There are three main areas that I advise my clients to pay close attention to when maintaining their blogs and wordpress sites. I will dive into these keys areas to pay attention to; Security, Redundancy, and Integrity.
Your wordpress blog is a lot like your car.  If you take good care of your vehicle and bring it in for oil changes and other preventive maintenance, it will last for a very long time.  The same goes for your wordpress blog. 

This blog post will not require you to have a vast knowledge of coding or the wordpress architecture.  I’ll only require that you are diligent and disciplined enough to cover all your bases.  If you love your blog and want to keep it healthy, give these suggestions a try.  With that said, let’s jump into the first part; Security.

Security

The first topic to cover and the number one top priority for any wordpress (self-hosted) user should be their blog’s security.   I advise my clients to log into their systems daily and inspect their environments while making regular updates.  Here are some areas to consider;

Are there any plug-in’s that need updating?

Making sure all of your plugin’s are updated allows your blog to be more functional and secure.  Authors of plugin’s will make regular updates to their code based on QA work and submitted bugs.  Keeping up with these updates puts you in a better spot to have a safe and better looking website.  It also prevents you from falling susceptible to any security vulnerabilities.

Am I working off the latest version of wordpress?

Do not ignore this when you see it pop-up on your wordpress dashboard. (FYI – the latest version is 3.3.1, disregard the image showing 3.0.4)

Having the latest version of wordpress is crucial.  Going back to the car analogy, I relate this to having routine oil changes and tune-up’s done.  If you don’t bring the vehicle in for maintenance every 3,000 miles, the engine is going to cease up eventually.  Just the same, when you have a wordpress blog and don’t keep up with the updates as they are released, you run the risk of your blog becoming slow and unstable.  Updating the wordpress core to the current version keeps your files clean, healthy, and it also makes sure you are using the most current version of PHP and MYSQL DB’s.

Are there any spam comments in queue?

Spam comments are the worst.  You hate them, your readers hate them, and they can bog down your wordpress system.  First off, make sure you have a current version of Akismet.  This plugin is a powerful defender of rogue comments and spam bots.  Install this plugin, go through the steps of securing a key and rid yourself of spammers.  If you don’t have Akismet, go download it now.

Additionally, if you are seeing a lot of spam comments popping up on your public site without your knowledge, you need to re-configure your blog settings and adjust your moderation levels so you can keep a better eye on when comments are added in.

Go to the left sidebar in your wordpress dashboard, and navigate to ‘Settings -> Discussion’.

Below are the settings that I like to maintain on my own blog, that help me moderate valid comments from spam.  The only suggestion I would make to a first time user who isn’t in the routine of logging in once a day, is to set the “Before a comment appears” option to, “An administrator must always approve the comment”.  That will ensure that no phoney or undesired content makes it to your public page without your prior consent.

Have any files changed?

A great plugin that I suggest to first-time wordpress users is WordPress File Monitor.  This plugin sends you an email whenever a file is changed in your wordpress environment.  This may be over-kill for the everyday wordpress user that is constantly updating their content.

e.g. – Let’s say you paid someone to develop your website using wordpress and want to keep an eye on things without actively logging in. Download this plugin and configure it with your email address.  Great tool for someone who wants to make sure nothing strange is happening behind the scenes.

Prevent hackers from logging into your site

The last plugin I suggest installing is Login Lockdown.  This plugin will allow you to block an IP address from accessing your login page after a pre-determined amount of unsuccessful login attempts.  Very easy to setup and little to no maintenance is required.   This is a great add-on to maintaining your overall  security level, and peace-of-mind.

Last thoughs

Your wordpress site is like a car.  Take care of it, and it will take care of you.  Doing normal preventative maintenance will save you from a world of hurt down the road.

If you have additional questions or would like to talk about how to make your wordpress site more secure, feel free to email me.

You’ll notice on the site that there are a lot of Syracuse Football designs. During my under-grad years I worked as a student manager with the football team. In my graduate studies, I earned a position as a GA coach under Greg Robinson.

I worked for five years with SU Football and part of my responsibilities included preparing / designing recruiting materials such as; recruiting brochures, HTML email templates, posters for use around the football facility, film evaluation sheets, playbooks, and many others .

During my last year with the team, some of the recently graduate players came to me and asked if I could mock something up for them. I started with very small designs, mostly for use in Facebook profile pictures or 8×10 printouts to hang in their apartments. As more requests came in, the positive feedback spoke loudly to me. I picked up my pace with learning the trade; watching tutorials, reading books, and subscribing to online forums for designers. I became faster and more efficient with my work and decided to take on larger projects. I was on my way to starting my own company.

Having spent five years in Division 1 football (and a lifetime of playing sports myself), I drilled constantly on new techniques and styles. I was constantly looking for ways to improve and be more efficient with my time. “What software can help me invoice faster? What HTML templates can I build so I can re-hash and save time building from scratch? How do I want to re-sell to my current clients and get them the most design work for their dollar?”

SU Football will always be a reminder to the experiences I had getting started in this industry. I’m grateful that it opened the door to graphic design, and gave me the opportunity to work with some great athletes, coaches, and friends along the way.

]]> http://markurquhart.com/blog/syracuse-football-graphic-designs/feed/ 0 http://markurquhart.com/blog/amazing-basketball-designs/ http://markurquhart.com/blog/amazing-basketball-designs/#comments Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:41:07 +0000 Mark http://markurquhart.com/?p=717

These designs are unreal. I’m a huge competitor, so when I see these I want to make versions better! Who knows, maybe you’ll see a Rajon Rondo design soon!

Check out the rest of the designs here!  Thanks to PSD Tuts for the link!

]]> http://markurquhart.com/blog/amazing-basketball-designs/feed/ 0 http://markurquhart.com/blog/how-much-do-you-spend/ http://markurquhart.com/blog/how-much-do-you-spend/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:12:25 +0000 Mark http://markurquhart.com/?p=661

How much do you spend on average? Here’s a very cool, infographic-like commercial comparing average expenditures for popular businesses in America. Enjoy!

(Courtesty of Mint.com)

I live vicariously through my two younger brothers and their high-school sports careers.  I yell at them when they don’t play well.  I have a huge grin on my face when they play their best.  I also run them harder than any coach ever has (go ahead and ask them).   I also never let them win.  Ever.  On any circumstance.  Never.

About a month ago I had a bit of an epiphany.  I remembered my time at Syracuse when some of the football players asked me to design them Facebook pictures.  Most of the requests were from graduated seniors who wanted a design to commemorate their careers at the ‘Cuse.  Once I got rolling with those,  I thought, “wouldn’t it be cool to give my brothers a design like these to show off…”   I saw how much they loved theirs.  I saw the response from their friends and family.   Hence the motivation to get some designs done for Merrimack Athletes.

Here’s my personal philosophy on these designs and why they are so popular;  Most athletes grow up collecting cards and posters of their favorite star players.  There’s always that one really cool card that you never trade.  Not for a Griffey rookie card, or for the Cal Ripken “Iron Man” card.  No matter what, there’s no way you’re giving up your coolest collector item.  I wanted to give these athletes the opportunity to see themselves in the same light, to give them something they can take with them after their careers are over.

Here’s the collection I put together for the Merrimack Athletes.  Unfortunately the “free design” period has come to an end, and if any more athletes want to get some work done it’s going to cost some coin.  Fun fact about the real world…. bills are a real thing.

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If you missed the cut and want a design done, fill out a quote today and I’ll get back to you with an estimate for your project! (Special thanks to Perline Photography for letting me use some of her photos!)

 

I don’t know why it is, but recently I have been obsessed with them.
(definition below)

Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge.

There’s so much going on with these designs, it’s sensory overload and sometimes a bit chaotic.  My favorite part of these pieces is surveying not just the typography and layout, but also the little nuances throughout the entire canvas.  The background gradients, the patterns, the half-tones…. everything blends together (when done right!)

If you haven’t had a chance to Google any infographics , here’s one of my favorites.

I’ve also compiled some others here to get you started. Enjoy!

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