WebsByAmy.com - Amy Celona

WordPress under attack…

Amy — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:22:12 +0000

Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? I am seeing articles that are saying that these new attacks exploit WordPress installations–anywhere. But there are a few things you can do–because the exploits being taken advantage are include your basic username and password combination.

What can you do:

CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD. If WebsByAmy (me) set up your username/password for your WordPress dashboard, the username is NOT ‘admin’ and your password is upper and lowercase letters and a few numbers. However, if you’ve changed that or added an administrator or if you currently have a text based password you ‘use for everything,’ CHANGE IT NOW. READ THIS article for some tips.
UPDATE YOUR WORDPRESS. Are you updated to the latest version of WordPress? On your Dashboard, you’re told if you are not. Follow the directions to upgrade. What about it saying ‘back up your configuration’ before you do this? If you host with me, I have nightly backups, I can take you back to yesterday. If you don’t host with me but your hosting gives you cPanel–OR if you host with me and want your OWN personal backup of your entire installation (mailserver settings, etc.) watch this video.
UPDATE YOUR PLUGINS (actually do that before you upgrade WordPress). EVEN the ones you aren’t currently using… sometimes plugins have security exploits so even if they aren’t active, they need to be updated–so just delete unused plugins.

If you have any questions, drop me a line.

Verifying Your Site in Pinterest

Amy — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:18:57 +0000

I've had this question a lot, so I thought I'd do a quick video, if you can't see the video (i.e., if you are reading this via an email update), go to www.websbyamy.com/blog.

Make a Sticky Post in WordPress

Amy — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:33:55 +0000

I'm taking requests… if you have a WordPress question and I have the time… I'll do a short tutorial. I've had this request twice this month, so I've decided to post an article.

Log into your dashboard and click on >Posts >Add New
You will notice the "Publish" menu just to the right of the article window
- click on 'Visibility"
Check the box 'Stick this post to the front page'
Click OK (the drop down will collapse)
Click 'UPDATE' or it won't save

Excellent article for newbie WordPress Users

Amy — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 12:16:16 +0000

The blog WPKube.com has posted an excellent article entitled 'The WordPress Handbook–55 Resources for First Time WordPress Users at:
http://www.wpkube.com/wordpress-handbook/

Enjoy!

Is your content being stolen?

Amy — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:27:16 +0000

Last year, I had a client contact me regarding her articles showing up on someone else's site. She was confused as to whether her security was breached somehow with her site, etc. and was very frantic to fix it.

Congratulations, you've been robbed… and strangely, it wasn't a competitor, it was someone who had a 'purely' affiliate based income site who was stealing from many different authors in order to drive traffic to his site in order to sell from his affiliate links.

Before I go on, I saw this excellent article that you might want to read regarding this issue.

I was in that position several years ago. I have some WordPress 'how-to' articles on my site and a scraper grabbed them (videos and all) and put it on a 'Wordpress How-To' site that was pretty much 100% stolen articles embedded in an affiliate link laden site. I found it because my dashboard showed 'incoming links' to my site from theirs.

I posted a 'comment' on his site, demanding he remove my article or give me credit (no shocker the post went into 'moderation' never to be seen) and emailed the 'WHOIS' contact. After a day or so, I went on WordPress.org and published a link to my article and then to his article (he didn't even take out my example link that linked back to my site, LOL!) and in all innocence asked for help. Well, the internet hath no fury like this type of thing happening. Apparently according to the responses I got on WordPress.org, his entire site was scraped articles.

I was THEN (within hours of publishing the complaint) contacted by the site owner who claimed he paid someone to build traffic and removed the article HOWEVER he was being bombarded with angry comments from WordPress.org… could I please remove my complaint (or the link). Well, guess what? WordPress.org reserves the right to allow editing and removal of posts… after a certain point, I was not able to remove it and he ended up taking his site down (probably moved it). I don't know if he would have bothered responding if I hadn't, but I really only posted to get advice.

Don't you love it when you are around to witness Karma in action… it makes you want to take the day off!

What the new Facebook ‘Graph Search’ means to your privacy

Amy — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:11:38 +0000

Small things you share–even as a joke–in your profile, might classify you in a search that you don't want to be in. Ah Facebook, we love it, we hate it–but it is here to stay!

Here is an article that I believe was meant to be funny/scary and it worked to actually (in this order: made me laugh… then made me concerned):
actualfacebookgraphsearches.tumblr.com

You may be confused or choose to ignore this new 'Graph Search' feature, and that's fine. But take a minute to check your privacy settings again–and do a good looking over at your 'likes' and your profile* information about your religion, political views… especially (if like me) you tend towards the humorous approach (in languages I used to have 'Fluent Gibberish,' why? because I could…).

"Privacy?! But I set them already…" well they aren't a 'set once' and let go, you need to keep checking them because with many 'roll outs' of new features, your privacy settings can be changed without you knowing it. And who really are your Facebook friends? If you don't know them well, OR your Privacy settings are share with 'friends of friends' that means that you no longer are only sharing between friends (READ: you've locked the front door and your back door is wide open). And remember, the 'friends of your friends' include their slacker siblings or creepy uncle (I know mine do!).

The article above on the Facebook 'Graph Search' above is something done by a Tumblr user, but I first saw on Mashable is what brought this to my attention today. My favorite line is something my grandmother used to tell me (because I was a mouthy teenager, LOL):
"If you wouldn't want it published in Newsday, don't put it out there…"

So, here is what got me going this morning:
http://mashable.com/2013/01/23/actual-facebook-graph-searches/

I have helped clients who want a Facebook 'business page' make their personal profile completely private (no personal information, no friends and 'unsearchable') so that they can just use Facebook pages (which requires way less in the way of creepy interaction).

Okay, I've wrecked your coffee–sorry! Well, to show that I'm not just rabble rousing today, I can offer up an article from one of my favorite sites that published information on privacy just this month –read the article here on Lifehacker.com.

SAB Widget

Amy — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:34:23 +0000

This time, the SAB widget is the same for US & Canada. And I used the PDF in the Stampin' Up! online store, which is WAY easier to read online than the actual PDF of the entire flyer shared in the demo side. What you don't get on this is the SAB 'Join' benefits info.

So, as usual, I have indicated in bold red italics in case you wish to change where your widget links to. Your DBWS has an excellent advertisement for SAB on your 'Promotions' page, I recommend linking to that!

CLICK HERE for a short video on how to edit the bold red link…

AMERICAN & CANADIAN:

http://204.228.150.61/SAB2013/" target="_blank">
http://204.228.150.61/customer_site/SAB/MDS_Flyer_en.pdf" target="_blank">

SU Catalog on Google Catalogs

Amy — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:32:51 +0000

Get the code for a sidebar widget with the links to download the Google Catalog app for iPads & Android tablets.

This is actually a 3 image/linked code, I have added centering if you have a wider than 150px sidebar so that the all line up.

The code wraps around under the example picture in some browsers, be sure that you grab all of the code.

AMERICAN (ONLY)

EDITED: 2013 Spring Widget Code

Amy — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:59:56 +0000

A number of people (mostly using Blogger users) expressed trouble with the photo showing up. For that reason, I have uploaded it again in .png format. NOTE: If you have no problem with yesterday's code, ignore this.

Remember to copy and paste this in its entirety.

AMERICAN

CANADIAN:

2013 Spring Catalog

Amy — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:23:07 +0000

UPDATED 1/4/2013 – Below are free widget codes for the 2013 Spring Catalog. Yesterday's code still works, but some Bloggers were having issues with the image showing. I have uploaded a .gif this time. If it worked yesterday, ignore this.

AMERICAN

CANADIAN: