By Jeffro on December 27, 2011
Created two months ago, the WordPress.org support forums has added a new section specifically for those that install and or use WordPress on a localhost. Installing WordPress onto a PC or Mac that can be used locally without an internet connection can at times become quite the endeavor. Thankfully, there are software suites such as WAMPServer and XAMPP that make the process of installing all of the necessary software to turn a machine into a web server very easy.
The following link has an assortment of community created tutorials for various setups to install WordPress on your local machine. There are also a number of links published within the WordPress Installation Techniques Codex Article.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged local, localhost, support, wamp, xammp |
By Jeffro on November 29, 2011
Looks like there’s an exploit going around that appears to be similar in nature to the TimThumb vulnerability. If you noticed a bunch of “Cannot Redeclare” errors when browsing your website recently with eval code, chances are you’ve become a victim of this attack. Jeff Starr of DigWp.com and co-author of the book, Digging Into WordPress has laid out a series of steps on how you or consultants can clean up the mess that’s left behind. It’s also worth noting the following forum thread on the WordPress.org support forums where a number of people have been trying to investigate how this attack works.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged hack, redeclare, support |
By Jeffro on October 10, 2011
According to Peter Bright over at the Technorati blog, the best thing about his iPhone is the WordPress App. While it works great for him, the latest version doesn’t play so nice on my particular iPhone 4. When I try to moderate comments, the app crashes. I’ll be publishing a report as well as a support query on the iPhone WordPress App support forums shortly. ∞
Posted in News | Tagged app, iphone, support, technorati |
By Jeffro on September 7, 2010
James Huff has published a list of this years WordPress support forum all-stars on WeblogToolsCollection.com. The list includes some familiar names such as Otto, mrmist, and andrea_r. Throughout the list, you get to find out a little bit about each person such as their history with WordPress and some even include their trade. Make no mistake about it though, everyone who helps out on the support forums is an all-star.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged community, forum, stars, support
By Jeffro on June 28, 2010
While in a session at WPChat.com last night, I talked with a few members of the WordPress community regarding what constitutes theme piracy as well as the role the WordPress.org support forums should take regarding commercial theme support. While I’m still not 100% what is piracy and what is not, I know for sure that the theme repository should not provide support for any commercial theme. However, upon further discussion, it appeared to me that it seems to have reached the point where perhaps the best course of action for the WordPress.org support forums as they relate to themes is to only provide support for up and coming developers or only for themes that are hosted within the repository. Supporting only themes that are within the repository should limit the amount of threads popping up asking for help decoding themes. Also, the notion of whether a theme is pirated or not is thrown out the window because you’ve eliminated support for everything but these two items.
The catch 22 in all of this is that the WordPress.org support forums exist to help and educate users where need be. Enacting the provisions set forth above would shut out a lot of users from receiving support. The provisions would also not solve the underlying problem of encrypted themes being used by hundreds of WordPress users. However, with stricter guidelines for theme support, perhaps the educational benefits would finally sink in to those who fall victim to using one of these encrypted themes.
Should The WordPress Support Forum Only Support Themes From The Theme Repository?
- Yes (59%, 27 Votes)
- No (41%, 19 Votes)
Total Voters: 46
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Posted in WordPress | Tagged decoding, repository, support, Themes |
By Jeffro on June 25, 2010
There has recently been a discussion on the WP-Forums mailing list concerning the following sticky thread. In a nutshell, there are two questions being considered. The first is whether decoding should be allowed on the forums. The second is whether this type of behaviour on the forum promotes the use of so called pirated themes. I say so called due to the fact that if the theme is licensed under the GPL, no pirating actually occurs.
Unfortunately, there are more bad places to download themes than good. Case in point, take a look at this screenshot from a Google search I performed looking for ‘Free WordPress Themes‘. The first two results are filled with base64 encrypted themes.
Poor SEO, or too many sites using themes with public facing links with encrypted code? Whatever the case may be, it’s evident that many users within the community are getting a hold of these themes and using them on their site, possibly not even knowing about the encrypted code within the footer.php or other files within the theme. In my opinion, I think that support of any kind for commercial themes should not be allowed on the WordPress.org support forum. Not only does it not make sense, but it’s a common courtesy to those companies that provide support as part of their value. While browsing through the Welcome Message that all new forum members should read upon signing up, I didn’t see any mention of commercial theme support. This would also make it very easy to just lock or delete threads concerning obfuscated code within commercial themes.
As for free themes that have been downloaded from the official theme repository and redistributed with the encrypted code or free themes in general, I’m not sure if decrypting those themes should continue on the forum or not. On one hand, it’s an opportunity to educate that user and explain why that code within a theme is bad news while on the other hand, it’s a never ending problem with no hard solution. I think education here is our best bet to fight against this with a detailed post on the WordPress.org blog but it’s not as if that will solve the problem, it will only make folks more aware.
There is no law saying you can’t place obfuscated code within a WordPress theme but it’s considered very bad mojo within the WordPress community. Obviously, these sorts of themes are not allowed within the theme repository but outside of the WordPress.org domain, it’s the wild wild west. It’s reached the point now where if a developer is releasing free themes, their best bet for trustworthy exposure is to have the theme on the WordPress theme repository. I suppose it’s a trade off. You can get a theme from the repository which doesn’t have the best variety and selection and know that it won’t have encrypted code or any other junk in it, or you can take your chances by finding a theme somewhere out on the net.
I’m interested in hearing what you folks have to say regarding the issue of themes, obfuscated code, and the WordPress support forum.
Posted in News | Tagged forum, support, Themes, wordpress |
By Jeffro on June 18, 2010
As is common with every release of WordPress, once the stable version reaches the masses, that is when the bug reports start flying in. WordPress 3.0 is no exception. However, the volunteers that make up the WordPress.org support forum are on top of things and have created a special sticky thread which lists the most common problems being reported as well as solutions. So far, the podcasting plugin by TSG, HeadSpace2, Event Calendar, fatal error due to allowed memory size being exhausted, and stuck in maintenance mode are being reported the most. I’ve upgraded WPTavern to 3.0 today and didn’t experience any issues. However, had I needed to revert the site to the previous version, BackupBuddy would have came to the rescue.
How did your upgrade go?
Posted in WordPress | Tagged 3.0, support, upgrade, wordpress |
By Jeffro on June 4, 2010
Earlier today, I mentioned that Otto would be the man in charge working with the WordPress.org redesign project. Part of WordPress.org and perhaps the most active section of the website is the support forums. Everyone seems to have their own round of complaints regarding the forum but this time around, we now have an official outlet to voice our concerns of what we would like to see improved. Something which I’ve been harping on for a long time regarding the forum is the lack of email notifications for threads I have created or responded to. This will be addressed once the new version of bbPress is released and the support forums are upgraded.
With the support forum mainly being the first stop on the support train and so many people using WordPress these days, how to improve the forum experience for everyone now and into the future is a complex problem. Whatever can be automated should be automated because I think the human element to the forums is the most detrimental factor to them. Humans forget to mark posts as resolved, do not properly categorize their posts and publish them in the correct area, are needed on a full time basis to make sure things don’t get out of hand, etc.
There are a ton of great ideas already presented in the thread that I hope see the light of day such as some type of reputation system and more moderator tools to help keep the forum clean.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged feedback, forum, support, wordpress
By Jeffro on April 14, 2010
GravityForms recently made a big announcement that will affect new customers who make a purchase after May 1st. Currently, all customers who purchase a single or developer support license receive unlimited upgrades for life.
On May 1st we will be changing the Gravity Forms Terms of Service. Support and automatic updates will change to a 1 year term for all NEW purchases beginning on that date.
Customers who purchase before May 1st will NOT be impacted and will continue to receive lifetime support and updates for the license they currently own.
Not only will the 1 year of support and upgrades be tied to the single site license, but the developer license as well. Customers who make a purchase before May 1st will get lifetime support and upgrades as well as those who upgrade to a developer license. If you haven’t purchased your copy of GravityForms, now may be the best time to do it so that you’re set for life when it comes to support and upgrades.
If you need a reminder of what GravityForms is capable of doing, check out this recent review from BloggingPro.com.
Also for existing GravityForms customers, check out Joost De Valks GravityForms widget.
Posted in News | Tagged gravityforms, service, support, upgrades |
