Lately a lot of social media platforms are closing down and most of them offer option to migrate to WordPress.com. MSN Spaces, Knol are just few examples.

So I decided to move my accounts from these social media to WordPress.com

When I tried to create a new blog on WordPress.com I started to get error.

I get following message whenever I try to create a new blog.

Error wile creating a blog onm WordPress.com

Oops! Sorry an error has occurred. Please click here to contact us so that we can fix it.
Please remember that you have to provide the full, complete Blog URL, otherwise we can not fix it

First I thought it might be the blog name which they might have marked as spam or something. But this happens with any blog name I select.

Not sure what is the problem. There is no solution available at all anywhere. their support forums seems to be silent with this error.

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Delicious Counter Button for WordPress

I’m liking delicious in it’s new avatar since it was sold to the founders of YouTube.

I’ve resisted not to use delicious counter button on any of my blogs as I was waiting to see the new changes. Now time has come to use delicious counter button again for good.

Delicious has introduced many new changes. It has introduced concept of Stack which is nothing but a way to group various links.

Delicious counter button is little bit tricky but I’ll keep it simple.

In order to add Delicious counter button to WordPress you need to add 2 pieces of codes in header and single template files as described below.

Add the following code in header.php file

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://delicious-button.googlecode.com/files/jquery.delicious-button-1.0.min.js"></script>

Add following code in single.php file

<a class='delicious-button'  href='http://delicious.com/save'>
<!-- {
   url:"<?php the_permalink() ?>"
   ,title:"<?php the_title(); ?>"
   ,button:"wide"
   } -->
   Save on Delicious
</a>

Above code will not work on category.php. I’ll update this code to make it work on Category pages later.

You can see a live implementation of Delicious counter button on Bollywood blog.

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I activated all the plugins and while I was changing the Google Analyticator’s settings, I found that it is affected with Malware?

First I thought it might be my theme files so I did a Google search to find if there are any issues with Google Analyticator and Malware. I could see few posts in forums suggesting that Google Analyticator does indeed somehow is affected with Malware or at least the malicious code uses Google Analyticator to spread Malware.

However it might not be the case as Ronald Hoff’s post suggests.

When you are in Google Analyticator’s settings and click on Save, either it redirects to Google’s home page or you get a malware warning in the browser.

Google Analyticator Affected with Malware

Also the affected website shows following warning:

Google Analyticator Malware Warning

The problematic url is security-laboratory.ru which is notorious for injecting malware in free open source scripts specially in osCommerce. I’ve seen this Malware in some of osComemrce sites and it is pretty nasty. This is the first time that I see it in a WordPress site.

The nasty stuff about security-laboratory.ru is that it doesn’t just add a code in the files which can be easily found in the php files but in adds an eval code which is hard to find.

It affects the header, footer, index and plenty of other common php files in osCommerce and also modifies .htaccess in very clever way. In .htaccess it adds malicious code towards the end by adding many empty lines before. So if open .htaccess file in a text editor you might not see code after the end of normal code but just scroll down and then you will discover the malicious codes.

I disabled the plugin and the malware was no longer seen.

I quickly checked some of other WordPress sites and I didn’t find this issue.

There is a chance that there is malicious code in the files.

I tried to backtrack what has happened. There might be chances that I visited a security-laboratory.ru malware affected website and then I Installed WordPress on this new site. Everything was fine until I tried to update the settings for Google Analyticator and at that point of time the WordPress site might be affected with Malware.

Before Google Analyticator I also changed the settings for various other plugins but I didn’t see any Malware warnings.

Checking the files for malicious code

I did a thorough search by searching for eval( string in all files in WordPress installation and guess what, I found that some files are affected.

There is file in the site root - tmp_1407122956494849.php which contains a piece of jumbled up code and it looks all too familiar.

So it seems Malware has affected the WordPress site.

.htaccess file

As usual I also find bunch of malicious code in .htaccess.

There were a bunch of lines with Error redirect to plasticspark.ru after the normal WordPress .htaccess entries.

Next I did a search for tmp_ files from webhosting root to make sure that non of other sites are affected. The command to search for a file with tmp_ name in it is

find /home/*/public_html/ -name ‘tmp_’

Then another search for entries in .htaccess

find /home/*/public_html/.htaccess -exec grep “plasticspark.ru” ‘{}’ /dev/null \; -print

Nothing found so I can be assured that other sites are not affected.

Conclusion

To conclude I can assume that the malicious code might have been injected to this new WordPress site when I was setting it up after visiting any other malware affected sites.

Now the most important question is how this code was injected into the WordPress? Is WordPress prone to such injection or it was the Google Analyticator plugin which gave way to the malware into WordPress?

Here are some safety tips

When you see the warning in browser for a malware then never ever visit the website. 

If you visit a malware affected site then chances are that your computer might get affected as well.

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WordPress Error: Catchable fatal error Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /public_html/wp-content/themes/ajaykumarsingh/includes/theme-functions.php on line 271

I’ve never seen this kind of error before and it never happened on any of my blogs before.

The weird thing is that I’m using exactly same theme on Laptop Reviews blog and there is no error there. I haven’t modified any theme functions in the theme at all.

Did search for “WordPress Error: Catchable fatal error Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in” but couldn’t find a clear solution. It seems this error is related with some menu or menu plugins. I’m not using any menu plugins.

The theme I’m using has it’s own inbuilt menu system so probably that might be causing this problem?

Here are some of the steps I followed to solve this issue

1) theme-functions.php  line 271

I checked the code at line no. 271 and it is out of my reach to find out what could be the error here.

2) Menu

I remember fiddling with the menus as I’ve to customize to add a second level menu as you can see in the header. So the nest step was to remove the secondary level menu. It didn’t fix the problem.

Then I deleted all the menu from the Custom Navigation in the theme’s option but it still didn’t solve the problem.

3) Image linked to attachment

I normally link images to attachment url and not to the image itself. So I decided to do a quick check to revert back one image to link to image itself and not to the attachment url and bingo the error was gone.

So it seems the error is triggered from the attachment url or attachment theme.

4) Switched Back to Default Theme

Another quick test I did was to switch the theme to Twenty Eleven, and when I clicked on the image I didn’t see any error.

So I’ve narrowed down the problem to attachment theme file.

5) Finding the problem in Theme files

I don’t have any attachment template file so the default file used for attachment urls would be signle.php which is next template file in the WordPress template hierarchy. However I haven’t changed anything in the single.php file so I don’t see any problem in single.php file.#

6) Removing Custom Navigation from the Theme

Next try is to complete remove the custom navigation from the theme and also remove/comment out all the function this navigation system uses.

Chances are that this will solve the problem.

If this doesn’t solve the problem then the last resort is either do something in database.

The Solution

The problem seems to be with the theme’s custom breadcrumb. I unchecked the custom breadcrumb option and now error is gone.

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While authenticating with Google accounts it shows following error:

Google Analyticator Google Accounts Authentication Problem

The page you have requested cannot be displayed. Another site was requesting access to your Google Account, but sent a malformed request. Please contact the site that you were trying to use when you received this message to inform them of the error. A detailed error message follows:

The site “http://eu.com” has not been registered.

That’s bit of weird, I don’t do anything different on this blog so why this error. Error shows the site as eu.com, which is not the full domain name. So it seems somehow during Authentication plugin is passing incorrect domain name/url.

Did bit of Googling to find out a solution. The solution suggested on various forums was to add domain to Google accounts -https://accounts.google.com/UpdateDomain

I added domain at Google Accounts – Manage Domain

Google Accounts - Manage Domain

For target URL path fix I just entered domain name as suggested in some forum.

After adding domain at Google Accounts I re-tried to authenticate but it still didn’t work. It shows following error:

The page you have requested cannot be displayed. Another site was requesting access to your Google Account, but sent a malformed request. Please contact the site that you were trying to use when you received this message to inform them of the error. A detailed error message follows:

AuthSub target path prefix does not match the provided “next” URL.

It seems it is going to be tough.

I decided to log out of Google Accounts, went back to Google Analyticator plugin settings page I re-authenticated and it worked.

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Fatal error: Cannot redeclare stats_get_options

You might get this error if you try to delete WordPress.com Stats plugin. This happens when you have installed Jetpack by WordPress.com plugin.

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare stats_get_options() (previously declared in /home/../public_html/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/stats.php:110) in /home/swamid/public_html/wp-content/plugins/stats/stats.php on line 91

I haven’t done a lot of research on this issue so can’t find out the exact reason for this error.

If you have WordPress.com stats and Jetpack by WordPress.com plugins installed and you want to delete the WordPress.com plugin then fist disable Jetpack by WordPress.com plugin then delete WordPress.com plugin and you will not see any error.

Even if you forget to deactivate Jetpack by WordPress.com plugin before deleting WordPress.com plugin then no need to worry. WordPress.com plugin will still be deleted even though you see error.

Ignore the error and go back to WordPress admin and everything should be fine.

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Google Profile Picture in Google Search Result

Showing author profile picture next to search result is the next phase of evolution in Google search result. Just seeing only plain old boring texts have become unbearable. So showing profile pictures is a cool thing. But it comes with a cost. Images slow down the search result which has been already slowed down with plenty of other factors which Google shows in search result.

Anyway, web is already flooded with the tutorials on how to show author profile picture next to Google search result. I tried to follow some of the tutorial but it didn’t work. Those tutorials are so complex. I don’t like complexities, complexity is waste of time. I like to simplify complexities and present in a manner which is understood to all.

In this tutorial I’ll explain how to show author profile picture in Google search result for WordPress blog posts.

Step 1 – Add rel=”author” to WordPress theme

First update your WordPress to the latest version as the WordPress 3.2+ has support for the stuff I’ll explain below and you don’t need to add any special function to the theme.

The first step is to adding rel=”author” attribute in the WordPress theme.

Add following line or something similar in your WordPress theme’s single.php file.

<span class="author">By <!--?php the_author_posts_link(); ?--></span>

Step 2 – Add Author page link to Google+ profile

You will have to tell Google which one is your author page.

To do so grab your author page link from WordPress blog which will be something like http://www.ajaykumarsingh.com/author/admin

Visit your Google+ profile page

Google+ Profile

Click on Edit Profile

Google+ Profile Edit Profile

From Edit profile page click on links.

Google+ Profile Edit Links

Add a new link to your author page on WordPress blog.

Google+ Profile Add Author Page Link

Don’t forget to tick “This page is specifically about me” option.

Save and Exit the profile edit.

That’s it

Just wait for next update and hopefully you will see your shiny little picture next to your blog posts in Google search result, provided Google likes you ;)

Better get a nice looking picture added in your Google+ profile.

FAQ

How much time it takes Google to show profile picture in search results

I don’t know. People say it may take couple of days, let’s say, 1-4 days 1 month. I’ve just implemented it today so I’ll keep an eye and will update when it shows up.

I’ve single author WordPress blog, can I add link back to my home page? Or do I need to add link to author page only?

Well I’m not too sure about this. But it makes sense to add author page link to Google+ profile. You can try adding link to home page  instead of author page and see what happens.

I’ve seen some tutorials suggesting that we need to add Google+ profile link to WordPress page as well. Is it required?

Well not sure. I’ve also seen tutorials explaining the same. I’ve already added link to my Google+ profile.

I can’t find author page on my blog. When I click on author name it goes to the home page. 

You might have used some plugin to suppress author page generation. If so then you need to enable the author page generation. If you are using Robots Meta plugin then there is option to allow Author page generation.

I don’t want to allow author page generation as it creates duplicate pages.

You can make author pages to have rel=”noindex”. Try using Robots Meta plugin.

Updates on 10-Oct-2011

Finally the good news, Google starts to show my profile picture in the search results. So the above method works.

Just today I see profile picture showing up in the search result. See an example for Google Chrome Crash post.

Google Profile Picture in Google Search Result

So it took about 1 month of time for the author profile picture to show in Google search result.

However it is strange that Google profile picture doesn’t show for some of the older posts. E.g. see the result for Outlook on iPad post, the picture doesn’t show.

Google Profile Picture Doesn't Show For Some Older Posts

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It is very simple to add Tumblr button to WordPress.

Step 1 – Get the custom code from Tumblr

Visit Tumblr Share Button page and get your custom code. You can use advanced option to get the code. If your blog is generic then I would recommend to stick with basic code.

Tumblr Share Button Code

Step 2 – Add the common code to the footer.php

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.tumblr.com/v1/share.js"></script>

Copy the first piece of code and paste it before </body> tag in footer.php file.

Step 3 -Tumblr Share Button Code

Copy and paste the Tumblr Share Button code into single.php file where you wish to show it.

<a href="http://www.tumblr.com/share" title="Share on Tumblr" style="display:inline-block; text-indent:-9999px; overflow:hidden; width:81px; height:20px; background:url('http://platform.tumblr.com/v1/share_1.png') top left no-repeat transparent;">Share on Tumblr</a>

If you have Photo blog or video blog then you might wish to get the advanced version of share code. To do show click on advance option and select the share type. For the WordPress select PHP in the Programming Language option.

Tumblr Share Button - Advanced

Copy and paste the code as explained above.

You can see a live example on Movies World blog.

Tumblr Share Button Code On Movies World Blog

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Google Buzz Count Button For WordPress

I’ve been looking for a simple code allowing me to add Google Buzz count button to WordPress blog but I couldn’t find one. I did little bit of research and figured it out by myself.

If you want Google Buzz button for just single page then you can easily get it from Google Buzz Buttons page.

However you can’t use that buzz button code in WordPress blog as that code doesn’t support dynamic parameters such as url, excerpt etc.

Google Buzz API provides the solution for adding Buzz count button to WordPress.

Here is the complete code which you can copy and paste in the single.php file inside the loop.

<a href="http://www.google.com/buzz/post"
  class="google-buzz-button"
  title="<?php the_title(); ?>"
  data-url="<?php the_permalink() ?>"
  data-locale="en"
  data-button-style="normal-count"></a>
 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/buzz/api/button.js"></script>

The code is straight forward.

You can see live example of Google Buzz coutn button on this blog itself, scroll up to see the Buzz count button below the post title.

There is one more parameter data-message=” “, which you can add in the code. However it is better to leave it empty so that it gives empty box to buzzer to write their own comment.

To Do

I’ve to work out how to attach thumbnail image to the Buzz post.

Finally managed to get the image url as well. See the code below which is a complete Google Buzz Count Button code for WordPress.

You can also show the data-message parameter. However you might see <p> </p> surrounding the excerpt.

Excerpt shows <p> </p>

To remove <p> </p> you can use the_excerpt_rss() function instead of the_excerpt().

the_excerpt_rss() worked on Bollywood blog but it didn’t work on Indian Recipes blog.

Code for Google Buzz Count Button for WordPress

<?php $imgarr = wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID), 'thumbnail' ); $imgurl = $imgarr[0];?>
<a href="http://www.google.com/buzz/post"
  class="google-buzz-button"
  title="<?php the_title(); ?>"
  data-url="<?php the_permalink() ?>"
  data-message="<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>"
  data-imageurl="<?php echo $imgurl ?> "
  data-locale="en"
  data-button-style="normal-count"></a>
              <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/buzz/api/button.js"></script>

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At first I thought it was spam so I carefully examined the sender e-mail, sender’s IP address and the link. All seemed to be genuine.

Any way just to be on safe side I didn’t click on the link mentioned in the e-mail but I directly visited WordPress.com and logged in from there. Then from dashboard I changed password. And indeed there was a message saying to change password.

So if you have received such e-mail from WordPress.com then beter change your password now. An to be on safe side don’t click on the e-mail but visit WordPress.com login and then change password.

WordPress.com is offering 15% off on WordPress.com store which I wouldn’t be using.

Ajay,

We recently found and fixed a mistake that we’d like to tell you about. Passwords on WordPress.com are saved in a way that makes them extremely secure, such that even our own employees are unable to see your actual password – the one you enter to login to your WordPress.com account. However, between July 2007 and April 2008, and September 2010 and July 2011, a mistake in one of our systems used to find and correct bugs on WordPress.com accidentally logged some users’ passwords in a less secure format during registration.

We’ve updated our systems to prevent passwords from being logged this way in the future, so this will not happen again. We don’t have any evidence that this data has been accessed maliciously or misused, but to be on the safe side we are resetting your password since your account is among those affected.

Please change your password using this link or copy and paste the URL below into your web browser:

https://wordpress.com/wp-login.php?action=rp&key=dfdfdsff&login=myusername

If the password you used when you registered on WordPress.com was one you use elsewhere, you should change it there, too. In the future, remember that it’s good practice to always use unique passwords for different services.

We are terribly sorry about this mistake. No one likes having to create new passwords and we’d like to include a 15% off coupon to say we’re sorry. The coupon can be used for a custom domain, a design upgrade, VideoPress, or a storage space increase. Just use the code below on any of the upgrades on the WordPress.com Store:

somecode

If you have any questions, please reply to this email and one of our Happiness Engineers will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you,
The WordPress.com Team

WordPress.com | Thanks for flying with WordPress!

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