One thing I love to do is to investigate different wordpress themes. I love it! I love the ideas that people share with each other and the different layouts, colours etc. Its always an inspiration to view all the different aspects and ideas.

Recently, I downloaded this one theme, that I was considering adapting for a friends blog and lo and behold it had something evil in the footer or should I say eval.

This is the code in the footer:

<?php $_F=__FILE__;$_X='Pz4JPGQ0diA0Z...rubbish
...=';eval(base64_decode('JF9YPWJhc2U2NF9kZWNvZGUoJ etc rubbish

It worried me a little, then I laughed, because I thought of how you can’t really stop people from decoding or stealing your work (not that I advocate this!) if they really, really want to. You can however make it harder or as most people see it more challenging.

I began my quest on the internet. I found some sites that warned against using themes with base 64 code as they may contain malicious attacks, scripts etc. Then I thought, why not find out what it actually says before freaking out.

This site helped: http://danilo.ariadoss.com/decoding-_f__file___x-eval-base64_decode/

As did this: http://www.tareeinternet.com/scripts/byterun.php

So after running the evil script through the decoder (which took a second) I found that it basically was running a script and that script was to stop people from removing credits from the bottom. Which is fine. I don’t have a problem with that as nothing annoys me more than people STEALING – bad!

This is just a post to help you investigate what codes a theme is using and making sure that there is nothing malicious in an encrypted footer.php page. This in no way advocates removing of authors credits.

The other day I was going through my activity logs on my server and discovered that there have been people downloading vast amounts of my images and source code etc! First I was angry – you know how dare they! Then I was determined to stop them… so I began searching for ways that would stop them. Quite fruitless to be honest as I discovered you can make it harder but not stop them completely and if people want to be unethical and steal stuff then they are going to do it no matter what I do to stop them.

During my research, I stumbled on this website: http://www.drpeterjones.com/hidden/hidden.php where the author basically said, the harder you make it for people to copy, the harder they will try and gave a very interesting example. Took me a little while to “crack it” but I did in the end and the crazy thing was that it was a easy as he said it was. After I had cracked his code, a light shone and I went “ahhh so easy!!” and had a bit of a giggle.

So basically I have come to the conclusion that I should be flattered that people want to steal my stuff (what the!?!), but if you think that my work is good enough to pinch, the least you could do is leave a comment telling me how much you enjoy looking at my work!

Phew has it been a busy start to the year!!!

A few restorations, a wedding, retouching jobs and websites to do and I don’t know where the time has gone!

I have finally added a restoration section to my portfolio which will be updated again shortly. You can check it out here.

There is a new site added to AllyKatDesign portfolio – superhealth-fitness.com.

This has been designed for personal trainer Matt D’Angelo, so that existing and new clients can benefit from his expertise. You can visit his site here.

Ausbeauties is getting a complete overhaul, with all the images being retouched by yours truly with a fresh new look that will showcase the girls and photography beautifully.

Peninsula Hapkido maybe getting a new look shortly as well, moving over to a Joomla cms, making it easier for the owners to update their site.

So all in all its been a busy start to the year, but I think it will just keep getting busier and busier as it gets along, but one of my new years resolutions is to update my website much more often!

Today I finally set up my second monitor for my computer.

A bit of a kerfuffle as I needed to get a DVI To SVGA/VGA adapter in order to plug it into my graphics card. Half hour wait at the computer shop got me the adapter and I was on my way home to set it up.

The second problem that I ran into was the fact that the new monitor calibration was completely out. :S I tried calibrating it visually – nearly but no dice! So I went to the trusty google search for answers. The following method that I found was extremely helpful and hope that you find it just as helpful

If you are able to distinguish all the different shades of black, then your monitor is properly calibrated. The shades should also be neutral and not tinged with other colours ie: magenta, green, blue, yellow, red or cyan.

Colour Bars

The first chart shows the graduations of neutral colour, as with the first  chart above, you should be able to distinguish the different shades without any colour casts to any of the different levels.

The next charts are similar to the above grey scale chart. They show the graduations of pure red, green and blue. You should be able to distinguish each graduation at the bright end. Although you should be able to distingush the different levels at the dark end, they may blend together.

This method that I have described above is fairly accurate if you don’t have a monitor calibration kit.

You can also do a search for monitor calibration images that you can set as your desktop and calibrate your monitor visually.

If you are serious in regards to calibrating your monitor for photoshop or creating print designs or photography, the best way is to use a monitor calibration device.

The new look Brendan B Photography website has been rolled out!!

Not much has changed for those of you have visited the site previously, except it has become more polished and sleek. It still features the same easy to navigate menu and gallery, and the mailto link has been upgraded to a contact form, which of course thanks the user for taking the time to send an email.