Bad Behavior Blocking PayPal Callback

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PayPal LogoI’ve been struggling with registration spam on one of my retail websites.  Currently it’s running a shop based on WordPress, so I have access to a plethora of plugins to assist with this issue.  I had been using Stop Spammer Registrations, along with re-Captcha, which only worked for so long.  Somehow the spammers just keep getting through, so I took the next step to fortify with Bad Behavior.

Bad Behavior is a WordPress plugin that helps stop spammers before they even access your site.  To assist the plugin, it makes a call out to the http:BL API, which is available for free.  Once you get the API setup, simply copying it into the plugin is the extent of the setup for normal operation.  However, I ran into an issue with getting my transactions confirmed, because I believe it is blocking the callback IP from PayPal.

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Engaging In Simpler Designs

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snow-wpI’ve spent some time the past few weeks playing around with the new TwentyTwelve WordPress theme.  So far I’m absolutely in love with it’s simplicity and I have to ask, is a love of simplicity in design a sign of getting older?  No longer am I concerned with magazine style wordpress themes, billowing graphics, or cutting edge design, instead provide me with a blank slate and let the content design the site.

Don’t get me wrong, elegant designs still have an impact in my day to day developing process.  Elegant Themes(affiliate link) is of course my choice for custom WordPress themes, which provide my commercial selling websites with the modern look that visitors crave.  However, I just don’t feel these themes work with my content driven websites, I’m not selling anything.  I would prefer the focus be less on the theme and more on what I have to say, not that it’s particularly important.

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Using The New TwentyTwelve WordPress Theme

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The latest WordPress update has been released, however it does not ship with one of it’s greatest benefits, the TwentyTwelve theme. This all new theme is amazing by any standards and features the abilities of many paid premium WordPress themes. Why TwentyTwelve is not included in the latest download, I’m not sure, so finding it is the first step to upgrading the looks of your WordPress blog.

The TwentyTwelve theme can be found in the WordPress.org theme repository. Find the theme directly by clicking this link to download(as of this posting the latest version is 1.0), then install like any other WordPress theme. Setting the theme up is a bit more involved, although stock can fulfill a lot of a blogs basic requirements. The fun comes when you decide to setup static front pages.

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New Google Shopping For Merchants

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Google changed the way merchants interact with their Shopping search, which translates into more money and fewer conversions.  Google Merchants before the change were able to submit their stores products and have them listed, without a fee.  However, now there is a fee for each click made within the Shopping categories of Google and on the Shopping results that show up in standard search engine results.  I’ve noticed the same amount of traffic, same amount of conversions.

Working specifically in my niche, all the users who had items listed before Google Shopping went paid, are still around.  So it’s not like the competition pool dried up.  Basically on my end no benefit has been made, other than my advertising budget has went up to get the same clicks I was receiving previously.  To help soften the blow, Google did offer $100 in free advertising through their paid product placement listings within the search engine results.  Not worth it.

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Building an Amazon Store with Premium Press

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I’ve been using PremiumPress for the past 3 years for one of my physical product resale websites.  It has some weaknesses, that really only started showing their nasty heads once my business started to grow.  Now, this year, with over 1,000 transactions, it’s straining.  But I don’t blame the software itself, I blame the fact that the creator has refused to upgrade from 6.xx to the newest 7.xx version.  Meaning the only way to use the new and improved and more versatile 7.xx versions is to do a fresh install.  No thanks.

So, today, I started playing around with building a new website where I would affiliate for Amazon products, specifically 3D TV Glasses.  Going through the motions of important products directly from Amazon, tweaking layouts, and adding some content will give me the opportunity to practice with the latest version of Premium Press.  So far, I’ve been wildly impressed, especially with the ability to import products.

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Hunger Games Coming to Big Screen

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I read a ton, unfortunately my wife would disagree.  If I don’t have my head stuck in a book, I’m not a reader.  It’s very convenient for her to ignore the countless hours spent reading blogs, forums, and online news articles.  So, to appease my wife I agreed to read some non-fiction last year, my first assignment was Hunger Games.

Hunger Games is a young adult book (YA), targeted at the same generation responsible for Twilight.  Thankfully, the quality of writing is far superior to anything vampiry and even as a 30 year old male I was entertained.  What’s not to enjoy?

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Face Rocked By The TimThumb Vulnerability

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Well, here we are, months after the initial zero day vulnerability within the latest version of TimThumb and I’m still feeling the effects.  Unfortunately, for me, I’m a noob and didn’t do as a complete a search as I should have.  Here I am, fat and happy figuring I cleaned up all my sites, updated all my plugins, themes, etc…yet I missed one.

I missed a theme update on an old blog, that came back and bit me in the ass.  Because of the TimThumb vulnerability the hackers were able to inject some code into my wp-config file, allowing themselves access whenever their little hearts desired.  But, several, several, many hours later I’ve now done what I think can be done.

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WP 3.3

5 Minutes With WordPress 3.3

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Waking up to a new roll out of WordPress, version 3.3 is now available for automatic update from the WordPress dashboard.  Now, I actually hate going through and updating websites, inevitably something breaks, with a theme, plugin, or something.  However, this morning I decided to jump in head first and see exactly how much another WP update can rock my world, at least after 5 mins of playing.

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Google AdWords Automatic Payment Declined

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[ad#toppostleft]Had a first this afternoon, apparently Google AdWords notified me that my bank denied the credit card on file for automatically making Google Adwords payments.  This denial of payment immediately put my currently running ads on pause and put my account in default until action was taken.  So, I immediately contacted Fifth Third Bank to see what was going on.

According to 5/3 Bank my they authorized the transaction and confirmed that the payment had went through.  After a brief conversation I also confirmed that my account was in good standing and there was no reason to put my account on hold, all transactions have been authorized and would be so in the future.  Keep in mind, this account has used the same payment method for over a year, payments going off without a hitch every month, but now supposedly declined.  Time to call Google.

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Incredible Phone Storage Space Is Getting Low – Fix

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[ad#toppostleft]The HTC Incredible has been an amazing phone for me and works 99% of the time.  However, I’ve been running into an error, where it reports that my phone storage space is getting low.  Now, I have verified that my space is in fact not getting low, so we have a bug in the software.  Problem is, HTC does not recognize the bug, so no official fix exists, other than to simply do a hard reset.

Doing a hard reset means that you lose all of your applications, settings, and themes.  Basically you are forcing your phone back to the way it was when you first turned it on.  No thanks.  Thankfully, I’ve found another solution, which although may need to be repeated, is simple and effective.

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