In Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, who do you think was the worst villain?
Was it Heath Ledger’s Joker who was chaotic, psychotic and remorseless? Or, was it Tom Hardy’s Bane who was as brutal as he was strong selling out for one thing?
To me, the Joker was more dangerous. He was only restrained by his own motives which were hard to discern.
Alfred told Bruce as much when he tells the story of a madman in Burma, a bandit he called him, who couldn’t be bribed for the government. The guy just rained down chaos for the sake of doing so, for “good sport” as he says. He couldn’t be bought or reasoned with and there was no logic to his actions.
“Some men,” he tells Master Bruce, “just want to watch the world burn.” They have no rhyme or reason.
Such is the case with this April Wordpress Roundup. Nevertheless, we are digging into some interesting topics. For instance, there is an SEO Plugin Showdown, a guide to deploying SSL, strange hackings, proofreading tips, and habits of the successful.
The SEO Plugin Showdown – WPMayor
Have you ever wondered which of the two popular plugins was the best for SEO? If you are like me, you have a favorite and you stick to your choice, for good or bad.
Amir Noghani broke down the two most popular SEO optimization plugins for WP Mayor. He does a nice job of detailing each plugin’s features, strengths, and weaknesses.
Noghani doesn’t really give a conclusion, but he does point out that Yoast is good for those who aren’t as tech-savvy.
Deploying SSL for your website – WPMUDev
One of my goals this year has become to add SSL to all my websites. Julia Eudy of WPMU Dev posted a 7 step guide to a having a deployment strategy for SSL.
Since January 2017, Google has stepped up its enforcement of “HTTPS everywhere” by identifying websites that don’t have an SSL certificate as unsafe.
The post was derived from a WordCamp presentation that Eudy gave in St. Louis. She is careful to give practical advice, especially on how to handle “Mixed Content” errors and backlinks.
If you have yet to implement your SSL, this post will help you make the transition.
The attack of what? – Wordfence
This month, Wordfence reported and odd occurrence in which home routers became instruments of brute force attacks. Wait, what?
Apparently, attackers took advantage of a vulnerability in home routers to create a hack which attacks WordPress websites. The attacks came from the country of Algeria.
It appears that attackers have exploited home routers on Algeria’s state owned
telecommunications network and are using the exploited routers to attack WordPress websites globally.
Wordfence has a handy tool that you can use to scan your router.
Proofreading tips and tools – TorqueMag
Are you constantly needing some help with proofreading when you write your blog posts? I feel you.
Mary Walton at TorgqueMag has a fantastic post with 27 tips and tools to help meet your need.
The first 15 are much-needed tips. Did you know that you can read your content to help with proofreading? Neither did I.
The rest of the list is made up of some really good tools that can help you be a proofreading pro.
Habits of successful freelancers – Elegant Themes
We are all just trying to make it in this world as freelancers and the self-employed.
Nick Schäferhoff gives us eight habits of successful freelancers, entrepreneurs, and business owners.
For Schäferhoff it comes down to organization and processes,
Being your own boss has many upsides but also downsides. One of the biggest challenge is the fact that you need to completely organize yourself. Nobody is telling you what to do when, it’s all on your own head.
I like that Nick talks about getting rest and learning in addition to the more organizational habits. I also learned a new word, ego depletion.
Clef is out, now what?
Many people have used Clef for two-factor authentication for their websites. The news has traveled and by now everyone knows they will be shutting down their product as of June 6th when they remove their app from the Google Play and Apple stores.
What should WordPress owners do now?
Below is a few articles that give various alternatives moving forward.
Clef Alternatives
In addition, TechCrunch has an interesting article on what happens to the Clef team after Clef shuts down.
In Closing
I admit this was kind of a hodgepodge of blog posts, but hopefully, you found something interesting.
Have you read any outstanding blog posts in the past month? Share them in the comments.
Also, tell me your favorite Dark Night Trilogy scene.
