WordPress Logins

Recently, in order to increase the security and performance of the UMW website, we made some changes to the way logins are handled. For the time being, you will need to be either on-campus, or logged into VPN in order to login to the website. … [Read more...]

Website Logins Disabled for Maintenance, July 13-14, 2012

Due to systems maintenance, the UMW Website Wordpress logins (NOT UMW Blogs) will be disabled on Friday, July 13 and Saturday, July 14. The website will remain live during this time. Information Technologies will be performing network maintenance. The UMW Web team will be upgrading to the latest WordPress version and updating plugins. We will notify you of the changes once they are complete, and let you know when you can login again. Meanwhile, if you anticipate having to make changes to your site, please complete them by 8:00 am on Friday, July 13. … [Read more...]

What We Did Today: WordPress Updates

As you know, logins were disabled this morning to allow us to perform updates to Wordpress. These were tested in our staging environment, but please let us know if you perceive any weirdness in your sites. Here is what we updated: Updated WordPress from 3.3.1 to 3.3.2 Updated Plugins Akismet – from 2.5.5 to 2.5.6 Business Hours – from 1.2 to 1.3.2 BWP Google XML Sitemaps – from 1.1.6 to 1.2.1 CMS Tree Page View – from 0.8.4 to 0.8.11 Feedburner Email Widget – from 1.1.5 to 1.1.6 Genesis Nav Menu Amplified – from 1.0 to 1.0.1 Gravity Forms – from 1.6.2 to 1.6.3.3.4 Gravity Forms + Custom Post Types – from 3 to 3.0.1 Image Widget – from 3.2.11 to 3.3.3 Jetpack by WordPress.com – from 1.2.2 to 1.3 MCE Table Buttons – from 1.0.4 to 1.5 Network Privacy – from 0.1.1 to 0.1.2 Page Links To – from 2.6 to 2.7.1 Post Expirator – from 1.5.1 to 1.5.3 TubePress – from 2.2.9 to 2.4.2 Types – Complete Solution for Custom Fields and Types – from 0.9.4.2 to … [Read more...]

How Much Do You Know About WordPress Roles and Permissions?

As a Wordpress site administrator, you can add users and assign them different permission levels. These permission levels get pretty granular. For instance, you may want some folks to draft things, but have them reviewed before publishing them. You may want to share site administration with another person (always a good idea), or allow other people broader privileges to edit other's content or upload files. The Wordpress.org codex has a very detailed breakdown of what all of these user roles mean. Bookmark this site as a reference for when you assign permissions to different people to edit your sites. http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities Happy Wordpress! … [Read more...]

New Tutorial on Managing the Users on your Site

Did you know that you can add users on your site yourself, without the intrusion of the system administrator or webmaster? Did you also know that everyone in your department is automatically an "Author" on your site? To find out about what all this means, plus how to use Wordpress user management tools in UMW.EDU, visit the new tutorial video and instructions > … [Read more...]

Publishing Policies on the UMW Website

As you may or may not know, the official UMW policy repository on the web is in Board Docs. Board Docs is used by the BOV to organize meetings and post minutes. However, it also has document management functionality. The trouble is, it's separate from the UMW website and not terribly intuitive to navigate to and through. Did you know we now have a cool new Wordpress tool that allows you to publish your policies from Board Docs onto your website? If you've been wondering what to do about navigating your users to your official policies now that Board Docs is the official University-wide policy manual, fear not! We've got you covered! Visit the tutorial for more information > … [Read more...]

SPAM-BE-GONE! Akismet is Here!

We have just installed Akismet on the Wordpress umw.edu server. What does this mean? Well, we have been using a free spam-filtering tool called TypePad Anti-Spam. While it works, its functionality left a lot to be desired: false positives and tons of emails in your inbox. At the time we launched the new UMW.EDU site, Akismet, the premier spam-fighting tool for Wordpress, was becoming prohibitively expensive. Thanks to a revolt by higher education institutions (our own Jim Groom being among the most vocal), Akismet lowered its costs to something we can all manage. Full disclosure: The fee for the University is now only $550/year. So, you should be receiving far fewer spams in your in-box. What reaches your in-box should be largely REAL emails. But, you'll still want to check your site to make sure you're not missing anything. To do so, simply check your Comments on the left-hand side of your site. This will give you a list of comments that have come in. Those in yellow are likely … [Read more...]