5 Password Myths You Should Do Away with Today

by | Sep 8, 2019 | Security | 0 comments

Before you got to this piece today, you must have had to turn on your device, enter your password and then get surfing the web from where you found this piece. For something we do as often as interact with passwords, it is suspiring to note that we might not really know much about them.

To put that in another way, the things we think we knew of passwords might not even be close to being true at all.

If you won’t take our word for it, here are a couple of things you must have gotten wrong about passwords too.

#Passwords are Going Extinct

Password is a form of technology. Like every other form of technology, too, there is the expectation of an upgrade from time to time. Seeing how fast the world is moving, it is very easy to think that passwords are going down the drain too.

That could not be more wrong.

Many times, this kind of thinking stems from the fact that we now have biometrics just about everywhere. Even our smartphones have fingerprint readers, iris scanners, facial recognition systems and such today. 

However, it should be noted that all of these are still dependent on passwords. Afterall, your device prompts you to enter a password first before setting those up.

We don’t know about you, but that tells us that they are still very much important.

#Passwords can be un-hackable

There are a thousand and one ways by which hackers could get a hold of your password. Of these, we have the brute force attacks, phishing attempts, rainbow table attacks, malware attacks, dictionary and hybrid hacking models, and so much more.

Combining all of these, it is impossible to create a single password that cannot be hacked. Given time, the computer algorithm behind the hack will find out what password you are using.

Why, then, should you even bother about strong passwords?

While all passwords can be hacked, time is the defining factor. You could create a password that could be hacked in mere minutes to hours or have one which will take several years to crack. Yes – several years.

To get the latter, you should employ an online password generating software – and they come free too. Make sure you get a password manager to save the generated passwords too since there’s a slim chance you remember what it is. 

Trust us when we say no hacker will stay on your account for several years just to get in.

#Eight characters are the standard

We believe this misconception stemmed from the recommendation of many websites, apps and platforms for users. 

When creating an account, there will always be a prompt for the user to use at least, eight (8) characters in their password. This has been repeated so much that it has now become sort of a standard in the hearts of many users.

Honestly, that is not true.

In fact, Edward Snowden – who has worked with the NSA and knows way more about hacking than any of us probably would – believes an 8-character password will only take a computer mere seconds to hack. Mere seconds!

That is why we recommend making sure your passwords start from sixteen (16) characters. For highly sensitive data, use twenty-one (21) character passwords and above. Again, refer to the password generators (discussed above) for the best results.

Speaking of length…

#Length is everything

Users who are truly concerned about their data privacy and security tend to set long passwords – and that is advisable. But then, length is not always everything too.

Over time, numerous hacks have occurred which has, in turn, informed hackers of password setting habits of users. Thus, a lengthy password can be very predicable – especially by any of the hacking models we suggested above.

For example, a forty (40)-character password made up of a sentence might look secure, but it would be discovered by a dictionary hack in no time. If a couple of letter-to-symbol substitutions were made, a hybrid attack will take care of that in a couple of hours too.

This tells you that length is not the deciding factor, rather, the level of complexity that the password brings with it.

#Companies keep your password safe

The big companies invest a lot of money in ensuring your password data is safe, but that does not mean you should trust them all blindly. Due to the fact that they have a huge database of passwords, they are usually the target of hackers. 

Afterall, the hacker could get a huge payday from such a huge database than targeting you directly.

With options like rainbow table attacks on the table, passwords stored as hashes are not even safe. Thus, you should always monitor your accounts for suspicious activity and change your password if you notice any.

Don’t rely on the companies to let you know when a breach happens either. If you don’t believe us, you should check out Uber who tried to hide a breach of 57 million accounts (of both riders and drivers) before they were found out.

How can i get only bottom level terms of a taxonomy or category in views?

by | Aug 27, 2019 | Code Snippets, Toolset, Wordpress | 0 comments

How can i get only parent terms of a taxonomy ?

This is a very popular question asked in many WordPress forums and Toolset Support and as a result, i am going to write a code snippet.

Lets assume, that the depth of taxonomy hierarchy is 3 and is explained by the following example of countries, provinces and states.

  • Australia ( Parent)
    • Queensland (Child)
      • Brisbane ( Child of a child)

CODE SNIPPED TO FETCH TOP LEVEL OR PARENT TAXONOMY TERM

Copy and paste the below snipped in your current active theme functions.php file. Then replace $location variable to your current taxonomy name and then use the shortcode [ds-parent] inside the loop view of any post type template. 

add_shortcode('ds-parent', 'ds_top_level_terms');
function ds_top_level_terms() {
    $locations = 'test';
    $terms = get_the_terms(get_the_ID(), $locations);
    foreach ($terms as $term) {
        $parent = $term->parent;
        if ( $parent == '0' ) {
            $term_link = get_term_link($term, $locations);
            return $term->name;
        }
    }
}

CODE SNIPPED TO FETCH MID LEVEL TAXONOMY TERMS

  • Australia ( Parent)
    • Queensland (Child)
      • Brisbane ( Child of a child)

Here again, replace $location variable to your current taxonomy name and then use the shortcode [ds-middle-terms] inside the loop view of any post type template. 

function ds_sort_terms(Array &$cats, Array &$into, $parentId = 0)
{
    foreach ($cats as $i => $cat) {
        if ($cat->parent == $parentId) {
            $into[$cat->term_id] = $cat;
            unset($cats[$i]);
        }
    }
    foreach ($into as $topCat) {
        $topCat->children = array();
        ds_sort_terms($cats, $topCat->children, $topCat->term_id);
    }
}
add_shortcode('ds-middle-terms', 'ds-middle-terms');
function ds-middle-terms( $atts ) {
    extract( shortcode_atts( array(
        'taxonomy' => 'abc'
    ), $atts ) );
  
 
$categories=get_the_terms(get_the_ID(), $taxonomy);

$categoryHierarchy = array();
ds_sort_terms($categories, $categoryHierarchy);
	$amiarray = array_values($categoryHierarchy);
	foreach($amiarray[0]->children as $final){
		return $final->name;
	}    
}

CODE SNIPPED TO GET BOTTOM LEVEL TERMS OF A HIERARCHY

  • Australia ( Parent)
    • Queensland (Child)
      • Brisbane ( Child of a child)

In the same way, replace $location variable to your current taxonomy name and then use the shortcode [ds-bottom-level] inside the loop view of any post type template. 

add_shortcode('ds-bottom-level', 'ds_bottom_terms');
function ds_bottom_terms() {
   extract( shortcode_atts( array(
        'taxonomy' => 'abc'
    ), $atts ) );
  
 
$categories=get_the_terms(get_the_ID(), $taxonomy);

$categoryHierarchy = array();
sort_terms_hierarchicaly($categories, $categoryHierarchy);
	$amiarray = array_values($categoryHierarchy);
	
	foreach($amiarray[0]->children as $final){
		foreach($final->children as $finall){
			return $finall->name;
		}
		}
}

Now you can use above shortcodes in a post view loop of Toolset and can only show desired term levels.

If you need further assistance, write me down in the comments section or alternatively, you can contact me through my contact page of the website.

Cheers

SiteGround WordPress Hosting Review

by | Aug 22, 2019 | Hosting | 0 comments

siteground

tl;dr

Siteground is ranking #1 in over 30 Facebook Polls and as a result it is trending in 2019. According to me, Siteground is the best shared WordPress hosting provider and is therefore highest rated hosting provider and recommended by WordPress officially.

Visit their official site: www.siteground.com

I have been using Siteground since last 3 years and i am more than satisfied with it. I have used Godaddy, WpEngine, Bluehost, Namecheap but so far Siteground has been the best. Though their renewal charges are high but they do offer speed, 99% uptime ( 100% for me till date), Quality Support and many other premium features. Therefore, I am going to give my honest siteground hosting review in depth.

Siteground is a popular option for WordPress Community

siteground-overview
WordPress recommends Siteground here

It is officially recommend by WordPress.org as well on their official page thus in their own words, SiteGround is “one of the biggest and brightest of the hosting world”.

Why Siteground is doing a commendable job and ranks #1 in more than 30 Facebook Polls ?

As a result, during my research,check below i have collected screenshots of some facebook group polls.

  • siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll
    siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll
  • siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll2
    siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll2
  • siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll3
    siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll3
  • siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll4
    siteground-hosting-developingsensefb-poll4

Siteground loads your site 4X Faster.

  • Firstly, they use SSDs ( Solid State Drives) in all of their servers because SSDs are 30% faster than HDDs which are mostly used by cheap hosting companies and thus it leads to quick load time.
  • Siteground has its own SuperCacher which stores the data in their systems RAM and helps in faster delivery on request and as a result 4 times better speed.
  • Regular Software Updates and timely maintenance is another major factor as regular updates and fixes removes any vulnerabilities and unnecessary slowdowns.

Very Quick Server Response Time and 99.9% Uptime

server response time of developingsense.com
Server Response time of developingsense.com is less than Google recommended 200ms and is fastest in India as server location selected is in Asia.

To demonstrate, below are the major reasons for excellent server response time and server performance.

  1. Linux Containers Technology (LXC)
    • It uses less resources and thus provides great stability in peak traffic times.
  2. Pro-active Server Monitoring system
    • This system is built in-house by their DevOps team and thus it not only provides solutions to current problems but also can warn about the future problems which might happen.
  3. Anti Bot AI
    • Another key point, to fend off brute force attacks by bots the DevOps team developed an Artificial Intelligence solution which can terminate between 500,000 to 2,000,000 brute force attempts per hour across all of their servers, to protect users sites and data.
  4. Secure Account Isolation
    • They offer CHROOT isolation on SHARED SERVERS which was not offered by other hosting companies and was a big innovation back in the year 2008 and hence, it leads to better server stability.

Excellent Customer Support

  1. 24/7 Live Chat, Tickets and Phone Support Available.
    • They have staff which works in shifts and each timezone is being take care of, so no matter when you call them, or use their live chat or ticket system, someone is always there to assist you.
    • They respond to tickets in less than 10 mins and for call and live chat, response is much better and waiting time is not more than 5 mins and as a result always use Live Chat.
  2. Priority Support for GROW BIG and higher plans.
    • As a matter of fact, tickets raised by growbig or higher plan users are taken care of on priority. Moreover, their team assist by remote access as well if needed.
  3. Knowledge Based Articles
    • They have well written knowledgebase articles and as a result most of the common problems and their solutions can be found there which is helpful for the user to fix simple problems themselves and a lot to learn as well.

I have always used Live Chat and till date they have helped me in any problem i have faced since last 4 years. They also assist in deep technical problems as well which is beyond their scope.

Daily BackUps

Not to mention, Siteground offers Free Daily Backup for Shared and Cloud Hosting Plans.

In case of mishap, you can easily restore the website yourself using their built in backup restore tool.

Backup is done automatically and is kept for past 30 days for shared hosting and upto 7 days for cloud hosting which is magnificent whereas backup for Cloud hosting is not provided by other hosts.

Helps in Free WebSite Migration

For Grow Big account and higher plans, they offer ONE FREE website transfer for each account unlike other hosting providers.

I did asked them to transfer https://www.developingsense.com/ and significantly they did it professionally. They just asked for Old Host Cpanel access and after that they did the migration for free.

60% OFF for New Customers

SiteGround has three shared hosting plans offering big 60% discount for new customers for first year.
SiteGround has three shared hosting plans offering big 60% discount for new customers for first year.

Siteground offers big discount for first time users such as they offer 60% off on regular prices of their hosting plans. In order to get maximum out of this, always go for 3 years subscription first up if you serious about your website business.

Get Siteground Hosting 60% Off (3.95$/month)

Siteground Hosting Plans and Features

Siteground has shared hosting to enterprise custom based plans for every type of customer whether it is for an individual blogger or big corporate companies.

SHARED HOSTING PLANS

Shared hosting is what most of the users look forward to and therefore there are STARTUP, GROWBIG and GOGEEK Plans starting from $3.95/mo with big discounted introductory offer.

StartUpGrow Big GoGeek
Price $3.95/mo.
Regular $11.95/mo. 		$5.95/mo.
Regular $19.95/mo. 		$5.95/mo.
Regular $19.95/mo.
Web Space10GB20GB30GB
Websites Hosted1Unlimited Unlimited
CMS (WordPress,Joomla,etc)YesYesYes
Free Email AccountsYesYesYes
30 Days MoneybackYesYesYes
Free CDNYesYesYes
Daily Backup Yes Yes Yes
Super CacherLevel 1 OnlyAll 3 levelsAll 3 levels
Free Site TransferNoYesYes
Priority SupportNoNoYes
Live Chat, Tickets, CallYesYesYes
Free Let’s Encrypt SSLYesYesYes
Visit Host Visit Host Visit Host

Likewise, check more features on their official site click here.

CLOUD HOSTING

In summary, cloud hosting is a fully managed scalable service for growing businesses and it includes dedicated 24/7 VIP support and it offers guaranteed resources.

cloud-hosting-plans

Additionally, there is an option for custom Cloud hosting plan as well suiting client needs which can be estimated using their Custom Cloud Tool. Check below:

siteground-custom-cloud-hosting

DEDICATED & ENTERPRISE HOSTING

In brief, this is for someone who is looking for dedicated servers or enterprise hosting space. Generally speaking, these are quite expensive but they offer premium features which you can’t get anywhere else.

But mostly more than 80% of websites use Shared Hosting because it is cheap therefore, i personally recommend Siteground.

MY PERSONAL VERDICT

Do i recommend Siteground ? By all means, YES I DO

According to me, as i told above after going through many premium web hosts,till date Siteground is my best hosting provider and as a WordPress Developer it is due to the below reasons :

  1. Fast server response time and thus better page load results.
  2. As a developer, i can create unlimited email accounts for personal and testing purposes and moreover for my clients as well.
  3. Likewise, it offers Free Let’s Encrypt SSL which costs many bucks in Godaddy and other popular hosting companies
  4. Ability to create subdomains, databases without any limit which is something i felt restricted when i used other hosting providers.
  5. Not to mention, Free CDN is provided as well.
  6. Furthermore, Cpanel and SSH access to get most of .
  7. Amazing Support, i always felt at ease as i knew that their support is always there to assist me in case of any mishap and felt secured during development of my client sites.
  8. Free Daily Backup together with amazing restore tool which i have used many times and it just takes 2 mins and even less to restore a website.
  9. One click CMS installs and i was able to install WordPress in seconds due to this feature for my client staging sites and it saved my time.

I can think of only one limitation of Siteground and that is limited resources in their shared hosting plans and expensive renewal price.

Overall, Siteground is given precedence over other hosting companies in over 30 facebook polls and is leading in Shared hosting and it is because of their premium service quality and their never ending efforts and it is worth the renewal price.

Get Siteground Hosting 60% Off (3.95$/month)

Review Overview
5.00
Overall Score
Server Response Time
Customer Support
Security
CMS friendly

Toolset launched Custom Types Training Course – Get 20% off on Toolset

by | Aug 17, 2019 | Toolset | 0 comments

Purchase this course at 20% OFF - Click here to Redeem

Toolset has recently launched a “Custom Types Training” course for their users to know important techniques which could help them save time and produce better results. 

This course is mainly focused to let the users know about the power of “Custom Types”.

After going through this course, a basic user can progress to intermediate and then to advanced level.

What’s in the Course ?

This course consists of 5 chapters.

Check below in depth, what is covered in each of them:

What are Custom Types and how they work?
Creating Custom Post Types
  •  When and why you should use custom types
  •  How to create custom post types
  •  How to create custom fields
  •  How to create custom taxonomies
Displaying Content Types
  • How content is displayed in WordPress
  • Designing templates for single posts
  • Designing archives
  • Creating Custom Lists of Content
Connecting Different Types of Content
  • Easily building advanced sites by connecting different types of content
  • Different kinds of post relationships
  • How to connect different post types
  • Displaying Related Content
Creating Custom Searches
  • When and why you should use custom searches
  • How custom search works
  • How to create a custom search

COST

It is free for Toolset Clients. If you’re not (yet) using Toolset, then you can buy their course separately (it costs $29 USD).

BLESSING IN DISGUISE FOR WORDPRESS DEVELOPERS / FREELANCERS

This course is helpful for WordPress Developers / Freelancers who wants to enhance their development skills as by going through this course, they will be able to build many complex web applications using Toolset in short span of time.

Let me know your thoughts about Toolset and if you need assistance in using it, you can write your comments below.

Purchase this course at 20% OFF - Click here to Redeem
Redirect from a primary domain to its subdomain

Redirect from a primary domain to its subdomain

by | Oct 28, 2017 | Code Snippets, Tips and Tricks | 0 comments

Sometimes we find it really difficult to redirect from a main or primary domain to the subdomain of the same primary domain using .htaccess.

For example if you want to redirect from http://www.lynda.com to http://new.lynda.com

To achieve this, just grab this snippet and paste it in the .htaccess file in the root of your primary domain.

 

[sourcecode language=”plain”]
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?lynda\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://new.lynda.com [R,L][/sourcecode]

 

Post your comments below.