Anchor CMS is a TINYand I must stress TINY, OpenSource, content management system.

For those of you who aren’t tech savvy, OpenSource means that a community has written the code and worked in collaboration making the product absolutely free to download, use and alter. A content management system is a Web Application of sorts that will help you to organize a website using specific code (like PHP). Content management systems are great for blogs, and big websites that are constantly adding content.

Now I stumbled onto Anchor CMS by checking out others’ code. Yep, when I see a website I like, I check out the source code to see what is beneath the surface. In this case I was browsing the blog entries of internet’s famous Visual Idiot, when I happened to check out his website’s code. I didn’t see the typical heirarchy in his coding that I am used to seeing, whether it be WordPress (which is what I use 95% of the time), Drupal or Joomla. I investigated further until I rested at AnchorCMS.com.

First Impressions

The site is clean, and has the eye catching icons to boot, so first I click onto the “Features” page to see what this Open Source CMS is all about. I mean, if the site looks this good, how have I not heard of it???

Arriving at the Features page one thing pops out at me, although it is gray and is designed to be hidden, it glares out at me.

Anyone else note the asterisk? The message it refers to made me smile. “There may be bugs, but they’ll get fixed.” Hey, at least they are honest.

My Experience

Well, I downloaded the CMS and installed it on DevinBryce.com – which I use specifically to try new things out on. The install was simple and the admin interface is clean.

Considering the size of this project, (and that it hasn’t even been released as 1.0 yet – as of today we are on release 0.7) there aren’t any themes ready to go other than the default. That being said I took that code, altered it a bit and added my own graphics and created my own theme. (Which is responsive). Creating themes at this point is a scary thing to do, as new features are released, your themes will need to be updated. However by the same token, the simpler CMS, the simpler it is to theme.

The problem I have run into with this CMS is what some may argue is it’s biggest Strength. Each post/page are to be hand coded using html. Now that is great for developers/designers… but for my clients, not so much. This CMS isn’t very lay-person friendly when it comes to content creation, although I am sure this will improve as the project moves forward. In the mean time, I find that writing blog articles take a bit more time, especially when adding photos, (currently the only way to add photos is to FTP upload them and then link to them in the html).

Conclusion

I absolutely love the size of this CMS. At times I don’t like how many options and how convoluted a WordPress site is. Anchor seems to really be standing behind the statement of, “less is more” with their CMS.

In actually using it for a constantly updated blog, nope, I would hold off a little bit longer. At least until there is a photo uploader and a WYSIWYG editor.

Will I use it? Heck yes. I will continue using AnchorCMS on DevinBryce.com – applying the newest releases as they come and adjusting accordingly.

Thank you to Visual Idiot and the rest of the guys working on AnchorCMS.

-Colin Wright

This has upgraded us from sharing some tight quarters in our old apartment, to everyone having their own space.

Having my own office is definitely a blessing; being able to get in the zone and crank out code or designs is really important to me. Having my own environment in which I can create will help me offer quicker turn around times and better quality work.

*Photos to come*

We’re going to fail – a LOT.

I like to think of a professional baseball player’s batting average and my ability to make a good design as analogous. A very good baseball player only gets a hit 30% of the time he steps up to the plate. I think this is a good average for a designer too.

If I sit down to draw 10 times and 3 come out good – then I’m doing a good job.

If you put too much pressure on yourself to hit a home run each time you draw/design it will make it even harder. So, relax, expect to fail. It’s ok. I still love you.”

Quoted from “10 Tips to avoid designer’s block.” on GoMediaZine.com by William Beachy

What is a “Timeline Cover”?

The Timeline Cover is what will be place at the top of your Profile page as emulated here:

The beauty of this isn’t to just solely throw a Photo on there; but to truly customize your web-space.

If you want some free generic Timeline covers; click here.

I have found quite a few samples of truly amazing & creative Timeline Covers that I wish to share.

(**Samples of my own work are also include and are denoted with an Orange call out box in the top right corner.**)

UniquePatioCreations.com was built on WordPress to offer an easy to update interface. I stuck to their RUSTic design to match their image for a seamless brand both on and offline. I also had the opportunity to do some work on their secondary site; Ortiz-Brothers.com.

What’s under development?:

We are still in the process of adding photos; content and more. Estimated completion March 15, 2012.

Visit Site

Built on WordPress

Code • Design • CSS

Extensive Product List

This is by far the largest eCommerce store I have developed. Using a base OpenSource software OpenCart; I quickly got to work ensuring secure connections, seamless checkout processing and payment gateway.

What’s under development?:

We are still in the process of product creation & beta testing the check out system.

Visit Site

Built on OpenCart

Account Management

Extensive Product List

In a 24 hour period I setup Content Management site on the OpenSource software WordPress. I re-designed a free WordPress theme to help brand Dezy’s Daizies. I having the opportunity to help develop their Facebook page; I used a plugin to import photo galleries from Facebook.

Visit Site

Built on WordPress

About us

Extensive Product List

Research and intelligence, sure: that can be outsourced.

Creative? That too.

Implementing technologies and helping you with strategy? You bet.

Marketing, PR and advertising? Of course.

But the relationship part: Shaking hands, being there when customers ask your for help, participating in conversations, making them feel at home when they do business with you, none of these can be effectively outsourced. Not unless your agency partner embeds a team with you for a few months and you are both committed to a long term program, anyway.

Read the other 9 things you need to know here: The Brand Builder – Olivier Blanchard

This obviously is a HUGE problem and I have learned a lot from this experience.

My purpose in writing is to offer a solution to others with the problem. All it requires is Notepad++ & an ftp client.

Requirements:

• Basic knowledge of WordPress and php
• Notepad++
• FTP client

Instructions:

• Download all files to your computer from where your WordPress System is installed. This can be either your root (“public_html”) or in a sub folder (“public_html/blog”).
• wp-admin
• wp-includes
• wp-content
• all other misc. files
• Open up “index.php” – immediately you should see a code like this:

The code that is creating all your problems is

eval(base64_decode(

));

That long string of code can be decoded using this website where you will find out what the code is actually doing.

• Next step is to remove that code from ever .php file in your site; which if you had to do that manually, would be disastrous. However thanks to Notepad++ and the “Find in Files” tool – this is actually quite a bit easier.
• Highlight the code to be removed “eval(base64_decode(   ));”
• Click “Search > Find in Files” or Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + F
• The Find What field should now be filled out with your highlighted code.
• Leave the Replace With field empty. (Because we are deleting the code to nothing)
• Leave the Filters drop down empty. (It will auto populate as *.* when you perform search)
• In the Directory box, navigate to where ever you downloaded your site too.

Your Find in Files prompt should look similar to this:

• Now press Replace in Files. You will have a pop up that says “Press enter to cancel” DO NOT CLOSE OR PRESS OK on this prompt.
• When the program completes the replacement you will get a new pop up that says something along the lines of, “Replaced 1287 occurences.”

At this point your site is officially cleaned of spam base64 code. Upload the new site files and voila! Good as new.

Be sure to only use trusted plug-ins; block spam comments & users and above all backup your site often.

Want to Learn More?

• See J.T. Pratt for his post about similar attacks.
• DesignPX also wrote an article about this attack.
• As well as Sucuri for their malware site checker.