We are currently installing and customising an E-commerce shopping cart which is due to go live mid-august.

Working closely with our partners, who are currently taking care of the search engine optimisation work from the ground up (and on-going), we are providing a complete design/development/seo package in one easy and stress free process for the client.

A lot of GP web site suppliers only offer a web based template for you to type in your details and then accept their one size fits all add on information and look.

I wanted to have direct discussions with an expert in web site design so that I could influence how our practice web site looked and worked. RDS offered that in a friendly efficient manner.

I was able to work directly with the developer so that he understood our requirements and was then able to add value with design suggestions that were really helpful. On top of that they promised and delivered real value for money.

Simon Farrow (Practice Manager) – Hellesdon Medical Practice

WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam
Yet Another WordPress Anti Spam Plugin

But what if you already have hundreds or even thousands of spam messages sitting in your blog, awaiting moderation? Well, you can get rid of them in one easy step.

*Note* please moderate and approve all legitimate comments before following these instructions. What we are about to do will delete all un-moderated comments.

Please back up your database before making any modifications to it, no matter how simple.

1. Log in to phpMyAdmin
2. Select the database that has WordPress installed
3. Click the SQL tab
4. Enter the following command
   delete from wp_comments where comment_approved = '0'
5. Click the Go button

Job done, all un-moderated comments will be deleted from your blog.

Most hints and tips point to editing your mod_rewrite module & .htaccess file, which is great providing you’re WordPress Blog is installed on an Apache server.

If your attempts at editing or adding an .htaccess file have failed, there’s a good chance you’re installed on a Zeus server, in which case you will need to use rewrite.script instead.

Create a new/edit a current rewrite.script file to include the following code, and upload it to the root directory of your blog (Not forgetting to back up a previous version first).

RULE_0_START:
# get the document root
map path into SCRATCH:DOCROOT from /
# initialize our variables
set SCRATCH:ORIG_URL = %{URL}
set SCRATCH:REQUEST_URI = %{URL}
# see if theres any queries in our URL
match URL into $ with ^(.*)\?(.*)$
if matched then
set SCRATCH:REQUEST_URI = $1
set SCRATCH:QUERY_STRING = $2
endif
RULE_0_END:
RULE_1_START:
# prepare to search for file, rewrite if its not found
set SCRATCH:REQUEST_FILENAME = %{SCRATCH:DOCROOT}
set SCRATCH:REQUEST_FILENAME . %{SCRATCH:REQUEST_URI}
# check to see if the file requested is an actual file or
# a directory with possibly an index. don’t rewrite if so
look for file at %{SCRATCH:REQUEST_FILENAME}
if not exists then
look for dir at %{SCRATCH:REQUEST_FILENAME}
if not exists then
set URL = /index.php?q=%{SCRATCH:REQUEST_URI}
goto QSA_RULE_START
endif
endif
# if we made it here then its a file or dir and no rewrite
goto END
RULE_1_END:
QSA_RULE_START:
# append the query string if there was one originally
# the same as [QSA,L] for apache
match SCRATCH:ORIG_URL into % with \?(.*)$
if matched then
set URL = %{URL}&%{SCRATCH:QUERY_STRING}
endif
goto END
QSA_RULE_END:

Once uploaded, you will need to navigate to the permalinks settings, within your WordPress admin section, check the custom permalinks option and enter your custom permalink code. I would recommend:

/%category%/%postname%/

Save changes and away you go.

*Note* Even if custom permalinks is already checked, once you upload your rewrite.script file, you will need to click ‘Save Changes’ again.

1. Locate the wp-includes folder.
2. Find the category-template.php file.
3. Save the category-template.php file to your computer, and back it up (as always)
4. Open the category-template.php file in notepad, then find: wp_tag_cloud
5. The number ’45′ in that code defines how many tags are displayed on your blog, so increase the number accordingly.
6. Save your changes
7. Upload, over-writing your current file, and you’re done

The standard xmlrpc.php script is quite commonly installed with many free blogs, including WordPress. Unfortunately, it is quite easy to exploit and often abused by amateur ‘hackers’ and spamming groups for malicious purposes.

However, most users that have the script on their sites don’t actually use it, therefore some hosting companies block access to that file name to protect those users.

How to get around this issue

Easy peasy. Using an ftp program go to the root of your install and download:

xmlrpc.php & general-template.php files.

Of course, back up these files, before you edit anything.

1. Edit the name of xmlrpc.php to xmlrpc_post.php or similar.
2. Open xmlrpc_post.php in Notepad/Wordpad and find the code xmlrpc.php
3. Replace with the code xmlrpc_post.php
4. There should be 6 snippets of xmlrpc.php to replace in that file
5. Save and close
6. Open general-template.php and replace the same code twice in this file.
7. Save, close and upload both edited files to the root of your directory

Now try and re-connect to your blog via XML-RPC and you should be good to go.

It is being custom developed from scratch on a WordPress 3.0 platform and will incorporate a multilingual set up for international viewers.

The needs of this website far over and above a standard WordPress set up, so we are editing & hacking the standard set up to offer additional functions and usability to visitors.

Watch this space for the finished result.