, and upload to the /wp-content/plugins location of your WordPress installation. Once the plugin has been installed, you need to activate it.