Monthly Archives: April 2008

WordPress 2.5 Plugin Keeps the Version out of Source.

Posted on by
13

For anyone who has upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and above and likes to keep the WordPress version number out of the source code of your site when the source is viewed in a browser you could be in for a surprise. It might be back even though you eliminated the line of code in your theme’s “header.php” that generated the version number in the first place.

I know I was surprised to find “2.5.1″ happily displayed when I viewed the source code for my main page in Firefox last night and for the life of me I couldn’t find anything in my theme’s “header.php” I might have missed. At first I thought I had forgotten to comment the line out when I upgraded the theme to the latest version but apparently not.

I finally decided to contact the author of my theme, Scott Wallick of PlainText.org (home of the famous “Sandbox” theme) about this. I have to admit that I was more than a bit surprised when he sent me the explanation especially when I had followed the development of 2.5 so closely:

If you’re using WordPress 2.5, then you’re in for a treat. Because as of this version, WordPress hooks the function wp_head() to insert (automatically) the generator meta link.

You can’t really remove wp_head() as plugins require it to work correctly (inserting JavaScript, etc.), so you have to disable the function that produces the generator link from within WordPress.

See the following announcement:

http://blog.ftwr.co.uk/archives/2007/10/06/improving-the-wordpress-generator/

And to top this all off, Scott worked up a tiny plugin that disabled that very function, attached it to his message and it worked like a charm. I can’t say enough about this guy. I use another of his themes called Blog.txt and through 3 updates to the theme since I first installed it he’s answered all my questions, taken care of submitted bugs and even incorporated one of my suggestions about Gravatar resizing using the theme’s “Options” page in the Admin.

So I decided to host his plugin for those of you who wish to use it. Installation is simple. Extract, upload, activate and you’re done. Your version of WordPress shown in the source of your blog should now be gone unless your “header.php” has the hard coded “generator” still coded into it.

Note: This plugin is only for use with WordPress 2.5 and higher.

Download: rgl.zip

Edit 08-14-2010: It’s been rather a long time since WordPress 2.5 hit the streets and even though Scott’s plugin still works fine, securing your  WordPress powered site these days requires a bit more than just removing the version number from your site’s generated source code. That being said, I would highly recommend Secure WordPress which offers quite a bit of security in an easy to configure plugin. I use it myself. And although no security measures are fool proof, Secure WordPress goes a long way towards keeping your WordPress powered site secure.

Make sure you remove the original “rgl” plugin before activating Secure WordPress and if you happen to use Windows Live Writer then make sure you do not check the box that removes that particular function (The check box is marked “Windows Live Writer“.).

Keeping an Eye on Firefox 3 RC1

Posted on by
12

Firefox 3 is going to eat IE for lunchChecking in my stats the last few days I’ve noticed quite a few folks looking for information on the first release candidate of Firefox 3 and possibly when the release date might be. Well, the closest the developers will get on an actual date is “sometime in May” and since the date for the final release is “sometime in June” and that there’s at least an RC2 in there somewhere before the final, I’d expect RC1 somewhere within the first 10 days of May. Of course that’s just a guess on my part.

I’ve also noticed that most visitors who came to my site here looking for info on Firefox 3 RC1 didn’t stay too long either. Probably due to the fact that all I really said about RC1 was that when it comes out I was going to go off the trunk builds and go to the branch releases instead. Wasn’t exactly what they were looking for I would surmise.

So just so no one can say that I didn’t leave you with absolutely no real information on this subject yet a second time, here’s a link that you can use to keep an eye on the progress of RC1 as it works it’s way out onto the street.

Another source of info for those of you with a technical bend, try this section of the Mozillazine Forums and look for the latest The Official Win32 2008 ‘yada-yada’ [Trunk] build is not yet out entry. Browsing through the comments in these entries will give you a good idea how work is progressing on this latest version of Firefox.

So there you go. Once you check out the above links then you’ll know as much as I do. :P

Technorati : ,

Mozilla squashes Firefox 3 Flash Bug

Posted on by
24

Adobe Flash Logo

Adobe’s Flash plugin for Firefox has never offered the kind of quality performance that the equivalent plugin for Internet Explorer has but at least it handled most Flash based video fairly well. However, somewhere around the 14th of April the nightly builds of Firefox 3 began to seize up on websites that incorporated any sort of Flash based media at all be it video, images or advertisements. Sites that I had been able to view previously would lock up the browser completely and only a “Kill Process” via the Windows XP Task Manager would stop the CPU from having conniption fits about being maxed out at 99%.

This was annoying to say the least and more than troubling. What had been a consistently rock stable, memory friendly new version of Firefox was now no longer able to handle Flash based media? Off to the forums I go along with several other testers and early adopters as I found out when I got there.

Strangely enough I had had the presence of mind to test these sites using Opera 9.5 beta which I keep around for testing website rendering issues between browsers and all the sites that were killing the nightly builds were showing fine in Opera. Since Opera and Firefox use the same plugin this told me that something had changed in the nightly builds that was causing this problem. And since I’m not familiar with programming (yet, can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Watch me), it was up to convincing the Dev’s that this was indeed a serious problem.

I’ve got to hand it to the developers at Mozilla, the problem had been filed on 4/20/08 as a , verified and confirmed and set as blocking Gecko 1.9 meaning Firefox 3. After only a couple days of digging around the code base of the latest nightly builds the developers at large found the problem and had it solved as of yesterday’s update for Minefield (name for any developer’s build of Firefox). Just a bit impressive if you ask me.

Certain types of Flash based media still comes up choppy and dropping frames as usual but that’s more due to the inherent problems of the Flash plugin for Firefox and Opera than anything browser related. I’m just glad that Firefox 3 is back to being a class act.

And kudos to the Dev’s at Mozilla. Nice work folks!

Technorati : , ,

I Just Gotta Mow!

Posted on by
4

lawn_mowerOh man, I just can’t stand it! With all this unusually gorgeous weather we’re having around here I have this god awful desire to mow the lawn!! I just gotta  mow the damn lawn!!

Okay… alright, I can handle this now. The grass isn’t up yet…it still thinks it’s…well…April fer heavens sake and April in the Northeast kingdom is not supposed to be up in the 70′s for days on end. It’s supposed to be in the 50′s around here, I mean we’ve had snow storms on April, wet heavy things that leave a foot or more of the kind of water-logged snow that the plow guys and gals absolutely despise due to one plow blade full usually equals a half a ton of snow they have to push around. Tends to break welds and mounts on the plow and tear up lawns and such.

But now they don’t have to deal with this but I have to deal with my normal obsession with a clean cut lawn which usually doesn’t rear it’s ugly head until the middle of May or so.

I know, there’s still small twigs and a few leaves in the lawn that I couldn’t get up with the rake. Yeah, I could get them up with the lawn mower! Yeah…it has a bag on it, it’s self propelled so I probably won’t hurt my bunged up back too much. Yeah…yeah…I could do that! I could just run that around the lawn, clean it up a little…

*Sigh*

Maybe I better just go sit down at the waterfront for awhile instead. Keep me out of trouble and the neighbors from looking at me funny. The mower would probably appreciate more.

17% of Vermonters Admit Driving Drunk

Posted on by
2

I banged into my local news site today and I immediately zoned in on this headline:

17% of Vermonters Admit Driving Drunk

Washington, D.C. – April 23, 2008

According to a new federal report, nearly one in six motorists in Vermont admit they have driven drunk. The report relies on information from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted over the last three years.

In Vermont, 16.7% of drivers said they drove drunk within a year of being questioned. New Hampshire had similar results at 16.4%. In New York, 13% of drivers said they have driven drunk.

Wisconsin had the highest percentage at more than 26%. Utah was the lowest at 9%.

Yeah, right. That’s because the rest of ‘em didn’t admit to it. The ones that did probably moved here from out of state within the last 5 years and still didn’t know any better. Just goes to show how you can trust statistics like this now doesn’t it?

Flare ups and Posting

Posted on by
Reply

I woke up a with my insides hanging out a couple morning’s ago and it’s taken me this long to tuck them back in and staple myself shut again. The pain killers have finally taken affect to the point where I can begin posting once more.

Oh, alright, my insides weren’t really hanging out but it sure felt that way and unfortunately I don’t have any of those dandy narcotic type of pain killers stashed around the place…I never did like taking them anyway. Makes me more stupid than I already am.

The VA in Boston tells me that I’ll be down for another endoscopy and stomach PH test (a brandy new wireless type…no wire up the nose this time) but it will take a few months before the appointment is scheduled. I’m becoming a real expert in the "hurry up and wait" field. And in the meantime I get to hurt a lot. Of course I don’t have to pay for what would be massively expensive tests and procedures since this is a service related malady but still…

So that’s why I’ve been "lack-a-post" lately. When these flare ups happen I figure the best I could put out as far as posts go is something along the lines of  "AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!" and "UUURROWGGHH!!" and thing’s of that nature which although properly expresses my mindset at the time, doesn’t really offer the reader any substantial reading material as such.

I’ll be off and on here for the foreseeable future as these flare ups, which are becoming more frequent of late, come and go so bear with me please. I’ll just have to keep the shoe horn and stapler handy I suppose.