After the initial once over and deletion of any suspicious files I went looking for advice on how to “harden my installation”. Here’s what I found:

• Wordpress.org Codex Hardening Wordpress - Lots of good information here on hardening Wordpress including a general overview of Wordpress security considerations.
• Security Scanning Plugin – WP Security Scan is a plugin to alert you to vulnerabilities in your Wordpress installation
• Nice List of Tips from Noupe – Lots of simple to implement tips on how to lock-down Wordpress
• Change your Database Prefix from the Default WP – I used SEO Egghead’s Wordpress Table Prefix Rename Plugin to do this then deleted the plugin once I was done, worked like a champ.
• Blog Security Whitepaper – This was another good, comprehensive source of information on blog security but the last update was in April 2008 so I am not sure if everything is still relevant.
• 9 SEO Security Tips for Wordpress - Nothing unique from the other links but probably the best succinct list of things to do to secure your WordPress blog
• Monitor your Blog – I am trying the PHPIDS for Wordpress plugin which is an implementation of the PHPIDS  (PHP Intrusion Detections System) for Wordpress.  However this plugin seems to interfere with the Wordpress media uploader in my installation. (The effect of using the media uploader when this plugin is active causes the new post page to refresh to the home page of my blog).
• 20 Wordpress Security Plug-ins And Tips To keep Hackers Away – A bunch of plugins to consider to help tighten up your Wordpress security. Remember to turn them on one by one in case they generate conflicts.

One other key piece of advice, if you aren’t using a plugin or other code then remove it.Unused directories are great hiding places for malicious code and web pages.

Hopefully this will be a good resource for others and not an invite to anyone to test these tactics

Technorati Tags: plugins, Security, WordPress

• Beyond TweetBacks: Introducing TweetSuite | Dan Zarrella – Nice plug-in for integrating Twitter and Wordpress.
• SocioFluid – another social bookmarking plugin for wordpress | ImproveSeo.info – A good looking plugin for Wordpress to display the social bookmarking buttons for digg, reddit, … I like the buttons because they are not too small and not too big.
• 10 Tools for the Social Media Marketer | Traffikd – If you are an avid user of social media and you are working to build traffic for your own website or blog with SMM, here are 10 tools to help make your work easier.
• SociBook Plugin For WordPress – Nice Wordpress plugin to share your posts on a ton of social bookmarking sites.
• 5 Essential Steps to Make Your Site Search & Social Media Friendly – The increasing demand for fresh, live web content as well as the expectation of consumers to interact with what they find in the search results requires that website owners and content publishers make their websites both search and social media friendly.( via Jeff Cohen @dgtlpapercuts on Twitter)
• Is Everything You Know About SEO Wrong? » aimClear Search Marketing Blog – “Do those old H1 tags still work? Actually word’s out, they don’t really count much anymore for SEO. Does quantity, power or diversity of inbound links take the hill for search engines ranking pages algorithmically for keywords? Actually, correlation data indicates that link diversity is a factor which has become more important.”
• 9 Ways People Respond to Your Content Online | Lateral Action – Breaks down the steps from acquiring web visitors to engaging them. Really awesome graph.

Technorati Tags: Content, Online, Online Content, SEO, SocBook, Social Media, SocioFluid, TweetSuite, WordPress

While there’s no one company behind Linux for personal computers, it’s significant that Linux just broke through to 1.02 percent market share for personal computers, the first time it has ever risen that high, according to data compiled by Net Applications. (Meanwhile, even in beta, Windows 7 continues its march, now hitting .25 percent market share.)

I spent a long time trying to convince myself and others that the future for the desktop was an option of Windows, Mac or Linux. I am less bullish then I once was and now I use both a Mac and a Linux laptop. I really like the Linux desktop for it’s stability and I like the virtual desktop environment afforded by windows managers for Linux and the flexibility to adapt the interface in general to your personal needs.

However, I think we will always struggle with Linux as a desktop operating system as long as application compatibility falters (I can’t open sophisticated Excel spreadsheets from colleagues) and hardware vendors don’t feel obligated to support Linux (My Verizon EVDO card takes extra configuration for it to work under Linux while it’s a snap to set-up on Mac OS X).

So why bother with a Linux desktop at all? Well I found when using my Asus N10 netbook that my battery life is much better under Linux and I feel like the operating system is much more responsive than when I run Windows XP (I downgraded from Vista to reduce the resource requirements improving speed and battery life).  My theory is that over time we will see the focus less on the desktop operating system and more on the avialability of hosted apps that run on them like Google Docs and Zoho. I think at that point the emphasis on the desktop operating system will be greatly diminished.

[Desktop Usage Numbers via Matt Asay]

Technorati Tags: compatibility, Desktop, EVDO, Google Docs, Linux, market share, Ubuntu, Windows, Zoho

Recently I ordered a couple of Sumajin Smartwraps for my headphones to keep my cords neatly wrapped up and try to prevent the ruination of yet another set of hundred dollar headphones. They are pretty useful but still when I pull the cords out of my pocket I often dislodge the rubber earbuds. Also because the Duo has a microphone in the cord it makes it difficult to wrap cords (regular headphones would be much easier). I have a little leather bag for the headphones but it’s pretty bullky and I don’t want one more thing bulging in my pocket. I actually went to the local home imporvement store looking for some odds and ends that could create a better cordkeeper but with no luck. The best I found so far is the SmartWrap. However, I am hoping for somethign something better,  keeps my extra rubber earbuds or at least keeps a handle on the ones I already have.

Technorati Tags: earbuds, headphones, smartwraps, sumajin

I was secretly hoping that Plastic Logic would announce a new killer flexible eBook reader to rival the Amazon Kindle. However, none of these things came true so here’s four cool tech toys that are already available from your favorite tech toy store.

CradlePoint CTR 500 EVDO to Wi-Fi Router

At CES Netgear announced a new 3G  Wi-Fi router but since 3G was supposed to help us be more mobile their offering doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. What does make sense is the Cradlepoint CTR500 (MSRP $200)  a pocket-sized (4.7” x 2.8” x 0.8”) cellular router that works with my Verizon UM150 EVDO USB.It also has an Ethernet port  and a PCI Express slot to supply connectivity from various sources. Unlike the Netgear it has no wired routing options but then again if I was going to use a wired router I wouldn’t chose this option actually if I am using a wired LAN most likely I am not going to need a cellular router.

Western Digital Sharespace 4TB Network Storage Device

Ten years ago if you told me that I would have 4TB of storage in my home I would have told you that you were wacky. However, today I have Western Digital’s 4TB ShareSpace NAS system running in my home. The Sharespace is a reasonably priced turnkey storage system that is extremely easy to set-up.  For roughly $800 dollars you get an easy to configure system that can server as a multimedia, backup, and general file sharing server. It even is configured as an iTunes server an allows you to easily connect and centralize all your media from all your PCs (for those of us who have many PCs int their house). The only downfall of the device is that I feel like the write speed is a bit slow.

Slingbox PRO HD

Bridging the television to your computer especially your laptop computer should be a little more elegant than attaching a hard-wired TV Tuner card. Enter the SlingBox Pro HD. I hooked mine up in a few minutes and it does a very good job of streaming video from my DVR to my laptop even HDTV. I have even had good results over my EVDO connection. I found that I get the best results when using the DVR-like buffer pausing shows for a minute before watching them though even streaming media seems to work well. The other product  Slingmedia has in the works is an update to their Slingcatcher. The Slingcatcher, is the exact opposite of the Slingbox. The Slingcatcher connects your TV to your PC so can stream Internet videos or other media you have stored on your PC hard drive.

Asus  N10JA2 NetBook

One announcement from CES that did catch my attention was the Asus T91 convertible Tablet PC but it’s not available yet.  I like the Asus netbooks and I picked up the Asus N10J a couple of months ago. It was a little pricey, but I am very happy with it. The little notebook came with Windows Vista and a Windows XP downgrade CD. I downgraded to XP right away as I had read that it would increase my battery life. I also installed Ubuntu via the WUBI installer to compare which operating system would yield longer battery life. So far there is very little advantage of using one over the other (yeah I know that a native install might have faster disk access). I normally run Ubuntu but there is no Slingbox client for Linux. The reason I wanted this laptop was because it has a HDMI port, I stay in a lot of hotels with beautiful flat screen HDTVs and crappy programming. With the HDMI jack I can display the video from my Slingbox or a movie from my hard drive. If you want simple email and web browsing there are many more cost effective solutions than the N10 but if you want a few bells and whistles and a six hour battery life in a package that’s under 3 pounds this isn’t a bad choice.

SoI guess it’s no secret that I am a gadget nerd, what’s your favortie tech toy?

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, Asus N10, CES, CradlePoiint CTR 500, EVDO, Macworld, Netgear 3G Wi-Fi Router, Plastic Logic, slingbox, Ubuntu, Western Digital ShareSpace

Here’s the news from the newly formed Cfengine AS:

Following 5 years of research and development under the technical direction of its long time author Mark Burgess (a professor of Network and System Administration at Oslo University College), the recently formed support company Cfengine AS today released a major upgrade of the Open Source, self-repairing software cfengine based on its innovative Promise Theory technology.

Unlike would-be alternatives, cfengine is not about producing alarms and reports to notify about errors and misalignments in the Data Center: it is a fully self-repairing maintenance engine capable of fixing them without human intervention. Cfengine users know that systems are compliant and maintained even when humans are unavailable, because they have made all the important decisions in advance.

Cfengine is open-source (GPL) software for configuring, monitoring and autonomically maintaining computers. It’s been around for over 15 years and is pretty prevalent among Unix administrators with a lot of machines to manage.  The concept around CFengine involves having a centralized configuration that can propagate out to servers a common use would be to develop a template or set of templates that can be used to “build” a server.

Configuration management is one of the most difficult and complex aspects of IT infrastructure management and there is no clear leader for this type of tool. The largest commercial company dedicated to solving this problem is ConfigureSoft since others got acquired (Bladelogic is now  owned by BMC) and Opsware is now owned by HP sold as HP Data Center Automation). Other ways people are solving the problem is by creating virtual machines rPath’s Conary system makes it relatively simple to provision them. Open source OpenQRM is another open source favorite for management of virtual machines. Red Hat’s got their own tool for building virtual machines or software appliances, Thin Crust. Ubuntu’s platform for virtual appliance devleopment is JeOS (just enough operating system). However, the bottom line is that the creation and configuration of servers is a tought problem and making the process manageable is a problem that no one has solved yet.

As far as open source goes CFengine is probably the most widely known configuration management tool but Reductive Labs developed Puppet has been gaining a lot of mind share lately. Puppet is an automated administrative engine for your *nix systems, performs administrative tasks (such as adding users, installing packages, and updating server configurations) based on a centralized specification. In a nutshell Puppet solves the same kinds of problems that Cfengine does but in a slightly different way and relies on the very popular Ruby on Rails for client-server architecture. It seems like a lot of people are using it including Google, Speakeasy.net, and Harvard and as I have attended the USENIX Large Installation Systems Administrators Conference the past three years it seems that talks given by Luke Kanies, the Puppet project lead, have been very well attended by administrators who are often managing thousands or tens of thousands of servers.

I know that Reductive Labs does a lot of consulting on Puppet and that Cfengine is going to be releasing a commercial version of Cfengine 3. I am not sure that they could ever find a model like Red Hat’s update service since configuration management is so complex but I do think there’s a very good consulting business there for both companies and perhaps a nice tool to add to a bigger company’s repertoire. Anyhow it’s nice to see one more commercial open source company come to market. I wish Cfenigne AB the best of  luck, I am sure they will receive plenty of interest.

Technorati Tags: Cfengine, Configuration Management, JeOS, Open Source, Puppet, Red Hat, Reductive Labs, Systems Management, Thin Crust, Ubuntu

Normally I don’t post stuff like this but here’s a cool holiday offer from MindTouch, the makers of open source wiki and social collaboration software, deki. They  will donate and adopt, from the World Wildlife Fund, an emperor penguin in any company’s name when they upgrade to MindTouch Standard or Enterprise license from an existing Deki Open Source installation.

I like the free and open source  deki and have a couple accounts on their wiki hosting site— Wik.is. However after asking their CEO, Aaron “WildMan” Fulkerson,  what’s the advantage of buying he gave me the list:

• Stable build–Deki Commercial build is the only edition recommended for production environments
• Desktop Suite–Publish from Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word and benefit from the MindTouch Desktop Connector, which delivers drag-and-drop capabilities to your Microsoft Windows desktop
• Enterprise adapters to enable business automation–Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Salesforece, SugarCRM and much more…

So the reason I mentioned the promotion is I like the buy something get something free marketing but only when there’s something cool or useful. I dig penguins so nothing better than saving a clumsy, bottom heavy guy in black (not unlike myself).

[Disclosure: I am an advisor to MindTouch Inc. but have no financial agreement with them whatso-ever, I just like the way they roll.]

Here’s the list of features:

This new version comes with additional support for VMware ESX, an integration with Puppet for automated configuration management, improvements for the high-availability mechanism and, last but not least, a Cloud-plugin. This new Cloud-plugin provides a fully automated private cloud with a separated Cloud portal for external data-center users to submit their requests to. The Cloud-plugin features a complete automated provisioning cycle including automatic de-provisioning, Deployment of physical and virtual machines from different virtualization types, P2V, V2P, V2V, P2P, “Clone-on-deploy” and a billing system.

Here’s a video demo for the latest version of OpenQRM, it’s pretty impressive.

OpenQRM isn’t the only OSS project receiving a lot of attention as a cloud tool, Enomaly and Puppet both have been getting some media attention from Ostatic and Information Week among others. I think all these projects have a bright future.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, OpenQRM, server provisioing

The goal is to define cool in two sentences or less. So here’s my shot at glory and a wicked cool guitar.

Cool is an intangible aesthetic tempered by eccentricity colored by indifference.

My list of cool looks something like this:

• Miles Davis
• Ray Ban Wayfarers
• Jimmy Hendrix’ Star-Spangled Banner
• James Dean’s red jacket
• Big-Wave Rider Laird Hamilton
• The 1961 Lincoln 4-Door Convertible

What’s cool to you?

Technorati Tags: cool, DavidMeermanScott