How Secure is Your AdWords Account?

Published by Stephen | Filed under AdWords, Passwords, Security

I have just read a thread over at WebProWorld that you really should know about if you are using AdWords to market your business.

The original post is headined ‘180.000 daily limit!‘ and is by someone called dracula.

dracula describes how he woke up one morning and checked his AdWords account to find that the account (today) had already spent $8900.00 on his behalf and although is it not mentioned in the post, I think the daily limit was set to $180,000. Somebody had found out the AdWords log in details, logged into the account and set up their own campaign using dracula’s money. The adverts created were for a maximum of $99 per click and where promoting a ringtone website.

The url is included in the post so I checked it out - the site is no longer up, the domain is registered to a Phred Jackson from California and was registered on the day before the scam took place.

Further on in the thread dragonfeet says the same thing happened to him. His AdWords account was hacked and taken for 15k in four days.

After a few frantic emails to Google and a few posts on WebProWorld (where a bit of doubt was shred on the credibility of the post initially due to the date - 1st April), Google has advised dracula that they will not be collecting the money owed. dragonfeet has had no response from Google yet and is no doubt still losing sleep.

How To Protect Your AdWords Account

To stop this happening to you make sure your password (and computer) is secure. Use a selection of letters, numbers and characters in your password.

The best method I know for creating passwords is to think of a sentence you can easily remember and use the first letter of each word. For example, My Favourite Gadget Is My Plasma TV would give me the password mfgimptv. You could even add a couple of memorable charcters for further security - mfgimptv*& and for even more security, add some numbers. Your house number, birthday or the year you were born would be good - how about this 7mfgimptv*&7.

Okay, having a password like that would be a real bugger to type in every time you wanted to access your AdWords account, but you get the idea. You should also change your login password on a regular basis and never write it down or tell anyone.

If you do spot anything suspicious on your AdWords account, contact Google and your credit card issuer straight away. A credit card number is not visible inside an AdWords account so it is unlikely the card will be cloned, but a credit card issuer may be able to help if Google cannot.

Link

BBC iPlayer Coming To A Wii Near You

Published by admin | Filed under BBC iPlayer, Games Consoles, Nintendo

It has been announced that the Nintendo’s hugely popular Wii games console will soon be accommodating the BBC iPlayer, which has itself proved incredibly popular having recently surpassed the 42 million downloads and streams in the past three months.

When the service is live Wii users will receive a message on their console advising them that the service is ready to be used. This service will only be available to UK users.

David Yarnton, General Manager, Nintendo UK, commented:

“This exciting alliance with the BBC is yet another way in which Nintendo is looking to broaden the market for its products by offering compelling and relevant content to families.”

The World’s 50 Most Powerful Blogs?

Published by Stephen | Filed under Blogging

A few weeks ago the Observer Magazine ran an interesting article detailing the world’s 50 most important blogs and the people behind them. The magazine has been sitting on my desk since then. The cover star is Nick Denton of Gawker Media fame. Nick was listed in last years Sunday Times Rich List at number 502, with a personal fortune of £140m. On the cover of the Observer Magazine Nick is pictured relaxing, shoeless, on a black leather sofa. Each time I see the picture my eyes are drawn to his grey socks and I know not why! But the time has come for me to clean up my desk, so it is time to transpose the list from the magazine to the site and remove the image of Nick Denton’s grey socks from my memory bank!

The World’s 50 Most Powerful Blogs (according to The Observer Magazine)

1. The Huffington Post
2. Boing Boing
3. Techcrunch
4. kottke
5. dooce
6. Perez Hilton
7. Talking Points Memo
8. icanhasacheezburger
9. Beppe Grillo
10. Gawker
11. The Drudge Report
12. XU Jinglei
13. Treehugger
14. Microsiervos
15. TMZ
16. Engadget
17. marbury
18. chez pim
19. Basic Thinking
20. The Sartorialist
21. Students For A Free Tibet
22. Jezebel
23. Gigazine
24. Girl With A One Track Mind
25. Mashable
26. Greek Tragedy
27. Holy Moly
28. Michelle Malkin
29. Cranky Flier
30. Go Fug Yourself
31. Gaping Void
32. DirtyDirtyDancing
33. Crooked Timber
34. Beansprouts
35. The Offside
36. Petite Anglaise
37. Crooks And Liars
38. Chocolate And Zucchini
39. Samizdata
40. The Daily Dish
41. The F Word
42. Johnny B’s Private Secret Diary
43. Pop Justice
44. Waiter Rant
45. Hecklerspray
46. WOW Insider
47. Angry Black Bitch
48. Style Bubble
49. After Ellen
50. copyblogger

Click here to read the full article (which details the people behind the blogs).

Upgrading Wordpress to the Latest Version

Published by Stephen | Filed under Blogging, Instructions, Software, Upgrade, Wordpress

First things first. Back everything up!

Download your website from the server and back up your database. Wordpress very kindly offer comprehensive instructions on how to back up your database. If you follow the instructions to the letter you shouldn’t go wrong. If this is the first time you have ever backed up a database I suggest you double check each step.

The length of time required to upgrade will depend on the size of your website, your skill level and your connection speed. This site is currently about 15MB and the connection I am using is not super fast, so my estimate would come in at well under an hour.

Six Simple Instructions To Get You Started

1. Back up the database (if you are not sure how to do this, you can get detailed instructions here)
2. Download a copy of the website
3. Verify that all pages have downloaded by checking the folder manually
4. Deactivate all your plugins
5. Ensure that all four steps above have been completed
6. Download and extract the lastest version of Wordpress

This is where it can all get a bit messy.

Before I start the next phase I make a back up of the downloaded version of the site and store that in a folder called WEBSITE BACKUPS. I name the subfolder containing the website backed up after the domain and the date of back up – mydomain.com 9 April 2008. I will also zip this folder up in order to save space on the local machine. I now have three versions of the website I am backing up on my local machine and yet another version still on the server.

The next step is to KEEP the files from the old version of Wordpress that are required to ensure a smooth transition. The files YOU NEED TO KEEP (on your local machine) are as follows:

• wp-config.php
• wp-content (folder)
• wp-images (folder)
• wp-includes/languages (if used)
• .htaccess file
• custom content and plugins

Everything else can be deleted.

You should now have the latest version of Wordpress and the files you have to keep from the older version in a folder on your local machine. The next stage is to delete everything from the server and upload all of the files from the folder on the local machine to the server.

When the upload is complete an upgrade file needs to be run. If Wordpress is in the root directory of your site (as it is here), the file is located here : http://mydomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php

If Wordpress is installed in its own subdirectory called blog for example, the file to run would be located here : http://mydomain.com/blog/wp-admin/upgrade.php

If the upgrade has been a success you will be notified on screen and will then be able to activate all your plugins and themes.

NB I am watching my files upload as I am writing this. I am hoping the upgrade will be a success. I will not be writing anything else until the upload is complete – 3111KB left.

The good news is the upgrade was a success; the bad news is that if you experience a problem I can only advise that you either a) get over to the Wordpress site and look for a solution or b) restore the old version of your site.

If you follow the instructions carefully you should not have a problem upgrading. Wordpress is a very stable system, but remember BACK EVERYTHING UP BEFORE YOU START.

Upgrade to Wordpress 2.5

Published by Stephen | Filed under Updates, Wordpress

Wordpress 2.5 has recently been released and it is now time to upgrade. Upgrading can be such a chore, but having used the latest version of Wordpress (2.5) on another site, I know it will be worthwhile as the user interface is much, much better.

I have been using 2.5 for about a week on the Capital of Culture website - it is funny how something can date very quickly. When I logged into this site today (I think this one 2.2) the UI looked totally out of date!!

The upgrade will start shortly so please bear with us if you experience any problems.