Stay Secure - Website Services for Small Businesses

WordPress Security in Laymens Terms

June 12, 2012

Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar to you? If so, I think we can eliminate the fear and maybe even the entire spectacle! "1. My readers have let me know that when they click on linkhere.com they get a message saying I have a virus. What can I do?" "2. [I've sent them a notice that our monitoring partner has alerted us to a problem and we're dealing with it.] What's wrong? Does this mean I have a virus?!?!" "3. Google has blasted my site with the big red warning screen - I'm panicking!! What do I do?" "4. How can this happen!?!?" WordPress Security vs. The Bad … [Read more...]

6 Comments Blog, Blog Maintenance, Stay Secure, WordPress Basics

Warning – an Ad scam targeting WordPress bloggers

December 27, 2011

Hello dear WordPress bloggers, We've become aware of a scam involving an 'advertising agency' that wants to put banner ads on your site. Here's how it works: You are sent a nice email, personalized from a real person, with phone number. The site looks legit (not very nice, but legit). Once 'approved', you are sent a login to their site. You download the plugin, "adv.zip" and upload to your site. You can then place banner ads on your site. From our research it has gone by the following names so … [Read more...]

21 Comments Blog, Featured, Stay Secure

How to Remove SPAM in WordPress

November 4, 2011

How to spare your innocent eyes the onslaught of spam. Dealing with comment and form spam in WordPress and other sites, is a daily task for most of us. But I find that the spammers are getting smarter and sneakier and I want to protect YOU from THEM. Here's the why and how to stop spam in WordPress, specifically. Spam Devalues your Site When you are searching out the legitimacy of a site, what do you do? I have a quick look for content that makes sense, I look for ridiculous over-use of keywords and nonsensical links. If I find a lot of spam comments, or completely un-moderated … [Read more...]

4 Comments Blog, Blog Maintenance, Featured, Search Engine Optimization, Stay Secure, WordPress Basics

Easy Directions for WordPress Backups

October 25, 2011

You already know that WordPress backups are essential. Now let's talk the WordPress backups schedule, where to store them, and exactly how to do it in non-geeky terms. WordPress Backup Schedule You need to backup WordPress as often as it takes to not loose too much data. We recommend the following schedule based on the frequency of your new content. If you post content: 12 + times per day, backup WordPress database every 3 hours 1+ times per day, backup WordPress database once a day 2-3 times per week, backup WordPress database once a week Always backup the files (as … [Read more...]

4 Comments Blog, Blog Maintenance, Featured, How To, Stay Secure, WordPress Basics

Predators and webcams: how to keep your kids safe

September 3, 2009

Technology is an amazing thing. Computers these days can do everything but serve you coffee (I still have hope though). Unfortunately, any place or thing that attracts the attention of this many kids, is also attractive to child predators. And even moreso than the playground, the predator doesn't need to have the courage to leave their own house and they certainly don't have to look very long to find hordes of kids online. It is a fact that unsavory types will try to reach your child, or your child's friends through your computer. As ridiculous as it sounds, we have 3 computers in our home - … [Read more...]

1 Comments How To, Stay Secure

Are you a control freak?

July 29, 2008

I do quite a few installations for Wordpress.com blogs and often times, I've noticed that they pay for both domain mapping and the custom CSS ability. That amount adds up to $30 a year (roughly) and for that they can basically make it LOOK like their site is on it's own domain and modify the look of thier blog. What I don't understand is WHY they would choose this platform and pay $30 a year when they could spend the same amount and have a self-hosted WordPress blog? For me, it doesn't make sense. The backend of Wordpress is the same whether you're on self-hosted or Wordpress.com, so it's … [Read more...]