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Cleaning up the IP.Board url4short mess

XDebug to the rescue…

The condensed, I-just-want-to-fix-my-site version:

On your server, try:

grep ‐ri \$mds /wherever/your/website/folder/is

to locate the injected code, and while file it resides in. You can then go into that file and remove it.

Also try re-caching all the skins and languages in the Admin Control Panel. Make sure all IP.Board updates and patches are applied to prevent the compromise happening again.

Reset your passwords and keys. Take measures to detect and continue detecting other infiltrations.

My friend Niall Brady dropped me an email, saying that some of the users of his Windows-Noob forums were reporting getting redirected to a spammy-looking site (url4short dot info) when clicking on search results to the site.

The forums run the Invision Power Board (IP.Board) software. There had been some reports of vBulletin boards being hit with this kind of spammy redirect, but fewer suggestions that this was an IPB problem. There had been a patch for a critical IPB issue released in December, but that had, obviously, been applied to the site as part of normal good practice.

Nevertheless, I was concerned. Clicking on a search engine result should definitely not be redirect somewhere other than the result page!

Without evidence that the issue was not limited to one machine, or one connection, however, it could not be ruled out that it was just malware on that visitor’s machine.

» Read the rest of this post…

New SleekTabs Text Tutorial

SleekTabs still often has a bit of a learning curve to implement for many people. It is a bit, well, quirky, in the way that it has to be implemented. It could be better.

I have previously put together a video tutorial explaining with a good example how to implement it, but there has still been confusion, partly due to the old example/tutorial that ships with the download.

I’ve now put together a text version of the video tutorial (just Part 1 for now), which is easier to consume than the video if you’re pressed for time or just want to quickly look up a detail.

I’m also considering removing the old example file as part of the SleekTabs download, to avoid future confusion. The problem stems from the fact that implementation is approached two different ways across the old and new examples.

I am concerned, though, that because it is a much simpler example, removing it could be a problem for those who want to get up and running as quickly as possible, without digesting the more detailed tutorial.

I welcome all comments on SleekTabs and the documentation, so if you have ideas on how to make things better, or want to feedback things that you think are working well, please do let me know!