• Potential cross-site scripting vulnerability on WordPress sites configured directly by IP address (tested here).
• A couple of other potential cross-site scripting / redirect issues.
• Potential issue with privilege escalation for admin users in WordPress networks.
• Plupload issue – the code WordPress uses to upload files.
• SWFUpload issue – the old code WordPress used to upload files.
• SWFObject issue – code used to embed Flash content.

Although none of these are critical, the update(s) should be applied to minimise any potential risks. The two point releases also include some css and JavaScript tweaks, which save loading some images in the admin interface, and address a couple of cosmetic issues, including an upgrade to the hoverIntent and press-this code.

While we are on the topic of upgrades, WordPress 3.4 is just around the corner (currently in beta). The upcoming release features a number of enhancements to internationalization functionality, particularly of interest for non-English WordPress users, new features for theme designers (child themes and configuration for headers and backgrounds), and a number of performance enhancements and API tweaks, which will need a fair bit of testing with older plugins and themes before sites can be upgraded.

As ever, always keep regular back ups of your blog – you don’t want to lose any of those hard written posts, hard-earned comments or those pictures, videos and links you spent hours curating. For our business blogs, we back up databases nightly, and keep a rolling archive. Uploads and other content are mirrored to our standby servers in real-time. If you can’t afford that sort of protection, then at least take an export of your blog once every few posts, and do keep a local copy of any images or other files that you upload. And, of course, always do a full back up before any upgrade or adding plugins.

Happy, and safe, blogging!

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Time to Move Up

Now, to be clear, Microsoft itself dropped support for Internet Explorer 6 quite some time ago, and has even been running a campaign to get users and web sites to move from IE 6, and Google has dropped IE 6 support on its sites. The challenge, in the world of the intra-webs, has been that many IT departments are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they need to move up from Internet Explorer 6 (it’s over a decade old after all! Which is about 70 in Internet Years), but on the other there are many legacy web applications deployed in the Intranet 1.0 era that only work with IE 6. By the way, Internet Explorer 7 is no spring chicken either, at over 5 years old.

There is a clear lesson here, and for those that have missed it, a couple of solutions. Firstly, the lesson: If you are deploying a web application, make sure it isn’t dependent on proprietary web browser features. If it only works with one web browser, that is going to come back to haunt you down the line, as it effectively places an additional sell-by date on the application. When we build intranets, we test them with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome, even if only Internet Explorer is in use. That way, if it works across multiple browsers, it’s much more likely to last, and to gracefully degrade. Next, some solutions…

The lack of IE 6 support in WordPress 3.2 needn’t be a huge problem. Support has only been dropped in the admin Interface – themes are still free to support IE 6, so it is only the people creating posts and approving comments that immediately need to move off of IE6. This is only buys a little time though, it really is time to drop IE6 from your network, at the very least, it’s a security risk, as it no longer receives security patches.

Living Without Internet Explorer 6

If your infrastructure is still burdened with legacy apps that require IE 6 to work, there are two other work arounds:

1. Desktop Virtualization – provide access to the legacy apps via virtual desktops or remove desktop access – Microsoft style or VMWare style.
2. Browsium – an interesting application that allows IE6 to run in a frame in more modern Internet Explorer versions – thank you to Mark at CDG for the pointer.

Minimum Requirements

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This has happened before, but this ‘goops‘ is rather timely. What’s a ‘goops’? It’s my favourite term for semantic/contextual errors: Searching without sufficient attention to context.

Let’s say I’m looking for information on Birmingham. I might head over to Google and do a search on ‘Birmingham’. If I’m after a picture, I could click on image search and find myself one. So far so good. Hold that thought for a minute.

I met up with the London-based WordCamp UK crew last night (upcoming meet details). We talked about next year’s WordCamp event, forming a legal entity and how to best build the WordPress community in the UK. Tony Scott, Jeff Van Campen, Hugh Fraser and others were there – as you can just about see from my slightly over ambitious, dark venue, self-timer-taken photo.

Events are a key component of building communities (as in the OU’s community model), but it is a good social software platform that creates the bridge between those physical events and the on-line world. That bridging is key in order to keep the community going. That was a big part of last night’s discussion and a topic for a later post.

Back to looking for pictures of Birmingham. Attendees of the WordCamp event might remember that there are two Birmingham’s. The Birmingham where we had WordCamp UK, unsurprisingly in the UK. Then there is Birmingham Alabama, where folks had “WordCamp Birmingham” in the US. A little confusing in the run up to both events! That is a little detail that seems to have slipped by someone in Birmingham city council.

In choosing a picture for a recent promotional leaflet, over half a million copies printed, they managed to use a picture of the Birmingham Alabahama, US skyline, rather than their own Birmingham. A classic “goops” – a search based error. Just to add to this little PR stumble, they initially denied the error and claimed they had used an image of a ‘generic skyline’ (which just happened to be of the US Birmingham, of course).

That’s also a proof point for a good PR tip: “go ugly early” – if you’ve made a mistake, best to come clean about it quickly. In today’s high speed, search engine driven world, it’s all too easy to make a goops. A good job we have communities to keep us on the straight and narrow.

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WordCamp UK, of course. It was a great event, with The Studio far exceeding my expectations as a venue. It is a fantastic place to hold events in Birmingham, centrally located and suitably post modern. WordCamp gave me lots to think about:

• The technology side of WordPress.
• The content side of blogging (and moblogging).
• And, of course, putting faces and voices to fellow bloggers I have been reading.

It was well worth the travel up to Birmingham – somewhat confusingly, there will also be a WordCamp in Birmingham, USA. This was the Birmingam UK event (we don’t want people getting confused)! I even got to meet both Chris Garretts in one place at the same time (this one and this one).

Now I have no excuse for getting them confused. The links are in the order of the photo, which I promise isn’t photoshopped – check out the full flickr stream to get a feel for the event: WordCampUK photos.

During a break on my journey home I Qik’d a video journal – By the way, Qik is now in public beta, so if you have the right phone, you can sign up and try it out for yourself. You’ll need a good data plan (a large data limit, and watch out for per MB charges). It was a brain dump that turned into a 20 minute monologue, but at least I have captured it all. The video covers the different pieces of WordCamp UK, you can watch it here if you want to hear a full run through of the weekend.:

Video is a surprisingly nice medium for spontaneously dumping thoughts. When you listen back you have the choice of listening to just the audio, or watching the video too. Capturing the facial expressions and seeing what is physically happening adds to the communication – you’ll find out what I mean it you watch the video.

The downside of video is that you can’t skim read it. That was part of an answer I gave during the panel session – I love Q&A panels – always gets the brain going. Chris Garrett caught some of the discussion when he Qik’d from the event. You can hear me telling the story behind WOWNDADI on the video too (thank you Chris):

There are notes and links for some of the content on the WordCamp Wiki, a name check for the event in The Blog Herald and I now have a few hundred gigabytes of audio, video and photos which I will be editting down and posting. Although, embarrassingly, I can’t remember if I videod my own talk!

Special kudos to Sam Bauers of Automattic for flying all the way from Australia and being camera man 2 with a very nifty HDD video camera, as well as fielding a raft of questions. Check out the speakers’ sites to get a feel for a range of WordPress uses:

• My fellow presenters for the Blogging and Journalism session:
  • Bob Jones http://www.thedailynovel.com/ 
  • David Page http://www.expressandstar.com/
• Chris Garrett
• Gurbir Singh
• Ian Covey
• Jonnya
• Mike Little
• Nick Garner
• Peter Westwood
• Rich Boakes
• Richard Williams
• Sam Bauers
• Simon Dickson
• Simon Wheatley
• Tony Scott

Users of WordPress include eBay, The New York Times and the UK Government. More to follow in the coming weeks… It would be great to hear from more WordPress users and bloggers, especially if you are in the UK. Roll on WordCamp 2009!

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For the first time in the UK, the WordPress community is gathering. WordCamp UK will be held from Saturday July 19 to Sunday July 20, 2008 in Birmingham (Birmingham, UK that is). Tickets are on sale here. 

There will be presentations, workshops and the opportunity to socialize with other WordPress enthusiasts and developers. A great opportunity to learn and share knowledge and skills.

I’ll be there with my camera, capturing the moment (here are the pictures from MediaCamp and TechCrunch Pitch! in case you missed them). I’ll also be on the Q&A panel, as well as speaking from my experiences of the past few years.

Redcatco are supporting the event with sponsorship – it is great to be able to give something back to the community. You can find out much more on the WordCamp UK blog. Oh, and the event even has its own WordPress plugin: Linklove.

If you are a WordPress user in the UK (or know one, or can travel to the UK), come along and spread the word. I use WordPress everyday, and really appreciate its ease of use, flexibility and developer community.

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