WP Lynx 0.2.0

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

No, this is not the massive feature improved WP Lynx 0.5.0, it is a feature adding release that improves upon the previous version. New to this version is styling within the Visual editor in WordPress. This uses the default WP Lynx style and looks much better than the pile of text and images that would show up in the editor in the past. Additional features include the ability to undo setting imports, setting resets and setting changes (inherited from Breadcrumb NavXT).

Expect the next release of WP Lynx, version 0.5.0, to become available early December. This version will feature some substantial changes and feature additions as development progresses towards version 1.0.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

WordCamp Minneapolis 2010 – I’m Presenting

Posted by in Announcements

It has been confirmed, I will be speaking at WordCamp Minneapolis on November 13th, 2010. My presentation is titled How-to: Reporting Issues. I will be covering troubleshooting techniques, determining if an issue is a bug, and best practices for reporting bugs. This includes a quick primer on using the WordPress Trac. You will find this presentation in the beginner track, though it can be a good refresher for more advanced users that are not used to dealing with troubleshooting.

By the way, you may want to watch the WordCamp Minneapolis website for an announcement around October 4th. Yes, I already know what it is (it involves a change in venue, you didn’t hear this from me, capisce?).

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Two Years of Breadcrumb NavXT 3

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

Two years ago, Breadcrumb NavXT 3.0.0 was released. With it came the same underlying codebase used today. It came with the knowledge gained when writing version 2 of Breadcrumb NavXT, and has been, for the most part, easy to extend to support new features added into WordPress.

Looking forward, there will be a 3.7.0 release in early November. It has incorporated many suggestions from users, in particular extra options have been added for custom post types that enable more flexible hierarchy structures. While support for multi site features have not been worked on yet, I still intend to include them in this release.

Now for the part that will concern some of you. I will be limiting my support and development time allocated to Breadcrumb NavXT during the month of October. During this time I will be working on a side project with J.D. and preparing for WordCamp MSP 2010. After October things will go back to “normal” as we approach the run up to 3.7.0.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

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Time for Flash to Die

Posted by in Enemy of the Spammers

Today some stupid advertisement delivery agency decided to ship a Flash based add that automatically infects your computer with a fake security suite (named “AV Security Suite”). This affects the latest Flash player, regardless of web browser.

Neat, right? Oh, it gets better. AV Security Suite is ransomware, which does not allow you to open any applications that it knows could close it. Great, isn’t it? The seemingly good thing is you can get rid of it using System Restore. Do this by:

  1. Pulling the powerplug to your PC (don’t do a “proper” shutdown or restart).
  2. Boot into safemode. Usually, you need to press and hold the F8 key while booting, and select safemode from the menu. However, if you did not shutdown properly this menu should automatically come up.
  3. Finally, in safemode use System Restore to go back to before the infection happened. Note that Windows 7 users can go strait to restoring using the “Restore Computer” menu item rather than safemode boot.

Going forward, remove Adobe Flash player from your computer. Since Adobe can’t seem to fix this issue, Flash player is not to be trusted (add Adobe Acrobat reader to your untrusted list as well). If you must have Flash player (for any reason) and use Firefox install Flashblock, it could save you time in the future.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]