About two weeks ago, Google jumped into the browser war by launching a beta version of Chrome which created a buzz in the IT world. The big question is whether or not Chrome offers enough to attrach people to switch from other browsers, such as Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox. Fortunately Google’s streamlined and speedy browser offers an intriguing alternative to Firefox and Internet Explorer.

CrossOver Chromium

Google plans to expand its Chrome offerings to the Mac and Linux platforms.

If you’d like to try Google Chrome on a Mac, there is no need for Boot Camp etc. The guys over at CodeWeavers (producers of the awesome CrossOver for Mac program that lets you run some Windows apps on your Intel Mac) have ported Chrome for Mac as well as for Linux recently.

CrossOver Chromium is a Mac and Linux port of the open source Chromium web browser , the freely available source behind Chrome.

CrossOver Chromium requires OS X 10.4 or higher and an Intel CPU, PowerPC Macs are NOT supported. Additionally, CrossOver for Chrome is absolutely not suitable for using as day to day browser; CrossOver just produced it as a proof of concept of their capabilities.

Sooner or later Google will launch Chrome; CrossOver Chromium is just something to try out Chrome goodness. So if you feel like checking out Chrome before Google release Mac or Linux version CrossOver Chromium is your answer.

A recent hack of our blog made me realise that blogs based on older versions of WordPress are at great security risk. I said “older version”, because the company’s developers are making security fixes as soon as they’re found. WordPress Trac is where bugs are reported and tracked.

By releasing immediate security fixes they honour their end of the deal, but do we by upgrading our WordPress accordingly? I have to say, the majority of us don’t. Apart from upgrading WordPress, there are other server related issues which may look simple, but can be your saviour or doorway to destruction.

Exploits are inevitable; you will come across them every now and then. Exploits are an unavoidable by-product of major projects; they are part of the bargain: you fix them and move on. Here is what can be done to stay safe

• Subscribe to WordPress development blog . That should keep you alert of the latest security patches and versions. Don’t just read it act on it too. So, upgrade accordingly. Upgrading might force you to take down your blog/site temporarily for few hours, but it’s still better than your server being brought down for forever, right?
• Not only do you have to upgrade WordPress, keep an eye on your plugins. I had experienced persistent XSS Vulnerability (Plugin responsible-wp-feedstats 2.4) and SQL Injection Vulnerability (Plugin responsible- WP-Stats 2.01), fortunately these were taken care of.
• Stop anonymous comments and trackbacks, why? There’s history of WordPress Trackback Charset SQL Injection Issue and other Non-WP related spam flood.
• Check your server files and folder permission accordingly. Especially Config.php file, which is an open text based file in a Web accessible directory. Not only is it Web accessible, but it contains the login and password for your blog’s database. No need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what will happen if someone naughty can get access to that.
• Directories should have permissions of 755. NEVER 777. All files should have permissions of 644. If you do want to use the built-in editor; theme files should have permissions of 666. NEVER 777. Do not use any plugin that needs to write anything to the server. No matter how drastic it sounds, trust me it will save your ass.
• Last but not the least, if you are building your own theme/or asked someone to do that for you, please do try to consult/check for latest PHP security holes or common security flaws before using that as template.

All of the above do’s and don’ts are common sense, but unfortunately we get lazy and tend to ignore most of them. Learn from my mistakes.

I picked this up last night from BBC Technology. Naturally the entire world is going virtual more and more each day, but we never thought that every device connected to the internet would require an IP (Internet Protocol). Naturally, there isn’t an infinite number of IP addresses. The horror of running out of IP address would be nasty in this virtual Century.

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Though it’s more than obvious, but for the sake of introduction I have to mention-Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system introduced on late April, 2007 by Microsoft as the upgrade of its predecessor Windows 2000 server. If you had experienced difficulties on earlier versions of Microsoft’s servers, this is what you have been waiting for. Windows 2003 server is way different than any of its predecessors, a lot more user-friendly.

Windows Server 2003 simplifies branch server management, improves identity and access management, reduces storage management costs, provides a rich Web platform, did I mentioned cost-effective server virtualization as well? The latest version of Windows 2003 is R2, i.e. service pack 2 (SP2), contains some major fixes that the original release candidate was missing.

But off course before everything else, you need to know the hardware requirements windows 2003 server demands, and I have to admit it is a lot higher than any of its class. Requirements vary from edition to edition (Standard, enterprise, datacentre & web edition [no R2]); for the sake of simplicity I will limit my discussion within R2 Enterprise Edition. So here we go-

Minimum requirements:
Processor- 133 MHZ minimum (maximum 8 processor, but for the multiple processor you better use something higher than Pentium II).
RAM- 128 MB (maximum 64GB for x86 type and 2TB for x64 type machine).
HDD- 3GB considering you are installing using a CD/DVD, but for network installation less than half of it is cool.

That’s about it, apart from some obvious requirements like CD/DVD drive (unless you are installing from a network location), VGA with console redirection capabilities (now a day’s all of them do, don’t they!) And finally for heaven’s sake remember that 64-bit version is compatible only with 64-bit Intel Itanium-based systems and cannot install on 32-bit systems.

Installation:
Installation of Windows 2003 is easy as pie with a little guidance (know-how-to) and a bit of common sense:). Detailed planning can make your installation of Windows Server 2003 more efficient by helping you to avoid potential problems during installation. An understanding of the configuration options will also help to ensure that you have accurately configured your system. Before installation you should check whether your system meets the minimum requirements, Check Hardware and Software Compatibility, proper file system (FAT 32 or NTFS), and Workgroup or Domain stuffs.

The installation is pretty much straight forward just like any other windows operating system, but since it’s a server operating system there will be few obvious different setup screens that you may have never seen before (or maybe you have seen). Your first concern will be, the partition of hard drive you will install Windows 2003; it must be a NTFS file system.

If you select a new partition during Setup, create and size only the partition on which you will install Windows Server 2003. After installation, use Disk Management to partition the remaining space on the hard disk. Note that Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, and Windows NT are the only Microsoft operating systems that you can use to gain access to data on a local hard disk that is formatted with NTFS. If you plan to gain access to files that are on a local Windows Server 2003 partition with the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating systems, you should format the partition with a FAT or FAT32 file system.

At the middle of the installation (after the first reboot) you will be asked to provide a product key, the appropriate license type and number of purchased licenses. Needless to mention you have to choose exactly what you paid have for:).

At the far most end of the installation another section you should put some attention is “Network settings” area. For easier installation you can just choose typical settings and change it later (which ultimately you have to do, you know it!) or configure as you go by choosing custom settings. Then after few minutes your system should reboot again and you’r finished installing the Windows 2003 server. Its way easier than it sounds, the tricky parts are adding different roles to your server and configuring them properly, which I will cover some other day step by step.

It doesn’t matter if you are living in communist China, Castro’s Cuba or democratic United Kingdom, but on the net democracy rule. In todays virtual world user opinions fuels everything. Well, that’s where web 2.0 era start isn’t it?

A Poll is one of the oldest methods of collecting user opinions. An online poll is just the next generation of that. Most sites/blogs have a contact us section to reach the webmaster but we couldn’t rely on that to gather user opinions on a specific topic or subject.

To gather extensive user opinions we can conduct a survey but for a quick on-the-spot opinion we use a poll.There are several plug-in systems out there that let you add quick poll in your blog/website but what’s the use of a poll if a large portion of users cannot access them?

Today we will look at a few poll plug-ins and check out which is best for usability and accessibility. Our discussion will be limited to only WordPress plug-ins that can be used in WP blog/sites.

Poll Daddy

A widely popular hosted poll management solution. Creating poll is as easy as pie, just as simple as type in the question and answer. Poll Daddy offers variety of customisations like multiple choice, multiple votes, user’s answer, randomized answer, closing date etc. You also will have the ability to create poll that will be displayed in poll daddy site as well.

Poll daddy offers you 14 XHTML 1.0 compliant styled widgets which you can embed in your site or blog by way of JavaScript or Flash code snippets provided by them. You can also provide your user direct link to the poll where your user will vote directly in Poll Daddy site.

Poll daddy also allows you to create your widget style and offers RSS feeds for every poll you create. All in all so far sounds cool, doesn’t it? Well don’t get too high on that, here are some usability and accessibility issues that you should consider.

First the JavaScript, if the user has JavaScript disabled they won’t get the poll, they may even get warning message from their firewall application. That isn’t cool, because a lot of users set their firewall to block third part JavaScript and Cookies.

Second the Flash code snippet; it might be one of the rising elements of RIA (RICH Internet Application), but it has yet to fully support screen readers. So as you can see you are missing a huge potential portion of users who might be interested in your site/blog.

Democracy Ajax Poll

This nice little plug-in for WordPress does exactly what its name implies. A simple two step installation, you can even use it as a permanent sidebar element (additional tweaking required) to display an ongoing poll. Poll management is simple through WordPress admin panel. After initial configaration further CSS customization can be done to shape up the looks of the poll.

Just like other AJAX based applications this does have its accessibility issues. Another drawback of this plug-in is, occasionally it generates invalid code.

Democracy Ajax Poll is a great plug-in but only good for small scale polls with the obvious drawbacks.

WP-Polls

WP-Polls is probably the most widely used WordPress poll plug-in . Why? well, it gives you tons of customisation option which all validate to W3C. This cool plug-in adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can easily include a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page. WP-Polls is extremely customisable via templates and CSS styles and there are tons of options for you to choose to ensure that WP-Polls runs the way you like.

Setting up WP-Polls is easy as two clicks. Poll management is so easy (via the WordPress admin control panel) that you can create the most basic poll to a complex poll on the fly.

You can create and maintain multiple polls simultaneously as well as having recurring poll to keep it ticking over.
Though WP-polls are AJAX based, in my test I didn’t came across with XSS or other slimy vulnerability so far. Java runs on server side. Strong CSS knowledge might be required for serious customization, cookie and IP setting may cause a warning massage through users firewall.

In a previous post Paul shared some information regarding increasing readership & accessibility. Apart from that information shared by Paul polls are also necessary in order to boost your readership. After all without user participation your blog is as good as dead static site.

Our last blog tips was all about increasing readership, this time we will look at performance enhancement. Few days ago one of our readers expressed that he experienced sluggishness on the back end while using WordPress as a CMS with high number of pages. He (Tom) isn’t the only one who came across this problem, a lot of WP users experience similiar problems. The question is: Do these problems resides in the core of WP or occasionally forced by some other issues?

There is no simple answer. Any CMS, whether Drupal or WordPress can experience the same issues caused by numerous reasons without anything to do with the core itself. I will keep the focus of this discussion on the WordPress (self hosted) related issues to narrow it down. Why dont we turn the spotlight onto the fundamental reasons first, so that it would be easier to eliminate them? Your WP (WordPress) powered site may experience sluggishness because:

• MySQL server or connection issues.
• PHP Memory Limit.
• Apache log rotator problem (for Apache server).
• Broken/Degraded PHP code in template/theme files.
• Excessive plugin uses/ use of plugin(s) with broken codes.
• Some particular third party widgets/ JavaScript codes.
• WordPress Dashboard’s display of RSS feeds.
• Pingback attempts when posting.

There are many other reasons which might trigger sluggishness, but they would be one way or another related to above mentioned causes. Now that we know what makes our WP site’s slow down (Back end or front end), let’s turn our focus on how to avoid these.

MySQL server or connection issues
Actually very little you can do about this, since your host can only resolve this. Most of the case this is a temporary issue, when your host is having an upgrade or downtime. Too many connections to your DBhost can also trigger sluggishness. Your WP back end can also slow down when MySQL Database is unable to keep up with the query demands.

Solution: Contact your server host if they are having an upgrade or downtime. Make sure your WP database isn’t shared with your other sites. Check with your hosting company regarding your DB statistics, if needed do an upgrade or change host. No use sticking to a host just because they are nice but can’t meet your technical demand.

PHP Memory Limit
The heartbeat of WP is PHP, so obviously when something goes wrong with that you will have issues. By default PHP is a beast with all kinds of nasty modules it thinks it needs to load. So the more it’s loading, the more memory you need. Why not control what to load? Disable as many extensions you are not using to save memory. There is a very useful guide on PHP configuration optimization.

Solution: Optimize your PHP configuration, avoid loading unused modules.

Apache log rotator problem (for Apache server)
This happens when your site is hosted on Apache server. When a log rotator script breaks, your server log files start growing huge in size. Meaning your server has to deal with hundreds of Megabytes excess log files that will slow it down to the point of instability.

Solution: Contact your server’s technical support. You may also check and make sure the files/directory of log files should be only server writable.

Broken/Degraded PHP code in template/theme files
Many WP users experience sluggishness for this reason as their site gets bigger. You will come across hundreds of beautiful, stunning looking WordPress themes on the web, but how will you know the PHP codes are optimized on the back end? WordPress has some basic guidelines/ requirements for theme submission, but a PHP code check isn’t one of them (Checking each themes code isn’t practical either). But, from the user’s perspective you need to make sure your themes code is optimized, as that code is the framework of the whole site.

Solution: First use wp-cache plugin (included with latest WP version installation pack). It’s the classic caching solution. It also knows how to update itself when comments are received, etc, so your site is always the most up to date and requires less load time. Second (optional) why recompile scripts every time, when you can save the bytecode? There is an extension called eAccelerator, its uses a bit of disk space but also optimizes the opcodes and saves you from having to recompile a script every time. It can shave up to 5000ms off your loading time, depending on the php code. Third switch your themes to some standard theme (for example-WordPress default theme) with all the plugins active and test the performances. If the performance remains sluggish, your problem isn’t in theme/template codes.

Excessive plugin uses/ use of plugin(s) with broken codes
This is the second most probable cause for WP to slow down. Just like above problem, this is also caused by broken PHP code or degraded MySQL queries, but in this case within the plugin files.

Solution: Don’t use a plugin when you can do it easily without the use of plugin. Activate only the plugins you want to really use, or best still, remove the non active plugins. Now deactivate all plugins and clear your browser cache. Activate one plugin and clear the cache again and check the performance, lastly clear cache again. Repeat the process until you experience slowness or finish activating all required plugins. There are ways to identify slow/degraded MySQL querries, which I will discuss in next blog tip.

Some particular third party widgets/ JavaScript codes
Oddly enough this is a random problem, meaning different people experience sluggishness with different types of third party scripts or widgets. So, why am I saying the reasons are problematic codes, where it’s random? For most cases the problem is resolved when those scripts or widgets are removed, they must have been the cause .

Solution: Most commonly these third party scripts/widgets have issues with new version of WordPress (reason unknown)-Snap preview anywhere, MyBloglog widget (javascript version of mybloglog) (surprisingly the slowness disappear when you manually coded the non javascript into your template), Advertising networks JavaScript codes (I experienced some of the ad networks ad script brings down your site to its knees), few dozens others. The smartest move will be keeping only the necessary ones (if possible non JavaScript version).

WordPress Dashboard’s display of RSS feeds
If you find that editing posts/templates or logging into WordPress takes a long time, the culprit is probably the WP dashboard. This is the “home” of the administration section, displays links to your latest posts, upcoming posts, comments, and incoming links. Unfortunately, it also displays a number of RSS feeds related to WordPress. While this sounds like a good idea, it often takes 30 seconds or longer to load the page because of delays fetching the RSS files, and they rarely have anything new and relevant. Two ways you can avoid that-

1. Avoid loading the Dashboard page (index.php) at all. Instead of using the “Login” link in the sidebar, you may use link that goes straight to /wp-admin/post.php. This brings you straight to the posting interface, which loads instantly, and you can use the links to reach other parts of the console, including the Dashboard if you need it.
2. If you still want to use the standard login feature, install Angsuman’s Dashboard hack, which replaces the RSS section of the dashboard with more useful links within your site.

Pingback attempts when posting
This is a random cause of your slow WP posting interface, especially the editing part. While the actual posting process is instantaneous, the delay is caused by two parts of network activity-

• WordPress attempts to use Pingback to notify every URL you’ve linked to. If you find yourself linking to WordPress blogs often, this is actually a useful feature-otherwise, it’s a waste of time. In my experience, attempts to Pingback non-blog sites are the cause of most of this delay. Lastly please for heavens sake do not use any plugin such as default trackback, because you don’t want your server to spend 40-45 seconds to trackback something that isn’t relavent to your posts.
• WordPress uses Ping-o-matic to notify search engines of your post. This is a very good thing, but occasionally causes delays. Rarely, Ping-o-matic causes a delay when posting. To eliminate this, you can remove rpc.pingomatic.com from the list of Update Services in Options -> Writing. You can even use other ping server instead of pingomatic. Here is the list of some useful ping servers which can be used instead of pingomatic.

As you can see most of the cases for slowing down a WP site isn’t WP related at all. A little bit of workaround and tricks can be just enough to avoid these.

Apologies for the short notice; dinner tonight has been postponed and a new date will be suggested soon. We’ll email all those who registered their interest personally. Sorry.