My previous WordPress backup plugin broke when WordPress version 3.o was released. I tried a few different options and finally settled on Automatic WordPress Backup, which is a plugin that backs up your WordPress database, themes. plugins and htaccess files.

Here’s why its really good!

It backs up to Amazon S3, in the cloud data storage. This is great because it’s very unlikely that Amazon will lose the data! Yes, you have to register an account at Amazon, but it’s free and the storage cost is really tiny, I mean, 20 cents a month tiny and I’ve got a big one (website).

If you’ve ever lost valuable data you know that backups are:

A) Tedious and really dull

B) Vital to your continued well being

Therefore, a few cents a month is nothing and the process is seamless.

It exports the database; a lot of backup plugins just backup the WordPress files, but thats only half of the WordPress installation. You need to have a dump of the database too if you are going to retrieve your valuable posts, pages etc. Automatic WordPress Backup does the job nicely.

It also backs up themes and uploaded content; some plugins just export the database. AWB does the database, as an SQL export and the themes, plugin files and uploaded content. So it covers everything you need to be able to restore you whole wordpress installation, which is what you want.

It allows you to schedule backups; daily, weekly or monthly backups can be set, so you can cover your options if your a daily poster or just one-in-a-while kind of poster.

I’m using AWB on many of my blogs and am setting it up for clients too.

You can download the plugin at Automatic WordPress Backup.

Go here to sign up for an Amazon Web Services account.

Just created another screen video using Camtasia 5. This is the latest version and its really cool. You can put in a picture in picture (I know you don’t want to see my ugly mug!), which might be useful in some situations. However, the filesize increases dramatically with PIP.

See what you think…

I’ve just been writing some code to run a TCP socket on a specific port. I was having trouble reading the response from the socket, which promted me to luckily find this damn good port scanning utility that I want to tell you about.

Its called JFirewallTest and it’s a nifty little Java program that can be run from the web page and will perform  a full port scan. All 65,536 ports are scanned very rapidly to find possible security holes in your firewall.

My sincere thanks to Michael Gardiner for developing and making this utility available free. You did a great job!

I had to download the Java runtime on all my servers and then checked them all. I’d wanted to do this for some time just to check. I new they were pretty secure and my firewall is locked down tight. Now I’m sure of this thanks to JFirewallTest.

It downloads and installs quickly and the port scan is performed in two phases and only takes a couple of minutes! Bloody marvellous! Thank you!

I was recently turned on to a product called RoboForm by a top internet marketer called Mike Filsaime. I had seen various password management products and thought about getting one, but was dubious.

After Mike mentioned how easy RoboForm is to use, I thought I would give it a try. And I must say I’m mightily impressed. So impressed in fact, I bought the pro version and add-ons for my smartphone and a USB version too. It’s really wicked!

Until I bought RoboForm I was using a spreadsheet to manage all my logins and passwords to various registrars, affiliate systems, client systems etc. The list was getting longer and longer. In fact, as you might guess, as I’m in the IT business related to web development, it’s huge.

Having RoboForm manage this for me is such a timesaver and makes my life so much easier, that I am truly grateful!!

If you have to manage a lot of logins and passwords to systems, you should try it and see how good it is! I think once you have used it for a few days, you’ll be very impressed. I am! It’s a free 30 day trial by the way, so you have nothing to loose!

Thanks Mike!

I run Computer Associates ARCSEVE 11.0 to backup all data every night. I recently installed SP2 on the Windows 2003 server that runs the ARCSERVE backup.

After the install I found that ARCSERVE crashed after running for a while, with nothing indicated in the Arcserve log or the Windows event log.

I found a usefull post that enabled me to fix the problem. I found this just before I almost upgraded to Arcserve 11.5, which would have cost me about 550 bucks! So try this first, its pretty straight forward and my backup is now running properly again. I wasn’t happy about being forced to upgrade but CA apparently don’t support anything less than Acrserve 11.5 on Windows Server 2003 with SP2 installed.

The file that needs to be renamed is asrbckup.dll and in version 11.0 it’s location is C:\Program Files\CA\SharedComponents\BrightStor\asrbckup.dll.

I haven’t tried doing a restore yet, but at least the backup completes properly.

If you’ve been blogging for a while you will have noticed how the spam community (if I may call it that) arbitrarily posts its sticking crud to your blog as comments. Lord knows why they bother. But a pain in the butt they are to boot!

I’ve been manually dealing with this for a while, deleting anywhere from 1 to 10+ pages (yes pages) daily from the comments awaiting moderation on my blog.

Today I created a WordPress account, got an API key and installed AKISMET anti-spam plugin. It seems to be the best one, is free unless you’re making wads-o-cash from your blogging and is written by one of the WordPress gurus, so should be pretty robust I would think.

I’ll let you know how it goes and goodbye you stinking spammer turds, I flush you down my blog toilet!

I saw the news recently about the uproar, yes, uproar no less, cause by a group of hackers at a security conference where some apparently managed to hack Mac OSX. WOW!

This has re-opened the debate as to wether the MAC operating system is more, ahem, secure than it’s rivals, especialy, dun dun daahhhh, Microsoft Windows. Apparently the bug was in Quicktime, which is Apples media player.

I’ve noticed that, imho, many Mac users seem to be very anti Windows, particularly those who are not, again imho, qualified to make any kind of judgement about security or anything else for that matter. But developers too have said to me things like ‘oh not Windows, how can you work with that, its so bad’ and similar nonsense.

Now, first I must say I could care less but lets get real here for a minute.

1. OSX is a Unix variant and as such I wouldn’t bet on that being secure unless I’d brought in some security experts to harden and test that sucker (i’m talking about in a production environment)

2. It would cost a lot of money to do that as installation and configuration is apparently still a bugger!

3. MACs market share is around 6% so if you do the math there will be something like 90% more attempts to hack a Windows PC than a MAC. That doesn’t make a MAC more secure or less vulnerable, it simply means that more people try to hack a Windows system in one month than they do all year on a MAC.

4. All software has bugs. Period.

Here’s the original article and some interesting stats from MacDailyNews.

And the story continues…

As a developer of software systems for small and medium sized businesses I know that project documentation, while normally required in some form, is usually sparse at best and often non existent. Sure some sort of design document may be generated and then the development starts and the thing evolves somewhat and you end up with (hopefully) a good system that works well and its on time and within budget.

Now we’ve got to this point the next cycle begins and the supporting documentation falls by the wayside. Six months later you really wish you had that when you’re doing maintenance or enhancements to the original system.

Well, I’ve honestly found the answer to this dilema with a tool that is easy to use, allows you to quickly outline a system and fill in the details and share that with anyone using a viewer. What is this product from heaven? It’s called Mindjet Mindmanager and its fabulous. I used it recently on a project and it was quick and easy to generate a system design document with supporting text, graphics, url links, whatever you need really. And that’s just one use for this tool. I wish I’d found it sooner. There’s a free trial so try it and see if it works for you!

I noticed that IE started to quit on me again after I ran Microsoft Outlook. When I rebooted and opened IE, no problem. After opening Outlook (2007) IE immediatley started to shut down. So I decided to uninstall the Windows Live Messenger sign-in helper and the Windows Live Search IE toolbar.

That seems to have fixed that problem and I still have Windows Live Messenger running. No other problems so far. Nice one Bill!

I’ve just upgraded to Live Messenger 8 with the IE toolbar and immediately had a problem after installing where Internet Explorer (i’m running 7) crashed upon opening. A real pain in the butt!

I seem to have overcome this immediate problem, though it seems there may be many more! To fix my IE problem I disabled file sharing in Live Messenger. To do this go to Tools>Options\Shsring Folders\ and uncheck the sharing folders box. You will have to restart before the problem goes away. Please note: after you restart, if you go back and check the sharing folders box and apply the setting, you will have to uncheck it and restart your computer again (or so its seems).

Here’s a link to a great deal of info about this problem with Windows Live Messenger which you may find useful! I did!!

This has been a royal pain in the arse and wasted a good hour of my morning! Good luck.