December 30th, 2010

WordPress Security Update

As you may or may not know – WordPress released a critical security update yesterday. It’s important to run this upgrade as soon as possible. If you’re not sure what you need to do to upgrade, the best way to do it (and this goes for anytime you upgrade your WordPress install) is to first download a backup of your files (theme files, plugins, etc.), make a backup of your database (I personally like using the “wp-db-backup” plugin which allows you to do this right from within the WordPress admin) – then use the “one-click” upgrade WordPress offers.

If you’re worried about doing this yourself, get in touch with me.

December 22nd, 2010

Freebie Plugin Released: Download Post Comments

I’ve recently released a very simple WordPress plugin that will allow you to download all comments on a particular post as a CSV. The purpose of this plugin was to help bloggers who run contests on their blogs and use the comments section to collect entries into the contest. If you get a large number of comments/entries, and you’re using something like “random.org” to pick the winning comment “number” – it can be hard to determine which comment that number represents. By downloading all the comments as a CSV, you can then open it with Microsoft Excel, and see very clearly (via row number) which comment is the winner. The plugin is being hosted on the WordPress.org plugin repository, and if you’d like to use it on your site, you can download it here: Download Post Comments.

December 15th, 2010

Happy Holidays

We’ve been “between homes” for nearly two months now and we’re finally on the home stretch. Literally. One more week and we get our new home, and I will finally have a permanent address to give out. That will be a wonderful holiday gift for my whole family! We’re even hosting a New Years Eve party with my extended family that live nearby. (They all understand, thankfully, that the house will still not be unpacked. Maybe I should include “unpacking boxes” as one of the “party activities.”) 😉

There’s been a few projects I’ve done recently that have been really enjoyable for me, and I can’t wait until they finally launch. What I’ve most appreciated with one in particular, is the fact that we were able to use some of WordPress’ newer features in really unique ways. I’m using custom post types, with some home-grown custom plugins to manage membership and paypal interaction. It’s going to be a great site.

Have a wonderful holiday! See you in 2011!