Just a quick and easy one this month and being the month of Christmas I’d thought I’d go with the Christmas theme.

Xmas Snow adds a nice looking animated Christmas Snow to the top of your site.

Sorry for the delay in this one but here we are.

bbPress is a forum software designed to intergrate seemlessly into any wordpress website.

We’re keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add-on features through WordPress’s extensive plugin system. What does all that mean? bbPress is lean, mean, and ready to take on any job you throw at it.

bbPress has been downloaded well over 400,000 times and when im designing a site that needs tight integration with community focus i choose bbPress.

This month in our WordPress Plugin Spotlight we are looking a plugin developed by Securenext Softwares WP.

Google Drive for WordPress is a plugin designed to backup WordPress files and Databases to Google Drive.

This plugin used to Make backups of your WordPress files and Mysql DB with Google Drive. Google Drive for WordPress is a plugin that provides backup capabilities for WordPress. Backups are ‘zip’ archives created locally and uploaded to a folder of your choosing on Google Drive.

WPTH.NET have written up a lovely how-to to get it installed and running on a WordPress installation.

So after seeing a recent increase in hacking attempts on WordPress sites I thought I would start a WordPress Plugin Spotlight and what better way to start this segment than with a security plugin.

Better WP Security

Currently at version 3.4.4 BWPS offers many features to make thing harder for hackers to attack your site. BWPS is very easy and friendly to use and can be setup in as little as 10min. Admittedly some parts do require knowledge of MySQL and how to edit .htaccess files, how to’s for these can be found online. Most WordPress attacks are a result of plugin vulnerabilities, weak passwords and obsolete software.

Some of the key features of BWPS include

• Change the urls for WordPress dashboard including login, admin and more
• Change the WordPress database table prefix
• Turn off the ability to login for a given time
• Scan your site to instantly tell where vulnerabilities are and fix them in seconds
• Detect and block numerous attacks to your filesystem and database
• Detect bots and other attempts to search for vulnerabilities
• Works on multi-site (network) and single site installations
• Plus many more

If you are worried about the security of your site or just want that extra protection then Better WP Security is the plugin for you.

Creattica have released some new wordpress themplates – check them out here

Check out our WordPress tutorial showcase by Craig on how to add or edit posts and pages within your WordPress CMS.

Here at DevFX we love using wordpress. Its easy to install, easy to customise and does what its suppose to but in saying that it is the most widely used open-source platform for blogs, cms and any other custom solution.

1. This is most important – Stay up to date.

The wordpress team is constantly bringing out updates for security fixes all the time. When you log into the back end of your site up the top there will be a notification that will let you know if a new version is available.

2. Don’t use the standard prefix for your wordpress database.

Most of the setup stuff for a majority wordpress sites are the same, especially if you use a one step install setup with your webhost. This may make things easier but alot of the common setup processors and values are know to hackers like your database prefix(es). If they are not change then a hacker knows your database table names.

3. Protect your wp-config.php file

Your wp-config.php file holds all the key information about your website (especially database connection details). So protect it at all costs and an easy way to do this is with a .htaccess file. Place the following in your .htaccess file in your admin folder.

<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

4. Limit the number of failed login attempts

If someone is trying to guess your password manually or is using a robot then you can download a plugin to limit the number of failed login attempts.

You can download plugin from here.

5. And the last one is BACKUP!

It maybe the last but dont discourage it as unimportant. There are many plugins available to manage your wordpress backups

• Backup WordPress
• WP DB Backup

Some of the nicest designs of seen done through WordPress. Check them out here

Some great web design themes for WP supplied by Mojo at a great price for their Anniversary Giveaway. Check them out here

Enjoy!

Some great WordPress Templates from Site5. Get in and jazz up your blog! Get them here