GKauten Consultingv1.2

AWeber Registration Integration, found on WordPress here or on my site here, is currently back in the garage getting a few upgrades. Aside from a few optimization tweaks and usability enhancements, the largest of these upgrades will include support for WordPress MU. There is however a slight chance that the MU version will be released separate of the standard version simply because of the changes that need to be made to adapt to the MU environment. Stay tuned for updates and any feedback (*cough* or donations *cough*) is always appreciated!

After a few months time since the last release, WordPress has announced yet another release of their popular blogging software. With the previous release being geared towards security, this new release boasts some hardening improvements that were discovered during their work towards version 2.9. One of the most important changes in this new version is the fix for the Trackback Denial-of-Service problem that people have been experiencing. For a complete run down of what to expect in the new release feel free to check out the WordPress Development Blog and in the meantime here is a little clip. Read more…

A new version of our home-grown AWeber Registration Integration plugin was released today marking version 1.2. Alongside some new error handling, two new features were added to the administration panel allowing the site owner to control whether people have the option to opt-in or not during registration as well as quickly disable the plugin without having to deactivate it. We’re so proud of it we even added a screenshot to show it off. Enough talk, check it out for yourself! View the plugin information here: AWeber Registration Integration Read more…

Often times in custom solutions for clients I need the ability to quickly and easily implement an upload method without the built in capabilities most open source content management systems provide. I am also not in the business of charging extreme amounts of money to cover the costs associated with buying the licenses needed for the fancier “more robust” upload utilities so any savings I can pass on to my clients, the better. One thing I came across a while back and have been ever so amused with is the In-a-Flash Upload Utility. Read more…

When working with websites there are several things you have to consider such as what colors you want to use, how everything is going to be laid out, what programming language you are going to use for dynamic purposes, and of course what fonts to use for the logo, headers, and the main body text. Well with so many fonts out there to choose from it can all get to be a bit overwhelming, especially when you are looking for a font to represent your brand or identity. Read more…

These days we can’t really get away with using silly passwords like “love” or your name spelled out because it is all just too simple to guess and even more simple to run a password generator against. If you do anything online such as banking, or paying your credit cards or other bills, chances are when you created your login with their website they required some sort of password requirements such as a minimum length, including at least one capital letter, etc… The question is though, is your password actually strong or just strong enough to pass it off with the website you registered on? It never hurts to get in the habit of having nice secure passwords containing lower and upper case letters, numbers, and symbols. Though I will admit it does get a bit tiring trying to always come up with these passwords off the top of your head, let alone remembering them. The way I see it, the easier they are to remember then the easier they are to crack; everything else can be handled by software. Read more…

Security is probably one of the most important things in an online world. When I talk about security though I am not just speaking of those websites which deal in eCommerce or masses of personal information such as physical addresses or telephone numbers (a telemarketers dream!) but instead for all websites from the small business to the lone blogger with a modest following. We are of the day and age where technology is so advanced and readily shared that those maliciously minded have a whole wash list of tricks just waiting to jump out at you with. Often times they do not troll around looking for only the websites they believe might be the best target, they have software that does it for them, and for them any hacked website is a chance to dig out some sort of information or pass along their master plan. Often times people underestimate the probability that some attempt will be made on their website, and almost gravely underestimate the time it takes to get your site back together after someone messes everything up. Brace yourself, the article may make you a touch paranoid. Read more…

Usually most of the articles my colorful group of friends post about on Twitter and Facebook can be quite off topic however today I came across an article that made me just about fall out of my chair. I have spent many a night reconditioning troubled computer systems (laptops, desktops, netbooks, etc…) and my absolute favorite is when I need to re-install Windows but there is no optical drive to load the installation CD into. Normally I just bypass this through a couple creative tricks and load everything over the network. This of course makes my network a little crazy for a while not to mention having to tie up one of my other computers to act as the media host. As of today, I don’t believe I will have any more of these headaches as there is now a simply way to turn your USB memory stick (flash drive) into the equivalent of a Windows installation CD. Novicorp’s WinToFlash makes it all possible, and what makes it even better… IT’S FREE! Read more…

With so many web hosts out there it all becomes a little confusing when you start trying to weigh the apples against the oranges against the onions and so on and so forth. Of course you could always Google “best web host” or something of the similar but you will most likely get a relatively interesting set of results pointing to all sorts of websites promoting their top ten list of web hosts. Honestly, some of these lists contain hosts I have never heard of before, but what gets even more interesting is that their number one web host is sometimes the same company that is hosting the website. You then begin to wonder if the company or someone affiliated with the company created this website as a traffic driving venture to make their services appear better from a “non-biased third party perspective”. Other times people just tend to rate the products they used the highest simply because they have not actually tried the other projects and maintain their personal bias. In either which case, just doing a little research can really help you out. Just to give you an idea though I have taken some of the published Top 10 lists, pulled them together, and looked up their Better Business Bureau (BBB) Reliability information just for good measure. Read more…

In a little under two weeks time since the last release WordPress has released a new version of their popular blogging platform. Version 2.8.4 is said to correct a relatively serious security issue but I think the folks over at WordPress explain it a touch better so you can catch their side of the story below. I do however encourage everyone to keep in mind that updates are released to help correct performance issues, security issues, or even just clean up previous source files to reduce overhead. In any case these updates are released to improve upon the software platform so there really isn’t much reason to put it off unless you have your own specific reasons. Read more…