Haven’t posted a blog update in more than a year and I only realized that earlier today when I came across my last blog update. Blog updates are my way of keeping tabs on the stuff (changes/improvements) that I do here on JaypeeOnline, especially on the backend side of the system. At the same time, it is also a way to share with readers/visitors the different plugins that I use that they might find useful on their own blogs.

First major update that I’ve done recently is upgrading from WordPress 3.2.1 to WordPress 3.3.2. Another thing I’ve recently done was to cleaning up my blog theme’s code and taking out some unnecessary and obsolete pieces of code that add up to the total file size and page load time. I’ve also taken out the Alexa traffic widget and replaced the Networked Blogs widget with the Facebook Social Plugin.

Below are the different WordPress plugins that I’ve uninstalled and installed in the past few months:

Uninstalled Plugins

• Fluency Admin – WordPress admin dashboard theme. Changes in the admin dashboard design/layout in version 3.3, has made this plugin obsolete.
• Wibiya Toolbar – official Wibiya Toolbar plugin that integrates different social networking features, apps, widgets and other tools.
• WP SyntaxHighlighter – code syntax highlighter.

I’ve had the Fluency Admin plugin/theme for several years and it has been one of the most useful plugins I’ve had but I had to uninstall it because I no longer need it and it creates a “conflict” with the new WordPress admin dashboard user interface. If you’ve been following my blog updates you’ll know about my love-hate relationship with the Wibiya Toolbar. Although it does provide some benefits, I’ve decided to uninstall it to lessen the number of scripts running on the blog in an effort to lessen the page load time. Uninstalled the WP SyntaxHighlighter because for some reason it no longer works. I’ve edited and tweaked the pre and code tags stylesheet to make up for it.

Installed Plugins

• Comment Info Detector – plugin that detects and displays the commenter’s country, web browser and operating system.
• nRelate Flyout – plugin that displays a flyout of related posts on the side of the blog.
• TimThumb Vulnerability Scanner – plugin that keeps TimThumb installations up-to-ate and free from vulnerabilities. Also checks for signs of compromised sites.
• WP Security Scan – plugin that performs security scan of WordPress installation.

Reinstalled the Comment Info Detector plugin so I could get more information about my blog readers/commenters (country, browser, operating system). I installed the nRelate Flyout plugin to provide readers/visitors a way to find other relevant and related posts that they might be interested in and to help reduce the bounce rate. In the past, I only activated the WP Security Scan plugin whenever I wanted to perform a scan. Now I keep the plugin activated at all times.

So there you go. Those are the different changes and improvements that I’ve done here in the past few months. If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions to make this blog better, please don’t hesitate to share it via the comments section below or via the contact page.

With the popularity of WordPress (72 million+ WordPress-powered sites) its not a surprise to see the increasing number or instances of attacks on blogs and websites running the software. The attacks are not only focused on the bugs and flaws of the software but also target the individuals using WordPress through malware-laced themes and plugins. Another thing to note is that the attacks are becoming not only more intense but also more creative.

Just found out today via WP Tavern that a new phishing scam is targeting WordPress plugin authors. Details about this new phishing scam was posted yesterday by a WordPress.org support forum moderator.

• Sender : “WordPress.org“.
• Address : “wordpressplugin[at]hotmail[dot]com“.
• Subject : “[WordPress.org Plugins] Urgent: Your Plugin Has Been Removed DO NOT RESPOND“.
• Message :
  

  Dear WordPress Plugin Developer,

  Unfortunately, a plugin you are hosting has been temporarily removed from the WordPress repository. We are going to manually review your plugin because it has been reported for violating our Terms of Service. If your plugin does not get approved then it will be permanently removed from the WordPress repository.

  You can check if your plugin has been approved or rejected at

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/my-plugins-status/

If you’re a WordPress plugin author and you receive an email similar to this, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK! If you accidentally clicked on the link and got to the fake WordPress.org site, DO NOT ENTER YOUR ACCOUNT DETAILS!

This is not an official WordPress email. If in case your plugin has actually been removed, the real email notification from the WordPress repository would come from a WordPress.org account.

Any WordPress plugin authors here who received this phishing scam email?

We have Linux today, thanks to a Swedish software engineer named Linus Torvalds. Most Linux users already know this but for the sake of those who don’t, it was first released twenty years ago, on August 25, 1991. It was on that day that Linus Torvalds shared the operating system he was working on as a hobby for Minix (a UNIX Operating System) users on the UseNet newsgroup ‘comp.os.minix‘ and as the saying goes – the rest is history.

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

—Linus Torvalds

To celebrate this milestone, the Linux Foundation has created and released this infographic that shows how Linux has developed and spread through the years.

Thank you Linus Torvalds and Belated Happy 20th Birthday Linux!

[via AJ Batac/OMG Ubuntu]

Wow, time flies so fast! I never realized ’til a few days ago that I haven’t published a blog update for more than a year already. My last blog update was done on November 2009. For those who are new here and aren’t familiar with my blog updates, these posts are done not only to share with the readers the plugins/tools I use and site improvements/changes, but it also serves as a “note” for myself so I have a record of the stuff that I’ve installed/uninstalled and the changes I’ve made to the site.

Below are the plugins and other stuff that I’ve installed/uninstalled, added/removed or changed since my last update.

Uninstalled Plugins

• Comment Info Detector – plugin that detects and displays the commenter’s country, web browser and operating system.
• CommentLuv – plugin that displays the commenter’s latest blog post based on their RSS feed.
• Wibiya Toolbar – official Wibiya Toolbar plugin that integrates different social networking features, apps, widgets and other tools.

These plugins all work fine and are pretty nifty plugins but the reason I uninstalled all three plugins was to cut down the “fat” on this blog. I’m working on lessening the resources used on the server and lessening page load times. Less plugins = less resources used. Although they provided neat features, the blog could run without them.

Installed Plugins

• Dashboard Notepad – plugin that adds a simple notepad widget within the WordPress dashboard. You can read the review I made for this plugin here.
• PubSubHubbub – plugin that enables a blog to let other parties know in real-time when there are new updates.
• W3 Total Cache – performance optimization (caching) plugin that improves server performance, improves page load times and user experience.

Installed the Dashboard Notepad plugin so I could write down notes (drafts, to-do lists, etc.) on my WordPress dashboard. I installed PubSubHubbub to enable real-time updates to Google Reader, FriendFeed, etc. Last time, I was using WP Super Cache and then I came across the W3 Total Cache plugin. Tried it and never looked back as it provided more features, did the job better (page load times were better with W3TC than WP Super Cache) and it was compatible with other plugins I used.

Other Changes

• Reinvigorate – I previously had a premium account on Reinvigorate which cost $5/month (stats and analytics service). I love Reinvigorate and have been using it the past few years but I decided to cancel the premium account and just rely on Google Analytics to cut down on my expenses. I still recommend them and you can get a free account if your monthly traffic is less than 100,000.
• Infolinks – added Infolinks, an in-text advertising program as an additional revenue source. Those are the red, double underlined links found throughout the site. Btw, I’d like to know from the regular readers if the Infolinks ads bother you or not. Thanks!
• CDN – If you might’ve noticed, the posts, pages and the site as a whole loads faster. That’s because aside from using the W3 Total Cache plugin, JaypeeOnline has been using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) the past few months. I’ll publish a more detailed post about this soon.

If any of you guys have comments, feedback or suggestions to make JaypeeOnline better, please don’t hesitate to share it with me via the comments section or if you want to remain anonymous, you can send me a message via the contact page. Thank you and have a nice day!

Here are some screenshots of the JaypeeOnline Nokia Ovi app.

Screenshots:

The JaypeeOnline Ovi app is now available to download for FREE from the Ovi Store. Now you can receive the latest updates right on your Nokia mobile device with this custom app. For those of you who’ve tried the app, I’d like to hear if you have any suggestions or feedback regarding the app.

Thanks to Macy Miranda of Nokia Ovi for creating the app and my blogging friend Jhay Gamba for taking the time to install the app and making the screenshots.