In the news today was a story about the Australian government banning TV for children under 2. They say that children under 2 years of age “should not spend any time watching television, or other electronic media (DVD’s, computers, video games).
First, let me say that there’s something to be said for keeping kids active, and today’s society of electronic entertainment has definitely contributed to a new wave of childhood obesity. But for some reason – sometimes smaller countries seem prone to creating wacky legislation or “guidelines” that make no goddamn sense.
Being the father of a 3 years – I can tell you that the television can be an overwhelming and positive source in the growth of a child. Has the Australian government seen or heard any of the TV programming created solely for kids under the age of 3? Have they watched shows on Noggin, Sprout, or Nick Jr.? Have they monitored kids that have learned to read and talk at more advanced rates because they were watching childrens educational programming? What about the “My Baby Can Read” series, which includes a DVD you have your baby watch twice per day (as early as 6 months old), and all the documented cases of children actually reading childrens books at 18 months?
Thank God I don’t live in Australia – because I’d have to fly the big ‘ol “FU” flag on this one. We taught our son to use the computer at 3 years old, and he knows how to use the mouse, start educational games, go to his favorite web sites, and more. Like most things, all electronic media can be abused, but it can be one of the greatest educational resources as well. TV can also dramatically speed up the learning process for most children when used properly.
Sounds kinda weird doesn’t it – transsexual tasting water? I just read this article over at Treehugger about Gender Bending Chemicals in the water. I read the article just to find out what the title meant. It turns out that people are taking hormone therapy drugs in record numbers, not to mention all the people taking male enhancement pills and birth control. One thing you may not be aware of it that all that stuff gets peed back out! And where do you think it goes? It doesn’t just get absorbed by that person’s body. One part of that study showed that some of these hormone therapy drugs are pissed back out at an 85% level!!
Up in Canada, researchers in the great white north put some of these drugs in five parts per trillion of a lake. Male fish nearly quit producing, and it killed one type of fish right off. Some scientists believe that this kind of stuff in the water is making male genetalia smaller and their man boobies bigger! It may also be making less male babies. Now how much water are you going to drink?
WordPress Blogs Hacked? Yes it’s true. There have been a lot of WordPress blogs hacked in the last month or so – some of them very recent versions (2.8+). I do a lot of WordPress work for clients, and lot of it is plugins and themes, and SEO work – but you might be surprised how many new clients I’ve gotten that need WordPress security work. These are people that have had their self-hosted WordPress web site broken into – and they need it fixed. Typically it’s an automated spambot hacker that looks for a known exploit, like older versions of WordPress or older non-updated plugins. I was surprised a few weeks back when I read this post on Lorelle about Old WordPress Versions Under Attack. I thought at first that the hack she talks about was new, and it’s not – it’s just more rampant.
I did leave a few comments on that page, and I know I’ll get some traffic here from people seeking help. Let me address that first.
If you have a self-hosted WordPress web site that has been hacked you have two choices:
- Hire someone to fix it
- Fix it yourself
It’s pretty easy to fix it yourself, and I don’t keep secrets – I’ll tell you what to do. But if you’re really non-technical, or your income , business, or brand depends on your WP powered site and you need immediate assistance – Visit my Hire Me page right now. Now back to the DIY info…
These recent WordPress infections and blog break-ins are pretty serious. I’ve seen so-called “WordPress viruses” before that changed theme files, added code to your pages – but these recent hacks (and variations of it) get right inside your WordPress database. The infection actually takes place through a bug in (older versions) of WordPress. If you’re not currently infected, update to the latest version of WordPress ASAP, update all of your plugins, and then read my WordPress Security Guide to learn how to lock down your blog.
IF YOU’RE WORDPRESS SITE IS HACKED OR INFECTED, FOLLOW THESE STEPS
- In your WP Dashboard go to “Tools->Export” and export all of your pages, posts, links, and comments
- Download a copy of your entire web site in FTP
- In your web hosting account create a new MySQL database with a new username and strong 12 character password
- Delete your entire web site in FTP (all files, now that you have a local copy)
- Upload a fresh copy of the latest version of wordpress downloaded from wordpress.org
- Update your wp-config.php file to connect to the new database
- Go to www.yoursitename.com and setup and connect to the new WP databse for the first time (be sure to enter alternate WP table names)
- Login to your new fresh WP dashboard, and create a new account with admin access and logout
- Log back in with the new account, and delete the admin account
- Upload a fresh copy of your theme and freshly downloaded versions of all the plugins you need (don’t use the local versions you just backed up on your local PC)
- In your dashboard delete the “Hello World” posts and default comment
- In your WordPresss dashboard go to “Tools->Import” and import all your posts, pages, comments, categories, and tags using the file you exported earlier
- Activate your theme
- Check your site in a browser to make sure everything shows up, then activate all your plugins and check again
- Manually reset your widget, wordpress, and plugin settings and all signs of the virus and infection should be gone!
This process is tedious for sure, but because this hack roots itself so deeply inside your WP database – the best way to get rid of it is just to dump that database and import your content into a fresh one. Believe it or not, this is also an opportunity to clean your blog of old garbage you don’t need anymore, weed out plugins you no longer use, and it gives you a chance (once the infection is gone) to improve your WordPress Security!
I hope this information has helped someone, and I hope that you read this post before your WordPress blog got hacked.
Seems like I’ve been blogging a lot about WordPress and eBay lately, it’s probably my favorite affiliate program. It’s just so much easier to convert people and make money because everybody already knows what eBay is about and the majority of people already have an eBay account. People surf endlessly for hours looking for things, and if they go there from your blog and end up buying something completely different! My EPC (earn per click) for eBay is typically $10+ each month, and on top of that conversion (for me) is about 1 in three. I’m sorry that’s a better conversion rate than any other affiliate program I’ve ever used!
Things I’ve written about WordPress and eBay in the last week:
Today I’m eating my Super Healthy Salad Recipe! http://ping.fm/AcOoZ
BANS launching new look, form, and themes next week. Are you excited?
How to Perform Keyword Research Day #1: http://ping.fm/VieHY
Building Income One Post At A Time: http://ping.fm/9b9K5
activated my new Palm Centro smartphone this morning…w00t! I did a cool review of it here.
WordPress Hack – Hacking template files http://ping.fm/iTybO
Yesterday’s post – How to sell ebooks or any digital content http://ping.fm/PrE6y
No more crap sites! Why BANS Niche Sites get banned from google: http://ping.fm/SV4R0
I don’t get it – when the hell did I get so old? I was reading a post on another site tonight and they were talking about how they haven’t watched MTV in 5 years and they had “shifted” to VH1. I got to thinking about it, and seems like I do too. In fact I’ve been watching a lot of “VH1 Classic” and old concerts like KISS, AC-DC, Black Sabbath – I’ve even seen a lot of cool documentaries like the making of definitive Pink Floyd and Nirvana albums. All this music now is considered “classic rock”. Van Halen, Ozzy, hair metal, even Skid Row, Poision, Ratt, Winger, Def Leppard, Dokken, possibly even Metallica – all “classic rock”?
WTF? When I was a kid the “classic rock” station played music I hated, like the Byrds, Bob Dylan, The Temptations, and that stupid “Alice’s Restaurant” song by Arlo Guthrie. Now all this stuff is considered “oldies” and the music I grew up with as hard rock and metal is “classic rock”. For god sakes, Gene Simmons is getting face lifts and has a reality show with his family, Peter Frampton practically looks like Captain Kangaroo now. I now have 4 kids of my own and I guess I should have seen this coming – but I’m just shy of 40 now and what I knew as good rock music growing up is “so retro” to the kids today. Will all my music be “oldies” in another 20 years when I’m 60?
I don’t care if they are old – here’s KISS playing “Rock and Roll All Nite” (and party every day!)…
One of the top stories I read today was about that kooky ’scientology religion’, and it led me to write this articles about celebrity scientologists. I just don’t get it. Are celebs so secluded in their little dichotomy of a world that they don’t understand they are being manipulated for their money and fame alone – or don’t they care save the adulation? Insane…
Watch this video of the ’spooky world of scientology’….and see how scary you think it is for yourself!
You know, sometimes I forget about this site and don’t post as often as I should. Instead, I’ll tell you where I have been posting lately! You can read my article on increasing your web site traffic and creating community in 7 Steps to Creating a Waterfall of Traffic. Also you can read about Why WP-SEO is the ultimate WordPress seo plugin, or Why the Boss TU-2 is the tuner every guitar player should have.
There – now you know what I’ve been up to (and I promise I’ll try to post here more often)!
Jokes are funny. They break up the time and make you laugh. It seems like people send me lots of jokes. And also funny pics and videos. All of that “pass it on” forwarded type of email. I ignore a lot of it. At least from people who have in the past had a tendency to send me crap. But there area select few that consistently send me nice little gems that have me rolling on the floor. What do I do with all of these funny things? In the past I just filed them in a folder I had for “funny emails”.
A couple months back I began to think “I should share these!”. So, I had to go and buy yet another web site Top Jokes. Now I dump all my funny stuff there. There’s almost 100 funny things there already – like the latest funny joke I posted:
An old Scotsman was talking to a young man in a pub. “Laddie, look out at that field. Do you see that fence? Look how well it’s built. I built that fence stone by stone with me own two hands. I worked for months, but do they call me MacGreggor-the-Fence-Builder? Nooo.” Then the old man pointed to the bar. “Laddie, look here at this bar. Do you see how smooth and just it is? I planed that surface down by me own achin’ back. I carved that wood with me own hard labor. I worked on it for weeks. But do they call me MacGreggor-the-Woodworker? Nooo.” Then the old man points out the other window. “Laddie, look out to sea. Do you see that pier that stretches out as far as the eye can see? I built that pier with the sweat off me brow. I nailed it board by board. But do they call me MacGreggor-the-Pier-Builder? Nooo.” Then the old man looks around nervously, making sure no one is listening. “But, ya screw ONE goat…”
Visit Top Jokes
…Because I handpick the jokes myself – and because they’re funny!
It didn’t seem possible just a month or two ago, but a lot of people seem to think that Sanjaya Malakar will become the next American Idol. Is he really that popular? Is the American public going to vote for another underdog? Maybe it’s not quite what you think. The web site votefortheworst.com for instance wants to see the worst singer become the next American Idol in hopes of wrecking the show. And who are they telling everyone to vote for every week? Sanjaya – who they consider to be the worst on the show.
So Sanjaya has made it into the top 8 finalists on AI now…how many more weeks can he go? Will he get close to becoming the idol – or actually become the final American Idol himself? He will if Howard Stern and his fanbase have anything to do with it. Every day on his show he encourages his fans to vote for Sanjaya as many times as they can each week. Howard promotes votefortheworst.com as well, and wants Sanjay to win to become the ‘worst Idol ever’.
If Howard and his fans have the push – it may just be working, because preliminary results last night at dialidol.com had Sanjaya predicted to be as much as 5 times ahead of everyone else in predicted results. Love him or hate him, a lot of people are betting on Sanjaya to win! For more Sanjaya and links, check out one of the Sanjaya fan sites like www.SanjayaWillWin.com.
**UPDATE**
This is pretty cool…it’s a flash movie where this guy drew a woman ‘from the inside out’. You see him drawing it out line by line – the movie is basically a recording of him drawing in real time…well anyway – check it out. It takes a couple minutes to watch, but it’s really cool…well worth the time spent.
So many stories on the web about Britney Spears partying without her underwear, and a lot of them blame it on her partying with Paris Hilton when it happenned. And because of this keywords with “Britney Spears” are some of the top ones searched every day in the search engines. Yahoo says she’s their number one search celebrity (now).
Even so, only a very few sites have these nude crotch flash pictures of britney. Who knows if it will damage her reputation or not. In the end, it just may further it – and nobody will end up caring. If you really want to checkout the pics, just view the Britney no panties photos roundup to see high res shots of her getting out of the car commando . Not safe for word – be forewarned!
