WordPress mask version display plugin

Further to the discussion here, over the source display of WordPress version, imposed on users of the default install of WordPress 2.5 - a plugin to regain a little control.

Web Sitedesign.net

The design portfolio is certainly visually impressive - launched client sites, (not just the usual scattering of demo sites and coming soons) - coming to you out of the West Midlands, UK, Web Sitedesign.net, offering web site design, e-commerce, web-based apps, branding, logos and crm software. Some of these sites, those in the e-commerce category in particular, are genuinely good, with effective layouts, competently built - and not too much Ajax sitting there amongst it all, my usual bete noire…

With seven years and more than 300 web projects down, it does take more than a snappy logo and a few bland and unlikely testimonials hanging there in quotes, to convince a client to buy the package nowadays - there’s competition about, not like the old days…

In terms of Sitedesign’s ecommerce solutions, they do seem to know how to chop up an osCommerce template pretty well - the one drawback with this ubiquitous software is that all the sites really do start to look the same after a while, to be able to bring some variety to this market is no bad thing at all.

So, as a UK-based development engineer, doing a lot of business with the US - it seems to have really taken off it the last 18 months or so - for UK sites looking to get out into international markets, though the dollar exchange rate is not so very wonderful at the moment, there’s skype to solve all the communication issues and as for the time difference, you really don’t notice it after a while - there’s no need for web design birmingham to involve Alabama any more…

WordPress version 2.5 - security fix

 WordPress 2.5 has a vulnerability - undocumented, at this stage - with more information here

From the look of the files involved, it wouldn’t seem at this stage to affect WordPress 2.3.3 as such - 2 of these files don’t exist in that version (but this is only speculation, given limited info).

WordPress and Programming Tutorials

People (visitors) quite often enquire why there is a lack of detail in the various code snippets given as brief tutorials on this blog. And it’s true, often only the only relevant line of code is given.

Well, simple answer - I am a great believer in the principle:

If you have ask - you probably shouldn’t be doing…

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Pragma Systems Telnet

Well, I remember when telnet was all we had - and computers were all green writing on a black background, and none of these silly images that get in the way all the time.

Pragmasys do telnet - Telnet Client - they also do SSH, because that’s how it all works - secure business applications that connect to a server, with or without encryption, allow its administration, data editing and management.
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Customized WordPress RSS Feed

Here’s a very simple hack to exclude items from an RSS feed, and since the principle involves the Loop, by extension, for post output as well - it’s not great programming style or practice but it does the job.

Exclude by author - any post you don’t want to appear on the RSS (maybe you’re a bit shy about sponsored posts…) assign to their own author.
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New Alexa rank algorithm

There’s a new Alexa rank algorithm out - we previously knew Alexa rank to be meaningless except when it came to people like Text Link Ads using it as part of their calculation.

The main point appears to be less reliance on toolbar stats - as Alexa puts it, data is now gathered from a variety of sources, whatever they may be…
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Feedburner RSS stats

So, this blog, and a couple of others, each get about 40% of their RSS subscribers using Google products - this according to Feedburner’s stats panel.

Google products meaning the snappily-named Feed Reader or iGoogle, the widgetised, personalised front page, clone of Netvibes and a few others…
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Easy as my PC

You’re getting an Intel chip, a disk and a motherboard - and told to get on with it.

Over the years, I have never quite understood how it is that since the average desktop is only a sum of its parts, there isn’t more of it - self-assembly, do it yourself desktops…

The site is How to Build a Computer and getting the product is simply a case of navigating the dropdowns, choose your operating system (which is XP or Vista, with Vista as the default), choose a monitor and media reader if you want. The graphics card is also optional in the package, which is nice, you’d think maybe the opportunity would have been taken to push something not completely suitable.
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Your WordPress blog - Google neighborhood

Pros in the SEO business will laugh hollowly at this, but don’t forget about the related site search function - it’s in the webmaster tools, or just type it in.

http://www.google.com/search?q=related:www.mysite.com

It does no harm to try out some different TLDs
http://www.google.nl/search?q=related:www.mysite.com
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