I don’t know what a C4Parana is but what the hack did was 1) redirect my homepage to “http://maresanat.nl/media/C4Parana/$1″, 2) messed up my WP permalinks settings and 3) hacked my WP login like in the previous hack.

As I said, this happened in December and it has been 2 months since then so I’ll try my best to remember the exact steps to fix this hack. There might be some extra details I did back then but rest assured the steps below would suffice for you to fix the C4Parana hack. Another note though, there might be variations of this hack so please check against the description of the hack above if we were hacked the same way. If not, then follow the instructions with a grain of salt.

Step by step instructions on how to fix a C4Parana hack:

1. Fix your .htaccess file. The redirect of the homepage is done by hacking the .htaccess file. Fix the file if you know how or simply delete it. We’ll create one (or WordPress will…) later. This fixes issue #1.
2. Recover your WP login. I already have a blog post on this. Please check => recover your hacked wordpress login. This fixes issue #3.
3. Fix your permalinks settings. Once you are able to login back into the WP dashboard, you should fix your permalinks settings. Just restore it to what you had before.

It’s really not that hard! Just follow the instructions above and you should be fine. You would do well if you keep in mind the following things as well:

• Always upgrade to the latest stable WP version. Doing so will reduce the security vulnerabilities that WP have.
• Make sure that your .htaccess file and wp-config.php file is not writable and accessible to the outside world. Only you (or any admin) should have access to these files.
• Backup your files and database regularly. If all else fails, you can simply restore your backup if you get hacked.

That’s it. If you have any more questions or suggestions, please comment below.

For this tutorial, I am assuming you a know a thing or two about making backups(database and file) via CPanel and about FTP. If not, then I suggest you go learn them first, they are not that hard. If you are all set, then here is the step by step instructions to migrate a WordPress site from one server to another via CPanel:

1. Backup the database. Now, there are a number of ways to do this but I prefer to do it via PHPMyAdmin. Backup your database by logging into PHPMyAdmin and exporting the database into a .gz file. If you are unsure how to do this, follow the official WP how to backup your database instructions.
2. Backup your WP files. This can be done via the file manager. Select the root folder containing your site and click ‘compress’ from the clickable options above.
3. Create a new database on your destination server. To make things just a bit easier, you may opt to name the database the same as the database you just backed-up. This way, you don’t have to update much later in the wp-config.php file.
4. Import your backed-up database into the new database. Remember step #1? Well, just import the file(database backup) into the new database via PHPMyAdmin.
5. Add domain to Add-on domain list. Make sure to fix the folder structure as well.
6. Restore backed-up WP files. Restore the files via the file manager into the new folder just created in step #5.
7. Update wp-config.php in new server. Update the database name, username and password.
8. Update DNS of domain via registrar. Get the new DNS of your new destination server and update them via your current domain registrar.
9. Wait. Nameserver propagation usually takes a few days so just sit back and relax.

The steps outlined above involves some downtime since we would have to wait for the nameserver propagation to finish which usually takes several days. If downtime is an issue, you can modify the steps above by adding these steps after step 6:

1. Allow your old server to access the new database in the new server. You can allow this by going to Remote MySQL on the new server and adding the domain or IP address of your old server.
2. Change your wp-config.php in the old site to point to the database on the new site. So, instead of accessing stale data, your site can access update information while waiting for the nameserver propagation to finish. The only downside is this could be a bit slow sometimes.

So the these are the steps to migrate a WP installation from one server to another. If you have any questions, feel free to comment/ask below.

How to Recover Hacked WordPress Login. Believe it or not this site was hacked and was fixed just a few moments ago. I am not sure how long it was hacked but I was able to fix it after a few minutes. Here is what happened.

I logged in to the WP-ADMIN page to login but was not able to do so. My admin account was gone and when I tried to use the password recovery function, it says that there was no such username or email address! So how did I fix this? Easy.

Given that I have some technical background on WordPress installations and MySQL, I used this to my advantage by checking out the WP database to check if my user account still exists. Unsurprisingly, my user account/admin account no longer existed but was replaced by some mysterious login. Hence, what I did was just edit this mysterious account and replaced the information with my own details. After that, I used the WP password recovery to reset my password and then I took this opportunity to upgrade to the latest WP version with the hopes of better security.

If you are not able to follow the vague summary above, here is the step by step walk through for recovering your hacked WP account:

1. Enter your host CPANEL and click on phpMyAdmin.
2. Once inside phpMyAdmin, select your blog’s database on the left.
3. Browse the wp_users table.
4. Find the hacked row and edit it.
5. Modify the user_pass column by a) selecting MD5 from the Function drop-down box and b) entering a new password in the Value text box.
6. Click/Press Go/Save to save your changes.
7. Create a new tab in your browser and go to your blog’s WP-ADMIN page.
8. Use the password recovery functionality to reset your password.
9. OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED. Once your password has been reset and you are able to login once again, upgrade your WP installation into the latest version.

That’s it! If you have the same problem as I did a few moments ago, then just follow the steps above to fix the problem. If you are a programmer or a web developer, you should not have any problems following the instructions. Otherwise, just leave a comment below and I will try to help you the best I can.

It has been a while since I last posted in this blog for various reasons. I have also thought of shutting it down but have decided against it for various reasons too. What is sure right now is that this domain is here to stay for as long as possible as this has a sort of a sentimental value to me being my first blog! So what updates do I have?

First, is that this blog is back. I might not be able to post as frequently as before but I will post on it every now and then. I laid low for a couple of months because something happened to this blog’s search engine rankings. I believe this blog was penalized by the Big G and my SERP fell down considerably. As a result, traffic was down (everything was down). But after a few weeks, the penalty was lifted and this blog is back online! I am not sure of the nature of the penalty but I tried my best to clean this blog of possible offenses Big G might frown upon. Fortunately, it worked.

One reason I wanted to shut this blog down was because it was formerly still using WP 2.5 while the latest version is 2.9.2! Yes it has been a long way and the auto-upgrade feature was absent from version 2.5. So the lazy guy inside me said that I should just shut down this blog. Fortunately I did not do so and stuck with the manual upgrade so that this blog now runs on a WP 2.9.2 . I’ll probably create a blog post on upgrading from a very old version of WP to the latest one since there are not a lot of posts on that around.

I am also planning to update this blog’s WP theme because it simply sucks. Yes, it is better than the first one but hey it still is ugly. I am no great designer so please bear with me. Creating WP themes is actually a way for me to exercise my web programming skills and not my design skills so the next theme will probably more minimalistic.

Okay so that’s it for now. See you soon.

And yes, I did no spell check or grammar check so please forgive me ;p

Most of us addicted to social websites most likely have a facebook account, a myspace account and a twitter account. Of these 3, twitter goes down the most. Someone has taken advantage of this and created a site that would tell us whether twitter is down or not (not sure how helpful this is…but definitely cool)! The site shows you either a “Yes” or a “No” depending on the site’s status.

Check out the site here => istwitterdown.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Consumers will be able to take advantage of this program and receive a $3,500 or $4,500 discount from the car dealer when they trade in their old vehicle and purchase or lease a new one.

Consumers are eligible to receive a $3500 or $4500 discount from the dealer during the trade in of their old vehicle to buy or lease a new one. The question left is, does your car qualify? Here are the qualifications as outlined in cars.gov:

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
• Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)
• Trade-in vehicles must be registered and insured continuously for the full year preceding the trade-in
• One-year Proof of Insurance. If your insurance card does not cover the entire year preceding the trade in, you will need other proof of insurance. Contact your insurance company to get evidence of one-year worth of insurance. The form must include, at a minimum, the insurance company, policy number, VIN, start and end date of insurance (showing at least 1 year).
• Proof of Registration going back at least one-year.
• “Clear” title. This means the title must be free of any liens or other encumbrances. If you have liens, you need to get these cleared before going to the dealer. This may include evidence on the face of the title showing no lien; that the title has been cleared (signed and stamped accordingly), or with an attached lien release from the lien holder.
• The vehicle manufacturer date found on the driver’s door or door jamb is less than 25 years old when you trade it in.

Now here is the cash for clankers car list that shows which vehicles are eligible. The list can be found here.

So my little sideline has paid off!

Now a little of statistics. I’ll go over my earnings for the month of July for my various earning channels:

Adsense Earnings: $52.53
Infolinks Earnings: $2.75
Chitika Earnings: $9.44 (not bad…)

I am taking the The Keyword Academy course online and am following their system. Using it, I have created 4 sites that have yet to earn some income. This is due to their being new. Let us see next month what happens with this 4 sites.

Last month I said that I will create 5-10 more niche sites and be earning $100/month. I failed on both counts But hopefully I can reach my goals for August by being more realistic. Here are my new goals for August:

• Create 2-3 new sites
• Take care of already created sites by backlinking
• Increase online earnings from $50/month to around $70-$90 /month.

So I’ll write another update next month and hopefully I would have achieved my August goals by then.

So here we are again, another month has passed by and we are back to looking back to what we have accomplished the past month of June. The month of June is certainly interesting. In this month, I have learned a lot of things and started some things that might lead to something good in our quest to earn online. I have joined several forums that claim to teach you the essentials of doing so. In my first few weeks there, it certainly has proved to be an invaluable source of information.

This is also a significant month for me since this would be the month I have surpassed the $100 Adsense mark! Woot!!! So here are my earnings for various sources of online income:

Adsense Earning to received next month – $142.06
Adsense June Earnings – $60
Chitika June Earnings – $16.21
All-time Chitika Earnings – $20.91
Affiliate June Earnings – $5.74
Infolinks June Earnings – $3
All-time Infolinks Earnings – $5.49

The earnings above come from only 2 sites. So what I am planning to do is add more site and theoretically, the earnings should increase. I have also accomplished the following on the month of June:

• setup 3 niche sites
• create high quality backlinks to one of the niche sites
• took on the hubpages challenge

I know that is not so much of an accomplishment. This is because I still have a day job. But we’ll schedule things and work things out.

As for my blog’s statistics here they are:
7807 Unique Visitors
13476 Page Views

So each passing month this blog takes on a giant leap in terms of traffic. Also, I am planning to make this blog a sort of journal of my online earning endeavor, like what I have already done but in a more active manner. I do not know how yet but I’ll think of something.

So that’s it for June’s statistics update. While here are my goals for the month of July:

• create 5-10 more niche sites
• increase online earnings to around $100/month

Let us keep it simple. So see you again with our next update.

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07/12/2009
Swine flu is expected to make a comeback with rage this winter. That is why swine flu vaccines are being readied before that season of reckoning.

Obese and highly stressed people have a higher probability of mortality based from statistics retrieved from those infected and killed. So better shed off those pounds and start working smartly (to reduce stress…) and you might avoid the A(H1N1) wrath.

06/30/2009
Can getting the mild version of the swine flu immunize you against a stronger version of it? Some people definitely think so and are even discussing holding swine flu parties. Definitely one party I do not want to go to…

06/27/2009
Is the swine flu in the process of mutating into a more lethal virus? First China, now back to New York.

A(H1N1) cases in RP rise to 861.
06/22/2009
First Asian swine flu related casualty is a Filipina. Though she did not die because of the swine flu (she officially died of heart failure, a pre-existing heart disease she had), it seems those at a higher rate of mortality are those who are already sick beforehand.

06/21/2009
A mother loses the battle against swine flu and fails to hold her newborn baby who also died (but not from swine flu).

Some companies are taking advantage of the swine flu pandemic and are selling herbal supplements to ward off the swine flu virus.

06/20/2009
In my last post, A(H1N1) Antigenic Shift, we saw that the current swine flu is a mild one. However, the virus is slowly mutating into a more lethal one as seen in China. This same scenario was last seen in the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 that killed 50-100 million people worldwide.

Possible first swine flu death from the asia pacific region. Man who was diagnosed with multiple serious ailments (including the swine flu) has died. Should we be alarmed?

Good news! As of 06/19/2009, 76% of those afflicted with swine flu in the Philippines are now healthy and fine!

Do you need a hunch? Do you need someone’s advice on something but no one is around? You want to buy that new car or that new bag but do not know if you should? Then there is a perfect solution for you! There is this new website where it will do just that. First, it would get to know you by asking some general questions. Then, it would generate a list of questions for you to choose from which requires quick decisioning. This is where you come in and choose the question related to your question.

Try it today here => Hunch.