WordPress 3 Ultimate Security Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been using WordPress since version 2.5 and when I first heard about this book, I was wondering how the author could fill 240+ pages on securing WordPress.
As many veteran WordPress users know, Automattic, the company that oversees the development of the open source blogging platform, does an excellent job keeping it secure, with regular updates. The problem here is many users think that Automattic does everything to keep WordPress sites secure. Do not fall into this trap. Users have to take responsibility too.

So it came as no surprise that the first four chapters are spent explaining how the bad guys work and how to protect your computer and network. The author covers a broad range of topics from how to secure Windows, Mac, and Linux workstations. He gives advice on where to obtain, install and configure personal firewalls and anti-virus software. He suggests ways to avoid spam and make your web browser safe for browsing.
The chapters on WordPress security are just as informative. He explains how to back up your WordPress site (which you are probably already doing. Right?) How to set up file and user permissions. He explains which WordPress files and features should be disabled or removed to avoid hackers and why you should use SSL, SFTP and hardened shell accounts to access your site.

If your site does get hacked, there is a disaster recovery section that explains how to get your site back online and make sure it doesn't get hacked again.

I am an IT consultant and have worked with PCs in some form since 1982 and built my first website in 1995. I thought I knew a lot about security, but this book taught me many new ways to secure websites and computers. It was a quick read and brought me up to date on the fast changing world of Internet security.
This book can help all users, from WordPress beginners to IT professionals. I recommend reading it to keep both your website and PC/Mac/Linux computer safe.


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This is a comprehensive essential guide to WordPress security written in a light style, which converts learning a really serious topic to an enjoyable read. It is packed with copy-paste solutions to security to suit all levels of security know-how. Just as WordPress is used by a broad spectrum of website owners, with varying degrees of security know-how, so WordPress 3 Ultimate Security is written to be understood by security novices and web professionals alike. From site and server owners and administrators to members of their contributing team, this essential A to Z reference takes a complex and, let's face it, frankly dull subject and makes it accessible, encouraging, and sometimes even fun. Even if you are a total newbie to security, you can transform an insecure site into an iron-clad fortress, safeguarding your site users, your content and, sooner or later, your stress level.

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WordPress Theme Design: A complete guide to creating professional WordPress themes Review

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(More customer reviews)WordPress Theme Design is a short book, 204 pages and offers an experience very much like that given by the Peachpit Press' Visual QuickProject Series. This is not a definitive guide to WordPress theming. Tessa Silver walks us through the creation of a WordPress theme intended for a monthly magazine site. As much CMS/beyond-the-blog flexibility of WordPress needs to be implemented by creative theming, this project offers an insight into how to customize WordPress for sites other than plain vanilla blogs. WordPress core features like "the loop," are mentioned but we are referred to the WordPress Codex documentation for more information. That's pretty much the way the book works, features or concepts, such as the loop or drop down menus are discussed, but for expanded explanations we are pointed to external web documentation.
The writing is clear and conversational and is targeted towards someone with a reasonable grounding in HTML and CSS, I'd say advanced novice to early intermediate. Those without an understanding of HTML will find it over their heads. A very basic understand of PHP syntax is also helpful. Except for WordPress specific code, experienced, standards aware coders will find much of the material pretty basic. Ms. Silver does create her design with modern web standards best practices, which she describes in a standards based context. The theme we create by following the tutorial is functional and illustrates some of WordPress' advanced capabilities, which can be accessed only through clever theming. Basic SEO is mentioned, and some advanced WordPress plug-ins and capabilities are briefly covered.
Chapter 6 offers a short overview of WordPress functions and a nice template tag reference. In Chapter 2, Silver offers brief descriptions describing her design workflow process and some of the tools she uses. In chapters 3-5 we create the basic theme and are introduced to WordPress themeing conventions. Chapters 7-9 briefly discuss some advanced WordPress capabilities, mostly gained through the use of plug-ins and widgets.


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In Detail
This title will take you through the ins and outs of creating sophisticated professional themes for the WordPress personal publishing platform. It will walk you through clear, step-by-step instructions to build a custom WordPress theme. From development tools and setting up your WordPress sandbox, through design tips and suggestions, to setting up your theme's template structure, coding markup, testing and debugging, to taking it live it reviews the best practices. The last three chapters are dedicated to additional tips, tricks and various cookbook recipes for adding popular site enhancements to your WordPress theme designs using third-party plugins.
Whether you're working with a pre-existing theme or creating a new one from the ground up, WordPress Theme Design will give you the know-how to understand how themes work within the WordPress blog system, enabling you to take full control over your site's design and branding.
What you will learn from this book?

Set up a basic workflow and development environment for WordPress theme design
Create detailed designs and code them up
Enhance your sites by choosing the right color schemes and graphics
Debug and validate your theme using W3C's XHTML and CSS validation tools
Customize and tweak your theme's layout
Set up dynamic drop-down menus, AJAX/dynamic and interactive forms
Download and install useful plug-ins and widgetize your theme
Improve post and page content using jQuery and ThickBox
Add interactivity to your themes using Flash
Includes a reference guide to WordPress 2.0's template hierarchy, markup, styles and template tags, as well as include and loop functions
Approach
Theme design can be approached from two angles. The first is simplicity; sometimes it suits the client and/or the site to go as bare-bones as possible. In that case, it's quick and easy to take a very basic, pre-made theme and modify it.
The second is "Unique and Beautiful". Occasionally, the site's theme needs to be created from scratch so that everything displayed caters to the specific kind of content the site offers. This book is going to take you through the Unique and Beautiful route with the idea that once you know how to create a theme from scratch, you'll be more apt at understanding what to look for in other WordPress themes.
Who this book is written for?
This book can be used by WordPress users or visual designers (with no server-side scripting or programming experience) who are used to working with the common industry-standard tools like PhotoShop and Dreamweaver or other popular graphic, HTML, and text editors.
Regardless of your web development skill-set or level, you'll be walked through the clear, step-by-step instructions, but familiarity with a broad range of web development skills and WordPress know-how will allow you to gain maximum benefit from this book.

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WordPress Bible Review

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(More customer reviews)The second updated edition of WORDPRESS BIBLE is a 'must' for any library strong in WordPress programming and blogging. It offers a thorough step-by-step reference to WordPress, exploring web servers, keys to enhancing a blog's location with SEO and keywords, discussions of navigation menus and other social media connections, and more. A 'must' for any WordPress user or programmer, this is the only in-depth key needed to make the most of WordPress.


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Get the latest word on the biggest self-hosted blogging tool on the market
Within a week of the announcement of WordPress 3.0, it had been downloaded over a million times. Now you can get on the bandwagon of this popular open-source blogging tool with WordPress Bible, 2nd Edition. Whether you're a casual blogger or programming pro, this comprehensive guide covers the latest version of WordPress, from the basics through advanced application development. If you want to thoroughly learn WordPress, this is the book you need to succeed.
Explores the principles of blogging, marketing, and social media interaction
Shows you how to install and maintain WordPress
Thoroughly covers WordPress basics, then ramps up to advanced topics
Guides you through best security practices as both a user and a developer
Helps you enhance your blog?s findability in major search engines and create customizable and dynamic themes
Author maintains a high-profile blog in the WordPress community, Technosailor.com
Tech edited by Mark Jaquith, one of the lead developers of WordPress

The WordPress Bible is the only resource you need to learn WordPress from beginning to end.

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WordPress All-in-One For Dummies Review

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(More customer reviews)Here is a quote from Page 57 of "WordPress All-in-one for Dummies" that ought to be highlighted on the cover of the book. "The self-installed version from WordPress.org is the primary focus of WordPress All-in-one for Dummies." What does that mean?
WordPress is the popular software that allows for the creation of blogs and it comes in two versions. The version of WordPress found on the .com site (which I think of as the on-line version) allows the user to set up a free, full featured blog that will satisfy the basic needs of many bloggers and that is slightly customizable at no charge, and then, still more customizable for some small fees. The .org (or self-installed) version is meant to be loaded onto a hosting computer and is fully customizable although one will have to be familiar with the workings of software and capable of writing code to accomplish this.
Like the self-installed version, the on-line version operates from a main "dashboard", which is by no means instinctive. Its use can be learned from the software's help facility but a guide devoted solely to this version would be extremely useful. Some of that information can be gleaned from this book, like the method of installing one's own graphic in the header, instead of the WordPress defaults, but one will have to sort through the information in the book. If you just want to set up a blog, for whatever purposes, or if you just want to make a start in getting into blogging, the on-line version will prove adequate, and, especially if one is willing to invest in upgrades which are available for a small fee, can be tailored to give a distinctive enough look.
Most of this book will help you if you want to set up a blog that you can tailor to your own desires, including even showing you how you can set up the software for multiple users. On the other hand, you will probably have to learn to code Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and even a little HTML and to read the WordPress code to make adjustments. The book will explain to you, for example, that you can change the width of a sidebar, and even tell you which file on your host you must open and alter to do so. However, the authors could easily have included the code for, say, a theme, and then showed you how to change that code rather than talking in general terms. The reader who doesn't know CSS and HTML coding will be disappointed.
Although there is plenty of information here, there is nothing to tell you about creating the content for your blog, or suggesting which of the easily installable widgets that allow you to do things like add convenient indexing to your blog pages will be most helpful to you in achieving the purpose of your blog. Similarly, even though WordPress can be used to set up something like a photographer's gallery, there is no discussion of other options for achieving the same purpose, like creating straight web pages with HTML or software like Dreamweaver.
The bottom line is that if you are interested in setting up a blog to convey your ideas, you probably can get started with the on-line version of WordPress and can pass this book by. On the other hand, if you are intent upon tailoring your blog to a specific layout, and are willing to learn and use coding, this book may be a good start,


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A convenient how-to guide for maximizing your WordPress experience
WordPress is a state-of-the-art blog publishing platform with nearly ten million active installations. Eight minibooks provide you with expanded coverage of the most important topics to the WordPress community, such as WordPress basics, theme designs, plug-in development, social media integration, SEO, customization, and running multiple sites. Veteran author Lisa Sabin-Wilson leads an authoritative team of authors who offer their unique knowledge and skillset while sharing invaluable advice for maximizing your site's potential and visitor experience.
Presents straightforward and easy-to-understand coverage of the basics of WordPress, the most popular blog software in use today
Delves into the topics that matter most to the WordPress community, such as theme design, plug-in development, and social media integration
Addresses ways to handle a variety of WordPress security issues
Examines the WordPress network

The word on the street is that WordPress All-in-One For Dummies presents everything you need to know about WordPress in one convenient book!

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WordPress In Depth (2nd Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)A representative of Pearson Education spotted me on the LinkedIn WordPress group and offered me a review copy of this book, and a second one to give away at the East Bay WordPress Meetup. That was more than a month ago, but I wanted to do justice to all 432 pages and actually read the book in as much depth as it had been written.
Not surprisingly, my fine-toothed comb revealed a handful of typos and printing errors, which I've pointed out to Pearson so they can be corrected in the next edition. They're all fairly minor and I won't mention them here.
There was only one omission really worth the name, and it made me wonder how many other experienced WordPress users might have overlooked this feature when it came out, because I'm pretty sure the authors aren't the only ones. More on that in a minute.
The book is detailed but not excessively technical. I wouldn't give it to my mom, but anyone who is computer-literate should find it accessible. The style is clear, the directions easy to follow, and the decisions about what to put in sidebars and callout boxes logical. There are plenty of illustrations and some impressively detailed tables. The book design, like the writing style, is workmanlike: it gets the job done effectively, without being especially beautiful or inspiring. (You want a WordPress book that's beautiful, go take a look at Digging into WordPress.)
The most important thing to know about WordPress in Depth is that the first 226 pages are dedicated to WordPress.com. As the authors point out, there are very few resources, online or off, devoted specifically to WordPress.com users. When I first began using WordPress in 2005, WordPress.com didn't even exist, so I never learned anything about it. But with a meetup to run, I thought it would behoove me to learn. After reading this book, I feel much more confident answering questions about the differences between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (often referred to as WordPress.org).
I'm sure that any WordPress.com user will be able to get the most out of that service with the help of WordPress in Depth. Though, really, the more I learned, the happier I was that I'd always installed WordPress on my own site and had the full range of themes and plugins to draw on. Hosted services (I used Blogger before converting to WordPress) are incredibly limiting.
In moving from WordPress.com to installing the WordPress software on your own site, the authors take us right off the deep end: setting up a web development server on your own computer with XAMPP. It's great to have this tutorial here, though by no means everyone who uses the .org version of WordPress is going to need a development server. It's also good to show the steps of a manual WordPress installation. On the other hand, most popular web hosting companies offer a "one-click" installation process for WordPress through Fantastico or whatever their control panel software is, and it wouldn't have hurt to see a screenshot or description of that process, too, though of course it differs somewhat from host to host.
The next two chapters cover themes and plugins, and here is where that omission comes into play. Every time Smith and McCallister talk about installing a theme or plugin from somewhere other than the WordPress.org/extend/ repository, they tell you to download, unzip, and upload via FTP. It seems that neither of them ever noticed the "Upload" option under "Add New" in the Themes and Plugins sections of the WordPress dashboard, which lets you browse for a .zip file, upload it, and install it.
I use this all the time, and it works extremely well, except in those few cases where the real theme folder is actually a subfolder, in which case you have to go back and move things around with FTP. Everyone who manages a self-hosted WordPress site should know how to use FTP, but why make things harder on yourself than they have to be? This feature came in with WordPress 2.8, and it's a handy one.
Another feature the book never mentions--and which I only noticed myself a few weeks ago--is the ability to set the number of columns for your edit window. So you don't actually have to switch to full-screen mode (a thing I didn't know existed until they recommended it on page 86) in order to get a wider window for your content: just choose 1 column under Screen Layout. (I don't actually like this very much, because I have to scroll down in order to do anything, but then, I normally work on a 17" laptop, and I normally write my posts in Windows Live Writer. On my netbook, it might make a lot more sense to use the single-column layout.)s
The brief overviews of CSS, XHTML, and PHP are certainly not enough to make you expert in any of those things, but they're surprisingly helpful. (And Pearson publishes titles on all those subjects, if you want to learn more about them. Just search on their website.) You're not going to become a ninja-class theme developer just by reading what's here, but having it would have saved me a bit of trial and error in my earliest days of tweaking themes. And since I really knew nothing of PHP beyond what I'd cribbed from the Codex, I found the description in Chapter 15 illuminating.
The book concludes with some handy appendices: a comparison of WordPress.com and WordPress.org, an examination of the existing WordPress documentation, some examples of famous WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs, a map of the official WordPress sites, and finally a guide to importing your content from other systems into WordPress.
I would recommend this book without reservation to WordPress.com users and to anyone who is about to make or has just made the transition from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress. If your main interested is in WordPress.org, however, you may find the first half of the book frustrating. While there are many things that work just the same for the two versions of WordPress, there are also quite a few differences, of the kind particularly likely to trip up beginners who are unfamiliar with the WordPress dashboard.
While not the best book for everyone, WordPress in Depth is a very good book for at least one segment of WordPress users.


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WordPress has grown into the #1 blogging tool in its category: several million bloggers have downloaded this powerful open source software, and millions more are using WordPress.com's hosted services. Thirty-two of Technorati's Top 100 blogs now use WordPress. WordPress InDepth, 2/e, is a comprehensive reference for everyone who wants to use either WordPress or WordPress.com more effectively -- regardless of their experience with WordPress or with blogging. It offers comprehensive guidance for every aspect of using WordPress -- from downloading, installing, and securing it through blog design, templates, themes, posting entries, working with comments and email, and managing WordPress blogs. WordPress software has moved from Version 2.9 to Version 3.0 and this new edition has been fully updated to reflect the changes, including: -New look. The software has a more sophisticated look. Some menu items have been moved around, and the font is different. -Menus editor. WordPress now allows users to create and manage menus -Graphics editor. -New default theme. The look and functionality of the default theme have changed -Merger of WordPress and WordPress Multi-User (WordPress MU) -Use of WordPress as a CMS.

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Using WordPress Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)WordPress has established itself as the blogging software of choice for millions of people looking to put their thoughts online. Using WordPress is a solid intro to get you up and running with a blog of your own.
The book walks you through all the big and not-so-big steps of make a WordPress blog; from install and updates, to using themes, plug-ins and widgets, to handling audio and video files, to keeping your blog secure.
Almost all of the content in this book is geared toward the install on your own site "wordpress.org" version of WordPress, but it does try to cater to the "wordpress.com" the stripped-down version hosted by WordPress itself. If you have a wordpress.com blog and are looking to upgrade to your own site down the line, this book'll show you how.
The big selling point of this book is the online content. With a quick signup and a simple authentication to prove you actually own the book, you're rewarded with a complete online version of the book (with color photos) as well as video walkthroughs of the various steps you'll be taking in the blog miking process. The only topic that's missing the multimedia treatment is converting a static HTML site over to WordPress, which would've been good to see.
There are also audio sidebars with additional thoughts on each chapter's topic. They may useful if you're curious for more info, but the fact that there's no visuals makes it a bit hard to follow what they're saying. Some topics like using the WordPress image editor are done in an audio sidebar with no visuals to guide you.
My other complaint about the companion site is that there's no easy way to access just the multimedia stuff. You basically have to scan through to the page you want. A list broken up by chapter would've really been nice.
As a whole, Using WordPress is a great beginner/intermediate book to get you on your way to running a fully functioning blog.


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Get comfortable with WordPress fast, with this media-rich, customized, hands-on learning experience!


Covers the upcoming release of a major upgrade to WordPress, WordPress 3.0
Tightly integrated with online video, screencast tutorials, podcasts, and more: the total learning experience for new WordPress users
Companion website provides supplemental media including video, screencasts tutorials, podcasts, and much more.
WordPress has grown into the #1 blogging tool in its category: several million bloggers have downloaded this powerful open source software, and millions more are using WordPress.com's hosted services. Thirty-two of Technorati's Top 100 blogs now use WordPress. Using WordPress is a customized, media-rich learning experience designed to help new users master WordPress quickly, and get the most out of it, fast! It starts with a concise, friendly, straight-to-the-point guide to WordPress. This exceptional book is fully integrated with an unprecedented collection of online learning resources: online video, screencasts, podcasts, and additional web content, all designed to reinforce key concepts and help users achieve real mastery. The book and online content work together to teach everything mainstream WordPress users need to know. This practical, approachable coverage guides readers through getting started fast; and will cover the upcoming release of WordPress 3.0. This major upgrade will include built-in image editor and the ability to host multiple blogs from one WordPress install.

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