Site owners should always be aware of the possibility that their blog gets compromised. This can be because of an old version of Wordpress that is installed or because of vulnerabilities in plugins or themes. It is relatively time consuming to check for updates and stay up to date to make it unlikely that someone would be able to hack your blog.

The online security script Wordpress Scanner is a great tool which can be used to scan your Wordpress blog for several vulnerabilities such as outdated versions of Wordpress or single files and XSS vulnerabilities in themes. All you need to do is add the line in the header of your blog so that the Wordpress Scanner cgi script can access the information and knows that you are indeed the owner of the blog.

This tool is not perfect but it analyzes the versions of your Wordpress files which is probably the dominant attack vector when it comes to Wordpress hacking and basic XSS vulnerabilities in the themes. The tool gives advice if vulnerabilities have been found on how to fix them.

continue reading "Scan your Wordpress blog for vulnerabilities"

Yesterday I was looking for a way I could create some nice buttons for a website of mine. I needed people to pay attention to that button and make it stick out so that it would not be overlooked. Instead of downloading a utility for that purpose, I found a fine online button generator that let’s you create original buttons for your website or for other purposes as well. Of course it is possible to create buttons in Photoshop or similar programs but I bet it would take you much longer if you’re not a pro. And beyond that, not everyone can afford such programs.

This online service let’s you create shiny buttons to look just the way it’s “cool” now. Each part of the button is customizable, including the size, background, all colors and roundness of your unique piece. It’s good to set rendering speed to “zippy” for preview and “wicked slow” for the final rendering. At the end you simply download the result as a zip that includes jpg, png and gif files. When putting the button on a website it looks best along with a hover effect achieved by using CSS.

The example button on their site doesn’t show the best of this service in my opinion, for another example take a look at the button I’ve made for a friends website.

continue reading "Glassy buttons without touching Photoshop"

If you ever wondered how so many users are able to watch hundreds of videos that are published on Youtube on a daily basis you might want to consider using a service like SlapVid which offers previews of the daily top 25 videos at Youtube.

Every video is shown for roughly 10 seconds which means that you can preview all 25 videos in a little bit more than 4 minutes. If you happen to like a video you are able to load the complete one by simply clicking on the video.

Next to the overall top 25 videos it is also possible to view the so called featured section which has previews of ten new movies from categories like Gadgets & Games, Entertainment and Sports updated daily as well.

continue reading "Preview Daily Top 25 of Youtube with SlapVid"

I wrote an article about the software Rapget yesterday which could be used to queue downloads for files that are hosted on file hosting websites such as rapidshare or megaupload. Rapget had the problem, that the download from rapidshare for instance was not working if you did not have a premium account.

A user commented that he would recommend the Universal Share Downloader instead which would work much better than Rapget. I decided to give it a try and after fiddling around with the Russian homepage I was able to download and install the Universal Share Downloader which reminded me a lot of Rapget.

The application itself has an English interface with only a few icons left in Russian language. It works basically like Rapget, you add links manually to the application which in turn begins the download immediately or queues it when the maximum of downloads have already been started.

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I got several emails the last days asking me about tips on how to start a blog or improve an already established blog which in the end led to the post that I’m currently writing. I sometimes hear the argument that it does not make sense to start a blog because there are so many blogs out there that already cover all topics that one can write about.

While this is definitely not true for all topics you will face serious difficulties if you want to create just another gadget or technology blog unless you can provide something that the other blogs can’t. While it will probably not be worthwhile to just copy and paste what established sites like Gizmodo or Engadget write it could be worthwhile to write about the same topics from a different point of view.

This leads to the most important aspect of a successful blog in my opinion unless you want to create a auto blog that simply posts lots of topics a day by copying articles from other sites getting some visitors from search engines for a few months. You either need expertise, a great writing skill or other skills that distinguish your blog from hundreds of similar blogs that write about your topics.

continue reading "How to create a successful rewarding blog I"