UPDATE YOUR PHP TO VERSION 8.0 NOW!

UPDATE YOUR PHP TO VERSION 8.0 NOW!

UPDATE YOUR PHP TO VERSION 8.0 NOW!

if you haven’t updated your website to version 8.0 yet, you should. It came out early this year. There should not be anything in it that would break a site. The first main reason you should update is that support has ALREADY ended for versions 7.1 and 7.2 and and is in the timeline (the clock is running) until support for version 7.3 will also be ended. I updated 4 sites today without a glitch on any of them.

Some of the newer additions are the JIT compiler, which should add a little speed to your site, “union types” which is an interesting coding feature that allows more than 1 type to be used in conjunction, and “attributes” which now allows you to add meta data to a class. Also added are “name arguments”, a “match” expression which is like a super switch element, Constructor properties have also received a “step-up” in the game. There are new return types, and many other fun toys you will like if you are a programmer.

If you are not a programmer, you will just enjoy the added abilities it will give your site for any new code that is written in PHP 8.0, and the updates are likely coming if they are not already here, so you want your back-end to have the necessary tools to comply any new theme or plugin updates that are using it. If you don’t update the code version in your hosting environment, you can’t benefit fully from some of the updates.
If you are not a “techie” but you still want to benefit from this new update, give Everything I.T. a call, and let them safely backup your site and do the upgrade for you, or better yet, consider one of their annual maintenance plans.

CONTACT US NOW AND GET YOUR SITE UPDATED!

WordPress 4.9 Released

WORDPRESS VERSION 4.9 UPDATE RELEASED

Be sure to update your WordPress sites and keep them secure. (and get all the wonderful additional features they add in major version releases). Today version 4.9, nick-named “Tipton” was released. It has a lot of new features, new widgets, a lot of customizer improvements, coding enhancements, and much more, GO READ ABOUT IT if you are interested. It is sitting there on your dashboard, waiting for you to run the update, so take the 5 minutes and go do it. Don’t forget to backup both the files and the database first, so if something on your site for some reason is not compatible, you can restore it to the prior configuration.

GET HELP

If you need any help, Everything I.T. has wonderfully affordable WordPress annual maintenance packages that cover updating and backups, and in some cases restoration from a successful hack. (If someone hacks your site, we’ll put it back for you, a feature of the advanced maintenance package) We can also install SSL on your site for around $75, and we also have a full security configuration as well that covers putting a firewall, setting blocking of known blacklists, and about 30 other deterrent features that are wonderful, and entirely worth the price. CALL TODAY!

WordPress Plugin Removed From Repository for Crypto Mining Script

So I haven’t posted in a while. And I’m not sure how this type of formatted post will display on Facebook, so it’s kind of test.

Anyway, today I found some information that is kind of different, and I think you will find it very interesting. Today, WordFence (a security plugin authoring company) blogger wrote about a plugin that was taken down from the WordPress repository. It was a plugin called “Animated Weather Widget by weatherfor.us ” and what it did on the website frontend where it was installed, I don’t really know. But it’s what it did in the background/backend that is very interesting. Apparently this plugin ran a script that installed an iframe script that basically turned the whole PC into a crypto currency mining computer, using ALL the resources of any client computer that visited a website that had the plugin installed. Now you should understand that the website owners themselves had no knowledge of this, so you can’t really fault them. Eventually they will discover (hopefully) that the plugin no longer exists (or hopefully they will test their own site) and will remove it from their site, but if you ever go a website, and your computer fan starts running like crazy, then you are going to want to leave that website immediately.

If you want to go read the whole amazing story, you can go here and read it on the WordFence website, but I downloaded the amazing story on video for you : WordPress Plugin Banned for Crypto Mining

Everything I.T. is concerned about your safety on the internet, and we post discoveries like this often on our blog. Please register, please comment, and/or please share.

 

WordPress Update

WordPress 4.8.2 is released. Time to update core files again. Keep them current, and stay secure out there!

If you would like to know what the changes are (and they are always good…WordPress is one program that doesn’t send out updates unless they actually accomplish something, and it’s typically quite a bit!) …you can read about them here: [su_permalink target=”blank”]https://codex.wordpress.org/Version_4.8.2[/su_permalink]  Just for a highlight, I will say that on the SECURITY side, there are 5, (not 1, but FIVE) cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities plugged in this update. So for security reasons alone, you should update. Not to mention that there are typically great functionality upgrades as well. Don’t forget to backup first, before doing any CORE updates (and themes also usually) …the FILES AND THE DATABASE! …just in case something doesn’t work right with your server. The one time you don’t do a backup, you will probably  need it, because that’s just how life works. 🙂

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