Everyday, thousands of servers will be hacked into and compromised. A large contributing cause to this is running outdated versions of software that can contain security vulnerabilities. Because of this, it is important to stay on top of your server’s software updates (just like you should with your personal computer).

However, keeping track of when software is updated can be a nuisance. Updates could be distributed at any time, on any day. You can’t possibly check for new software every single day, and even just checking weekly is less-than-ideal (you may forget to check one week, and miss a critical update).

Luckily, most server software developers offer some sort of announcement mailing list or feed. By subscribing to these, you’ll be able to stay informed on software updates with no ongoing effort at all (other than checking your email or feed reader, but you likely do that regardless). For convenience, I’ve listed some for more popular server software below:

Apache Release Announcements
PHP Release Announcements
Subversion Announcements
CentOS Announcements

Subscribe, and be worry-free… in regards to staying informed with your server’s updates.

In the past eight months, we have covered quite a bit on WordPress development. Now, I’d like to take a new spin on the topic, and actually create a plugin. Over a few articles, we’ll go over step-by-step through the programming process. This should allow readers to get a more in-depth look at the process of building a plugin, from start to finish.

Before we can start this, we need some ideas on a plugin to build. Preferably this plugin would incorporate anything we’ve learned (widgets, etc), without being overly complex. If you have any suggestions, please drop them in the comments.

When you perform a select query in MySQL, by default the result will be ordered by the primary key, in ascending order. This may not be ideal for some situations, as you may want to output or process the data in a certain order. You could achieve this in PHP, but MySQL offers a better way to have your query returns sorted.

Using an ORDER BY clause at the end of your query will allow you to specify the fields to order the results by, and how you would like those sorted (ascending [default] or descending). MySQL will then order the result appropriately based on your clause and sort based on your clause and the type of field in question. For example, a field containing numbers will sort 1-x (where x is basically infinite, higher than 1 at the least) if ascending and x-1 is descending. Let’s have a look at an example of this:

[sql]SELECT * FROM [table] ORDER BY [field][/sql]

This query will then return the results order by [field] in ascending order. To specify ascending specially, append ASC to the query, for descending, using DESC.

It is also possible to “sub-order” the queries. By specifying more than one field (comma separated), the results will first by order by the first query, then those results “sub-ordered” by the second query and so on. For example, if you’re storing country and city fields, you can order by country, then have those rows with the same country ordered by the city. You may even specify independent sorting values.

[sql]SELECT * FROM registrants ORDER BY country ASC, city ASC, age DESC[/sql]

There you have it, multiple ways to order and sort your data without using PHP to do so.

Before you embark on your Labour Day long weekend, let’s take one quick tour of the blogopshere to see what bloggers have to say about the Internet, online media, and this whole business of being wired to the web. To cap it off, we’ll take a look at one of the best movies of the year that you may want to catch over the weekend. Enjoy!

Shaun Low has noticed an emerging trend on the Internet. As Twitter usage continues to rise, it seems that blog comments are starting to suffer. Blog comments can do a lot to add value (and drive traffic) to a blog, but more and more people are sending their comments to the blog authors via Twitter instead of on the blogs themselves. Do you find the same on your blog?

Mark Ghosh poses a very interesting question about embedded video copyright laws. When someone allows the embedding of their videos from YouTube or other similar websites, are they implicitly granting permission for other webmasters to embed the video on their respective sites? Or do you still need to ask for permission the same way you would with any other copyright content?

Scott Young believes that it isn’t necessary to try your hardest all the time and to push yourself to your limits on a constant basis. Instead, he feels it may be healthier to accept your inner slacker. We all want to take it easy and, more often than not, you can do quite well just taking the path of least resistance. Do you agree?

Tyler Cruz may be known better as an Internet guru and affiliate marketer, but he started out with content-driven sites and that’s where he’s going back again. Tyler has decided to replant his roots with the pending relaunch of Movie Vault, one of the first websites that he ever developed, launched, and monetized. They say that content is king, after all.

Ed Lau posts reviews on his blog of most of the movies that he watches, but I think he just did something that is completely unprecedented. In discussing Inglorious Basterds, Ed gave the World War II-era flick a perfect 10 out of 10 rating. This movie is supposed to be very good, but is it 10 out of 10 good? You’ll have to watch it for yourself to find out.

As consumers become more educated on the nature of running a business and the practices that associate it, they also start to learn that they do not want to be manipulated in the ways that they may have been in the past. That is why some people are finding that traditional advertising is not nearly as effective as it may have been before, because these potential customers are starting to see right through the techniques being employed on them. In this way, it is important as a business owner to consider alternative marketing strategies.

For instance, it’s not uncommon to find a fair bit of product placement in television shows and movies. The recent Transformers movies from Michael Bay very clearly promote the products of General Motors, plainly showing us that the these robotic cars are taking on the appearance of flagship GM automobiles. Similarly, Stephen Colbert oftentimes mentions Doritos and other products as part of The Colbert Report, so it’s safe to assume that the show is getting some sort of fair compensation for this kind of advertising.

More recently, we’re starting to see a greater trend toward advertising within video games. These are above and beyond the co-promotions that video game companies may have with other businesses; instead, we’re talking about advertising and product placement within the video games and video game systems themselves. On the Xbox 360, it is possible to download free dashboard themes that feature 7-Up, KFC, Pizza Hut, and certain Hollywood movies. Playing certain driving games, you’ll see billboards lining the racetrack promoting real world products.

The constant brand exposure is having a definite effect on a demographic that may not be quite as accessible through conventional means. If these “gamers” are spending too much time on their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, advertisers can’t reach them through newspapers and radio ads. The in-game advertising may be more effective for this demographic, but some are saying that the ads are too intrusive, especially when they are inserted in a paid product like a video game.

What do you think? Is in-game advertising fair game (no pun intended) or should publishers keep their products as “pure” as possible?

Do you have a big contest brewing up on your blog? Maybe you’re looking for guest contributors and you want to get the word out? Maybe you want to let your readers know that you are going on vacation and the site won’t be updated for a certain period of time? Whatever the case, you may be wondering what is the best way to make these kinds of announcements on your blog.

One option that you may want to consider is a WordPress plugin called Genki Annoucement. While you could certainly dive into the raw code of your chosen WordPress theme and edit the corresponding template files accordingly, this plug-in makes for a simpler and more straightforward experience, as well as one that could be seen as being more versatile.

The chosen announcement, which is fully HTML-compatible (so you can insert images, other types of multimedia content, and different font alterations), can appear in one of three different places. The first option is to have it show up above the first post on your blog, acting like a “sticky” until you deactivate the announcement. This is probably the most common application. Alternatively, you have it show up in your widgetized sidebar by way of the Genki Announcement Widget. Thirdly, you can put it in a custom location by entering specific code into your theme files.

This is far from being the newest WordPress plugin on the block, but that doesn’t make it any less useful. For more information and to download Genki Announcement, check out Ericulous.com.