She specialises in travel, portrait and reportage photography, and has been working for the Local and National press for the past 3 years, tackling a variety of assignments. She is dedicated and extremely passionate about her work, and takes her inspiration from the beauty within all of us and a genuine love of life and different cultures. She lives in North London and travels extensively.

Her work has been published in The Daily Mail, The London Lite, The Evening Standard, The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Inside Out Magazine, Hotline Magazine, Weardowney , The Rise and The Hill.

A bespoke design and the ability to manage the site was required. This was achieved using a tailored implementation of WordPress.

http://www.julietteneel.com

The Problem

For the past week webmasters from all over the world have reported several visits originating from a mysterious chinese domain name.

Many website managers are expressing concern over this peculiar traffic, originating from a domain name called qq829.com with the referring URL appearing as:

www.qq829.com/web_stat.asp?dn=www.domainname.com

Several discussions and blog posts are appearing over the internet, with currently the de-facto hub of discussion on the Google Analytics Help forum, where several webmeisters are reporting activity and exchanging theories.

What is it doing?

As of writing it is still unclear exactly what the activity is. A handful of members of the Google Analytics discussion are reporting tampering to their files, although this has not been corroborated, it is of concern but may just be a spam in the pan.

Sparkstar at HubPages clears the matter as follows:

After a lot of research it seems that this may be a new variant of trojan.adclicker, as reported by Threatexpert, which places cookies on the user’s computer then generates false hits on various websites and displays malicious adverts over the top of a website’s pages. All these hits appear to be referred to websites by the url above which is why webmasters are seeing traffic from this link in their logs. However, it’s not the computer user who determines which sites the trojan accesses, it’s the creator of the trojan.

It is also believed that if a webmaster clicks on the link via their logs, it displays the animated graph and possibly tries to download malicious software onto their computer. Some webmasters have also reported changes to their website upon noticing this traffic such as php-injections.

If you are a webmaster experiencing this problem it is recommended that you scan your website/s and all of the equipment that you use for FTP, etc. Most webmasters have resorted to amending their .htaccess file to block all of China. However, I recommend either simply blocking the referring link or cnzz.com, 188.com and qq829.com. You’re probably experiencing this because one or more of your website’s users are infected with a new variant on the trojan, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your website or equipment is infected.

Symantec provide the following summary statement of the threat:

Discovered: September 12, 2002
Updated: February 13, 2007 11:40:28 AM
Type: Trojan Horse
Systems Affected: Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows XP

Trojan.Adclicker is a generic class of Trojan Horses that are designed to artificially generate traffic to certain Web sites. These Trojans send HTTP requests to simulate clicks on banner advertisements, or to inflate Web counter statistics.

Antivirus Protection Dates
Initial Rapid Release version September 13, 2002
Latest Rapid Release version April 20, 2010 revision 007
Initial Daily Certified version September 13, 2002 revision 020
Latest Daily Certified version April 20, 2010 revision 008
Initial Weekly Certified release date September 18, 2002

Solutions

You can either block the URL using the following approach provided by AurelloSoft:

Updated: April 20th, 2010 ( Both of these options have been confirmed as working; however, some have had better results with Option 1 )

Option 1:

RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} cnzz\.cn [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} qq829\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Option 2:

SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^qq829" TOBLOCK=1
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^cnzz" TOBLOCK=1

<FilesMatch "(.*)">
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=TOBLOCK
</FilesMatch>

It is also possible to apply IP blocks within your .htaccess file, if running apache servers. I briefly did so as earlier attempts to block referral traffic failed to halt traffic. A drastic measure, granted. But as I rarely receive chinese visitors to my site, hardly an inverted Great Firewall of China.

The following code will block all traffic from China and any referred traffic from qq829.com:

Note: If you’re running WordPress, insert right at the top above permalinks setup.

order allow,deny
allow from all
# Get up-to-date list from http://www.okean.com/thegoods.html or (in .htaccess format) http://www.wizcrafts.net/chinese-blocklist.html
# China IP Address Blocks
deny from 58.14.0.0/15 58.16.0.0/13 58.24.0.0/15 58.30.0.0/15 58.32.0.0/11 58.66.0.0/15 58.68.128.0/17 58.82.0.0/15 58.87.64.0/18 58.99.128.0/17 58.100.0.0/15 58.116.0.0/14 58.128.0.0/13 58.144.0.0/16 58.154.0.0/15 58.192.0.0/11 58.240.0.0/12
deny from 59.32.0.0/11 59.64.0.0/13 59.72.0.0/15 59.77.0.0/16 59.78.0.0/15 59.80.0.0/14 59.107.0.0/16 59.108.0.0/14 59.151.0.0/17 59.155.0.0/16 59.172.0.0/14 59.191.0.0/16 59.192.0.0/10
deny from 60.0.0.0/11 60.55.0.0/16 60.63.0.0/16 60.160.0.0/11 60.194.0.0/15 60.200.0.0/13 60.208.0.0/12 60.232.0.0/15 60.235.0.0/16 60.245.128.0/17 60.247.0.0/16 60.252.0.0/16 60.253.128.0/17 60.255.0.0/16
deny from 61.4.80.0/20 61.4.176.0/20 61.8.160.0/20 61.28.0.0/17 61.29.128.0/17 61.45.128.0/18 61.47.128.0/18 61.48.0.0/13 61.87.192.0/18 61.128.0.0/10 61.232.0.0/14 61.236.0.0/15 61.240.0.0/14
deny from 116.1.0.0/16 116.2.0.0/15 116.4.0.0/14 116.8.0.0/14 116.13.0.0/16 116.16.0.0/12 116.52.0.0/14 116.56.0.0/15 116.58.128.0/20 116.58.208.0/20 116.60.0.0/14 116.66.0.0/17 116.69.0.0/16 116.70.0.0/17 116.76.0.0/14 116.89.144.0/20 116.90.184.0/21 116.95.0.0/16 116.112.0.0/14 116.116.0.0/15 116.128.0.0/10 116.192.0.0/16 116.193.16.0/20 116.193.32.0/19 116.194.0.0/15 116.196.0.0/16
deny from 116.198.0.0/16 116.199.0.0/17 116.199.128.0/19 116.204.0.0/15 116.207.0.0/16 116.208.0.0/14 116.212.160.0/20 116.213.64.0/18 116.213.128.0/17 116.214.32.0/19 116.214.64.0/20 116.214.128.0/17 116.215.0.0/16 116.216.0.0/14 116.224.0.0/12 116.242.0.0/15 116.244.0.0/14 116.248.0.0/15 116.252.0.0/15 116.254.128.0/17 116.255.128.0/17
deny from 117.8.0.0/13 117.21.0.0/16 117.22.0.0/15 117.24.0.0/13 117.32.0.0/13 117.40.0.0/14 117.44.0.0/15 117.48.0.0/14 117.53.176.0/20 117.57.0.0/16 117.58.0.0/17 117.59.0.0/16 117.60.0.0/14 117.64.0.0/13 117.72.0.0/15 117.74.64.0/20 117.74.128.0/17 117.75.0.0/16 117.76.0.0/14 117.80.0.0/12 117.100.0.0/15 117.103.16.0/20 117.103.128.0/20 117.106.0.0/15 117.112.0.0/13 117.120.64.0/18 117.120.128.0/17 117.121.0.0/17 117.121.128.0/18 117.121.192.0/21 117.122.128.0/17 117.124.0.0/14 117.128.0.0/10
deny from 118.24.0.0/13 118.64.0.0/15 118.66.0.0/16 118.67.112.0/20 118.72.0.0/13 118.80.0.0/15 118.84.0.0/15 118.88.32.0/19 118.88.64.0/18 118.88.128.0/17 118.89.0.0/16 118.91.240.0/20 118.102.16.0/20 118.112.0.0/13 118.120.0.0/14 118.124.0.0/15 118.126.0.0/16 118.132.0.0/14 118.144.0.0/14 118.178.0.0/16 118.180.0.0/14 118.184.0.0/13 118.192.0.0/12 118.212.0.0/15 118.224.0.0/14 118.228.0.0/15 118.230.0.0/16 118.239.0.0/16 118.242.0.0/16 118.244.0.0/14 118.248.0.0/13
deny from 119.0.0.0/15
deny from 121.0.16.0/20 121.4.0.0/15 121.8.0.0/13 121.16.0.0/12 121.32.0.0/13 121.40.0.0/14 121.46.0.0/15 121.48.0.0/15 121.51.0.0/16 121.52.160.0/19 121.52.208.0/20 121.52.224.0/19 121.55.0.0/18 121.56.0.0/15 121.58.0.0/17 121.58.144.0/20 121.59.0.0/16 121.60.0.0/14 121.68.0.0/14 121.76.0.0/15 121.79.128.0/18 121.89.0.0/16 121.100.128.0/17 121.192.0.0/13 121.201.0.0/16 121.204.0.0/14 121.224.0.0/12 121.248.0.0/14 121.255.0.0/16
deny from 122.0.64.0/18 122.0.128.0/17 122.4.0.0/14 122.8.0.0/13 122.48.0.0/16 122.49.0.0/18 122.51.0.0/16 122.64.0.0/11 122.96.0.0/15 122.102.0.0/20 122.102.64.0/19 122.112.0.0/14 122.119.0.0/16 122.136.0.0/13 122.144.128.0/17 122.156.0.0/14 122.192.0.0/14 122.198.0.0/16 122.200.64.0/18 122.204.0.0/14 122.224.0.0/12 122.240.0.0/13 122.248.48.0/20
deny from 123.0.128.0/18 123.4.0.0/14 123.8.0.0/13 123.49.128.0/17 123.52.0.0/14 123.56.0.0/13 123.64.0.0/11 123.96.0.0/15 123.98.0.0/17 123.99.128.0/17 123.100.0.0/19 123.101.0.0/16 123.103.0.0/17 123.108.128.0/20 123.108.208.0/20 123.112.0.0/12 123.128.0.0/13 123.136.80.0/20 123.137.0.0/16 123.138.0.0/15 123.144.0.0/12 123.160.0.0/12 123.176.80.0/20 123.177.0.0/16 123.178.0.0/15 123.180.0.0/14 123.184.0.0/13 123.196.0.0/15 123.199.128.0/17 123.232.0.0/14 123.244.0.0/14 123.249.0.0/16 123.253.0.0/16
deny from 124.6.64.0/18 124.14.0.0/15 124.16.0.0/15 124.20.0.0/14 124.28.192.0/18 124.29.0.0/17 124.31.0.0/16 124.40.112.0/20 124.40.128.0/18 124.42.0.0/16 124.47.0.0/18 124.64.0.0/15 124.66.0.0/17 124.67.0.0/16 124.68.0.0/14 124.72.0.0/13 124.88.0.0/13 124.108.8.0/21 124.108.40.0/21 124.112.0.0/13 124.126.0.0/15 124.128.0.0/13 124.147.128.0/17 124.156.0.0/16 124.160.0.0/13 124.172.0.0/14 124.192.0.0/15 124.196.0.0/16 124.200.0.0/13 124.220.0.0/14 124.224.0.0/12 124.240.0.0/17 124.242.0.0/16 124.243.192.0/18 124.248.0.0/17 124.249.0.0/16 124.250.0.0/15 124.254.0.0/18
deny from 125.31.192.0/18 125.32.0.0/12 125.58.128.0/17 125.61.128.0/17 125.62.0.0/18 125.64.0.0/11 125.96.0.0/15 125.98.0.0/16 125.104.0.0/13 125.112.0.0/12 125.169.0.0/16 125.171.0.0/16 125.208.0.0/18 125.210.0.0/15 125.213.0.0/17 125.214.96.0/19 125.215.0.0/18 125.216.0.0/13 125.254.128.0/17
deny from 134.196.0.0/16
deny from 159.226.0.0/16
deny from 161.207.0.0/16
deny from 162.105.0.0/16
deny from 166.111.0.0/16
deny from 167.139.0.0/16
deny from 168.160.0.0/16
deny from 192.83.122.0/24 192.124.154.0/24 192.188.170.0/24
deny from 198.17.7.0/24 198.97.132.0/24
deny from 202.0.110.0/24 202.0.160.0/20 202.0.176.0/22 202.4.128.0/19 202.4.252.0/22 202.8.128.0/19 202.10.64.0/20 202.14.88.0/24 202.14.235.0/24 202.14.236.0/23 202.14.238.0/24 202.20.120.0/24 202.22.248.0/21 202.38.0.0/20 202.38.64.0/18 202.38.128.0/21 202.38.136.0/23 202.38.138.0/24 202.38.140.0/22 202.38.144.0/22 202.38.149.0/24 202.38.150.0/23 202.38.152.0/22 202.38.156.0/24 202.38.158.0/23 202.38.160.0/23 202.38.164.0/22 202.38.168.0/21 202.38.176.0/23 202.38.184.0/21 202.38.192.0/18 202.41.152.0/21 202.41.240.0/20 202.46.32.0/19 202.46.224.0/20
deny from 202.60.112.0/20 202.69.4.0/22 202.69.16.0/20 202.70.0.0/19 202.74.8.0/21 202.75.208.0/20 202.85.208.0/20 202.90.0.0/22 202.90.224.0/20 202.90.252.0/22 202.91.0.0/22 202.91.128.0/22 202.91.176.0/20 202.91.224.0/19 202.92.0.0/22 202.92.252.0/22 202.93.0.0/22 202.93.252.0/22 202.94.0.0/19 202.95.0.0/19 202.95.252.0/22 202.96.0.0/12
deny from 202.112.0.0/13 202.120.0.0/15 202.122.0.0/19 202.122.32.0/21 202.122.64.0/19 202.122.112.0/21 202.122.128.0/24 202.123.96.0/20 202.124.24.0/21 202.125.176.0/20 202.127.0.0/18 202.127.112.0/20 202.127.128.0/19 202.127.160.0/21 202.127.192.0/18 202.130.0.0/19 202.130.224.0/19 202.131.16.0/21 202.131.48.0/20 202.131.208.0/20 202.136.48.0/20 202.136.208.0/20 202.136.224.0/20 202.141.160.0/19 202.142.16.0/20 202.143.16.0/20 202.148.96.0/19 202.149.160.0/20 202.149.224.0/19
deny from 202.150.16.0/20 202.152.176.0/20 202.153.48.0/20 202.158.160.0/19 202.160.176.0/20 202.164.0.0/20 202.164.25.0/24 202.165.96.0/21 202.165.176.0/20 202.165.208.0/20 202.168.160.0/19 202.170.128.0/19 202.170.216.0/21 202.173.8.0/21 202.173.224.0/19 202.179.240.0/20 202.180.128.0/19 202.181.112.0/20 202.189.80.0/20 202.192.0.0/12
deny from 203.18.50.0/24 203.79.0.0/20 203.80.144.0/20 203.81.16.0/20 203.83.56.0/21 203.86.0.0/18 203.86.64.0/19 203.88.0.0/22 203.88.32.0/19 203.88.192.0/19 203.89.0.0/22 203.90.0.0/22 203.90.128.0/18 203.90.192.0/19 203.91.32.0/19 203.91.96.0/20 203.91.120.0/21 203.92.0.0/22 203.92.160.0/19 203.93.0.0/16 203.94.0.0/18 203.95.0.0/21 203.95.96.0/19 203.99.16.0/20 203.99.80.0/20
deny from 203.100.32.0/20 203.100.80.0/20 203.100.96.0/19 203.100.192.0/20 203.110.160.0/19 203.118.192.0/19 203.119.24.0/21 203.119.32.0/22 203.128.32.0/19 203.128.96.0/19 203.128.128.0/19 203.130.32.0/19 203.132.32.0/19 203.134.240.0/21 203.135.96.0/19 203.135.160.0/20 203.148.0.0/18 203.152.64.0/19 203.156.192.0/18 203.158.16.0/21 203.161.192.0/19 203.166.160.0/19 203.171.224.0/20 203.174.7.0/24 203.174.96.0/19 203.175.128.0/19 203.175.192.0/18 203.176.168.0/21 203.184.80.0/20 203.187.160.0/19 203.190.96.0/20 203.191.16.0/20 203.191.64.0/18 203.191.144.0/20 203.192.0.0/19 203.196.0.0/22
deny from 203.207.64.0/18 203.207.128.0/17 203.208.0.0/20 203.208.16.0/22 203.208.32.0/19 203.209.224.0/19 203.212.0.0/20 203.212.80.0/20 203.222.192.0/20 203.223.0.0/20
deny from 210.2.0.0/19 210.5.0.0/19 210.5.32.0/20 210.5.144.0/20 210.12.0.0/15 210.14.64.0/19 210.14.112.0/20 210.14.128.0/17 210.15.0.0/17 210.15.128.0/18 210.16.128.0/18 210.21.0.0/16 210.22.0.0/16 210.23.32.0/19 210.25.0.0/16 210.26.0.0/15 210.28.0.0/14 210.32.0.0/12 210.51.0.0/16 210.52.0.0/15 210.56.192.0/19 210.72.0.0/14 210.76.0.0/15 210.78.0.0/16 210.79.64.0/18 210.79.224.0/19 210.82.0.0/15 210.87.128.0/18 210.185.192.0/18 210.192.96.0/19
deny from 211.64.0.0/13 211.80.0.0/12 211.96.0.0/13 211.136.0.0/13 211.144.0.0/12 211.160.0.0/13
deny from 218.0.0.0/11 218.56.0.0/13 218.64.0.0/11 218.96.0.0/14 218.104.0.0/14 218.108.0.0/15 218.192.0.0/12 218.240.0.0/13 218.249.0.0/16
deny from 219.72.0.0/16 219.82.0.0/16 219.128.0.0/11 219.216.0.0/13 219.224.0.0/12 219.242.0.0/15 219.244.0.0/14
deny from 220.101.192.0/18 220.112.0.0/14 220.152.128.0/17 220.154.0.0/15 220.160.0.0/11 220.192.0.0/12 220.231.0.0/18 220.231.128.0/17 220.232.64.0/18 220.234.0.0/16 220.242.0.0/15 220.248.0.0/14
deny from 221.0.0.0/13 221.8.0.0/14 221.12.0.0/17 221.12.128.0/18 221.13.0.0/16 221.14.0.0/15 221.122.0.0/15 221.129.0.0/16 221.130.0.0/15 221.133.224.0/19 221.136.0.0/15 221.172.0.0/14 221.176.0.0/13 221.192.0.0/14 221.196.0.0/15 221.198.0.0/16 221.199.0.0/17 221.199.128.0/18 221.199.192.0/20 221.199.224.0/19 221.200.0.0/13 221.208.0.0/12 221.224.0.0/12
deny from 222.16.0.0/12 222.32.0.0/11 222.64.0.0/11 222.125.0.0/16 222.126.128.0/17 222.128.0.0/12 222.160.0.0/14 222.168.0.0/13 222.176.0.0/12 222.192.0.0/11 222.240.0.0/13 222.248.0.0/16 222.249.0.0/17 222.249.128.0/18 222.249.192.0/19 222.249.224.0/20 222.249.240.0/21 222.249.248.0/23

SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^qq829" TOBLOCK=1
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^cnzz" TOBLOCK=1

Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=TOBLOCK

Recourses & Discussion

• AurelloSoft solution to block all referred traffic from qq829.com & cnzz.com (known spam site being associated with qq829)
• Google Analytics Help has the most active discussion on the subject currently
• SharkLadyTech outlines the most current solutions to block traffic from this domain and china as a whole.
• LinkedIn has an Answers forum post discussing the subject also.

Last weekend, the plot thickened further as I ventured to a party at the Manor House Warehouse and noticed, en route, several white crosses spray painted on the floor. It appeared that they were leading the way….

[nggallery id=12]

Does anyone know what the hell these crosses are all about??

Is this some kind of giant Derren Brown exercise where we all end up robbing a bank.

…or is this a reincarnation of the Nokia Game.

SOLVED!

Thanks to Chris Blundell for tweeting this and Yalda Graham for solving this one. Apparently all a cunning marketing stunt for the band ‘The XX‘ a refreshing bunch of minimalist music lovers who I’ve actually heard of!

Originally from Wandsworth, London. Catch their remixed version of Florence and the machine’s ‘You’ve got the Love’ – great version. Plus the amazing track Heart Skipped A Beat. Reckon these guy’s might be a little huge this year.

At a much hyped and frenzied big Apple event today in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The press gathered to check in and finally discover what Steve Jobs had up his sleeve.

Apple iPad first glimpse from Steve Jobs, CEO Apple.

You must admit his black neck tied top is a bit priestly. Reportedly Moses was used as a comical slide to hint to ‘the announcement’ during the run-up of the show. The CNET Live blog by Erica Ogg reported:

10:06 a.m.: That’s the end of the updates. Now to the main event.

He shows a photo of Moses holding a tablet. “I chuckled when I saw this.”

Erica Ogg continues:

10:09 a.m.: Some people have thought that’s a Netbook, he says. “The problem is Netbooks aren’t better at anything,” he says to loud laughter and applause.

“They’re just cheap laptops. We think we have something better.”

10:10 a.m.: iPad is the name.

iPad is the name

A giant iPod Touch-looking device ½ inch thin and weighing 1.5 pounds steals the show.

Some of the other little features:

• A 9.7-inch IPS display, the same display used in the latest-generation iMac.
• 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, accelerometer, compass, and a 10-hour battery life.
• One month of standby battery life. You can leave it asleep and not use it for 30 days.
• Full screen multi-rotational internet browser.
• A calendar and address book for contacts. Maps using Google Maps too.
• Doubles as an iPod with 16gb capacity and access to the iTunes Store.
• You can also watch YouTube, TV shows (iPlayer), and movies on it.
• Photos able to be viewed in stacks, viewed in portrait or landscape.
• You sort through by flicking with your finger. A bottom bar looks like a film strip you can scroll through to see all photos in an album.
• Can organize by faces, places, or events, just like iPhoto.
• All App Store apps including Games run on the iPad also.
• Price: It’s $499 for the 16GB Model

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• Developer Website

5. Infinite Scroll

Infinite Scroll adds the following functionality to your wordpress installation: When a user scrolls towards the bottom of the page, the next page of posts is automatically retrieved and appended. This means they never need to click “Next Page”, which dramatically increases stickiness.

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

6. WP-PageNavi

Adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog.

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

7. WP-Cumulus

WP-Cumulus allows you to display your site’s tags, categories or both using a Flash movie that rotates them in 3D. It works just like a regular tags cloud, but is more visually exciting. Clicking the tags can be a little hard (depending on your speed setting) but does work a treat. See it in action on my sidebar.

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

8. Executable PHP widget

The Exec-PHP plugin executes PHP code in posts, pages and text widgets.

Features

• Executes PHP code in the excerpt and the content portion of your posts and pages
• Configurable execution of PHP code in text widgets (for WordPress 2.2 or higher)
• Write PHP code in familiar syntax, eg. <?php ... ?>
• Works in your newsfeeds
• Information about which users are allowed to execute PHP with the current security settings (for WordPress 2.1 or higher)
• Configurable user warnings for inappropriate blog and user settings (for WordPress 2.1 or higher)
• Restrict execution of PHP code in posts and pages to certain users by using roles and capabilities
• Update notifications through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress if a new version of the Exec-PHP plugin is available (for WordPress 2.3 or higher)
• Internationalization support (english and german included, many more available)
• Comes with documentation

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

9. Maintenance Mode

Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end.

Visitors will see a message like “Maintenance Mode – SITE is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Please try back in 60 minutes. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

10. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

11. Improved Include Page

Improved Include Page is an expanded version of the original Include Page developed by Brent Loertscher and it was developed to add some features I needed.

Features

• page title display with optional HTML code,
• content display with different styles (full, teaser, custom ‘more’ link),
• WordPress filters applied to both the content and the title,
• supports WordPress 2.5.x Shortcode API

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

12. WP e-Commerce

The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for WordPress is an elegant easy to use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.

WP e-Commerce is a Web 2.0 application designed with usability, aesthetics, and presentation in mind.

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

13. Page Protection

This plugin adds optional per-page user name and password protection, implemented using standard HTTP protocol authorization headers, thus triggering the standard user/password dialog of the browser, and making it possible to make the browser store the credentials.

Subpages of a protected page are protected with the same user name and password as their parent.

Protected pages and their subpages do not show up in menus, search results and page lists.

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

14. GD Star Rating

GD Star Rating plugin allows you to set up rating and review system for posts, pages and comments in your blog. You can set many options for displaying the rating stars, and add widgets into the sidebars for displaying top ratings and other statistics generated by the plugin. Plugin includes advanced settings panels that will allow you to control many aspects of rating. Plugin also supports multi ratings along with thumbs based ratings. Plugin supports use of cache plugins and dynamic loading of data using ajax.

Supported languages: english, serbian, spanish, german, italian, french, ukrainian, belorussian, russian, polish

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

15. G-Lock Double Opt-in Manager

This mailing list management plugin allows the visitors of your blog to subscribe to your mailing list using a double opt-in method. The plugin sends an email with the subscription confirmation link to the user and if the user confirms the subscription, it sends a welcome email to each new subscriber. The details of new subscribers are saved to the internal WordPress database. You can manage the mailing list inside WordPress and export the list for the further use in your email marketing software. You can also use the plugin to convert your blog RSS feed into an email newsletter and send it out to your subscribers. You can design the style and content of your email newsletter yourself and you can schedule your email broadcast weekly, monthly or as soon as you add a certain number of new posts to your blog.

• WordPress Plugin Page
• Developer Website

Suggestions and feedback welcome, comments available below

I was inspired after seeing the header of the WordPress Foundation: a new charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project.

This particular one was created using the tags from my delicious bookmarks.

I really liked this when I first came across it. I could spend hours erm… wordling i guess. Try it for yourselves and submit one and submit it to their gallery.

Park City piece of four. Promoting the film.

Official Trailer

Grinding raises a good point, asking:

Am I wrong in assuming he’ll just throw up a bittorrent server and we’ll all have our own guerrilla screenings?

A brief tour of flickr finds some of his work. A little gallery with my personal favorites available below.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is due to open in UK cinemas on 5 March.

With reports coming in of vast sums of money being donated through online and text appeals, it is interesting to see who is doing what and how it is being reported.

Google

Google has dedicated disaster relief site now for Haiti. It aggregates the latest news, video and aid information currently available.

Twitter

Tweak the Tweet, provides a dictionary of hashtags for reporting on issues on the ground in Haiti and calling for aid. Here are templates for using their syntax

Learning to speak #machine

Twitter has provided many people with a communication lifeline. For those affected on the ground as well as those affected around the world. The role played by twitter in facilitating disaster relief is now being reviewed through the discussion of ‘hashtags for emergency response’ an interesting examination into the semantic ‘hashtag’ protocol potential of twitter data definition for emergency response.

Facebook

Facebook provides a variety of ways to communicate. Through messaging, wall-posts and IM. All of which have been used as a way of directly communicating. Alongside direct messaging, a great many groups have sprung up also. With groups being open the public it’s unfortunate, albeit inevitable, to witness a growing abuse in peoples trust through these public groups.

Related News Reports

The BBC has filed a couple of reports on the phenomenal and innovative ways that social media has been used to help victims, relatives and facilitate aid efforts. I’m sure we’ll see a few more of these in the coming weeks.

• Social networks and the web offer a lifeline in Haiti
• Twitter and Facebook users respond to Haiti crisis

Other related news stories

• Facebook Haiti Earthquake Scam Artists Surface – Associated Content
• Twitter and Facebook praised by Haiti charity – The Telegraph
• Social networking sites boost Haiti disaster appeal – Charities Aid Foundation
• Aid agencies ‘must use new tools’ – BBC

The plan outlines the scope of the desired UI development for 2010 and offers a nice insight into how to conduct open-source User Interface design.

WordPress saw much success in the past with community developed UI (icon contest, graphic design component for Trac tickets, header refresh contest, etc.) However this year they are raising the bar and to my mind setting a standard by outlining and putting into motion their intentions of broadening participation, fostering communication and subsequently improving development.

• Monthly Challenges.
  Wordpress intend to run monthly challenges for UI contributors, such as Screen Layout Challenges.
• Distributed Usability Testing
  To be handled by a growing ‘UI/UX contributor team’
• Dedicated Channels of Communication
  To help foster the ‘UI/UX contributor team’ various channels of communication are being set in motion:
  • Dedicated Mailing List
  • IRC Chat: #wordpress-ui on irc.freenode.net is to provide ‘Watercooler’ Chat for UI/UX participants
  • Dedicated Blog. To be launched in due course…

Soundscape by Inhabitsounds

During the especially cold winter of 2009/2010 I volunteered my services collaborating with Francesca Weber-Newth and Anne Briggs on Inhabit Sounds – a project that invites the urbanite to listen to the sounds of London. The idea being that the iconic and clichéd notion of the city can be overcome by engaging with sound rather than solely the visual.

The project was the brainchild of Anne Briggs and stemmed from her MA focus in the value of the rural within the urban which resulted in an ethnographic study of Hampstead Heath. It was through this work that sound installation became an interest and a drive to carry out this project.

Screenshots

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