See the CBC article “Facebook, PayPal users urged to check logins after hacking“:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/06/17/pei-lulzsec-personal-internet-accounts-584.html

There is a link to a Dazzlepod page referenced in the above article, which lists email addresses of hacked accounts; check to see if your accounts are on the list!

Even though we updated everything WordPress related a month or two ago, just signing into the WordPress Admin/Dashboard triggered update notices. WordPress version 3.0.5 is out. Of course, the WordPress anti-spam plug-in Akismet has been updated, now on version 2.5.3. Even the WordPress theme named Pixel, used here, has also been updated to version 2.0.2. Well, Shak upgraded everything using the automated facilities, and everything looks to be working well (as accustomed & expected).

Aside from all that website related stuff, we use the free virtualization software VirtualBox in daily business activity. It too has a new version released, 4.0.4, just four days ago. On top of an openSUSE 11.1 Linux host (KDE for Desktop/GUI), we run our accounting system (QuickBooks on Windows XP) in a virtual machine, and also an openSUSE 11.3 workstation environment (GNOME) communications (GNOME/Novell Evolution), web development (Quanta Plus), and other web-administrative activities (Firefox). Everything is up-to-date, of course

I hope everyone has had a great Family Day! Shak’s now going to go enjoy what’s left of his…

People are freaking out over Facebook being inaccessible. At this moment, there are thousands of Tweets on Twitter posted every minute, remarking upon the failure!

From some brief Googling of WordPress Twitter Widget, we opted to read a couple best/top lists:

1. 10 Best Twitter Tools, Plugins, Widgets for WordPress Blogs
2. Top Twitter WordPress Widgets

From there and some further research of compatibility and rating on the WordPress Plugin Directory the following two plugins have been selected and implemented into the right sidebar:

1. Twitter Widget Pro
2. TwitterCounter by TwitterCounter[.com]

Sign into my TwitterRemote on http://twittercounter.com/DaShak?t=t so I know when you check my stats!

This year it’s time to move forward! Daniel Shakhmundes actually wants to hear from you now, and this fact is exemplified in the return of a contact page! While we’ve routinely implemented such things on clients’ websites, it’s been years since one was available here. We used the cformsII plug-in by delicious:days, which provides anti-spam verification, robust field checking, and many more features that no form (contact or otherwise) should be without.

We’ve also fixed & improved the Photos page, which bears content from Daniel Shakhmundes’ Facebook profile.  Like the web in general, the Facebook system is changing & updating periodically.  A new Fotobook plug-in for WordPress was finally released, accounting for the functional/API changes while also providing new functionality itself.

In keeping up with WordPress updates, we also upgraded to the latest stable version (2.9.1), which was a breeze as always.  It’s a great feeling to know you have the cutting-edge functionality expected in a website, while having no known security vulnerabilities, and a world-wide community keeping things that way!

Cheers,
D.Shak & associates

Along with today’s post, we upgraded to WordPress 2.9 – so far so good!

We have upgraded clients’ sites without issues. Now is a good time to do so, because the WordPress hardening release is for securing and stabilizing their version 2.8 branch. We strongly recommend doing so ASAP – it should be a smooth experience – contact us and we can take care of it if you wish.

More information on the latest stable version and why you should upgrade were posted on October 20, 2009 on WordPress’ own website under WordPress 2.8.5: Hardening Release.

Regards,
Daniel Shakhmundes, B.Sc.
Technology & Business Consultant
+ Phone: 1-905-321-9898
+ Email: d@shak.tv
+ HTTP://Shak.TV

Google‘s YouTube integrated with Google’s AdSense are together called [Google/YouTube] AdSense Player. Non-intrusive advertising should be displayed. The content (videos and advertising) are automatically selected by Google’s system, but there are some means of influencing the process in your own custom/tailored implementation.

Alongside some upgrades to Daniel Shakhmundes’ website (i.e. now running the latest stable versions of WordPress, Akismet, and Google Analytics for WordPress), we’re most excited to write about what we consider to be an upgrade to life.

Google now has a new product named Latitude.  Straight from their introductory page, it states:

See where your friends are in real time!

Enjoy Google Latitude on your phone, computer, or both.

Check out the official Google Latitude page for more information, including a video.

There can be a lot of benefits and convenience in having the ability to know where your friends/contacts/associates/whoever are, especially considering that many of us already use Google Maps on our computers & smart-phones.  Apparently integration for Facebook and Twitter is already available.  We’ll be looking into those before too long.  For now, D.Shak is going to enable Google Latitude and see who’s willing to experiment with him…  Now is a good time to figure out the privacy settings for Google Latitude, before many other people are using it.

Common misspellings for SEO: lattitude, latittude, lattittude, latutid, latatude