Wordpress 2.7 Performance Issues
Just a quick posts to talk about a number of issues I have seen with slow wordpress performance after a 2.7 upgrade.
What I Have Seen?
When you access the front end of the blog, things run especially slowly. On a number of blogs I have seen the theme load but no posts.
When you attept to connect to the backend i.e. wp-admin the problem is not re-created.
Theme Schmemes
The problems I am seeing are with themes which have not benn upgraded to make use of the new 2.7 functionality.
I assume that they are trying ot run a previous version function, and when this does not work, the system retries for a period before failing.
Testing For A Dodgy Theme
There is a very quick test to see if your theme is causing your issues. Simply change your theme to the wordpress default theme, and test your blog again. If performance improves the theme is the culprit.
If you are running a cache program disable is to ensure nothing is cached and the latest file are being served up.
What to Do?
Go back to the web designer who developed your theme and check to see if this is a know issue. It is quite probable that a 2.7 version of the theme has been released.
Download this latest version and upload it to your blog, fingers crossed the problem will be solved.
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Blog Security: Part 1 Physical Access
photo by mattimattila
In the wider computer system community, security can be divided into five topics. In this multi part series I would like to talk about these five areas and how corporate IT concepts can be applied to your blog. The five subject headings are:
- Logical Access
- Physical Access
- Segregation of Duties
- Program Change Control
- Continuity of Data Processing
In the first part of this series, I will discuss logical access.
What Is Physical Access Control
Ensuring only authorised people can physically touch or be near to your server hardware. In corporate IT, this is done by creating secured data centres with swipe card access and high security setups.
I have worked with police IT departments where physical security is so important servers are hosted in armoured bomb proof data centres. Your blog may not need a earth rampart around it, but you should consider physical access controls if you are serious about blog security.
What Can Someone do to your Service with Physical Access?
With physical access comes physical damage or theft of hardware. Dropping of power sources or removing of network cables. Pulling out of hard disk drives or just running amok with a crow bar on your servers.
With physical access comes threats to your finally crafted blog.
Is It Really A Problem for a Blogger?
Not really, the vast majority of us have our blogs hosted on hte physical hardware of hosting providers. The problem of physical access control has been outsources to a thrid party.
Ask Questions of Your hosting Provider
How secure is their data centre, who has access to the servers which host your blog controlled.
Ask these questions so you can be aqssured of decent physical access controls. If you are not happy with the answer from your host look around and take your blog elsewhere.
If You Host Your Own Blog
Well done, you are in the major leagues, Restrict access to your hardware, consider keeping your server is a locked room or a purpose madeserver vault. There are many of these locable, heavy duty server cabinets on the market.
In Conclusion
I think physical access control is not a major problem for bloggers, but check with your hosting provider to ensure your server is secured.
Next in the series
In the next part of this series, I will talk about logical access controls
Previosuly – Series Introduction
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The Five Factors of Blog Security
In the past I have worked in corporate IT as a computer auditor and security consultant.
I thought I would take the lesson leanred from “enterpirse class” computing and teach you,the owner and author of a blog, how these principals can be used for a smaller but no less important computer sytem, your pride and joy blog.
When I was auditing big enterprises, the security came in five catagories, they are:
- Physical Access
- LogicalAccess
- Program Change Control
- Segregation of Duies
- Continuity of Data Processing
Whilst on first impressions these may not seem appropriate for a blog, I think they are and in a series of posts I would like to take these subjects and show you how to apply them to your blog.
If the security of your blog is compromised your work may be driven off line. If your blog is used for professional reasons, you risk loosing money.
Over a series of five posts I will be taking you through the five factors of blog security, I hope y0u enjoy this comparison of large computing and the perceived small time activities of bloggers. Please leave comments if you feel
I start the series tomorrow with a post on logical access control, why not subscribe to my RSS feed to catch all of the episodes.
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CASE STUDY:Redirection Problems Using Wordpress Options
photo by beatboxbadhabit
I was working with a client who wantedto redirect their blog from one domain to another, they has some issues with the process they used.
The Problem
At attempt to redirect the blog has been done byamending the site URL and the home page in the blog options within wordpress.
This redirected as expected, but it also prevented login to the site. When they tried to login to blog/wp-admin, they were redirected to newblog/wp-admin. This made the admin section of the blog unaccessible.
The Solution
It was down and dirty database edit time. I gained access to the hosting account and using phpmysqladmin I was able to edit the tables and revert back to the original blog URL and home page. I also noted that the .htaccess file had a redirect to the wrong directory, so I amended this also.
I installed the appropriate 301 redirection plugin and gave my client instructions on the best way to migrate domains.
If you want to redirect your blog I recommend leaving your old blog intact and using a 301 redirection plugin. I detail this in my case study post Migrating From One Domain to Another
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CASE STUDY: Password Reset Not Working
photo by tomasrotger
I was approached by a client who was having problem with the wordpress password reset.
The Poblem
My cient was attempting to change his password from the normal password change screen under wp-admin. When he attempted to reset his admin user password, a new password was sent, but the new password did not work.
As a side note, his ISP had reported that certain scripts on his blog were open for vulnerabilities.
My Solution
I suspected that the blog had been hacked and the password reset was sending to some nefarious web troll.
What I did was to white-hat hack the database, and using techniques I don’t want to document here, I was able to get a new MD5 encrypted password. I then updated the database with that password so I was able to login with an admin level password.
The next stage of the fix was to restore the wordpress code base, I took a copy of wp-config.php, backed up all of the existing files before deletingthe blog root, wp-admin and wp-includes, next I refreshed the blogs code base with a mint copy 0f wordpress 2.7 and re-installed wp-config.php.
The Outcome
The blog was back online and in full working order. My client was happy and I am now on his blogroll.
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Case Study:Problems with the WP 2.7 theme uploader
Photo by joeshlabotnik
A client approached me asking to help him install a theme.
The Problem
The theme was failing with the following error when he attempted to upload the zip file.
Folder already exists.: Please Read This First – Double Here To Read ME.txt
I think my client was attempting the upload using the new theme upload function in wordpress 2.7.
My Solution
I have not used the upload theme function in wordpress 2.7, I am sooo 2.6 when is comes to themes so I planned to unpack the theme and FTP it to the wp-content directory and then activate the theme. This is where I found the problem.
The theme was packaged with several colour variations and three plugins to make it work. In other words instead of a single theme, there were 6 or more themes plus several plugins all packaged together.
I assumed therefore that the theme upload function cannot handle multiple themes and plugins. I uploaded the files manually using my ftp client, activcated the plugins and set one of hte themes as teh active one.
The client went away happy that his newly created blog was ready to tell the world and his friends about me.
I f you need some website design help, check out Willdfire marketing,
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