IE8 and Doctype switching
IE8 and Doctype switching
The topic of this week has been IE8s new rendering mode, and the strange way to trigger it. As usual, I’ve decided not to comment right away, and instead first read what others are saying and try to form an opinion. I believe the best articles that talks about the switch are these: Legacy, by James […]
Weekly Links - January 27th
Vector people illustrations - by Stylizedweb, A list of free vector people illustrations that are suitable for all type of sites from personal blogs, to designer showcases, and even professional and corporate sites.. Shadowbox Media Viewer- Cross-browser, cross-platform, cleanly-coded media viewer application written entirely in JavaScript. Liquid styled input element with CSS- This tutorial explains how to […]
Vector people illustrations - by Stylizedweb, A list of free vector people illustrations that are suitable for all type of sites from personal blogs, to designer showcases, and even professional and corporate sites..
Shadowbox Media Viewer- Cross-browser, cross-platform, cleanly-coded media viewer application written entirely in JavaScript.
Liquid styled input element with CSS- This tutorial explains how to implement a simple liquid styled input element using css.
Mootools animated sidebar menu- How to implement an animated sidebar menu using mootools.
12 Steps to Creating a Professional Web Design- Although there is no “one size fits all” process to creating a website, there are a number of things a website designer must do to create a professional web design and website.
2.3 to 2.5 Database Changes
I’ve seen a number of people tell others that WordPress 2.5 will have little to no database schema changes. It looks like that is no longer the case as MichaelH has pointed out. Changes to database schema from Version 2.3 to 2.5. *Table: comments Changed ‘comment_approved’ to varchar(20) NOT NULL default ‘1′ Added KEY ‘comment_approved_date_gmt’ (comment_approved, comment_date_gmt) Added KEY ‘comment_date_gmt’ […]
I’ve seen a number of people tell others that WordPress 2.5 will have little to no database schema changes. It looks like that is no longer the case as MichaelH has pointed out.
Changes to database schema from Version 2.3 to 2.5.
*Table: comments
- Changed ‘comment_approved’ to varchar(20) NOT NULL default ‘1′
- Added KEY ‘comment_approved_date_gmt’ (comment_approved, comment_date_gmt)
- Added KEY ‘comment_date_gmt’ (comment_date_gmt)
*Table: links
- Changed ‘link_visible’ to varchar(20) NOT NULL default ‘Y’
*Table: options
- Changed ‘autoload’ to varchar(20) NOT NULL default ‘yes’
*Table: posts
- Changed ‘post_status’ to varchar(20) NOT NULL default ‘publish’
- Changed ‘comment_status’ to varchar(20) NOT NULL default ‘open’
- Changed ‘ping_status’ to varchar(20) NOT NULL default ‘open’
*Table: term_relationships
- Added ‘term_order’ int(11) NOT NULL default 0
Thanks to MichaelH for putting these changes together. This information is especially useful to plugin and theme authors as it lets them know if their particular project will break.
IE8 renders the acid 2 test
I’m not sure why I don’t see that many people talking about the fact that IE8 renders the acid 2 test perfectly now. It really seems Microsoft is starting to move forward again, after starting to feel some pressure from the open source world. Will they be able to pick up the speed needed to […]
Default HTML in Sharepoint 2007
As I’ve said before, I’ve been spending time with Sharepoint 2007 recently. The HTML it produces is really bad, and today I thought I show you just how bad. Sharepoint 2007 has been “updated” to support masterpages, a concept from .NET 2.0. Sharepoint’s implementation of masterpages has several problems, but none of them even come close […]
10 Plugins To Combat Comment Spam
When I recently wrote a post which pointed to an article that described a few things you should do with your WordPress blog immediately after having it installed, I noticed Collin made a comment in that, WordPress was like the Windows OS where as, it comes bundled with Internet Explorer for a browser while WordPress […]
When I recently wrote a post which pointed to an article that described a few things you should do with your WordPress blog immediately after having it installed, I noticed Collin made a comment in that, WordPress was like the Windows OS where as, it comes bundled with Internet Explorer for a browser while WordPress comes bundled with (albeit fantastic) Akismet for a comment spam blocker.
With that in mind, here are 9 plugins that you can use either as stand alone replacements or in various combinations to combat comment spam. Not all plugins work nicely with others so be sure to read the installation manual if you decide to use any of these plugins on your own blog.
1. Comments For Cookies - This plugin adds a stylesheet to your blog’s html source code. When a browser loads that stylesheet a cookie is dropped. If that user then leaves a comment the cookie is checked. If it doesn’t exist the comment is marked as spam.
2. Bad Behavior - Bad Behavior is an awesome comment spam blocking plugin. If you can imagine, Bad Behavior is like Akismet on steroids. BH is a plugin which contains a series of scripts which block comment spam, trackback spam, guestbook spam, wiki spam, and even protects your site from some malicious website hacking. It’s been rumored that Akismet combined with Bad Behavior is the ultimate anti spam configuration in WordPress.
3. WP-SpamFree - SpamFree takes a somewhat different approach at combating spam by using a combination of JavaScript and cookies. According to the plugin author, most automated bots are stopped dead in their tracks by using this method while normal web site visitors are unaffected. However, the plugin author does state that there may be a few visitors who have JS and cookies disabled who might be annoyed by this plugin but that those people would be far fewer than the 100% of people which would be annoyed by CAPTCHA’s, challenge questions and other validation methods.
4. Spam Karma 2 - SK2 is the successor to SpamKarma. SpamKarma2 developed in 2007 is a an anti spam plugin which contains a wide assortment of options with the ability to find tune it’s effectiveness. SK2 even comes with it’s own module system where you can download separate modules and add functionality to the original plugin if the default is not enough for you. Despite this plugins age, WordPressers are still chanting about how well this plugin works.
5. Comment Inbox - Developed by Mark Jaquith, Comment Inbox gives you the ease of the moderation queue with the freedom of unmoderated comments. Comment Inbox works by placing all comments except caught spam into moderation which is renamed to Comment Inbox. All comments in the Comment Inbox will show up immediately on your blog so conversations don’t become interrupted by moderation time lines. An effective way of dealing with both spam and bacn on your blog.
6. CAPTCHA-Godfather - This plugin offers four different methods of protectio. The first is a verification code which is always generated dynamically. The second is that each verification code is given a session id which is different from the PHPSESSID value. The third protection is that every session id and verification code gets their own time stamp. The time stamp works on the premise that humans need a few seconds or minutes to post a comment. The last protection involved IP addresses. The visitor’s IP is stored with the verification code and only when the comment contains the original IP it’s then saved and held for moderation.
7. Defensio Anti-Spam - This plugin is used by a number of WordPress bloggers. It works similarly in the same way as Akismet as it is an advanced, spam filtering service that learns and adapts to your behaviors and those of your readers. Defensio also includes support for OpenID, detailed statistics and more. With all of this functionality under the hood, it’s no wonder that this is one of the most popular anti spam plugins in use today, outside of Akismet.
8. Worst Offenders - Worst Offenders is a plugin that you can use to help decrease the amount of time you spend looking through messages to determine if they are spam or not. Worst Offenders analyzies messages already marked as spam and then uses several techniques to identify messages with common sources, subjects, and content. The messages marked as Worst Offenders can then be deleted all at once, leaving only a handful of messages to sift through.
9. WP Captcha-Free - WP Captcha-Free blocks automated comment spam without resorting to CAPTCHAs. It does so by validating a hash based on time (and some other parameters) using AJAX when the form is posted. Comments posted via automated means will not have a hash or will have an expired hash and will be rejected. Unlike using a captcha, this does not place any burden on the commenter.
10. Akismet - There is no way in which I am going to write about spam blocking plugins and not include Akismet. Current versions of WordPress come with Akismet installed by default. Akismet uses a unique algorithm combined with a community-created database to “learn” which comments are comment spam and which are legitimate.
The default configuration for Akismet may not be enough for some. In my own experience, I’ve noticed that by check marking the configuration option to allow Akismet to automatically discard spam comments on posts that are older than a month has dramatically lowered the amount of spam in my moderation queue.
As for myself, I am perfectly content with the performance I have received out of Akismet. However, I must note that some of the success tied into Akismet deals with the way I have configured commenting in general on my own personal blog. For example, for a comment to appear on my blog, a user must fill out the name and email text fields. They must also contain a previously approved comment. I have also configured my comment moderation settings to place comments in the moderation queue if they contain two or more links.
Everyone’s comment spam/configuration circumstances are different, so be sure to experiment with different options or techniques to figure out which comment spam blocking recipe works for you. If you would like even more information on how to combat comment spam, check out this article on the Codex.
Welcome New Advertisers
I’d like to welcome on board five new Advertisers this month! ithemes If you are looking for some cool Premium Themes, ithemes offers some of the best-quality, premium WordPress themes for small businesses and bloggers. ithemes also provides helpful services like install/optimization service, provides three hours of basic modifications to personalize your theme. To add […]
I’d like to welcome on board five new Advertisers this month!
ithemes
If you are looking for some cool Premium Themes, ithemes offers some of the best-quality, premium WordPress themes for small businesses and bloggers. ithemes also provides helpful services like install/optimization service, provides three hours of basic modifications to personalize your theme. To add to all that, they also have several free WordPress video tutorials which you would find very helpful and useful.
For live demos and additional information or inquiries regarding their products/services, visit iThemes.
Izzymenu
Izzymenu- If you are looking to create your own professional CSS menus for your Website, just check Izzymenu. With an impressive Ajax interface, you can build your own CSS ? create a drop down DHTML sub-menu in minutes without writing a single line of code. You can choose a lot of pre-build menus or customize your own styles including, but not limited to, menu type (Vertical or Horizontal), menu font, width, height, background color, background image, links state (hover).
Best Web Gallery
Best Web Gallery is an inspirational gallery site, gathering quality design websites (Flash & CSS) to remain consistent. Best Web Gallery have a significant role to play, actively promoting web standards and accessibility which is a key benefit to our web design industry. They only showcase quality design websites using their own equation: Quality Design = Visual + Technical + Creativity. So if you are a designer who want to submit your work or if you want to fuel your creativity by getting inspired, visit Best Web Gallery .
Adii
Adii is a freelance web designer & strategist from South Africa, specialized in WordPress Theme designs . His WordPress themes (Free and Premium) is simply perfect. The most impressive area in Adii’s site is the “mini interviews“, with very famous names from the design blog sphere like Lorelle, Jonathan Snook, Small Potato. You can read more about Adii at his own blog and also check out his portfolio.
BuyTemplates
If you want to create a highly appealing website, then BuyTemplates is what you should be looking for! Their unique template designs are characterized by strong attention to details that you can get at affordable price. Each package contains five page templates (homepage and five internal pages) fully customizable to suite your needs. Next to their standard service you can have them customize the look and feel of your site and put your content in place. But there’s even more to offer, Flash and Joomla templates ready to download, adding functionalities for ecommerce site , Hosting package and much more.
So if you’re a web designer and these services interest you, we hope you’ll give them serious consideration and and let them know that Noupe sent you!