A few months ago, many WordPress sites were attacked with some extremely malicious code. While searching for a good solution, I discovered the following gem of a plugin in the pastebin repository: < ?php /* Plugin Name: Block Bad Queries */ if (strlen($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) > 255 || strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], “eval(“) || strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], “base64″)) { @header(“HTTP/1.1 414 Request-URI Too Long”); @header(“Status: 414 Request-URI Too Long”); @header(“Connection: Close”); @exit; } ?> This script checks for excessively long request strings (i.e., greater [...] • Read more »
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Display Random Posts from Specific Tags or Categories
When developing the colorful Quintessential Theme (opens in new tab), I initially planned on displaying five random posts from each of my most popular tags and categories in the super-slick sliding-panel sidebar. Because I am running an older version of WordPress, however, this task proved to be quite the educational experience. In newer versions (from 2.5 I think) of WordPress, the query_posts() function enables users to display posts in random order using the orderby=rand parameter. This would [...] • Read more »
Farewell to Alex King’s Popularity Contest Plugin
I finally broke down and uninstalled Alex King’s once-great “Popularity Contest” plugin for WordPress. The plugin had been installed here at Perishable Press for over two years, and had provided fairly consistent and apparently accurate statistics. Unfortunately, there were serious errors involved with the plugin way back during the WordPress-2.3 upgrade that were never addressed by the plugin author. There was an interim version of the plugin that had patched the error until an official update was [...] • Read more »
Critical Review of Dyasonhat’s Premium Smart Sort WordPress Plugin
After hearing about the recently released “premium” version (404 link removed 2012/06/11) of Dyasonhat’s Smart Sort Plugin for WordPress (404 link removed 2012/06/11), I just had to give it a try. Occasionally working on projects requiring customized ordering of posts, I like to keep my utility belt well-equipped with any plugins or code techniques that will facilitate the process of man-handling post order. In this article, I discuss my experience with WP Smart Sort Premium. • Read more »
French Version of Contact Coldform Released
Several months after the release of the Arabic and Spanish versions of Contact Coldform, I am pleased to announce the release of a French translation of the plugin. The new French translation is graciously provided by Tony Tohme, who is also helping with the upcoming Russian translation of the Coldform. Thank you, Tony! :) To download the French version of Contact Coldform, check out the plugin’s home page, where you will find additional information, future updates, and much [...] • Read more »
Redirect WordPress Individual Category Feeds to Feedburner via HTAccess
Time for another Feedburner redirect tutorial! In our previous FeedBurner-redirect post, I provide an improved HTAccess method for redirecting your site’s main feed and comment feed to their respective Feedburner URLs. In this tutorial, we are redirecting individual WordPress category feeds to their respective FeedBurner URLs. We will also look at the complete code required to redirect all of the above: the main feed, comments feed, and of course any number of individual category feeds. Let’s jump [...] • Read more »
Perfect WordPress Title Tags Redux
In my previous article on WordPress title tags, How to Generate Perfect WordPress Title Tags without a Plugin, We explore everything needed to create perfect titles for your WordPress-powered site. After discussing the functionality and implementation of various code examples, the article concludes with a “perfect” title-tag script that covers all the bases. Or so I thought.. Some time after the article had been posted, Mat8iou chimed in with a couple of ways to improve thie script [...] • Read more »
WordPress Feedburner HTAccess Redirect for Default (Non-Permalink) Feed URLs
Recently, a client wanted to deliver her blog feed through Feedburner to take advantage of its excellent statistical features. Establishing a Feedburner-delivered feed requires three things: a valid feed URL, a Feedburner account, and a redirect method. For permalink-enabled WordPress feed URLs, configuring the required redirect is straightforward: either install the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin or use an optimized HTAccess technique. Unfortunately, for sites without permalinks enabled, the Feedsmith plugin is effectively useless, and virtually all of the [...] • Read more »
WordPress Plugin: Authenticate Lite
Update (2012/10/25): the Authenticate Lite plugin is rebuilt and relaunched as Simple Custom Content! The following information about Authenticate Lite remains here for reference purposes only. Authenticate Lite is a follow-up version of the original Authenticate custom-content plugin for WordPress. Just as with the full version of Authenticate, Authenticate Lite enables universal and/or targeted inclusion of custom content for both feeds and posts. Ideal for adding copyright information, distribution policy, thank-you messages, custom links, special offers, etc. [...] • Read more »
How to Generate Perfect WordPress Title Tags without a Plugin
Keeping an eye on all things WordPress, I have noticed an ongoing fascination with configuring the ultimate WordPress <title></title> tags. Many bloggers use various plugins to generate differently configured <title></title> tags depending on particular page views. A good example of this is seen in the All in One SEO Pack, which, among many other things, enables users to specify custom titles for several different types of pages. While there is nothing wrong with this approach, some of [...] • Read more »
Working with Multiple Themes Outside of the WordPress Installation Directory
As you may observe, the WordPress installation that powers Perishable Press is located in a subdirectory named press. This configuration was intentional, as I wanted to have the option to easily install and maintain multiple versions of WordPress in variously named subdirectories. As much as I enjoy this flexibility, many would argue the SEO-related benefits of installing WordPress in your site’s root directory, or at least making it appear that way by using WordPress’ easily customizable “Blog [...] • Read more »
WordPress Plugin: Authenticate
Update (2012/10/25): the Authenticate plugin is rebuilt and relaunched as Simple Custom Content! The following information about Authenticate remains here for reference purposes only. Authenticate is a free WordPress plugin that enables universal and/or targeted inclusion of custom content for both feeds and posts. Ideal for adding copyright information, distribution policy, thank-you messages, custom links, special offers, and much more. Custom content may be added to any location within posts or feeds — before, after, or even [...] • Read more »
Spanish Version of Contact Coldform Released
Great news! Contact Coldform is now available in Spanish (Spain). Special thanks to Fernando Tellado of Ayuda WordPress for his superb Spanish translation of the Coldform. Fernando has articulately translated both the administration panel and all of the (X)HTML/text output as well. Contact Coldform is now the perfect solution for Spanish users of WordPress who desire a super-clean, standards-based contact form. Thanks Fernando! :) For more information, check out Fernando’s post, Plugin Contact Coldform en Español. There you [...] • Read more »
Preventing the Unpredictable White Screen of Death for WordPress Sites with Multiple Themes
For the past several months and up until just recently, Perishable Press had been suffering from unpredictable episodes of the dreaded white screen of death. Although blank white screens happen to virtually all WordPress users now and then, certain configurations seem to trigger crashes more frequently than others. Here, I am referring to WordPress version 2.3. In this case, the unpredictable crashes, inconsistent errors, and general instability began several months ago after I had completed my WordPress [...] • Read more »
3 Ways to Exclude Content from WordPress Feeds
This may surprise you, but I post quite a bit of content that never appears in the site’s main feed. It is my impression that a vast majority of subscribers are interested in web/graphic-design and development-related topics, and are really much less interested (if at all) in the miscellaneous odds and ends that wind up in the ever-expanding Perishable Press database. In the past, the process of excluding content from the main feed typically involved changing the [...] • Read more »
WordPress Hack: Multiple Email Recipients for Contact Coldform
In the current version of my custom contact-form WordPress plugin, Contact Coldform, there is no built-in method of sending emails to multiple addresses. The thought of adding such functionality had not occurred to me until recently, when a Coldform user asked about enabling it. After a bit of investigation, it turns out that integrating multiple-recipient functionality into Contact Coldform is as easy as it is practical. I will definitely be adding this feature to the next release [...] • Read more »