The best wayt o get rid of this is by inserting a code snippet at the end of your main css file, normally called “styles.css”:

img#wpstats {
height:0;
width:0;
overflow:hidden;
}

The code above will reduce the image size to 0 and thus makes the smiley disappear. If something is still out of place in the immediate vicinity of the smiley, it is probably due to borders or spacing elements being applied to the image. Add these additional lines of codes between the “overflow:hidden;” and the closing curly bracket:

margin:0;
border: none;
padding:0;

DO NOT USE display:none to remove the smiley because that would prevent the statistics tracking from working because the image would not be loaded at all by the browser.

http://www.indesignstudioinfo.com/ls.php

http://zettapetta.com/js.php

http://holasionweb.com/oo.php

I gueesd this would be coming from a peculiar looking long base64 encoded string added to many of my php files… Upon searching more on the web I came accross an article by Sucuri which explains a bit about this attack:

“We are seeing multiple reports today of WordPress sites (running their latest version) getting compromised. The initial reports today were restricted only to Dreamhost, but now we are seeing the same pattern on blogs hosted at GoDaddy, Bluehost, Media temple and other places…
One thing very interesting that is becoming a trend is that the malware is also hiding from Google. This causes the site to do not get blacklisted, making it harder for the owner to notice….”

The encoded string is decoded here…  http://sucuri.net/malware/entry/MW:MROBH:1

The main issue now is to remove this particular javascript in all the php files, and how can i remove them in a single go… Sucuri has a solution for that too.. Have a look here..

Whilst the most recent minor update to the blogging software was primarily concerned with plugging security vulnerabilities, this major release includes a number of major new features. These include a global undo function, meaning that accidentally deleted posts or comments can now be restored.

WordPress 2.9 also includes a new built-in image editor, providing basic functions such as rotation, cropping and resizing. Video embedding has also been simplified. In WordPress 2.9, it’s possible to simply paste the URL for an embedded video in a separate line, with coding being taken of automatically.

If you are interested in learning about what is new in WordPress 2.9, there is a great write up posted on Quick Online Tips which you can view here.  The post features the following new features:

1. Thrash It
2. Image Editor
3. Batch Plugin Update
4. Easier Video Embeds
5. Database Optimization Support

1. Lets say i want to forward it to twitter.. Create a file lets call it re-twitter.php with the text below and save it to your theme folder (/public_html/wp-content/themes/<yourtheme>/re-twitter.php)

   <?php
   /*
   Template Name: Redirect Twitter
   */
   
   header('Location: http://twitter.com/itsAnimesh');
   die();
   ?>

   If you plan on making more redirects the file name starting in redirect will ensure they all stay together.

2. Create the page, and choose the ‘Template Name’ Twitter Redirect.
3. Save, done, test, done.

NOTE : If you change your theme you’ll have to move the redirect page templates…

I know there are plug-ins for this but i like this way better than using plug-ins or playing around with .htaccess.

The first problem is an XSS vulnerability in Press This discovered by Benjamin Flesch.  The second problem, discovered by Dawid Golunski, is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations.

If you blog has untrusted authors, then upgrading to 2.8.6 (download) is recommended or you could just upgrade automatically through your blog’s WordPress Dashboard.

This WordPress update does not require an update of the WordPress database. It is however recommended to perform a backup of both the WordPress files on the web server and the MySQL database to be prepared if the update should fail for any reason.

Lets focus on the steps required to to set up your company blog.

1. One should use a simple domain name for there company blog ( for example if your company site is companyabc.com then use a sub-domain for a blog like blog.companyabc.com or use companyabc.com/blog ). The blog should be the integral part of your brand or website.

2. You should choose your blogging application carefully to suite your company needs or make a personal blogging application. Though i would personally recommend using WordPress. If you want to proved employees with individual blogs then i recommend using WordPress MU.

3. Make sure that the design of your blog is similar to your website design. This maintains continuity of your brand, and makes the blog easily recognizable. It also ensures the blog becomes a key part of your website (which should be the case ).

4. Offer email and RSS subscriptions.

The content is also an important part of the company blog. The best company blogs will always publish a combination of posts, blending them in naturally with eachother. A great example is Signal vs. Noise from 37Signals. A more recent example of a killer company blog is the official Google Blog. The rules of good copywriting and blogging still apply no matter what you publish, but the diversity of content will help.

Honestly and seriously, i’m kind of disappointed with WordPress MU, it’s not because of the features, WordPress MU has all the features that a blogging software need to have.

But the thing i’m disappointed about WordPress MU is because it’s too rely on the administrator’s server skills. If you are going to host WordPress MU, you need to have a lot of control over your server, and know your server very well, for example if you want subdomain for all your users, then you have to enable Wildcard DNS, to do this you have to gain access to alter the httpd.conf.

I really hope that there will be a workaround for this, or better solution in the future release, to me WordPress is the best piece of software for blogging purpose, and i hope that i can share the best part of WordPress together with my friends and my family. But for now, one thing for sure is that WordPress MU aren’t meant for those who want to manage a small size multiuser blogging service just for the sake of having fun with it.

For this tutorial, I’m going to be showing you how to install LAMP on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), but the process is very similar for other Linux distributions too.

All the stuff you need is pre-loaded into Ubuntu’s software repositories, and it’s really simple to install everything you need. If you’re doing a new install, you may want to take a look at the server edition of Ubuntu as it allows for a pre-configured profile that you can pick at install time.

You need to install the following packages:

• apache2
• php5-mysql
• libapache2-mod-php5
• mysql-server

Apache

Install Apache

Testing HTTP Server by open a web browser and enter http://localhost

PHP

Install PHP5

Stop/Restart Apache

Test the installation

Insert this following line into testphp.php file.

Save this new file.
Open a web browser and enter http://localhost/testphp.php
Be sure to remove the file afterwards, as it may pose a security risk.

MySQL

Install MySQL Server

MySQL initially only allows connections from the localhost (127.0.0.1). We’ll need to remove that restriction if you wish to make it accessible to everyone on the internet. Open the file /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Find the line bind-address = 127.0.0.1 and comment it out then save the file.
MySQL comes with no root password as default. This is a huge security risk. You’ll need to set one. So that the local computer gets root access as well, you’ll need to set a password for that too. The local-machine-name is the name of the computer you’re working on.

MySQL Administrator

Install MySQL Administrator

Refresh Gnome Panel

Run MySQL Administrator
Applications -> System Tools -> MySQL Administrator

MySQL for Apache HTTP Server

To get PHP to work with MySQL, open the php.ini file

You’ll need to uncomment the “;extension=mysql.so” line so that it looks like this

Restart Apache

That’s pretty much all the configuration you need to do, so you can now grab any web applications you want and install them.

Cheers

The free blog was animeshkmr.wordpress.com.

Initially i had bought a domain (itsanimesh.com) and had mapped it to my original wordpress blog. I searched a lot to find the best place to host my blog and i ended up buying hosting from the same place i bought my domain from Godaddy. The reason i used Godaddy was that installing wordpress on godadday can be done by just a single click. This makes your move extremely easy. I also found that they were the cheapest hosting company. The blog does not take up a lot of room so I’m starting of with the Economy Plan.It is $3.99 for 2 months or if you want a 12 month plan it is $3.79. I purchased the plan for 36 months and it was only $3.39 a month. The reason I purchased so long was:
1. the discount.
2. If I decide in a year to move to another hosting company, I will be refunded for the time that I have not used.
As time goes by, if I need more space I can upgrade but the Economy plan has plenty of available space! I already owned my domain, but if you purchase the hosting plan through godaddy, your domain purchase will only be US$1.99 at the time you buy the hosting plan. This is so much cheaper than any other place I have found.

All you need to do after buying hosting is install wordpress, which can be done by a single click and export your wordpress.com data and import it on your new wrodpress blog. It’s really easy and the total time it took me was around two hours. I really recommend people that can opt for paid hosting should definitely do it. When you start using wordpress.org then you realise how limited wordpress.com really is.
Cheers