Why Google Plus

I regularly speak to groups of people about Websites (particularly about WordPress), social media and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Social Media always is discussed and I always get asked which Social Media service is the most beneficial to use (from a business benefits perspective). Social Media takes alot of time and generally small business owners just don’t have the time to run multiple social media channels. So which one service is best to use; Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter …. Google+ is the answer!

Google+ has come along and incorporate all the best parts of all the big Social media services into one. Move over Facebook, Myspace (who?), Twitter, foursquare and others. Now, there is just one Social Media service that small business owners need to use and the added advantage is that using Google+ may help your SEO. Although Google+ isn’t that big in Australia yet it is going the be the most important of all Social Media services soon.

Instructions: show Google updates/Stream in WordPress

In summary, we are going to install a Plugin that will display a Google+ stream. We’ll then show the stream in a Widget, Page or Post.

1. Install and activate the WP-Lifestream 2 Plugin

2. Look for Lifestream in your WordPress dashboard left column and go through the various settings and change to your preferances

3. Go to Lifestream -> Feeds and click the Google+ option to add a Google+ Stream. Once added you’ll see something similar to:

4. To add your Lifestream to a Page or Post just save the following shortcode in the Page or Post.

5. To add your Stream to a widget area just add the Lifestream widget to a Widget area.

That’s it. Your latest Google Plus updates will show on your WordPress Blog or Website automatically.

Oh, one last step …. follow me on Google+

How did Hmei7 hack your Website?

What did Hmei7 do? It seems that Hmei7 gained access to one or more database server/s and then simply ran a simple SQL script on the various MySQL databases. He/She ran the script against all Post and Page titles and merely replaced existing titles with a script that ‘created’ the popup. WordPress has a title on every Page and Post so it was a simple but very effective hack. I’ve also seen some WordPress Sites where passwords have been changed for users but again this is simple enough to do via a generic SQL script (no need to panic as WordPress passwords are generally secure enough and are stored as an MD5 hash i.e. others are unlikely to be able to read your password even if they have access to the MySQL database).

So how did Hmei7 get into your Website? Unfortunately I don’t know exactly how the hacker gained access to the database however I haven’t seen any evidence that WordPress, Themes or Plugins were the entry point for the attack.

And what could you have done to prevent being hacked? Besides using a reputable host there is probably little that could have been done to prevent your Site being hacked. Of most benefit however would have been having all Plugins, Themes and WordPress itself updated (to the latest version) as well as having a recent database backup available (from which to recover).

How to recover from Hmei7 hack

The most simple means to recover from this attack is to restore a recent backup of your WordPress database. Failing a recent database backup being available then; login to the WordPress dashboard, delete the script in every Page and Post title as left by Hmei7, rewrite all titles and save the new titles.

If you don’t have a recent database backup available you are potentially in for alot of work in rewriting all your Page and Post titles. If you need a daily backup solution installed then contact me. Also, if you want to move to a new more reliable Webhost I can recommend some for you and even help you to move your Site to a better WordPress host.

Ford

Ford Social is a Website with which the company aims to interact more with it’s customers. Choosing WordPress (WP) to power this Site is a great idea as WP has very strong capabilities where interaction and communication are required.  The  custom Theme used on this Site has a significant amount of the Site functionality inbuilt (removing the need to use many Plugins).

Volkswagen

Volkswagen use WordPress extensively to power their Blogs. VW Sites using WordPress include Think Blue, The Upcoming and Concept Cars Blog and the VW Jetta Blog. The Sites use custom Themes as well as some popular free Plugins such as WP-Polls and NextGEN Gallery.

Jeep

In many ways this Jeep Blog is quite simple; it uses a fairly wide sidebar widget area on the right and no footer widget area. The Site however is full of information and various media including text, video and a Twitter and Facebook widget. The Theme used is a standard premium Theme by WooThemes and, just like on the VW Blogs, the WP-Polls Plugin is used.

Citroen

Swiveling headlights as a safety feature on cars isn’t a new feature. Citroen popularized this means of having better visibility when turning way back in numerous car models in 1967. Audi now calls this Adaptive Light, Lexus calls it the Adaptive Front Lighting System and Mercedes the Cornering Light Function.

Citroen uses WordPress to power various Sites including their Italian Blog. Fewer Sites are using Adobe Flash nowadays but this Blog uses a Flash header very effectively. WP Super Cache is installed to speed up Page load times (but unfortunately isn’t working per the message flagged by the Plugin ‘WP Super Cache is installed but broken’). The Plugin WP Lightbox 2 adds lightbox effects.

Toyota

Toyota Europe, Toyota U.K. and other Toyota Blogs are powered by WordPress. Custom designed WP Themes are used as well as two free and very popular WordPress video related Plugins; TubePress and Viper’s Video Quicktags. The very good Google Analytics Plugin, Google Analytics for WordPress is also used.

Hmei7 is described as an ethical hacker on various Websites as he/she apparently highlights vulnerabilities without causing massive harm. He/She is said to have hacked many major corporation Websites such as IBM, Siemens, Toyota and many more. What interests me is that there aren’t many reports of WordPress Sites being hacked by Hmei7. As mentioned previously however, often what is described as a WordPress hack is actually caused by hosting vulnerabilities such as old versions of PHP.

By the way, there’s a good reason that I don’t go into details of the specifics of any hacked Website.