• The Barking Seal Q3 2010 is Here and Filled with Goodies!

    09Jul
    Author: katief Categories: IT Management, Infrastructure, Ramblings Comments: 0

    The latest version of The Barking Seal is here , and it is filled with a variety of applicable and accessible treats.  Want some? Keep reading for a taste…

    Goodie #1: Learn why version control is important for all businesses across the board.

    Goodie #2: Get some assistance in deciding “Git or Subversion? Git or Subversion? Git…?”

    Goodie #3 (otherwise known as the cherry on top): Meet Jim Turpin, one of our fabulous network engineers, who embodies the concept of multi-discipline to a T both inside and outside of the office.

    Click here to read Q3 2010, and, as always, enjoy the treat!

    We’d love to hear from you, so please post your comments and questions here.

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  • Essential WordPress Plugins

    23Sep
    Author: ned Categories: IT Management, Infrastructure Comments: 0

    2009-09-23_wpbannerI like WordPress a lot – it’s my #1 tool for simple web sites.  We use it for The Barking Seal Blog (this site!), but I also use it for a variety of more traditional sites, including the TechFest website, and even my personal wedding web site!

    WordPress isn’t everything, and if you’re looking for a CMS with the longest feature list, don’t bother trying it.  But if you want a reasonably-customizable web site that almost any end-user can update, I endorse it.  Try WordPress.com if you’re not comfortable managing your own web server.

    For the technical folks in the audience, it’s easy to install the free WordPress.org version on any server that supports the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).  It is infinitely customizable (if you know PHP, HTML, and CSS), but will probably meet most your needs “out of the box”.

    If you do use WordPress.org, there are a few plugins that are worth installing… here are the ones that I think every WordPress.org administrator should consider:

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  • WordPress Patching Vigilance

    27Feb
    Author: ned Categories: Security Comments: 0

    WordPress versionsWe run WordPress for our blog and like it.  I have been debating whether to upgrade our the barkingseal.com WordPress installation – we were at version 2.6.5 and it didn’t look like there were any important security issues fixed in 2.7 and 2.7.1.  Patching is all about balance – the risk of security vulnerabilities versus the risk and effort of applying the upgrade.   Plus, in this case, I sure don’t want to be too far behind the Web 2.0 curve (a little bit of sarcasm).  

    For a little guidance, I looked to the “big dogs” – how up-to-date are the most well-known WordPress sites?  Yesterday, I ran a quick scan of all 354 sites listed in the WordPress Showcase to see how we compared.  Sadly, not only are many sites not running WordPress 2.7+, but almost half (44%) are running a version older that 2.6.5.  2.6.5 was released in November, 2008 and did fix important security problems.  Wow… four months later and 44% of these leading WordPress sites still haven’t updated!

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