Error 500, Wordpress, Firefox and me…

Posted on June 17, 2008

Error 500

I use Wordpress and I do my best to keep it up to date (despite being hacked recently).

But over the last few weeks I have had several problems with Error 500 – or ‘internal server errors’ whenever I have tried to view my blog site. I can usually log into the administrators panel and that can sometimes allow me to punch through to the actual site, but not always. Very frustrating!

The first thing I tried was to use Internet Explorer, but that did not always work and gave me intermittent connections as well as the 500 error too. I then tried a different machine and got through, but then lost connection to the site, which is a different error to the 500 one I was experiencing. What was going on?

In doing some research I came across several cunning ‘fixes’ to others who were struggling with their wordpress installations and the 500 error. Some talked about deleting the cache, others talked about editing the htaccess file and changing the error codes within it from 500 to 200 and on it went.

One thing I did come across was that some combinations of Firefox plugins sometimes threw up this error and advised users to turn them all off and then back on one by one to find the culprit.

I don’t run too many plugins, but I do run some complicated ones and so I went back to try this. But instead of the ‘Error 500′, I then got a ‘Page Unavailable’ error instead. Going to another machine I found this to be the case there too and so called my host.

By an amazing coincidence they were moving my server (whatever that means) and told me I was due to have about 10 mins of downtime and to try again. The sites duly came back up and I put off the Firefox plugin dance until the next day.

That brought me to today, 17 June, which again coincidentally, is when Firefox are trying to set the Guinness World Record for Most Downloads in a Day and therefore my planned upgrade path to Firefox 3.

Not being able to find the full release of Firefox 3 (at least as of yet) I went ahead and installed Release Candidate 3, fiddled with my plugins to get them working and set to work….and guess what? Yup, no 500 Error at all. Must just have been a rogue or corrupted Firefox install/plugin combination.

Ah well….at least I can now blog again. Bet you’re all relieved…

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Back Again – but what is ‘Laminin’?

Posted on May 23, 2008

????????Well, hello everyone! It has been a bit of while since I last posted and I do regret that, as I do like to use my blog to spout out what I am thinking. Being an extrovert, it really helps.

I do have several ideas about posts and they will come at some point, but I thought I would post today about something that has made me think – Laminin. So what is it?

According to Wikipedia, Laminin…

is a protein found in the “extracellular matrix”, the sheets of protein that form the substrate of all internal organs also called the “basement membrane”. It has four arms that can bind to four other molecules.

As you can see from the diagram opposite, the four arms are arranged in 3 shorter ones to one longer one. The article goes on to say that the 3 shorter arms allow it to easily connect with other laminin molecules with the longer arm able to connect to cells.

This means that laminin has the ability to easily form sheets and is in fact the protein that allows our organs to anchor to the various membranes in our bodies. Because of this, Wikipedia continues by saying:

They are a family of glycoproteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding in almost every animal tissue

Quite literally, laminin holds us together – whether it be our internal organs in place or our skin over our frame. without it, our body would simply not be able to keep itself together.

Now the fact that the laminin molecule is shaped like a cross is fun for me as one of my favourite passages in the whole Bible is Col 1:9-29 which talks about Jesus and the pivotal role that he has in being the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation and that in all things he has the supremacy.

In particular, Col 1:17 says the following:

And he [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Oh, they joy of it! Through the cross we see how Jesus joins together ‘the body’, that is the church, and here with this lovely cross-shaped molecule we see how the ‘the body’, that is each of us, is also held together.

Imagine my glee as my good friend Stewart (who I have known for almost 20 years) emailed me a link to the following Youtube video which says all of the above (and more).

On Youtube this seems to be getting good ratings and I can see why. If God was going to display both His ingenuity, incredible attention to detail and – let’s be honest – a good dose of His sense of humour, then you don’t need to go much further than laminin.

PS – for the more geeky out there, check out this pdf document for loads more details and actual electron microscope images of the cross-like structure of the molecule.

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Hacked!

Posted on February 28, 2008

I need to apologise that I have been a bit quiet over the last couple of months – but with a new baby and some other pressures, I have just been maxed.

Still, that being said, I do have one or two things I want to blog about, as well as some updates from the family side of things.

Anyway, thanks to my good friend Jonathan, (who is sacrificially serving out in India with his family) I got the following screenshot from him when he tried to access my blog today:

With mounting trepidation I did a Google search for the website mentioned in the threat and discovered the following thread.

In there it quotes (I have amended the html so it doesn’t run!):

My sites were hacked and the following code was
inserted into the posts on the home page:
<!– Traffic Statistics –> <i frame src=”ht tp://6 1. 1 32 .7 5.7 1/iframe/
wp-stats.php” frameborder=”0″ height=”1″ width=”1″></if rame> <!– End
Traffic Statistics –>

<!– Traffic Statistics –> <if rame src=”ht t p://ww w.w p-s t a ts-php.info/
ifram e/wp-st ats.php” frameborder=”0″ height=”1″ width=”1″></ifra me>
<!– End Traffic Statistics –>

<no script>Embora nós tenhamos
<a href=”http://www.super-toq ues.com/geral-toques-para-telefone.html”>
http://www.super-toques.com</a> para o mac.</nosc ript>

Here is how I cleaned them out. In the WP blog, go to Site admin and then to Manage. Search for “Traffic Statistics” or iframe, and also for noscript. Edit the postings listed in response to the searches using the code tab, not the visual tab. Delete the offending code. Also, check out your list of users users. You probably will find one or two bogus users that you need to delete. WordPress version 2.3.3 changes the XMLPRC.PHP file, which may fix the exploit.
See: http://wordpress.org/development/

So, I checked my site and, yup, this apparent ‘hack’ had gone onto one of my posts, but with a different website (online roulette!) in the ‘noscript’ section.

Anyway, apparently WP 2.3.3 has this partially or completely fixed, and so I hope to be OK, although I have now real knowledge of how this happened. Ah well.

Until next time….

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