I've got a substantial update to Redirection just about finished off and ready for release. Rather than dropping this out and running the risk of upsetting a lot of websites, I've decided to try a private beta-test to iron out any final problems.
The new version gives much better management of redirections and error logging, and adds very powerful support for native Apache .htaccess files (i.e. you can use Redirection to edit .htaccess). If this sounds like something you want to help out with then drop me a line. The only requirement for this is that you are familiar with backing up and restoring your site database, or that you have a test WordPress site. The biggest help will be from people who are already using Redirection and have data to import into the new version.
Thanks in advance for any help!
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I upgraded to WordPress 2.3 over the weekend and other than a few bumps it seemed to go relatively smoothly. The bumps were very curious and coupled with a melt-down of the server resulted in the site being out of action for a few hours. Eventually everything magically resolved itself, so I'm going to chalk it down to just 'one of those things'.
One of the new features in WordPress 2.3 is tags, and I'm very happy with the way that they've been integrated. The developers have chosen a softly-softly approach, leaving the door open for others to take it further (as detailed by boren.nu). Being one of these others I've updated my HeadSpace plugin to make full use of the new 2.3 tagging facilities. HeadSpace takes the default tags further, adding many extra features, which I've decided to demonstrate in a short video.
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This is a biggie so I'll try and not write too much. HeadSpace is now running at version 3.2 and has had a thorough overhaul and feature boost that is designed to push it past other meta-data plugins. This includes:
- Modularization - everything is now a module and can be enabled or disabled and re-ordered. You can decide exactly what meta-data you are interested in and how it should look
- Site modules that affect the whole site and add Google Analytics, Mint, StatCounter, Crazy Egg, and more
- Much better tagging, with a smart auto-suggestion that matches similar words
- New modules for custom 'more tags' and no-index capability
- Mass-editing mode that allows you to edit all your meta-data from one page
- Importers - now you can easily import data from other meta-data plugins directly into HeadSpace. This includes UTW, SEO Title Tags, and All-in-one SEO
Phew!
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I've started a series of WordPress guides which I've titled 'Inside WordPress'. My aim with these is to explain different aspects of WordPress from a practical point of view. That is, they will be focussed on showing you how to do things rather than telling you what to do. I've already made a start with several guides explaining some of the more simpler aspects of WordPress, as well as some going a little further. The guides will not always be aimed at beginners and, if there is enough interest, I already have plans to dig deep inside the belly of the beast.
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In an effort to remove all invalid links and redirections from my site I've been paying very close attention to my access logs. Courtesy of the list that Redirection maintains I've noticed that my site has been under a prolonged attack.
No, there's no panic just yet, and so far this is not something I'm worried about. The attacks appear to be part of a general 'find any weakness in any website' method, rather than a specific and directed attack.
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A new design! I decided I needed a new and fresh look and the result is the still-in-progress 'Guangzhou' theme. My hope is that it's both easier to navigate, as well as being lighter and more suitable for future work. Comments, as always, are welcomed.
In conjunction with the new theme I've made use of WP-Cache and Gravatar cache, which should result in a noticeable speed improvement. The site itself has undergone a good clean, with all invalid code being replaced, all dead-links now corrected, and the addition of new sections for software, articles, and about myself.
On top of that I've added a new plugin: HTML Purified. This plugin changes the default comment filter and replaces it with HTML Purifier, a very exhaustive library that checks, validates, and corrects HTML. Not that WordPress is insecure by default, but this just beefs it up a notch, and ensures that comments are both safe and XHTML valid.
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An update on two of my WordPress plugins: HeadSpace is now standing at version 3, and Filled In at version 1.6. Both have had extensive changes. HeadSpace now allows you to define meta data across all WordPress pages, as well as supporting Ecto. Filled In is a very powerful form management system that has had a major revamp and is now much more capable and even has the ability to add CAPTCHA images to forms.
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An attempt to give my website a bit of spring cleaning has resulted in several new WordPress plugins.
The first is Tidy Up, which adds the ability to run HTML Tidy through all your posts and comments and produce a report on the quality of your HTML. If you're feeling brave you can also have the plugin automatically fix any problems.
Next is Search Regex. As the name would suggest, this is a search and replace plugin. It allows you to search and replace phrases inside posts, pages, comments, and meta-data. In addition to plain text searches, you can also use full PHP regular expressions. This makes it very easy to bulk-modify a WordPress installation, should you decide to move directories. Several other similar plugins exist, but I couldn't find one that provided the regular expression capability that I needed.
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There's a revamp of an old plugin over at HeadSpace 2, and a new (not foolproof) Anti-Email Spam plugin.
HeadSpace 2 cleans up my oldest plugin, and gives it a nice administrative interface along with several nice new features. The Anti-Email spam plugin was some code that I developed for client that I thought might make a handy plugin for some people. It replaces any email addresses in a post with an encoded version that should fool spam harvesting software.
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Four months into the new year and a total of 2 posts. Not so good. I was working on a new version of my Giraffe theme that would allow all the page elements to be dragged around the screen, but it was taking too long and I just didn't have time to finish it. Instead, I cleaned up what I already had, made it WordPress 2.0 compatible, and dropped in a few new features. Now presenting Giraffe2 - the slightly wonky edition.
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