All posts by admin

Security update

The blog application software has been updated to 3.0.3 to address a potential security risk if any blogs here are allowing the XML-RPC remote publishing protocol for “Author” or “Contributor” users. This is a very minor fix, but if anyone notices troubles on the site, please notify blogsmgr@mtroyal.ca

Site software updated

The blogs.mtroyal.ca site has been updated to WordPress 3.0.2 due to an emergency security update. Several plugins have been updated as well. Please email blogsmgr@mtroyal.ca if you find any problems with these updates.

Anti-Captcha plugin reactivated site-wide

It was brought to my attention that a site update a few months ago removed Anti-Captcha from the site-wide activated plugin list. This resulted in many more spam comments showing up on some of the public blogs. The plugin has been re-activated site-wide, which should result in an immediate reduction, and we will continue to investigate further ways to mitigate comment spam.

Site software updated

The WordPress MU software that runs blogs.mtroyal.ca has been updated. The WordPress MU project has been merged back into the main WordPress software that it split from several years ago, so this change was from WordPress MU 2.9.2 to WordPress 3.0. This is a fairly significant release on the technology side, but most changes to the user interface are subtle.

To see an overview of the changes and watch a video tour of WordPress 3.0, visit:

http://wordpress.org/development/2010/06/thelonious/

If you find any issues or have questions or requests, please email blogsmgr@mtroyal.ca

Thanks,

~Jonathan Stade

Web Systems Administrator

Mount Royal University

New Mobile Theme Plugin Installed

I installed the WPTouch Mobile Theme Plugin this morning:

http://www.bravenewcode.com/products/wptouch/

If you activate this plugin for your blog in the Plugins menu item, it will provide a mobile theme for various smartphones such as the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry Storm. There are a number of configurable items in the plugin settings, but you don’t need to change them unless you know what you’re doing; the defaults seem to work fine.

Enjoy.

Site application upgrade

WordPress has been upgraded to version 2.9.2. This update addresses a potential information leak/security situation on multiple-author blogs where users could (with some work) see items other authors moved to the Trash.

New plugins installed

Several new plugins have been installed:

Two twitter plugins:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-blender/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-for-wordpress/

One Social Bookmarking plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-bookmarks/

One contact form:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

If you wish to use one of these, activate it from your Dashboard -> Plugins menu page. These all require some amount of configuration to make them work. Please read the documentation at the links above.

Please feel free to send any feedback or specific plugins you want added to blogsmgr@mtroyal.ca. Thanks!
~Jonathan Stade

Site software update

Blogs.mtroyal.ca has been updated to WPMU version 2.9.1.1. This release adds a few features, but mostly is code cleanup and bugfixes. The main feature that people will notice is the addition of a Trash bin function for deletions.

If you have any comments on this update, please let me know at jstade@mtroyal.ca

Site software upgraded, plugin added

The WordPressMU software has been updated to the latest version (2.8.6).

Additionally, a new plugin called “collapsing pages” has been installed. To use this for your site, you must activate it for your blog and then configure it in the Appearance -> Widgets area. Please refer to the documentation here:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/collapsing-pages/