I spent some time reviewing the available plugins in the WordPress plugin repository, so I thought I’d share my findings.

The plugin I ended up using is the oEmbed Gist WordPress Plugin by Takayuki Miyauchi.

I wanted a plugin that uses WordPress’ native oEmbed support so that I could simply paste the URL to a Gist in my post or page (rather than having to use a special shortcode or another overcomplicated method).

Here’s an screenshot of the plugin in action on one of my recent blog posts:

Gist Embed Example

The plugin allows you to embed any public Github Gist. To do so, just put paste the full URL to the Gist on its own line in your WordPress post or page. For example:

https://gist.github.com/2598625

If your Gist contains multiple files, the above example will show all files in the embed.

However if you want to embed an individual file that is part of a multi-file Gist, you use a URL which points to that particular file. For example:

https://gist.github.com/2598625#file_2_safe.php

(To obtain that link, view your Gist on the Github website and click the hash link (#) near that specific file. Then copy the URL and paste it into your WordPress post or page.

It’s that easy!

Using Github Gists (and this plugin) is a great way to embed code snippets in blog posts, because it ensures that the WordPress Visual Editor doesn’t mess with your code.

If you update the Gist, the changes will be automatically visible on your website too.

Here’s a simple example:

The Problem

At first glance, that code looks like it should be safe, however what would happen if the string was translated to contained an angled bracket (< or >)?

That would result in invalid HTML code. Or even worse, what if the translation file contained a malicious <script> tag?

The Solution

After some searching through the WordPress source code, I came across the esc_html__() function:

esc_html__(): Retrieves the translation of $text and escapes it for safe use in HTML output. If there is no translation, or the domain isn’t loaded, the original text is returned.

So in order to make the above example safe/secure, it should be written as:

(There is also the corresponding esc_html_e() function, which is used if you want to output the text automatically without having to echo it).

Another Example

Another example is if the translatable string is going to be used inside a HTML attribute:

You would use the esc_attr__() function:

esc_attr__(): Retrieves the translation of $text and escapes it for safe use in an attribute. If there is no translation, or the domain isn’t loaded the original text is returned.

So in order to make the above example safe/secure, it should be written as:

(There is also the corresponding esc_attr_e() function, which is used if you want to output the text automatically without having to echo it).

For more information see the WordPress Codex article on Data Validation.

Conclusion

So it seems that the “Trust No One” philosophy when retrieving or outputting data not only applies to end-users, but also to translators and translation files!

Is the above advice is correct? Or do you think it’s unnecessary to escape translatable strings?

Please let me know in the comments.

We must have got distracted, because we ended up riding for 2.5 hours in the Melbourne sunshine! In typical Melbourne style, the sunshine was interspersed with plenty of cloudy (cold) periods.

All in all, it was a lovely morning, although next time I think I’ll be taking a jumper with me!

Are you a WordPress user? Make sure you do your body a favour and participate in Automattic’s Worldwide WP 5k day 2012.

The initial version of which, has just been added to the development version of WordPress. The commit message explains the philosophy of Twenty Twelve:

Initial import of the Twenty Twelve theme, by Drew Strojny. This time around we’re trying something different than the previous twenty-something themes, a much more minimalist approach that affords easy use as a CMS in addition to being blog-forward. More information will be on wpdevel soon. Props drewstrojny and lancewillett.

Source: Trac Ticket #19978

I have set up a Twenty Twelve Demo Site here: http://twentytwelve.jamesc.id.au/

I’m very interested to see how it pans out!

Update 7/2/2012: The Twenty Twelve Development Team has posted an update:

This is not yet a fully working theme — we’ll be adding in more features and lots of missing styles over the next 3–4 weeks. Including post formats, comments, archives and page templates, more in-post styling, and a nav menu rework so the main content comes ahead of the navigation.

Update 2/3/2012: The Twenty Twelve theme has been delayed, and will no longer be part of WordPress 3.4. It will be in WordPress 3.5 (scheduled for later in 2012).

What’s new you may ask? The best way to find that out is to visit the new About WordPress screen in the dashboard:

(this screenshot was uploaded using the spiffy new drag-and-drop media uploader of course!)

For the more technically inclined, see the WordPress 3.3 Codex page for detailed information on 3.3.

Simone Brunozzi (AWS Asia Pacific Technology Evangelist) kicked the night off with an informal presentation covering EC2 Security Groups, ElastiCache, SQS, and several other questions from the 35-person audience.

The Audience

Simone Brunozzi presenting

Adam and Joseph from Melbourne-based IndexMedia gave a brief presentation about how they use AWS for their in-image advertising tool. Very cool!

The audience then attempted to eat the large amount of pizza that provided. We got close, with 12 out of the 15 pizzas being eaten

Rob Linton gave away several copies of his new book: Amazon Web Services: Migrating Your .NET Enterprise Application.

We are currently looking for speakers for the September meetup, so please contact us if you’re interested in speaking. We’d love to hear about:

• how you’re using AWS
• the problems (and solutions) you’ve encountered whilst using AWS
• your favourite AWS tools/libraries
• almost anything else AWS-related!

Thank you to the speakers, the sponsor (SysTalk), and to everyone that attended. It was great to see a strong turn out for the first AWS meetup.

Take a look at my previous post on what’s new in 3.2.

However, for performance (and privacy) reasons, many Australian business owners require their website and other data to be physically hosted in Australia.

As an Australian user of AWS, one of the recurring conversations I continue to have with other Australians is if (and when) will Amazon Web Services add an Australian region to their service offerings?

The Current Situation

Currently Amazon EC2 (AWS’ virtual server solution) is available in five regions – two in the USA, Ireland, Singapore and Tokyo.

Amazon CloudFront (AWS’ content delivery network) currently uses 19 edge locations throughout the US, Europe and Asia, however they don’t currently have one in Australia.

The most recently added edge location was Sweden.

Why no Australia Region?

In my opinion, there are a lot of factors to take into account when evaluating adding a new region. For example:

• consumer demand in that region
• reliability and redundancy of networking/datacentre infrastructure
• costs of this infrastructure
• availability of government grants

Personally I think the main reason AWS isn’t already in Australia is because of our high networking and datacentre costs. I also can’t imagine the Australian Government offering any grants for this either – although I’d love to be proven wrong on this!

I’m guessing that there are quite a few Australian customers already using AWS, so consumer demand is probably not the cause.

Some Progress

In May AWS sent out a survey to their Australian clients:

Dear AWS Customer,

Amazon Web Services currently serves customers in over 190 countries. As part of our ongoing effort to provide better services and support to our global customers, we are conducting a short (17 question) survey to better understand your needs and requirements.

We sincerely appreciate your time and feedback.

Best regards,
The Amazon Web Services Team

After receiving the survey I tweeted it, and so far almost 40 people have clicked on the link (and hopefully filled in the survey).

If you haven’t already, please complete the survey so Amazon are aware of our demand for AWS in Australia!

The Future

I think if Amazon is to have a presence in Australia, the first step would be adding an Australian-based CloudFront edge location. This would help them evaluate costs, and if things work out then Amazon could introduce their other services such as EC2 and S3.

Your Thoughts?

Why do you think AWS doesn’t have an Australian region?

How likely is it that we will see AWS in Australia?

I don’t know about you, but I have my fingers crossed!