Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Keeping our websites up to date is becoming quite the chore

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Keeping my websites up to date is becoming a pain!

I have one very large HTML based website that I’m working on updating today and it’s taking forever. Yes I’m using an HTML program to do it … but it’s still pretty much manual work.

Then .. it seems like a lot of the plugins that I use on our WordPress blogs are being updated every few days … anyone that uses the All in one SEO plugin will know what I mean. LOL Not to mention the fact that there’s yet another WordPress update. At least WordPress and plugin updates have gotten a lot easier in the last year or so … but still, when you have 17 blogs to manage it’s still a lot of work.

I have one plugin that I used to love, but lately it isn’t working well on half my blogs. It’s the WordPress Database backup plugin. It sends me scheduled backups for about half my sites, but doesn’t email me the backups for the rest. Now that’s frustrating! The worst part is that I can’t find a good replacement for this plugin (even though it still works fine for manual backups).

Speaking of backups … I’m thinking of not only backing up my websites on a regular basis to my computer or a storage device, but also looking into an online backup service.

I’ve had problems in the past (long long ago) where some of my sites were hacked … so I’m a real stickler for keeping things up to date and backed up just in case something happens again.

Do you get tired of doing the constant updates on your WordPress website? (and possible any other type of CMS or HTML website) And … Do you make backup copies of your sites on a regular basis? If not – why not?





Google Messed up! Double CN Tower in Streetview

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Ha! Google didn’t edit all the shots it has of the CN Tower (Still the worlds largest standing tower for a few months!) in it’s newly released Streetview Canada.

If you go to Google maps to try out Streetview and type in 52 Manitoba Drive, Toronto, Ontario and spin around to the right a few times you’ll see this:

Double CN Tower - Google Streetview
Double CN Tower - Google Streetview

I just heard about this on this evenings CTV news and I had to go searching for it myself. It’s a pretty cool picture, but I’d imagine that Google will fix this pretty soon!

When I first went to Google maps I just typed in CN Tower, Toronto and it put me at the base of the tower on Bremner Blvd, Toronto, Ontario … Of course I couldn’t find the double tower that way … but after traveling North on Bremner Blvd in street view I found this picture (after tilting upward of course):

Top half of CN Tower is off kilter - Google Streetview
Top half of CN Tower is off kilter - Google Streetview

When I zoomed out it looks like you might be able to get to this address by typing in 200 Bremner Blvd, Toronto, Ontario (at Lower Simcoe St.).

Actually, I gave it a try and I got an even cooler shot! Take a peek!

CN tower top offset in Google Streetview
CN tower top offset in Google Streetview

Are you able to access Google Streetview for your area of the world yet? If so you might want to waste a little bit of time looking around your city or town and see if you can find any odd views like I’ve posted here. My guess is that taller structures will be more likely to be messed up.

Let me know if you find anything interesting!

BTW Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians!

Suggestions for another WordPress Database plugin?

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I just realized that the WordPress Database Plugin (version 2.2.2) isn’t working for scheduled backups on this blog.

Scheduled backups work on all my other blogs, but not this one and I can’t figure out why. Luckily it still seems to work for manual backups, but I want it to do daily scheduled backups and it’s not emailing me a backup file. Grrrr. As I said in my post about the worm that’s been infecting old installs of WordPress blogs I want to be sure I have a current backup of all my blogs – just in case!

A few of my other blogs have the exact same plugins as this blog does, so while I think it’s possible that it’s a plugin conflict, it doesn’t make sense that the backup plugin is still working properly on the other blogs.

I did a search for other WP database backup plugins at WordPress.org and there are a few that sound like they might work well, but I’d love to hear from my visitors what they use for their blogs. Two that I’m wondering about are WP-DBmanager and WordPress EZ-Backup. Both sound good but I’d love to hear from anyone that’s been using them with WP 2.8.4 on a site with a fair amount of other plugins in use.

Worm attacking WordPress – Update your WordPress blog now!

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Yesterday I learned that a worm has been attacking a number of WordPress blogs. If your blog hasn’t been attacked yet the easiest way to prevent an attack is to update your WordPress installation to the latest version – 2.84.

The worm seems to be attacking older installations, infecting posts with spam and malware that gets downloaded when readers visit them.

The WordPress Blog states that this worm does not affect the current version of the blog publishing software, which is 2.8.4, but the company is strongly recommending that users running older versions upgrade immediately.

The worm registers a user and leverages a security flaw in older versions to execute code through the permalink structure. It them makes itself an administrator and uses JavaScript to hide itself when blog readers visit a page. Meanwhile it has inserted spam and malware into older posts.

The worm fails to properly clean up after itself once it has infected a page, according to WordPress, and users may notice that their links are broken – a telltale sign that the worm has visited.

Four things you should do to protect your blog and it’s data from hackers and worms:

  1. WordPress is pretty good about watching out for security holes and making patches for them – hence the regular updates to their blogging software. For this reason, it’s wise to update your WordPress installation shortly after a new version comes out.
  2. It’s also wise to make sure that all of your plugins are up to date as well as they can have security holes as well.
  3. Another way to protect your blog is to not use the standard “admin” login. Create your own unique Admin login and change your password regularly. keep in mind that creating a complicated password with both capital and small letters as well as numbers will be harder to hack.
  4. Another safe practice is to backup your blog regularly. Backing up your blog is really quite easy to do, even if you’re a novice WordPress user. Just install the WordPress Database Backup plugin and you’ll be able to back up your blogs files and tables anytime you want and you can even schedule hourly, twice daily, daily or once weekly backups. Scheduled backups are e-mailed to you so you always have a fairly current copy of your sites files on your computer.

My husband and I have seventeen blogs between us, so I spent several hours yesterday updating plugins and updating the blogs to version 2.84. At least updating is really easy now with WordPress’ one click update. There’s no excuse not to update now – even if you do have a lot of blogs like my husband and I! Luckily our blogs weren’t too far behind and as far as I can tell haven’t been hit by this malicious worm.

Do you work hard to promote your blog?

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I’ve been blogging now for 3.5 years, but I’ve had websites since 1995. Over all the years that I’ve been a webmaster I’ve learned how important it is to promote your site.

Now back in 1995 when I started my first website it was a heck of a lot easier to promote your site. There was less competition and since my website was in a very specific niche I was able to join (and fully participate) in forums specific to the topic, which of course, was a great way to inform people about my site.

Every time I start a new site I also make sure that I get it listed in Google, Yahoo, MSN and basically all of the best web directories that I can submit my site to for free. I’ve never paid for site submissions. I just don’t feel it’s worth it. However getting your site listed in a general directory or even better one that’s specific to your sites niche is still important and worth spending some time doing.

Over the last couple of years I’ve read that Google doesn’t give as much credit for directory listings as it once did – but hey, a link is a link, right? Plus if people are actually visiting a website directory to find sites that discuss specific topics it’s another way to get a few new visitors.

When it comes to blogs one of the best ways to promote your site is to visit other blogs and leave comments on their posts. If you leave a decent comment that adds to the conversation not only will the blog owner be more likely to visit your site, but so will some of their readers.

I used to be really good about commenting on other blogs. Over the last year or so I’ve fallen behind on commenting on my favorite sites and posts. I still visit my favorite bloggers and the blogs of those who leave comments but I just don’t seem to have the time anymore to concentrate on visiting sites and leaving comments. I guess I have too many sites to maintain and of course my health problems get in the way too.

It’s a shame because commenting on other blogs is a great way to build a community, get new visitors and of course get back links to your site. I really have to figure out a way to make more time to visit and comment on the posts I enjoy.

What do you do to promote your website or blog? Do you do the basics that I’ve suggested above? Have you ever paid to be listed in a directory or elsewhere?

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