WordPress Pro Plugin Directory
-I just wanted to make a quick mention of this promising new directory for pro / paid WordPress plugins: the Pro Plugin Directory.
Finding free WordPress plugins is a no-brainer … the official WordPress plugins repository contains thousands of free plugins with reviews, ratings and all sorts of useful information to help you make an informed choice. Of course, you can also search the repository from within your WordPress Admin. It works very well and is one of the best things about WordPress — easy discovery, installation and support for free WordPress plugins. … continues
PHP 5.6 is coming
-We are in the later stages of testing PHP 5.6 for use on our multi-tenant Managed WordPress servers. Currently these servers run PHP 5.4.
WordPress is known to work well with PHP 5.6, and very few plugins report incompatibility with 5.6, so the upgrade process should cause very few — if any — problems.
PHP 5.6 does bring with it some exciting new features. Not least among them: speed improvements, largely thanks to the built-in Opcode cache. When upgraded to PHP 5.6, our Managed WordPress customers can expect a small-to-medium speed boost when using the WP Admin and other PHP intensive pages.
Cloud VPS server customers can rest easy you’re already running PHP5.5 or 5.6, both of which include the Opcode cache.
We’re still a good few weeks away from rolling this out to all users but it is on the way!
If you have any questions about running WordPress with PHP 5.6, please just get in touch.
WordPress 4.2 Update Progress
-Most of our hosting customers have now been updated to the latest WordPress version: 4.2.1.
Those remaining on v4.1.1 are mostly WooCommerce sites, as we are still completing testing with this plugin and it’s many extensions.
We recommend that WooCommerce users remain on v4.1.4 until we have finished testing WordPress 4.2.x with WooCommerce. The reason for this is to do with taxonomy term splitting in WordPress 4.2+. … continues
WordPress Security Issues — This Is Good!
-It’s been another busy week for WordPress security — first a large number of very popular plugins were found to be vulnerable to XSS (Cross-site Scripting) attacks due to improper use of a couple of commonly used functions. Then, an important security update for the WordPress core, version 4.1.2 was released. Plugin and theme authors the world over are no doubt still busily checking their code and updates to various plugins and themes are still rolling out as I write this post (though most have already been fixed and updated a couple of days ago).
Many WordPress users are probably wondering … why are there so many security patches coming out for WordPress? Is WordPress a safe platform for my website? … continues
Managed Cloud VPS servers now available
-We’re thrilled to announce that our Managed Cloud VPS server products are now officially available.
We have been offering this service to a few select customers for a while now, and we have been carefully testing and monitoring the platform to ensure that it’s stable and fast. We’re pleased to say that it is now rock-solid — and thanks to SSD RAID drives — it’s crazy fast!
Starting at only NZD$199 per month you can get yourself a fully managed Cloud VPS server, powered by 64-bit Ubuntu Linux. We install a custom designed hosting stack, featuring Nginx with SPDY and PHP-FPM. You can choose to run either PHP 5.4, 5.5 or the latest and greatest: 5.6. … continues
WordPress 4.2 coming soon
-A shiny new version of WordPress is not far away … WordPress 4.2 should be available within the next few weeks.
What’s new in WordPress 4.2
- Faster Plugin Installation and Updates
- Switch Themes in the WP Admin Customizer
- New and Improved Emoji Support
- Under the Hood
- Minor updates to the WP Admin theme
- Shared taxonomy terms get split *
- Improved accessibility for the WP Admin
For full details of all the changes in WordPress 4.2, read the official blog posts. … continues
FREAK Attack — WP NET is secure
-I’ve posted about this on our Announcements page, but thought I’d mention it here too — all WP NET servers have been patched and tested as safe from the FREAK Attack SSL/TLS bug. We actually installed patches and tested a good couple of weeks ago, so we’ve been secure for sometime now.
The FREAK Attack affects browsers as well, so you should test all the web browsers you use.
Knowledge is key to WordPress security
-An article recently published on ZDNet suggests that much of WordPress’s security woes are due to lack of knowledge on the part of the administrator. Security — an area that is often overlooked or left out of the budget altogether — if left unchecked, can make your website an easy target.
Frequently, if a handful of straightforward, proven security hardening measures had been completed, many sites would not have fallen prey to their attackers. … continues
Run WordPress on your Windows desktop with Instant WordPress
-When building a new WordPress website, it is best practice to do so on a development server (such as your local desktop machine), rather than on a live web server. For seasoned developers there are numerous tools, plugins and scripts to employ for building, deploying and testing WordPress installations — but for the less technically savvy it can be a bit tricky.
There are a few reasons why developing on a local server is best, which we’ll briefly cover. … continues
Reduce risk with managed hosting, says ZDNet
-An interesting article was recently published on ZDNet, highlighting the increasing risks associated with unmanaged WordPress hosting.
In particular, the recent vulnerability discovered in the ubiquitous Slider Revolution plugin (and the subsequent controversy about the management of it’s disclosure and patching) has raised important questions regarding WordPress management and security.
At what technical level, is it accepted that a website owner has the necessary know-how to secure a website, protect it against attacks and detect when problems occur? As WordPress becomes ever more popular around the world — so too does the need for focus on security, performance and scalability.
… security is an even bigger imperative. Many WordPress sites belong to people who don’t know jack about computers, let alone web site administration. These users are much better off with a WordPress environment in which their options are limited, but their safety protected.
In 2015, it will be more important than ever to ensure that your WordPress installations are secure and up to date.
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