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WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms on the Internet. One of the first things I do when I setup a new WordPress installation is harden it. You can read about a number of my suggestions in the article Secure Your WordPress Installation. However, one of the more complex activities I undertake is securing the upgrade facility so that it uses SSH for handling all of my site’s updates. This is for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS: Create a “wordpress” user that will be used to manage your site. [shell] % sudo adduser wordpress [/shell] Add the following lines to your wp-config.php, I usually put mine right after the Language definition: [shell] /** * Define Upgrade FTP Usernames and Passwords...

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones. We see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the >world, are the ones who do. -- Steve Jobs, The Crazy Ones It's 7:00 a.m. in the morning, EST. My wife is taking our...

WordPress is an extremely popular web platform with about 7% of all websites running WordPress. That large a population means that attackers have a rich environment to exploit your installation. There have been historical attacks and worms written specifically to target WordPress. Even highly visible bloggers weren’t immune to the attacks. However, there are some simple actions you can take to ensure your WordPress installation is as safe as possible. Backups I shouldn’t have to say this, but if you are not creating backups of your WordPress site, then you will eventually lose it.  This isn’t me being melodramatic.  It’s a fact.  Something will occur and you’ll find that you cannot recover or repair the...

The Problem I was recently perusing my /var/log/system.log file under OS X Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.6), also available by running the Console application in your Utilities folder and selecting system.log, when I noticed several error messages that bothered me: osascript[236]: Error loading /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types: dlopen(/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:\n /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types: no matching architecture in universal wrapper Safari[239]: Initializer-based scripting additions have been deprecated. Please update this addition: "/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax" That last message basically...

I hate spam.  I’m sure you hate spam.  I’ve spent a significant amount of my personal time working on solutions to combat spam.  I’m fortunate, in that I run my own mail server, and can therefore deploy a variety of spam fighting techniques.  My current mail server is running: SpamAssassin amavisd-new Greylisting Postfix UCE Rules In general, these technologies work pretty well.  However, spammers are constantly finding ways around them, and I still get a few spam emails (3-5) every day.  That number isn’t too shabby when you think about it, since I’ve had the same email address now for 14 years.  One of the most effective tools I’ve found for fighting spam?  Don’...