He recommends to protect your wp-admin area using the Apache .htaccess file. Here in detail access is only allowed from IP addresses from where you are logging in. It’s definitely a good way to protect you blog, but often people don’t have a fixed IP address. The DSL provider assigns a different IP address on every dial in. Unfortunately there is no easy way to obtain the network addresses of your DSL provider which can be entered in your .htaccess file.

Another important recommendation: Always keep your server software and WordPress software up to date!

Also remove the following line from your header.php which will show hackers your WordPress version:

<meta name=”generator” content=”WordPress <?php bloginfo(’version’); ?>” /> <!-– leave this for stats please -->

So let’s concentrate on the restricted access in the wp-admin area. It’s a little bit tricky to get the address list of your DSL provider. I’ll explain and show an example script below. First let’s have a look at the video from Matt Cutts.

As step one you have to find out your own IP address. Let’s assume your IP address assigned from your provider is 213.168.95.20 (this is just an example!). Next do a whois lookup:

server:~# whois 213.168.95.20
...
inetnum:        213.168.95.0 - 213.168.98.255
netname:        NC-DIAL-IN-POOL

Have a look at the netname NC-DIAL-IN-POOL. Usually provider assign  a common name for all DSL dynamic address. But we want to add all IP addresses or better all network ranges into our .htaccess file. Ok now we need to get all address ranges with this netname. This can be achieved using the Linux whois tool:

server:~# whois -h whois.ripe.net NC-DIAL-IN-POOL
...
inetnum:        194.8.209.0 - 194.8.209.255
...
inetnum:        194.8.205.0 - 194.8.205.255
...

Fine we get a list with all network ranges from our provider now, but still not the correct netmask format and a lot of other output which we don’t need. Basically it’s possible to manually generate the .htaccess file now. Not big fun… So I’ve created a small perl script which does the job. As small bonus it creates the needed format for .htaccess file which means you are able to directly add the output to your .htaccess file in the wp-admin folder.

Important: Before usage you have to add the netname of the dial-in pool of your provider. How to find it out is described above. Below is only an example. The output will look like:

server:~# ./gethtaccessranges.sh
allow from 194.8.209.0/24
allow from 194.8.205.0/24
allow from 195.14.226.0/24

Finally generate a .htaccess file in your wp-admin/ folder with the content:

order deny,allow
deny from all

and add the output of the script gethtaccessranges.sh below the two lines. That’s it! Now access to wp-admin is only allowed from dynamic IP address from your provider. Sure it’s not the perfect solution but I’ll prevent you from many other hack attempts from all over the world.

At the end of the script there is also an example in case providers use number in their netnames.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# gethtaccessranges.sh
# Harald Kraemer 08.08.2010
# www.technnitip.net
#
# NET::CIDR and NET::Whois is need to run this script.
# On debian you can install using apt-get:
# apt-get install libnet-cidr-perl libnet-whois-perl
#
# Important: Replace the netname "NC-DIAL-IN-POOL" at the end of the
# script with the dial-in netname of your provider! Use the command
# whois <my-ip-address> to find out the netname.

use Net::CIDR;
use Net::CIDR ':all';
use Net::Whois::Raw;
use strict;

sub getRanges
{
  my($netname) = @_;
  my $whois;
  my @whois_array;
  my @ranges;

  $whois = whois( $netname, 'whois.ripe.net' );

  @whois_array   = split( "\n", $whois );
  @ranges        = grep( /inetnum:/, @whois_array );

  foreach ( @ranges )
  {
    s/inetnum://g;
    s/ //g;
    s/ - /-/g;

    foreach my $item ( Net::CIDR::range2cidr( $_ ) )
    {
      print "allow from " . $item . "\n";
    }
  }
}

getRanges('NC-DIAL-IN-POOL');

#for( my $i=1; $i <= 30; $i++)
#{
#  getRanges('DTAG-DIAL' . $i);
#}

Guaranteed original iPad to sell. Incl. original packaging

Now with Adobe Premiere CS5 editing DSRL HD footage is working more smooth. Jason Levine shows how footage from different cameras with different resolutions and frame rates can be edited now. Sure a 64-bit machine with sufficient RAM and CPU power helps.

To get the free bumper or case you need to download the iPhone 4 Case Program app from iTunes. If you have already purchases a bumper you will get a refund from Apple.

I’m not sure if I want such a bumper. I did several tests regarding the “Antennagate” issue, but for me it’s not really a problem. To feel the iPhone in your hands is more sexy without bumper or case

Still only a few people got the iPhone here… I’m lucky and I got one. The iPhone 4 got a gyroscope sensor which is is used in the iSetSquare app. This app lets you use the iPhone 4 as Geometry Drawing Triangle, pretty cool. Wish I would go to school

On appadvice.com you can read a detailed review of the app.

Links

• iPhone 4 Gyroscope Plus iSetSquare A Great Measuring Tool on appadvice.com
• Download link iTunes

For security reasons you should add four new keys to your wp-config.php in the root directory of your WordPress installation. The easiest way to generate the keys  is to use the key generator from wordpress.org. Copy the generated keys to your wp-config.php and finally log in again to wp-admin. As a result you will recognize the update wp-admin skin.

In my case the only way to get Windows 7 booting again was:

• Insert original Windows 7 CD and boot from it
• Start the console
• Enter “sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\Windows

I’m not sure what happened, but I hope the SSD disc has not failure.

Recently I found a nice online tool which checks the health and configuration of your domain. The online check is available on intoDNS.com. To use it just browse to this site and enter your domain name and you will get many useful checks and information about your server settings.

Links

• intoDNS.com