I Fixed It, Kinda
Jetpack. By far my favorite plugin for WordPress. So many great features, all rolled into one. It’s pretty damned awesome.
At least it was pretty damned awesome, until WordPress v3.5 was released. Then it was demoted to just ok. It started causing issues with embedded Youtube videos, tossing up some really ugly PHP error messages on the post that had video embedded.
To keep a long story short, you can read all of the details over at the support site. 28 posts later, we have arrived at this post. I actually helped to fix a a major WordPress Plugin. This pleases me.
The shorter version is that there is a plugin out there that is causing issues related to featured images in posts. Actually, it was the lack of a featured image that was causing the issue. The fix is in the post linked up, if you are having the same issue, but I can answer any questions you might have in the comments!
My Default Plugin List
Theme switching with WordPress can be fun! Finding the right layout and features for your site, tweaking it just so until everything is exactly how you want it. From the ‘I should have known better’ files, here are a few things to remember to do when changing themes.
donburnside.com has run a custom theme for as long as I can remember. Custom themes mean that I never forgot to add the code for Google Analytics or Feedburner (for the RSS feed) auto-detect urls. After switching to an ‘off the shelf’ theme like I did over the weekend, those 2 bits fell through the cracks. Don’t let this happen to you!
You can add plugins for both of these if they are services that you use and should be added to the list of default plugins that you always install when setting up a new WordPress site. Setting up your quiver will save you from forgetting in the future. (Read on…)
WordPress Theme Try-Out: Twenty Twelve
The latest default theme for WordPress is Twenty Twelve. Being part of the 3.5 upgrade and available for download now. I thought I would give it a test drive here.
Normally I’d be using a theme that I have built. That is something I will be doing very soon. Very soon as in as soon as it’s ready. I have a test lab loaded up with it now and expect to roll it out before the end of the month.
Meanwhile, the old theme was acting funny, especially on mobile. As part of my “oh yea, I’m a WordPress Guy” program, I figure why not run the stock stuff for a bit. I’m already in the process of replacing my Tumblr with a WordPress.com blog, and everything else I do is WordPress based. I figured, why not!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Unless you aren’t in the US, then I hope your Thursday was fabulous.
WordPress + Amazon S3
Recently I’ve been tasked with management of a couple of WordPress websites that get more traffic than I’m used to dealing with. Quite a bit more in fact. So much so that they were causing the server they lived on to have memory issues, random reboots and other odd issues.
Step 1
In order to get the sites more stable, I started clearing out plug-ins. Starting by deleting the ones that were being used and actually deleting them off the server. Then removing plugins that weren’t really needed and replacing them with a WordPress function where possible.
Result: Not enough to stablize the server
Step 2
Looking at the logs, I found quite a bit of traffic to the WordPress comment system. These sites are running Disqus, so WordPress comments aren’t needed. Got rid of them. I also noticed quite a bit of traffic and strain on the servers coming from other sites, hotlinking to images, javascript files and content. Turned on hot-link protection for all but a few sites and blocked a few IPs.
Result: Better, but server still not 100% stable. (Read on…)
Hacked? Me?
For those of you that might have visited donburnside.com yesterday, you might have noticed a little something different. Different in as much as a redirect to some website that wasn’t english. Nothing bad as far as I could tell, just not here.
Turns out, this was completely avoidable and has been corrected. You see, I never bothered to stop using the default ‘admin’ user. My password was brute forced and the main index.php file was over written, and my themes index.php file was blanked out. Good thing I had backups.
So, let this be a lesson to you. Don’t use WordPress with the admin username. While I’m a little late to this party, better late than never.
