I have been up to speed on all upgrades, all within 24 hours of release and never over 48 hours. So I am not suggesting the issue is/was related to WordPress, but the only common component of all the sites that were hacked was WP. The way to identify if your site is hacked is to Google the name or a keyword that will pull your site in the SERP, if in the list of names your site appears with a name other than what you have set it to be (in my case it turned out to be Cheap viagra) then you know you are in trouble. One other thing I noticed is that it prevents one from uploading images or media via the built in WordPress Upload/Insert feature while writing or editing a post/page.

The only thing I found that I do not recall adding is an “addhandler php4-script .php” tag in my .htaccess file. Not sure if that was the source of the exploit but I did restore the htaccess files to the original (pre-hack) state and hope for the problem to go away.

If you find you site has similar issues then look in the htaccess file (if you have one) for something like “addhandler php4-script .php”, there is no way for me to tell that is the problem but there seem to be no issue with deleting that line from the file. Hope it helps, leave a comment if you know more on this topic or have had similar experience.

A site with poor navigation is just as bad as or worse than a site with poor content. Magazine style themes have overcome this barrier using JavaScript dropdown menus. But there is a simpler yet seldom used method that can be used and involves only the use of conditional WordPress tags.

Conditional Navigation

We will use the same demo theme we created during the previous tutorial. As you can see it has conditional page tags built in, just like many of our other new themes.

In our ongoing exercise to learn the nuts and bolts of a magazine style WordPress theme, we examine what has become by far the most ignored part of a theme design, the navigation menu.

As important as they are, they are often found floating in the header or worse the sidebar and almost never used to its fullest. Today we will attempt to change that. We are dedicating the next few sections just to discuss navigation menus, its varied uses, and the various methods of using it. So why wait, let’s get started.

Why are Navigation Menus Important?

There are three important roles of navigation menus, they are listed below in no particular order:

• It acts as the gateway to sections of the site you want your visitors/users to explore
• When designed correctly, it aids as a visual sitemap
• When used correctly, it enhances usability of your site and helps in SEO

How are Navigation Menus in Magazine Style Themes Different from Regular Themes?

If you notice closely, most regular themes have pages listed in blocks in the header or the sidebar and call it navigation. For all practical purpose, it works, and we are all complacent with it. In WordPress, there are numerous pages that are dynamically created like the archives, category pages, paginated pages, search pages and so on that are traditionally are not considered pages when you create a list using the template tag such as the one below:

	<?php wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&depth=1&title_li='); ?>

In fact, the above tag does not display any child pages! So how do overcome this limitation?

Granted that it will not necessarily minimize bandwidth usage by loading the page any faster, but nonetheless provides an alternative to having the entire content load on each and every page (even where not needed).

From our last experiment, we have a layout constructed with featured post option and some borrowed styling. Now we will add the cool tabbed interface to the sidebar.

There are many Java options out there that can generate these tabbed interfaces, the more popular ones are DOMtab and Tabber. We will introduce one other simple tab JavaScript at the very end that has recently found its way into WP themes, but for most part, we will focus on DOMtab and Tabber.

Creating such category specific presentation on demand requires both PHP script manipulation within the WordPress Loop and some changes to the CSS stylesheet. In continuing with the series on dissecting magazine style themes, we will attempt three hacks that will allow you to do the following:

1. Create a featured post that is displayed at the very top of the page, followed by regular posts; all of which happens taking into consideration the pagination aspects of the site so as to not repeat the featured post on every paginated page.
2. Create a simple featured and non-featured posts distinction using minimal PHP hack, keeping it simple enough so as to not worry about pagination.
3. Create asides to highlight useful bits of information without hogging potentially critical presentation real-estate, or in other words, creating non-intrusive side posts without using a plugin.

I try not to write such posts, but the frustrations expressed by my clients who hosts on Yahoo! Small Business compels me to point out the obvious shortcomings of a popular host. This non-exhaustive list is in no particular order, it’s just the top 4 reasons why I would not recommend or host any on my sites on Yahoo!

One-Click-Install of Outdated Software

A client recently used the one click install feature to add WordPress to her site, within days it was hacked and she lost everything she had moved from another CMS (luckily she still had her backups). The problem was the defunct version of WordPress that Yahoo! installed; WP version 2.0.2, which beats Al Gore’s hacked sites WordPress version. Yahoo! claims to be partners with WordPress.org and provide search capabilities for the official WordPress sites, yet the version they install on thousands of user sites is full of holes prone to malicious attacks and hijacks.

Forces to use Yahoo! Mail, no PHPMail

This is somewhat funny and restrictive setup that Yahoo! Hosting has in place to screw users from using phpMail functions. The most common addon on any new WordPress site is the contact form, yet Yahoo! wont allow you to use one. The only situation when it would work is if the from email ID entered in the Contact Form is from the same domain as the site you are on. For example, if you are hosting the domain example.com on Yahoo! Hosting, the only people who can use the contact form are those with emails like someone@example.com, essentially email ID’s set with the same domain! Does that even make sense? Their reason is, if you had access to send emails to and from your site, you might use the privilege to spam someone else. Privilege to Spam? Yahoo! assume that its subscribers are spammers and treat them like one irrespective of if you really are one or not. While there are ways around this issue, it is not worth the time and effort.

Restrictive Controls and no .htaccess Access

Although this feature is mostly used by advanced users, they don’t let users have access to their own .htaccess files. What this could mean is, you are not allowed to set up redirects, and if you do manage to set one up from within the WP install, Yahoo! will delete the file and if you are the ‘unlucky types’, it might even kick you out of the system completely without the opportunity to restore or reverse the .htaccess edits. Lame.

Customer Support

I ended up calling Yahoo! on behalf of my client and was on hold for a good 50+ minutes just to hear the guy on the other end tell me he will “get the engineers to look at the issue the next morning” and that “the issue will be resolved in 3 to 5 days“. I replied (in astonishment) “3 to 5 days?” and he replied very calmly, “that’s less than a week” (almost as if service in “less than a week” should make me feel special!). Obviously Yahoo! Hosting thinks your site is not important and can be down 5 days, after all, why bother rushing their engineer to look into petty matters when they could be spending it on keeping up the number 1 site in the world.

Need more?

I’ll let the readers add the rest using the comment form below.

What is currently out there?

If my memory serves me right, Eston (Bond) of Hyalineskies was one of the earliest to venture into uncharted waters. His “Gridlock” theme did not receive as much attention from the rest of the design community, but users no doubt caught on to it and fondly continue using it to this day.

Users who have better things to do with their time than to upgrade their WordPress install once every few weeks, or those who are overwhelmed with the information presented below and would like someone else to do the dirty job for a meager fee, contact me.

Who should upgrade?

If you use WordPress at least once a day, go right ahead and upgrade. Casual user can refer the list below to check if it fits your bill:

1. You run a business online using WP to power your site
2. You run multiple sites using both WP and other CMS and would one day like to merge them all into one mega site
3. You are happy with your current install but like the new features WP 2.1 has to offer

Who should not?

1. If you have WP on your site but is seldom used as your site is all static
2. Your site is a Mashup
3. You are happy with your current install and do not feel the need to upgrade
4. No one

How do you upgrade?

If you decide to upgrade, here are two ways to go about it. Remember this is my personal opinion based on my experiences, there might be easier ways to go about, even plugins, but I think I have nailed the most painless and fool proof technique.