On January 24th, the US Senate is voting on SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. While the bill may sound like a good thing – who likes piracy? But, this bill is really an Internet Censorship Bill that will negatively impact any of us who have websites. According to Boing Boing, if I wanted to link to a site I would have to make sure that there was no copyright infringement ANYWHERE on that site – not just the page I wanted to link to. I would potentially have to check thousands if not millions of pages to verify that I could link to that site. And, if I didn’t take this precaution my ad revenue could be shut down, my domain confiscated and my IP address added to a blacklist.

Does this sound like a good way to handle piracy and copyright infringement? Piracy is wrong but this will punish everyone and could potentially impact the way that we communicate and organize.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

In protest of SOPA, sites, including Boing Boing, Reddit and many many more, will be blacking out their sites tomorrow, January 18th between 8am and 8pm.

So, you would like to get involved but are wondering how you go about blacking out your site. Well, fortunately, for self-hosted WordPress users some plugins have already been created to make it super easy to participate. I was asked if there was a solution for WordPress.com sites but I haven’t come across one. If you would like to participate, I would post about SOPA on January 18th. Videos and other useful materials are available on the American Censorship site.

The Plugins

1. Censor Me – When this plugin is activated your site will be blacked out and will simply include a link that says Stop Censorship and links to the Stop American Censorship website. To stop the blackout, deactivate the plugin.
2. SOPA Blackout Plugin – You get set SOPA blackout dates with this plugin, configure who sees the message and the plugin says it is SEO friendly. This plugin will also allow you to customize the blackout message that is displayed and choose whether you would like to include a video with additional information about SOPA.
3. Simple Stop SOPA – this plugin will blackout your site between 8am – 8pm on January 18th. There are no admin settings – you activate it and that’s it.
4. SOPA Blackout – This plugin will add a 503 status and a customizable blackout page with a number of options to allow your site to participate in blackout day.

The good news is that is doesn’t look like the White House will support this bill – at least in it’s current form. I do think, however, that is important to express how we feel about this issue. Curbing the freedom of speech for all and internet innovation is not the right way to deal with piracy problems.

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

4 WordPress Plugins to Assist in Blacking Out Your Site to Protest SOPA on January 18th

PagePress is a Facebook application that will import your WordPress blog to your Facebook page. It will create a new tab on your Facebook page called Blog (that can be renamed) and you can set it to also automatically post to your Wall.

The set-up was straightforward and I found it fairly easy to set it up and create a tab for my Facebook page.

The Instructions

1. Go to the PagePress website.
2. Click on the big Get Started button
   
3. Click Allow in the Request for Permission box.
4. You are then taken back to the page for PagePress, which is a little confusing. I clicked on the Get Started button again and was then presented with a list of the pages that I administer. You also getting a confirmation email. I didn’t like that I when I confirmed my sign-up that I was also agreeing to their mailing list. This means I will need to unsubscribe as soon as I receive one as I am currently working on reducing the amount of email I receive.
5. Select the page you want to add the app to, if you are the admin on more than one. Then select the category – I’m never quite sure what to select with these but I decided on Company Services.
6. You will be on your PagePress Dashboard. Click on the red install button to add the app to your page. The category has been selected so are ready for Step 3 – Content Sources.
   
7. Click on Add New Source button.
   

    

   Add the URL to your site, select whether you want to display a thumbnail, set the length of the preview and select how many posts you would like to display on the tab.

8. Under Step 4 – Advance Settings – can set to autopost your blog posts to your page Wall and set up your clickbank username, if you would like to be an affiliate of PagePress.
9. There is also a Stats section where you can view very basic stats on views to your blog tab after the first 24 hours.
10. Go to your Facebook page. In the list of tabs you should see one called called Blog at the bottom. You can edit this section, if you would like to move the tab up.
    
11. The page will look like the following. You can view mine on my Facebook page.

    

As you can see from the above screenshot the blog tab contains ads for PagePress. If you use the paid version the ads are removed.

I thought this was easier to set up then Networked Blogs, which I have been using for quite some time. The PagePress site was a little slow and had a couple of minor issues, such as when I wanted to edit the content source info I got an unavailable message for a couple of minutes but otherwise the process was fairly smooth. I haven’t tested auto-post to wall feature because I still prefer to post things manually in order to keep social media social. If you test the auto-posting, please let me know if it worked for you. (or not).

Do you think you would use this application? It is useful? If you set it up, did you have any issues?

photo credit: 22261474@N08

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

Post Your WordPress Blog to Facebook with the PagePress Application

WordPress 3.3 is expected to be released at the end of November.

The first beta was released last week and I installed it (not on this site) and have spent some time playing around with it.

Here are some of the upcoming features to look forward to in the next version of WordPress.

The Features

Admin Pointers

Tool tips have been added to the admin area that provide information about a new feature and that provides a link to the WordPress forums to leave feedback.

Rearranged Admin Bar

Items have been rearranged in the admin bar and links to the WordPress forums and Codex haven been included. The admin bar also now shows up in the Admin area as well as the front of your site when you are logged in. Personally, I am not a fan of the admin bar and have disabled it on this site but I do know that a lot of people really like it.

Fly Out Menus

The left side navigation will include fly out menus when you hover over an item. In the screenshot below, hovering over Appearance shows the items listed within the Appearance area.

Media Uploader

Media upload buttons have been consolidated into one button – finally! I always used the first one for whatever type of media I was uploading because they all worked the same. I think this will be a lot less confusing for new users too.

I think the most popular feature of WordPress 3.3 will be the drag and drop media uploader. Drag and drop an image into the uploader window and your image is added. You can still upload images the old way by clicking on the Select Files button. This feature will not work with old versions of IE.

Are you looking forward to this update? Overall, it’s not that exciting but the media uploader is very cool.

photo credit: 30645510@N04

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

New Features to Look For in WordPress 3.3

Even if you are really up on security for your website it is possible that your site could be hacked, if the server your site is on has been compromised. So, the first thing you do is panic but then what are the next steps?

The first thing I recommend doing is contacting your web host to see if they will assist with the issue. Some hosts will restore your site from a backup, others will help for a fee, and others will say “it’s your problem, not ours.

I do know, however, from personal experience that Hostgator will assist you, which is one of the reasons that I recommend them as a web host and use them for some of my sites. If your host fixes your site for you, change all of your passwords afterwards. If you don’t and the hacker has login access, the hack will immediately return.

If you host won’t help, you can hire someone to assist you. I’ve fixed a number of hacked sites but have started to refer people to Sucuri. This isn’t because I can’t or don’t want to do it but Sucuri can take care of the problem faster and you get a lot for your money.

Sucuri will fix your hacked site within 4 hours during regular business hours. In my experience, it is frequently fixed within that time frame even during non business hours. And during business hours, it is usually fixed in much less time.

Sucuri, in addition to fixing your hacked site, will fix it again and again over the course of the year. Hopefully, it won’t happen more than once (or at all) but they will be there for you if you need them all for the same annual fee of $89.99. After fixing the site they will notify you that it has been corrected, send a list of items you should do to keep the site secure, and will notify google, which is important if your site has been blocked as spreading malware.

Additionally, they will monitor your site for any changes or new hacks so if something happens, it is likely they will let you know before you even realize there is a problem. For example, my domain name registrar changed recently. Now, in this instance, I’m the one who changed it but a little bit later I received a notice from Sucuri that that change had occurred. If it had been something more nefarious or if I hadn’t been the one who had made the change I would have found out really fast.

Sucuri also has plans for multiple sites and for developers. For example, you can get 10 sites monitored for $289.99/year. For most of us, however, the single site plan is sufficient and costs less than $2/week. I think it’s well worth it to have peace of mind for your online business.

Note: I am an affilate of Hostgator and Sucuri. And I’m only an affiliate because they are products that I use and am super happy with.

photo credit: dantaylor

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

What To Do If Your Website Has Been Hacked?

One of my favorite free contact form plugins for WordPress is Contact Form 7. It’s easy to use but also has a lot of features, it can handle file uploads, and you can create multiple forms, if you need more than one on your website.

On many themes, however, the checkboxes and radio buttons don’t line up properly when there are a lot of choices and are displayed horizontally rather than vertically.

The checkbox selections look like the following:

There is, however, a simple CSS fix for this.

Paste the following into the stylesheet for your theme. It is located at Appearance > Editor > style.css

span.wpcf7-list-item {
display:block;
}

The checkbox and radio button selections will then look like this:

Do you use a contact form on your site? Which one do you use? Do you like Contact Form 7?

photo credit: 22658750@N02

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

How to Fix Checkbox and Radio Button Layout with Contact Form 7

Previously I wrote about how you can increase the writing space in WordPress, which makes it easier to write your blog posts.

One of the cool new features in WordPress 3.2+ is a fullscreen writing area.

This gives more space for writing and is also considered a distraction free writing area as all you have on the screen is the section where you write the post and a minimal toolbar.

How to Use Fullscreen

1. In the HTML editor there is a button at the end of the toolbar that says fullscreen.

   

2. In the Visual editor, click on the toolbar button shown in the screenshot.
3. The fullscreen editor looks like the following (this is the visual editor version).
   
4. To go back to the regular editor, click on the Exit Fullscreen button. When you are writing the top toolbar disappears – hover over the top of the screen and it will come back.

Do you like this feature? Do you plan on using it?
photo credit: us_army_rolling_along

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

WordPress 3.2 Full Page Writing Screen

WordPress 3.2 was released on July 4th and the .1 update was released about a week later.

WordPress 3.2 has some great new features, which you have you can read about here and here.

One thing I did want to highlight were the new system requirements. I’ve run into this issue a couple of times now in updating sites so I thought it was worth mentioning again.

Requirements

1. Internet Explorer 6 is no longer supported. If you are using that browser, the WordPress admin won’t work for you.
2. PHP 5.2.4 or greater (old requirement – since WordPress 2.5 was PHP 4.3 or greater)
3. MySQL 5.0.15 or greater (old requirement – since WordPress 2.9 was MySQL 4.1.2 or greater)

If you aren’t sure which versions of PHP and MySQL your web host is using, contact your web host and ask before upgrading. I’ve run into a couple of ugrades that didn’t work because the hosting account didn’t meet the requirements. The auto-upgrade provided a notice stating this issue before upgrading so nothing went awry but if you upgrade manually you will get the message that the site can’t run the new version and you will then need to replace the files with your backup. This isn’t a huge problem, if you have a backup. If you don’t and you really should backup before upgrading, then you will need to download the version you were running and upload it. At any rate, ask your host first.

If you need assistance with the upgrade or in meeting the new system requiremnts, please contact me.

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

New System Requirements for WordPress 3.2

There have been a variety of code and plugin solutions for removing it. This week, however, I accidentally discovered a very simple way to remove it.

The Simple Way

1. In the WordPress Admin go to Users.
2. Select the User and Edit. I only have one User on this site.
3. Under Personal Options there are two checkboxes in the Show Admin Bar section; when viewing site and in dashboard.
   
4. Uncheck them and the Admin Bar will no longer be displayed.

Of course, this is on a per user basis. If you have multiple users, this solution doesn’t remove the Admin Bar for everyone – it removes it for the user that you edited. This, however, is a great solution if some users like it and some users don’t.

Maybe this is old news but it was new to me. ;-)

Do you like the Admin Bar? Do you find it useful?

photo credit: twicepix

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

How to Simply Remove the WordPress Admin Bar

Since version 2.9 WordPress has supported Post Thumbnails, which are used to assign an image to a post so they can be used in different parts of the theme and are frequently used in magazine style layouts. Prior to post thumbnails, custom fields were frequently used to do this.

I used to use the Thumbnails for Excerpts plugin to improve the layout of my search results page and my archives. For some time I’ve wanted to use Post Thumnails instead but the thought of adding them to all of my older posts seemed like a daunting task.

Recently, however, I added Post Thumbnails to my theme and deactivated the Thumbnails for Excerpts plugin even though many of my older posts would not have a post thumbnail image. I’ve added an image to some of the older posts and I’ve been adding them to all new posts.

This morning when I was walking home from dropping my daughter off at school I was thinking about Post Thumbnails (do I know how to have fun or what) because I’ve been asked a couple of questions about them. I then thought maybe there is a way to set a default image so if you haven’t added one to a particular post the default image will be used. And, of course, I located a plugin as well as instructions for adding a default post thumbnail to your theme manually.

The plugin

I did a quick test of the plugin, called Default Post Thumbnails (now, there’s a surprise), and it worked great.

1. Install and activate the plugin.
2. Go to Settings > Default Post Thumbnail.
3. The screen will show all of the images in your media library and you can select the one that you want to use as the default. If the image you want to use isn’t already in the media library, you will want to add it and then come back to this screen.
   
4. I decided to select a recent picture I took of a rainbow but your site’s logo might be another good choice.
5. In the Featured Image area of your Edit Post screen the featured image you have selected for the post will be displayed as well as the default one. The default image has a message saying it’s the default image that will be used if one isn’t selected.
   

Now when I go to my archives or search results page, posts without an image selected for the Post Thumbnail use the image with the rainbow that I selected. Here is an example of a search on the word facebook – if you scroll down, you will see that the oldest posts all use this image.

So, for now, my problem is solved. At least until I get motivated to add a Post Thumbnail to my older posts.

Do you use post thumbails? Has the issue for older posts kept you from using them? Do you think a default image is a useful solution?

photo credit: mikecogh

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

How to Add a Default Image for WordPress Post Thumbnails

Since WordPress 3.0 custom menus have been available in WordPress under Appearance > Menus. Whether or not your theme supports custom menus depends on the theme you are using and if the code has been added.

Recently I was asked how to make a link on a custom menu open in a new window or tab.

The solution turned out to be related to screen options, which is similar to the solution for viewing all of your plugins on one page.

1. Go to Appearance > Menus
2. Click the down arrow on one of the menu items. You will see that there is no option to make the link open in a new window.
   
3. Click on the Screen Options tab on the top right of the page.
   
4. Check the box for ‘Link Target’.
   
5. You will now have a link target option for each item in your custom menu.
   

If you theme doesn’t support custom menus, you can always test creating one by making it and then adding the custom menu widget to your sidebar. Of course, you do need to be using version 3.0 or higher of WordPress.

photo credit: foilman

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

How to Make a Navigation Item on a WordPress Custom Menu Open in a New Window