Earlier today a zero-day XSS vulnerability was discovered, and it appears to affect all versions of WordPress. This vulnerability resulted in a critical security update release and it is recommended to update your WordPress site immediately.

The CloudAccess.net Abuse Team learned of the vulnerability shortly after its release. Within 2 hours, our team had crafted security measures at the server level in an effort to thwart this particular attack vector. The action taken by our team will likely result in less infected sites on the CloudAccess.net network and ultimately less affected clients.

The CloudAccess.net Platform is built specifically for hosting WordPress and Joomla websites. The well-being of these sites is our top priority and we take these types of vulnerabilities very seriously. As the Joomla and WordPress communities continue to harden the applications, CloudAccess.net will continue to evaluate each application's security at the server level.

Last week, my colleague Derek Snieg posted a blog titled What to Expect in Joomla! 3.4. WordPress 4.1 came out last December, and you can now launch free WordPress 4.1 sites on our platform so I thought it would be a good idea to write about the new features you can find in the newest version of WordPress. Below is an overview of the major feature inclusions. 

Twenty Fifteen - the New Default Theme

As most of us know, WordPress was first developed as a blogging platform, and Twenty Fifteen is a new theme that gets back to these roots. Twenty Fifteen is a clean, elegantly-designed, highly-customizable, blog-focused theme. It looks great on all devices, whether mobile or stationary, and comes with improved language support from Google's Noto Font family.

Distraction Free Mode

Ever want to just write? Doing so in WordPress 4.1 is easier than ever with the improved distraction-free writing mode. This feature has actually been around for a while now, but the way the interface fades in and out and the accessibility of the full toolbar has changed.

With the release of Joomla 3.4 just around the corner, you might be wondering what new features this release will bring. Well, wonder no more. I installed the Beta 2 version and took a look around. This blog contains a list of new features you can expect in the next version of Joomla. Please bear in mind that since 3.4 is still in beta testing, the final look and feel of these features may change for the stable release, but they shouldn’t change much.

Release Dates

First, let’s take a look at the release dates.

• February 10, 2015 - 3.4 Release Candidate
• February 17th, 2015 - 3.4 Stable Release

Beta 2 came out on February 3rd, and these release dates may change depending on the bugs that are found. In just a few days we’ll have a release candidate and, hopefully, a stable release a week after that.

You may be aware that Joomla 2.5 has reached the end of life (EOL) stage in its release cycle. This blog contains some information about the history of the Joomla release cycle, a timeline for upgrading to Joomla 3 and links to tools you can use to help upgrade when you’re ready.

Joomla Release Cycle History

In the past, Joomla released minor and major releases, which they called short and long term releases. Joomla 2.5, for example, was a long term release, and the 1.6 and 1.7 versions were it's preceeding short term releases. When version 3 became available, Joomla adopted an improved release cycle ensuring longer support for major versions. There are no longer short term and long term releases. Instead, releases are referred to as being “supported”, “current”, “legacy” or “stable”. Learn more about the Joomla release and support cycle.

Millions of Joomla 2.5 Users

The Joomla Project will no longer release any official patches for Joomla 2.5. That being said, at the time of this post, there are currently millions of Joomla 2.5 sites on the web. This even includes a portion of the Joomla.org family of websites. For those reasons, we are confident that a patch would be created should any major issues arise in the immediate future. We would be willing to contribute to a patch which would be applied to all Joomla 2.5 sites on the CloudAccess.net Platform.

We’ve had an incredible year at CloudAccess.net, and before we sing Auld Lang Syne and ring in the new year, we want to reflect on all of the positive platform changes, personnel shifts and product improvements we experienced in 2014.

We started the year moving our headquarters to a new location in Traverse City, Michigan. For several years we were located just outside of town, but we're now in the Warehouse District in the downtown area. All the while moving we were gearing up to add WordPress as a fully-integrated product, which was officially added to the platform in March. Also in March we redesigned our main site to match the contemporary look, feel and functionality of the Cloud Control Panel™(CCP). Read more about our new site, new office and adding WordPress to the platform. 

It wasn’t long after adding WordPress that we announced a huge personnel shift. Gary Brooks, a co-founder and our CEO for the first several years stepped down in April. Jonathan Gafill, then the Chief Operating Officer, was given the CEO hat. This changed marked a significant shift in leadership and all-around company culture. May brought a cool new Import Site feature to the CCP enabling clients to import sites easily on their own. In June we sponsored the J and Beyond Conference in Königstein, Germany and a few of our team members were able to attend. Also in June we welcomed our 20,000th website to the platform, marking a huge milestone.

We’re proud to introduce CloudBase 3 - a free and versatile template with a contemporary design perfect for developing any type of Joomla 3 website. We created the CloudBase 3 after the overwhelming demand to a new version of the incredibly popular CloudBase 2 available for Joomla 2.5 sites. Since 2.5 is set to reach it’s end-of-life very soon, we figure that right now is the perfect time to release CloudBase 3.

Attend a Free CloudBase 3 Webinar

You’re invited to attend a free webinar to learn how to use over 60 customizable style options, a variety of module positions, the flexible template layout and much, much more!

Whether you’re building sites for friends once in a while or generating an income, being organized and taking the time to understand all the tools available to you is worth it. This blog contains a few suggestions for creating your own webmaster’s toolbox. Many times, just like with Joomla and WordPress, you’ll only need a web browser because many useful applications are online and if you find the right mix of applications there will be more than enough features to get the job done.

Starting at Square One: Selecting a Web Browser

As you develop websites, it’s always best to conduct cross-browser testing, but chances are strong that you’ll settle on one browser where you do most of your work. Windows users typically start out with Internet Explorer and eventually move onto something else like Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome. Mac users will find Safari included with the MacOS, and Linux users will usually find Mozilla Firefox with the default install. The web browser you use most often is up to you, so get something you are familiar and comfortable with.

Communication & Collaboration are Key

The next thing we should talk about is talking. Having a discussion about a project over the phone or in a meeting with the mandatory cup of coffee is great, but that won’t get you very far if you’re not taking notes and creating a tangible plan. The good news is that there are many collaboration tools (both commercial and noncommercial) that are web based and available through a mobile or desktop application.

Happy Cyber Monday! To honor online shoppers everywhere, we’re offering tremendous savings on annual Joomla! or WordPress hosting & support plan purchases for one day only. To take advantage of the most savings we've offered all year, upgrade a free site or upgrade your current plan to a higher level of service to get more Cloud Control Panel™(CCP) features, site resources and a higher level of support from our team. 

Promotional Details

This is a great opportunity for all types of clients to save ½ of their hosting costs for the lifetime of the account! That’s right - get 50% off hosting & support for as long as you keep the plan! From free accounts to those who have already purchased a hosting and support plan, anyone purchasing a new plan or upgrading a current plan will receive:

• Additional CCP Features
• More Site Resources
• A Higher Level of Support from CloudAccess.net
• Additional Applications for as little as $3

See our Plans

We've always done our best to get great training resources in the hands of users and we're excited to introduce 14 brand spaking new video tutorials helping new users launch and develop a WordPress site. Each tutorial is only a few minutes in length and all 14 tutorials take about 60 minutes to get through. Pause, fast-forward or skip ahead and you'll have your WordPress site up and off the ground in no time.

You can click on the button below to access these tutorials through our knowledgebase, but they've also been embedded in this post for your convenience. One great aspect to these tutorials is that closed captions have been added through our YouTube channel and the video text can be translated into multiple languages. If you've got a suggestion for a WordPress tutorial topic, please let us know. We're always looking to add great new relevant content to our knolwedgebase. 

View all 14 Tutorials Now

Free offers from CloudAccess.net just keep coming this month. We're excited to announce that through end of 2014 we’re offering free .org domain names, passing some incredible savings along to our clients. If you’re in the market for more of a fun domain name, we’re also offering discounted .rocks domain names. We’ve helped thousands of clients register domain names and we’d love to add your free .org or your discounted .rocks domain name to our network.

We’re proud to have worked with eNom, our parent domain name registrar, for several years now. Because we’ve had such a great relationship with them for so long, eNom is enabling us to make these exclusive offers to CloudAccess.net clients.

Register a Domain Name Now