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The O’Brien Media Digital Insider Blog

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The O'Brien Media Insider

Welcome to the O’Brien Media Insider – Your Go-To for Digital Insights and Business Know-How

The O’Brien Media Insider is your behind-the-scenes look at all things digital, creative, and business-focused. From web design trends and SEO tips to small business insights and local Swindon highlights, our blog covers a bit of everything – just like we do at O’Brien Media.

Whether you’re a client, collaborator, or curious visitor, this is the place to catch up on the latest from our team, explore practical advice, and get inspired to grow your digital presence. Dive in and see what’s new!

Free SEO toolkit: 20+ free tools to help you optimise your website
SEO
Chris O'Brien

Free SEO toolkit: 20+ free SEO and SEM tools to help you optimise your website

Have you ever wanted to check your Google search results page ranking? Or find out who is also ranking for your chosen keywords? If so our new (and free) SEO toolkit, designed to help you perform heavy keyword and competition research, is for you! 

Our free SEO toolkit contains tools to help ensure that your website is configured as perfect as possible for Google and Bing. 

Try out the SEO toolkit today!

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Chris O'Brien 16th March 2017 1:24 pm
hundreds-of-thousands-of-wordpress-sites-defaced-through-rest-api-vulnerability
Security
Chris O'Brien

Hundreds of Thousands of WordPress Sites Defaced through REST API Vulnerability

At the end of January, WordPress 4.7.2 was released to fix four security issues, three of which were disclosed at the time of the release. The fourth and most critical issue, an unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability in a REST API endpoint, was fixed silently and disclosed a week after the release. This vulnerability allows anyone with the right know-how to edit the content of your site without needing a valid username and password.

If you haven’t yet updated to 4.7.2 and your site is running 4.7.0 or 4.7.1, you are at risk for content injection.

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Chris O'Brien 7th February 2017 9:52 am
microsoft-reminds-office-365-administrators-of-the-pending-removal-of-office-2013-as-a-download
Microsoft
Chris O'Brien

Download option for Office 365 administrators

Office 2016 is the recommended version of Office 365 ProPlus and includes all the latest upgrades and new features. As we announced in September 2015, when we released Office 2016, beginning March 1, 2017, the Office 2013 version of Office 365 ProPlus will no longer be available for installation from the Office 365 portal.

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Chris O'Brien 28th January 2017 4:00 pm
internet-explorer-no-longer-a-current-browser-as-microsoft-cuts-off-support
Microsoft
Chris O'Brien

Internet Explorer, no longer a “current” browser as Microsoft cuts off support

Following Microsoft withdrawing support for Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 at the start of 2016 and switching to a "security only" update model for Internet Explorer 11 (with no functionality issues being considered for fixes if the issue had already been resolved in Microsoft Edge) we are calling time on Internet Explorer as a "current" browser.

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Chris O'Brien 17th January 2017 12:35 am
Branding & Marketing
Chris O'Brien

CMS update notifications for our customers

Starting from the 16th January 2017 if you host your WordPress or Drupal website with O'Brien Media you'll notice a change to out enhanced CMS software reminder service. We hope these changes will help you to keep your site updated (and secure!) by sending notifications out within a few hours of release by WordPress and Drupal developers.

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Chris O'Brien 16th January 2017 3:14 pm
upgrade-today-critical-vulnerability-in-phpmailer-affects-wordpress-drupal-websites
Security
Chris O'Brien

Upgrade today WordPress, Drupal websites

On the 25th of December 2016, a security researcher disclosed a critical remote code execution flaw within a popular programme used to send emails from websites and web applications including systems such as WordPress and Drupal. If you are unfamiliar with security vulnerabilities a RCE, or remote code execution vulnerability is the worst-case-scenario. They allow an attacker to execute their own code on a victim website and thereby take control of the website.

Secure your website

A secure version of PHPMailer has now been released (as of the 11th January 2017) and updated versions of WordPress, and affected Drupal modules, have been made available and we are asking all customers who do not have support agreements in place to ensure that these updates are installed as soon as possible to ensure that your website remains secure.

If you need assistance installing these updates on your WordPress or Drupal based website please email [email protected] with your website details. If you have a monthly support agreement in place we will be installing the relevant updates on the 12th January 2017 and will issue confirmation emails once updates have been installed.

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Chris O'Brien 12th January 2017 12:42 am
Microsoft
Jenny Howell

Windows 10 Mail App Bug: Reply-To Address is Ignored

We're seeing more and more of the bug (I'm sure Microsoft see it as a feature) where if a user is using the Windows 10 Mail App and they reply to an email with a "Reply-To" address (where the sender specifies a different email address for replies to be sent to, in place of the "From" address, Windows 10 Mail ignores the "reply-to" address resulting in emails going to the wrong address.

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Jenny Howell 9th January 2017 2:47 pm