Other changes in this release:

• Fixed a regression in Geeklog 1.8.0 that made the [code] and [raw] tags not escape content properly.
• Fixed problems with adding or removing items to/from arrays in the Configuration.
• The admin’s User Editor no longer loses changes when an error occured.
• Fixed images not being displayed in the story preview (when editing an existing story).
• Plugins can now set $_SCRIPTS in the plugin_getFooter() function.
• Fixed some warnings raised by PHP 5.4 (currently in beta).

There were no changes in the database, the themes or the language files in Geeklog 1.8.1 (over 1.8.0), so upgrades should be relatively straighforward.

Geeklog 1.7.1sr1 addresses an XSS in the Configuration admin panel, reported by Aung Khant of the YGN Ethical Hacker Group. Due to the built-in CSRF protection this weakness is somewhat harder to exploit but we would nonetheless advise that you secure your site by installing this update ASAP.

In addition to the complete 1.7.1sr1 tarball, there are also update files for Geeklog 1.7.1 and for Geeklog 1.6.1sr1 that contain only a fixed version of the affected file (see the included README file for installation instructions).

Users of older Geeklog releases should consider upgrading to Geeklog 1.7.1sr1 soon (use the complete 1.7.1sr1 tarball to upgrade from any older version).

A note for those who are still running on PHP 4: There’s a known bug in the Static Pages plugin in Geeklog 1.7.1 that makes it incompatible with PHP 4. We will address this issue in a future bugfix update. In the meantime, consider upgrading to Geeklog 1.6.1sr2 – or upgrade to PHP 5, if possible.

Apparently this flaw allows for malware to end up being hosted on some Geeklog powered sites by using this exploit. As a result, this new version is available to resolve.

“Geeklog 1.6.0sr2 is now available for download and ships with a much more restrictive configuration for uploads through FCKeditor. There’s also an archive to upgrade from 1.6.0sr1 and an updated version of the drop-in FCKeditor replacement for older Geeklog versions.”

This release fixes issues with the story preview and duplicate story ids, the trackback editor, clickable links in text postings, issues with feed updates, and some other minor problems. We’ve also thrown in some small improvements, e.g. the image quality when using gdlib to rescale images should now be much better than before. See the list of changes and the included changelog for details.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug in the story preview where the story content was lost when previewing a story with a duplicate story ID.
• The Trackback editor didn’t work since the security token was missing from the editor template.
• Fixed issues with clickable links in plain text postings.
• Fixed various problems with updating feeds, e.g. when changing topic permissions.

Fixes in the bundled Plugins

• Calendar: You couldn’t add a new event to your personal calendar.
• Links: Changing a link’s ID to one that was already in use overwrote the other link.
• Polls: Changing a poll’s ID created a new poll. Also fixed an SQL error when the poll question contained single quotes.
• Static Pages: Saving a static page changed the owner to the user who saved it.

Other Changes

• Improved image quality when using gdlib to rescale uploaded images.
• Theme changes are documented in the theme documentation,
  as usual. There are 4 bugfixes (one of which is in the templates for
  the Polls plugin) that should be applied to all themes for the 1.5.x
  series.

Geeklog has been around for quite some time, while it used to be notoriously difficult to install.. this new release promises some changes to make it better.

Geeklog is somewhat of a combination between blog and cms and more or less would fall under the category of a news publishing platform in my opinion. Let’s examine Geeklogs’ latest edition and see what kind of changes have been made to make it more simplified.

To kick off the install, you need to upload the public_html folder found in the geeklog archive that you download from their website. You then navigate to http://yourdomain.com/admin/install/index.html to begin the install process.

You should be greeted with a screen such as the one below:

Once you choose your path (choose it wisely!) you will get the following screen to fill out with your configuration info:

after filling out this you will get this screen identifying that you are done! Wow. That was fast!

Talk about a quick install. Let’s check out what we end up with for a system..

Once you login you are greeted with the geeklog control center. It’s very basic and you have to keep in mind that the sole purpose of this software is a blog. Personally, I think it could use some work.. especially if they want to compare with some of the larger more refined systems out there.

The initial site is quite basic. Changing themes is far too difficult and involves editing the config files directly. There really aren’t a lot of options in the control panel to make life easier for the end user.

Overall, this is just a quick review.. There’s not much to say about geeklog. For the people who use it, it works well.. personally, it’s not for me. I will say that it’s much further ahead than it was now that it is easier to install.. but it’s definitely not on par with where it should be to compete. Let’s take a look at the ratings (keep in mind I did this review fairly quickly due to the lack of options geeklog has, there wasn’t much to review).

Overall, my ratings are:

Community 7/10 (Geeklog has a great community, I’ll give them that)

Expandability 5/10 (Needs more modules to compete with larger systems)

Themability 6/10 (Definitely needs more themes in order to be more appealing to broader audience)

Useability 6/10 (Tough for beginners, Recommended for advanced users only)

Overall Score: 6/10