Tutorials

Process Monitor (TechNet ProcMon) is a great tool for figuring out what exactly a program is doing. Either it be seeing what files it’s writing, network activity, registry, or what have you. You can quickly look through the activity and know what’s doing.

Now, using this to determine if software is safe to run on a computer is risky. Process Monitor does not run the programs in a “Sand Box”, so if you do execute the possibly unsafe program, it can cause harm to your computer. But if you are doing research on specific malware or virus’s (risky), you can use Process Monitor to learn more about it, but don’t run it on your computer. At least run it in a virtual machine that you can easily wipe clean.

After updating or installing a plugin, theme, or WordPress itself, you may notice your site is just a white page. What caused this? Is my data still there? Did my lack of backing up my database finally catch up to me? Don’t worry! Most white screen errors are simply because the updated resources no longer work with the current version of WordPress.

When WordPress does an update, it adds and changes functions, but most of the time the functions they want to remove will stay as “deprecated” functions until developers have enough time to update their plugins. Now because of this, when the functions are finally removed or changed, and a plugin incorrectly updated their code or lacked updating their code, it throws an error. WordPress hides the error, and PHP kills the execution of the site. Another reason for the white screen could simply be an error in coding in the plugin or theme, and nothing to do with a WordPress Update. Any PHP error will most likely cause a white screen to appear.

When having your own site, displaying your style to your visitors is important. Either it be a dark punk rock style for your band website, or a bright cheerful template that your future daycare clients will see. Picking the right template or theme is very important, and can make or break the success of your website.

WordPress and it’s community of users have created thousands of templates for you to use for free. You can surf around various sites finding the perfect one for you. Although there are thousands of free WordPress templates out there, you should also look at some premium templates that are not free also, if it’s in your budget. A lot of premium themes add nice features such as easy advertisement management and more.