If you are running an older version of WordPress (anything before version 2.8.4) please check your user panel, how many admin are showing? I have one admin, in the user panel and it was only listing me, however above it showed “administrators (2)”.

It occurred to me that something may be wrong because in the past week 3 subscibers joined even though i dont give this oprtion on my blog.

To date, although WordPress have admitted their is a problem i have been unable to find a definitive definition of a “fix”. I have however managed, after much deliberation, to delete the extra administrator. I deleted them like this:

I logged into my Cpanel, selected ‘phpmyadmin’, selected the database that my installation is using, selected users and then managed to delete the hidden user. However, i am still unsure as to whether their are other steps i should be taking. I will keep my eyes peeled and let everybody else know as i find out.

As an extra step of security:

By default WordPress will name the administrator user account as “admin.” If you haven’t changed anything while installing WordPress, that is probably what you use to log in.

The problem with this is evident: if someone wanted to gain access to your blog, all he would need to do is to keep using the “admin” user name with a bunch of passwords combinations. This is called brute force attack, and with automated tools it works quite often.

Whenever installing WordPress from scratch, therefore, remember to use some other name for the administrator user account. If you already have WordPress installed, the fix is quite simple. Just create a new user and set it as administrator. Then log in with that new user and delete the “admin” user. Don’t worry if you have many posts written by that user, WordPress will ask whether you want to delete them or re-assign them to a new user (choose the latter obviously).

This particular worm, like many before it, is clever: it registers a user, uses a security bug (fixed earlier in the year) to allow evaluated code to be executed through the permalink structure, makes itself an admin, then uses JavaScript to hide itself when you look at users page, attempts to clean up after itself, then goes quiet so you never notice while it inserts hidden spam and malware into your old posts.

The tactics are new, but the strategy is not. Where this particular worm messes up is in the “clean up” phase: it doesn’t hide itself well and the blogger notices that all his links are broken, which causes him to dig deeper and notice the extent of the damage.

Im sure after this latest attack many bloggers will be looking for a new blogging software, however i will remain on WordPress until things get too hot to handle.

The poll conducted at A4U appears to have concluded that there are many reasons affiliates do not want to use these, however at no point does anyone mention the fear of being viewed as  ‘selling out’. I create and run my sites for a specific audience and am very conscious about my advertising– it is only this week that i have added any form of advertising to this site  and am still not 100% sure that i will keep it! I am worried that subconciously my readers will not trust my reviews and feel that i am only here for profit. Even without advertising i would still be writing my drivel.

Anyway, this made me think of my own personal experiences with websites. I really like the website ‘The Art of Manliness’ and have found it a very funny and interesting read, however last week i visited the site and they had added a video advertisement that started as soon as the page loaded (for mens shaving products i believe) — my immediate thought was this is a sell out. *possibly other people had this same view as the video has since been removed*

I suppose that if your sole purpose is to sell products, this form of advertising may be useful. I would prefer returning visitors becoming involved with what i am writing and perhaps buying something because i believe it is useful and have in turn convinced them it is by openly discussing the benefits and questioning any negatives rather than just shoving it in their faces.

Now let me get something straight, afterall i am an affiliate marketer and by definition want to sell, i just believe that sales today should not be your only focus, if you create something worth reading and paying attention to then when the trust has been built up the sales will come naturally.  I for one wont be using this intrusive form of advertising anytime soon — maybe its just me and anyway they are not yet available within my niches.

If you are interested the following merchants provide video advertisements:

NPower – within the flash links section, 250 x 250 labelled “Juice TV ad”

Blue Chip Vacations – go to dynamic, then text links, they are 300 x 250, various holiday videos (the labels end with “video”), you may need to scroll down the page for these

eHarmony – go to dynamic, then text links, there is one 320 x 270 labelled “VIDEO-eHarmony”

Prezzybox – go to dynamic, then text links, there are a wide selection of vidiboxes, 540 x 340 and 300 x 300

Red Letter Days – go to dynamic, then text links, selection of videos for different experiences all in 320 x 270

Carter:Philips Affiliate Network Ltd was founded in 2004 and primarily deals with Financial related programs. Their big selling point with Merchants is that they do not charge any fee to set up a program with them, but instead make their money solely from the override which i believe is approximately 30% — roughly the same as most other networks.

When i approached them about promoting a particular offer in October 2008 they couldn’t have been more helpful. In one of our short discussions with regards to the network it became apparent that they were looking to expand and expand massively. Whether this will happen still remains to be seen, however in my couple months promoting the programs on their network i can honestly say i am very happy.

In February 2009 they launched their new network platform CPANUK and promised some pretty nifty features that have now started to come into fruition.

I have mentioned on previous posts my annoyance at the difficulty of having conversion tracking placed on merchants thank you pages. With one particular Merchant it has taken us 3 months and with another this is still not in place. I will never again even test a campaign without having this fitted first. Anyway CPANUK has fixed this problem for all their affiliates — well done!

CPANUK allows you to host your own conversion tracking page. As an affiliate you just create a page with any conversion tracking code or affiliate program code that you want, host it on your server and update your personal tracking URL on the Networks site — Genius!

No more begging, emailing, phoning non understanding merchants trying to explain what conversion tracking does, how it will benefit them and assuring them that their is not a security issue. Well no more with this network anyway, when will the other networks follow suit?

**In addition to the above: on my request two days ago to get an Iframe made for a particular offer– two days later it is now live — amazing