Michael Koby

Every computer user is guilty of overlooking some method of being more secure. Even I take shortcuts sometimes. But this week we are going to look at five different security problems that most people practice.

• 5) Not Verifying Websites Before Entering Personal Information: A lot of people do not realize that phishers can make websites look very legit. I myself have fallen for a couple only to be seriously screwed over. Firefox and Internet Explorer now give huge, can’t miss warnings about these websites. Just so everyone is aware, most websites these days are secured and you can check the validity of the secure connection by double clicking on the little lock icon in the status bar section of your web browser

• 4) Writing Passwords Down: It amazes me that in this day and age, even after numerous warnings, and countless lectures people still write their passwords down and then hide them in places that everyone checks first like under the keyboard or mouse pad. Folks, please stop writing your passwords down.

• 3) Giving Passwords Out to Unknown People: You would be surprised how many people still give their passwords out to random people who do nothing more than ask them for it. Even with huge warnings posted with in the chat window or in emails, people still willingly give people they do not know, their passwords.

• 2) Not Changing the Default Settings on Internet Routers: If you were to drive around in any subdivision, you could have your pick of wireless internet routers to use for random internet access. Want to download music, movies, or other questionable content? Simply drive through any major neighborhood and you can connect to a host of access points named “Linksys” and no one would be any wiser to it. Please, when you set up your wireless router, change the SSID and password for the router. Otherwise, you are just asking for trouble.

• 1) Using insecure Passwords: This is probably the biggest one. People like to pick passwords that are easy to remember, but because they are easy to remember, they are also easy to guess, hack, crack, or even just pick out of a hat. A more secure password is just as simple as replacing some letters with numbers. For example, Michael becomes M1c4@3L, or something similar. Also, using a password safe (like KeePass) can really help in this area.

It seems these days everyone is using Wordpress to handle their blogging needs. And why not? It is one of the easiest to use, highly customizable web applications in existence today. For this week’s list I’m going to share with your 5 Wordpress plugins that I use on this website here.

• 5) Future Posts & Enhanced Post Management: Yes, I know these are two separate plugins, but they are written by the same person, Michael Mancur. These two plugins alone help me track my future posts (since I write my Mon., Wed., and Friday posts about 1 week in advance on average) as well as modifying the post management page to make things a little easier to maintain. Great, simple plugins.

• 4) Google Sitemaps: This plugin is almost essential if you want Google to index your website accurately. You simply need to install it, set a couple of options and you are sending sitemaps to Google. Also, since Yahoo! and Microsoft have agreed to use this particular sitemap standard, there is no better time to install this plugin.

• 3) Feedburner Feed Replacement: When it comes to modifying files located on the server, I am of two minds. Part of me likes to do it myself, so that I can learn the inner workings of things. However, there are certain things where my mind tells me to let the computer do it. My RSS feeds is one of those things. Since RSS is one of the new ways to show you how much traffic you are getting, I wanted the most accurate numbers possible. This Feedburner plugin, has one textbox and that is it. Doesn’t get any simpler than that.

• 2) Wordpress Cache: Speed counts when you run a website. The faster your page loads the happier the readers are. Wordpress Cache makes it easy to cache pages on your site for a length of time that you determine. You simply tell it how long to cache a page for and this plugin does the rest.

• 1) OpenID Registration: I have been on an OpenID kick lately. I really like the idea of a single login/password combination. I also think that OpenID has the potential to succeed where Microsoft’s Live ID fails. This plugin allows you to set up OpenID registration on your website so that people can use their OpenID when registering to leave comments. While installing the plugin in the comment form can be a little difficult for a beginner in PHP/HTML, the payoff is worth it. I expect that OpenID is going to make a ton of headway now that AOL and Microsoft have announced support for the platform.

Well there you have it, some Wordpress plugins that I use on this website. None of these probably come as a tremendous shock, but they are good plugins that should at least be given some focus. Do you have a Wordpress plugin that you love? Tell me about by leaving a comment or emailing me directly.

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This week’s weekly reads, includes some links you can’t live without, getting things done with Google, replacing consumer products on the cheap, and much more. Be sure to scope out some of these articles that I found interesting.

Copyblogger:

• Links You Can’t Live Without

Problogger:

• How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog - The Advice of a 12 Year Old

Open Loops:

• Two Ways to Use Your New Found Morning Hours

Lifehacker:

• GTD with GOOG
• Improve Your Indoor Air Quality

Baron VC:

• Digg’s Dirty Little Secret: The Art of Getting Buried

The Simple Dollar:

• 8 Ways to Replace Common Consumer Products on the Cheap

Web Worker Daily:

• 10 Tips for Organizing Your Email
• 15 Stress Management Tips for the Web Worker

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I just finished reading Killer Flagship Content by Chris Garrett of currently of ChrisG.com and (formally?) Performancing.com. This fourteen page ebook that comes as a free gift when subscribing to the RSS feed for ChrisG.com is a great beginning resource for any new blogger. In fact, it is probably one of newest must read resources for a new blogger.

While many will argue that what is said in Killer Flagship Content has been said before by just about every blogger teaching others how to blog, it is nice to have the high points in one fourteen page supplement that new writers can be pointed to for easy reading. Chris puts everything in very simple terms and makes it easy to understand where he is going within the first five pages. The lists, tips, and insight he gives is something that I wish was available to me before I launched this website. Granted, I am not ashamed of anything I have done so far, I just feel that I could have started out better rather than learning 4-6 months later what I should have been doing from the start.

The idea of flagship content, is something that new bloggers need to focus on. There is a lot of "doing what that guy is doing" in the blogosphere these days. Having original content to point new readers to is something that is very important for a new writer to focus on. If you are new to blogging or known someone who is thinking of getting into the market, then you should point them to ChrisG.com where they can subscribe to the RSS feed and get a free copy of Killer Flagship Content. They will definitely want to add ChrisG.com’s RSS feed to their favorite RSS reader since Chris specializes in helping bloggers succeed.

For more information on how to obtain a copy of Killer Flagship Content, please visit ChrisG.com.

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