WordPress Consultant and Genesis Developer

New keyboard saves my sanity

Next month (November) marks the 2 year anniversary of “the switch”. It will be 2 years since I retired my PC, bought a Macbook Pro, and starting using OSX full time.

When I bought my original Macbook Pro two years ago I purchased the new sleek low profile Apple keyboard. I liked it so much I got one to use with my iMac at work.

slim and sexy

slim and sexy

After two years of using Apple’s famous slim form keyboard, today I am retiring it. How can I part with such a slender and graceful piece of equipment you might be wondering? It all came down to ergonomics. I love that keyboard, I really do. However having one at home and at work, I was typing on it an easy 10 hour/day. This keyboard design is not accommodating to heavy usage – far from it. By mid day it was just not comfortable – my wrists ached and fingers were sore. I need keys with more resistance. I need a place to put my wrist.

About a week ago I had enough. Clearly Steve didn’t give a shit if his keyboard was made for people who actually use the computer for real work. Appearance over functionality! That is the Apple way isn’t it? Thus I started my quest to find a replacement. I quickly figured out why many people use that slim finger torturer Apple sells: the number of “mac” keyboards (command key, not windows key!) is few and far between.

Regardless of the small selection I was finally able to find a replacement that is working just fine. It’s not even comparable to Apple’s when it comes to comfort. To top it off, it’s a Microsoft keyboard. Did I mention it was dirt cheap? Oh, and it came with a mouse. Yes, really.

new hotness

new hotness

So if you are looking for a solid ergonomic keyboard for your Mac look no further than the Microsoft Wireless Laser Keyboard (and Mouse). The whole combo is $25 bucks off of Amazon.

October 23, 2009 3 Comments Short URL: http://jaredat.ch/b7BUgp
Topics: Apple, Hardware, Microsoft Tags: , ,

WordPress 2.8.5 released

WordPress 2.8.5 has been released and is up for download. Nothing exciting to see as it just addresses the exploit that was published this morning plus a few minor things. From the WordPress.org post:

  • A fix for the Trackback Denial-of-Service attack that is currently being seen.
  • Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated.
  • Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins.
  • Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins.

So get your installs up to date by downloading or upgrade in the admin panel!

October 20, 2009 Comment Short URL: http://jaredat.ch/bmnMpG
Topics: WordPress Tags: , ,

WordPress trackback exploit found

Around 9am (CST) this morning we were alerted via the wp-hackers mailing list that there is an exploit out that affects the latest version of WordPress, v 2.8.4.

If you want to read more about all the technical stuff you can find the original blog post detailing the exploit here.

I wouldn’t say this is critical since your data is not at risk but anytime someone can put heat on your server it is not good.

No word yet if a patch is going to be released in the form of WordPress 2.8.5. There are a few fixes out already however.

There is a chunk of code you can paste into your theme’s functions.php file.

function ft_stop_trackback_dos_attacks(){
	global $pagenow;
	if ( 'wp-trackback.php' == $pagenow ){
		// DoS attack fix.
		if ( isset($_POST['charset']) ){
			$charset = $_POST['charset'];
			if ( strlen($charset) > 50 ) {  die; }
		}
	}
}
add_action('init','ft_stop_trackback_dos_attacks');

There is also already a fix on trac.

October 20, 2009 Comment Short URL: http://jaredat.ch/9MjOG3
Topics: WordPress Tags: , ,

Changing category slug in WPMU

So apparently you can’t change category slugs in WordPress MU. At least not without using phpmyadmin.

If you run into this problem and you don’t have access to phpmyadmin (or don’t want to give users access to it) the Edit Category Slug plugin is your answer. Works flawlessly in WPMU 2.8.4a.

October 19, 2009 Comment Short URL: http://jaredat.ch/cWtfUu
Topics: MultiSite, WordPress Tags: ,

WordPress 2.9 Features

WordPress 2.9 is right around the corner. The fearless and brave have already upgraded to 2.9-rare. I think I’ll wait for the beta to come out before I upgrade, which should be in a week or two.

Anyways, Doug Campbell is one of these people who has to live on the bleeding edge I guess. Actually I have no idea – but he did upgrade his blog to 2.9-rare.

He’s posted a quick article about 2.9 and tacked on a very handy feature list. Probably nothing new if you keep up with WordPress, but a good break down never-the-less.

To summarize what’s new in 2.9:

  • Post thumbnails
  • “trash” status.
  • Image editing (resize, crop, flip)
  • widgets outside the sidebar
  • custom post types
  • better media embeds (think viper’s video quicktags)
  • register_theme_directory() function

You can read a few more details in his write up. WordPress 2.9 is expected to be beta by end of October and hopefully released a month after that.

October 16, 2009 Comment Short URL: http://jaredat.ch/dfHt1J
Topics: WordPress Tags:

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