WordPress 2.8.5 – Part 2

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:17:53 +0000

Last week we were looking in to the powerful WordPress editor. Those that missed my last article can view a copy either at the Herald Express’s website (www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk) or on my own online blog (www.computerarticles.co.uk).

To recap, WordPress (www.wordpress.org) is an open source application which gives home users the ability to quickly and easily create an online blog, a term used to describe a website which provides an ongoing chronicle of information. After covering the basics last week we’ll now start to uncover the more advanced features that really make WordPress stand out from the crowd.

The term ‘plug-in’ is used to describe a small piece of software written by either the WordPress authors or a third party which provide additional features not found on a standard installation. If a blogger finds that WordPress doesn’t cater for a particular requirement of his then in many cases a plug-in can be used to extend the functionality of the software quickly and easily.

To give you an idea, I’ve listed a couple of plug-ins that I find particularly useful:

Akismet – You will soon find that your blog gets a lot of spam comments, usually by automated systems trying to advertise male medical products. Akismet checks comments in your blog against an online database in order to automatically remove any that it deems as looking like spam.

All in One SEO Pack – This provides a number of Search Engine Optimisations in order to make your blog more appealing to search engines such as Google. Although Search Engine Optimisation is an entire science in itself, this simple plug-in will hopefully help to push you further up the results table.

Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a single file detailing every page on your site. You can then request that Google download and analyse this file on a regular basis thereby helping them to improve the freshness and visibility of your pages in their search engine.

Sociable – Allows users to automatically add a link to a specific post on their favourite social bookmarking site, for example Facebook, Digg or Twitter.

Statpress – Analyses visitors to your site and allows you to see a number of reports including daily views, pages most visited and search terms used to find your site. You can even use it to find out more detailed information about your readers such as the Operating Systems they use and their geographic location.

The ability to keep the software up to date it one of the things I admire most about WordPress; once you have performed the initial installation you will be informed whenever you log in to the control panel if a particular plug-in or indeed the entire installation needs updating. Should you find that any component is out of date then it only takes one click for the appropriate files to be downloaded and installed on your web server automatically.

Such ease of use means that it doesn’t take a lot to ensure that you always have the most up to date version of the software installed as well as providing protection by allowing you to easily install any security patches as and when they are released.

AVG Internet Security 8.5

admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:24:48 +0000

Regular readers will no doubt be aware of the fact that I recommend AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition over popular paid for rivals time and time again. Ignoring the obvious “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” scepticism that I usually encounter whenever I mention this application I’m usually also asked about the features absent; most notably a firewall.

Fortunately AVG are aware that their free anti-virus package doesn’t cover the needs of all users so they have also produced a security suite going by the name of AVG Internet Security. To save recapping I am simply going to focus on the differences between the two applications so if you’ve missed my review of the free edition it can be located at www.computerarticles.co.uk.

Potentially the most important issue, it’s worth noting that the free edition of AVG Anti-Virus is not licensed for business use or for use on multiple machines; if you were planning to use the product at work or on more than one computer then upgrading is the only legal option.

Other than this, AVG Internet Security offers the following additional features:

Firewall – A firewall inspects all network traffic between your computer and the Internet in order to block unauthorised access to your machine. The firewall in AVG Internet Security is designed to be a more secure alternative to the solution bundled with Windows.

Spam Filter – The integrated Anti-Spam filter prevents unwanted e-mails from reaching your inbox while also protecting you against phishing attacks. The anti-spam feature in itself will be invaluable to most users; especially those that have no use for certain male oriented medical products.

Anti-Rootkit Scanner – A rootkit is a piece of software designed to obscure the fact that a computer system has been compromised from both the user and anti-virus software. The intention is that files can be altered and processes executed without triggering a conventional anti-virus scanner, including AVG free edition.

Identity Theft Protection – Following their takeover of Sana Security at the beginning of this year, AVG have started integrating their software algorithms designed to detect unusual malware prompted behaviour designed to siphon off passwords, bank account details, credit card numbers and so on.

There are also a few other bits and pieces chucked in, including Instant Messaging protection, free technical support and a safe download manager making it a pretty comprehensive package.

There are however a couple of drawbacks. First and foremost it is larger, and therefore more resource hungry than the free edition which is unfortunate as one of the things I loved most about the free edition was how it was substantially smaller and faster than the biggest players on the market such as Norton and McAfee. While it is still ahead of these alternatives it is still a shame to see it lose any ground on this front.

Secondly, and most obviously, Internet Security is not free. You can buy the two year, three user license on the AVG website for £83.18 or alternatively (if the Herald Express will allow me a shameless plug) we are selling it retail boxed in our Torquay Road and new Newton Abbot store for £32.99.

Whether Internet Security is the right solution for you depends on your particular needs; I will reiterate that the free edition (http://free.avg.com) is a more than capable anti-virus checker but if you desire the extra features and don’t mind the slight sacrificing of speed then the paid for suite may represent a better option.

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WordPress 2.8.5 – Part 2

AVG Internet Security 8.5