WordPress just released an urgent security upgrade for version 2.3.2. It fixes a flaw that allowed a user to edit posts of others by a XML-RPC implementation hack. In addition to fixing this security flaw, 2.3.3 fixes a few minor bugs.

What is new in v2.3.3? Well, only 5 files. These are:

There’s no change in the database (tables) structure. Hence there’s no need to do the full upgrade the usual way (as mentioned in the WordPress documentation).

To upgrade your WordPress blog from 2.3.2 to 2.3.3, follow these steps:

1. Download the .zip file containing the changed files from here.
2. Extract the archive and upload the files to your web space using a FTP client overwriting the existing ones.

That’s it.

I’ve recorded the desktop screen activity while I upgraded this blog to 2.3.3. It’s a 2 minute video at 800×600 resolution. Click on the image below to watch the WordPress upgrade video:

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DreamHost, like many other inexpensive shared web hosting providers offers a simple and easy way of installing WordPress blog on your web space.

Below is a video tutorial on how I went about installing WordPress at www.sridhareena.com. This screencast is aimed at those who are new to DreamHost and WordPress.

Video info:

• Dimensions: 800×600
• Duration: 4.52
• Audio: Yes
• File Size: 2.92 MB

Click on the image below to start the WordPress installation video:

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If you are reading this, chances are that you already know what SMF is. If not, here you go. Quoting from their homepage:

Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software - and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

SMF is the best free forum script in our opinion.

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There are software programs like Launchy using which you can launch applications by typing the first few letters of the program name and hitting the return key. Once you start using these, you’ll realize that we can save the space that start menu takes up. So we started looking for a small program that will hide the start menu button yet makes menu itself available upon pressing the windows key. A free program called Start Killer by Tordex does the job.

Here’s how we hide the start menu and yet easily launch any desired program:

1. Set up FARR
2. Run Start Killer

Find And Run Robot

Find And Run Robot or FARR in its short form is a free program by DonationCoder that will display a small floating text box in which you type the name of the program you want to launch and press a number on your keyboard or use your arrow keys to move up/down and press the return key. We find it better compared to other similar solutions like Launchy because:

• We can press a number from the results list to launch a program
• It makes available a newly installed program much faster
• It has more advanced features

To get started with FARR,

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phpMyVisites is an open source (GNU/GPL) PHP/MySQL script for websites statistics and audience measurements. It gives a lot of information on websites visitors, visited pages, software/hardware utilization, etc.

Official Demo | Forum | Screenshot of my installation’s statistics page

Some of the significant features are:

• Security: Because security is a critical software element, phpMyVisites has maximum protection against intrusions and external attacks.
• Multiple Web Sites: Multiple web sites may be added. Each site will have precise and distinct statistics.
• Multi Users: Add an infinite number of users and manage permissions for each user (viewing and/or administration rights for certain sites).
• Receive web site statistics everyday by e-mail, by RSS feed, etc.

For the complete list, click here.

Installation is quite simple.

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