A MarketPlace of Ideas

Try to spell diary

While you do this get a vivid image of the last time you had diarhea

When I did this I kept spelling dairy

numb
(nm)

adj. numb·er, numb·est

1. Deprived of the power to feel or move normally; benumbed: toes numb with cold; too numb with fear to cry out.
2. Emotionally unresponsive; indifferent: numb to yet another appeal.
tr. & intr.v. numbed, numb·ing, numbs

To make or become numb.

[Middle English nome, variant of nomin, past participle of nimen, to seize, from Old English niman; see nem- in Indo-European roots.]

numbly adv.
numbness n.
Word History: Old English had a number of strong verbs (often loosely called “irregular” verbs) that did not survive into Modern English. One such was the verb niman, “to take,” later replaced by take, a borrowing from Old Norse. The verb had a past tense nam and a past participle numen; if the verb had survived, it would likely have become nim, nam, num, like swim, swam, swum. Although we do not have the verb as such anymore, its past participle is alive and well, now spelled numb, literally “taken, seized,” as by cold or grief. (The older spelling without the b is still seen in the compound numskull.) The verb also lives on indirectly in the word nimble, which used to mean “quick to take,” and then later “light, quick on one’s feet.”

Seeing spam indexed in the content of your google results of your WordPress WebLog? I am and thus am currently debugging it. My notes are here.

Seeing spam in the results that looks like this:

Using Google Search Terms: Wordpress hack google
I found an article that relates directly to this symtom.After a quick look using an FTP tool at my theme directory I found the only things modified recently were: header.php and footer.php ……..the dates were today and yesterday. Thus its an automated thing most likely. Thus before taking any steps to remove the spam links in my theme files I need to shut down the alteration process.

0. I used my text editor to remove the links from header.php and footer.php …..I then completely locked down my these files using mod rewrite so no one including me can use the WordPress scripts to modify them.

Next I did the following: ( cut and paste from the security arty linked above )

1. Secure the /wp-admin/ directory

You probably know that most of your WordPress sensitive information is stored in the /wp-admin/ folder. Right out of the box, WordPress leaves that folder open, so people can access these files if they know what they are doing.

Matt suggests to place a .htaccess file inside the /wp-admin/ folder to block the access to all IP addresses, except yours. Here is the code you need to put in the .htaccess file:

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Example Access Control"
AuthType Basicorder deny,allow
deny from all
allow from xx.xx.xx.xx
allow from xx.xx.xxx.xx
2. Hide your plugins

Many WordPress plugins come with bugs and vulnerabilities that can be exploited to damage your website. The last thing you want, therefore, is other people being able to know what plugins you are using.

If you visit the folder /wp-content/plugins/ on most blogs, however, you will be able to see all the plugins that are being used. In order to hide that list you just need to create an empty index.html file and drop it there.

I should really update my plugins also. I want to use the automatic update plugin because Dreamhost updates force you to reinstall all your plugins and yikes that does not sound like fun!

The detailed upgrade procedure is here.