Happy Halloween

October 31st, 2007 by ImagineFX | Team Blog

Happy Halloween. Check out this new image from Aly Fell to celebrate!

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Creating a secure WordPress install

October 30th, 2007 by Dougal

Over on BlogSecurity, there's a whitepaper on How to create a secure WordPress install. It covers several areas, including MySQL setup, WordPress user configuration, Apache protection of directories, and some useful plugins. I've glanced over it, and I have mixed feelings. Here's a quick list of notes, off the top of my head:

Pros:

• There is detailed information about granting the minimum privileges necessary for the MySQL login. This is a good idea that many people probably don't think about.
• Creating a less privileged WordPress account for posting, separate from your blog admin login, is also a good suggestion.
• The notes on password enumeration are important. I didn't even realize that we were giving different error messages depending on whether the username or password was incorrect. This is a definite no-no, and something that we should correct in the WordPress core.
• For folks using Apache, and who can create .htaccess files, there is a good section on limiting access to wp-includes, wp-content, and wp-admin.
• The WPIDS plugin sounds useful. This plugin will try to detect certain types of potentially harmful activity, log it, and possibly block further attempts.

Cons:

• There is a lot of space spent talking about changing the table prefix. This security-by-obscurity is probably going to be useless. If an attacker reaches the point that they can access your tables by name, then they're most likely going to be able to figure out the names of the tables.
• The section about restricting admin access by IP should probably be more detailed, and make it more clear that it is for advanced users, and probably not applicable for most users.
• There is a section about the using the WordPress Plugin Tracker to make sure that your plugins are up-to-date. As of WordPress 2.3, there is built-in plugin version tracking, which isn't mentioned in the paper. Granted, there are limitations (the plugin must be hosted in the wp-plugins.org repository), but I expect it to become more flexible in the future.
• There is no mention about using SSL (https://...) for logins and admin functions. Since WordPress doesn't support SSL out of the box, maybe that's not surprising. But I think that I've seen some rumblings about supporting SSL in a future version.

Despite being a little light, I think work like this is important and useful. I'm hoping that the authors will take the constructive criticisms to heart and use it to update their paper, making it better and more thorough.

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The Last Supper

October 29th, 2007 by ImagineFX | Team Blog

Click here for an unbelievably detailed view (16 billion pixels) of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.

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Steelcase Think

October 28th, 2007 by Ryan

I bought the Steelcase Leap back in 1999. I sat on a lot of chairs back then, and the Leap was by far my favorite. A few months ago I was looking for another task chair and decided to give the Steelcase Think a try. The Think is the cheaper chair of the two, but I like it better. It doesn’t have as many adjustments as the Leap, but it doesn’t need them. A lot of different adjustments are collapsed into one control that works based on body weight. The body weight proportional recline just works, no fiddling required.

The seat back flexors are a big point in the Think’s favor. I find that they offer a more supple fit for my back. Other’s might find them a bit squishy compared to the Leap, but for me they are a good deal more comfortable.

Likewise, the seat edge seems more flexible and supple on the Think. I feel less pressure on the back of my legs when sitting in the Think. I have big, muscular thighs (if I do say so myself), and pressure from the front edge of the seat is a problem for me in many chairs.

The retractable arm rests on the Think are a small feature that is really nice. They retract back as you move toward your work surface, allowing you to scoot in really close to your work. My Leap does not have retractable arm rests, but it looks like the newer ones might. I don’t know if they retract to the degree that the Think does though. The Leap marketing doesn’t play up the feature the way the Think does.

The Think is much, much lighter than the Leap. Moving the Leap up and down stairs is a back-breaker. The Think is much more manageable.

Finally, the Think has a headrest option. I’ve never bothered with headrests before, but I decided to add one to my Think. I’m glad I did. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old, but I find that leaning back with my head against the headrest while coding saves some shoulder and neck strain.

These are both great chairs, but the Think is my new favorite.

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New workshop downloads

October 26th, 2007 by ImagineFX | Team Blog

Two new workshops are available to download for free! First up is a manga character illustration workshop here, then follow the process of creating a fiery dragon princess here. Enjoy.

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WordPress 2.3.1 Release Candidate 1

October 24th, 2007 by Ryan

We just announced RC1 on the dev blog.  The only change since Beta 1 was a small fix to wp-mail.php to address ticket #5169.  If there are no unpleasant surprises, the final 2.3.1 release should be out in the next day or two.

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Easy Gravatars Plugin

October 24th, 2007 by Dougal

Since so many people seemed to be interested, I went ahead and coded up my new Gravatars plugin: Easy Gravatars. It's designed to be simple to use -- just upload and activate. If you want it to be a little harder, you can visit the plugin's options page to set the size and rating for the gravatars, and even set the location of a default image, and tweak the CSS a little bit.

Download: easygravatars.zip

I'm going to put it in the WordPress Plugin Repository when I get a chance. Once that's done, I'll update this post with the new location.

Update, 2007-11-16: The plugin is now in the repository, and you should now be able to see that version 1.1 is available: Easy Gravatars Plugin

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New videos (24th Oct)

October 24th, 2007 by ImagineFX | Team Blog

You can watch Koshime's video workshops from issue 23 today by clicking here - completely free of course! Also, take a look at what we got up to at the Birmingham International Comics show by clicking here!

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IMAP comes to Gmail

October 24th, 2007 by Ryan

It looks like I’m one of the lucky ones whose IMAP support has already been turned on in gmail.  Others are reporting that it hasn’t shown up for them yet.  Settings now has a “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab with an “IMAP Access” section at the bottom.  Just select Enable IMAP and you’re good to go.  Mine was  already enabled when I checked, so I jumped straight to configuring iPhone access.  Inbox, All Mail, Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred, and Trash all show up as IMAP folders as do all of your labels.  Very nice.

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Cintiq 12WX

October 23rd, 2007 by ImagineFX | Team Blog

Wacom has just announced the new Cintiq 12WX. It's the same size as the Intuos3 A5 Wide (woo!), but costs £829.99 (boo!). It's great to finally see the gap between the Intuos and the 21X Cintiq filled. Coming November 2007, click here to check it out.

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