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Web Dev + WordPress + Security
Year: 2013
23 posts

Book Sale!

As mentioned, I’ve been super busy updating stuff, and have new versions available for Digging Into WordPress, .htaccess made easy, and The Tao of WordPress. To celebrate the updates, I’m having a “Fall Sale” on all books, with combo deals available for bundled books. Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin Updates!

It may not seem like it, but I’ve been super busy updating books, plugins, and websites with all sorts of new goodness. I just finished updating all of my free WordPress plugins that are hosted at the WordPress Plugin Directory. Here is a complete list: Continue reading »

jQuery Accordion Menu Tutorial

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to build a jQuery accordion menu from scratch. Most of the time it is possible to create very functional website navigations with just CSS, but this time we are going to need a little jQuery magic to accomplish the accordion functionality. For this tutorial I am going to assume that you have some experience with HTML and CSS. I will go over all the code, but the main focus of […] Continue reading »

shapeSpace WordPress Theme

shapeSpace is the starter template that I use for creating my own WordPress themes and WordPress–powered sites. Over the years, the shapeSpace theme has evolved with WordPress, striking what I find to be a good balance between utility, flexibility, and performance. shapeSpace is basically a starter theme that combines a robust set of theme functions with a lightweight set of template files. It’s a “premium” starter template that’s clean, current, and 100% free and open source (via GPL License). Continue reading »

Force Margin/Space Between List and Floated Image

If you’re displaying floated images in your posts, you may notice that margins of lists and other block-level elements seem to “collapse”, as shown in this screenshot from the 2013 redesign: Continue reading »

New Design and Updated Content

I’m getting back into the swing of things around here, now stepping it up with a new design, new tools, and lots of updated (and new) content, demos, scripts, and more. Here is a quick rundown of the new design and updated projects.. Continue reading »

Update: Ajax Error Log – Version 2.0

Another update! This time to the vanilla/PHP version of my Ajax Error Log. As with the new WordPress version, this update improves the script’s design, performance, and security. Continue reading »

Update: Ajax Error Log for WordPress – v2.0

New version of Ajax-Powered Error Logs for WordPress now available for download. The functionality is the same, but the script is rewritten for better design, performance, and security. Continue reading »

2013 User Agent Blacklist

The 2013 User Agent Blacklist blocks hundreds of the worst bots while ensuring open-access for normal traffic, major search engines (Google, Bing, et al), good browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, et al), and everyone else. Compared to blocking threats by IP, blocking by user-agent is more effective as a general security strategy. Although it’s trivial to spoof any user agent, many bad requests continue to report user-agent strings that are known to be associated with malicious activity. For example, the notorious […] Continue reading »

2013 IP Blacklist

When time allows, I like to post my collections of the worst IP addresses for the current year. Certainly, there are pros and cons to using an IP blacklist. In general, IPs are easily spoofed, change frequently, and are therefore unreliable as a general security strategy. But as a short-term solution, IP blacklists serve as an excellent method for dealing with specific and/or ongoing threats and attacks. Continue reading »

Cool Fractal Videos

Fractals are the best! Here are some of the best I’ve seen on YouTube. Continue reading »

Slowing Down Movies in Quicktime

Just a quick post today.. Awhile ago I was putting together some video screencasts, and needed a way to “slow-down” the video to play certain sections at half-speed. After much trial and fiddling, here are the steps that actually worked to produce a saved copy of the movie (not just run the slow motion effect on the live movie). Continue reading »

New Demos and Tools Pages

Working on organizing the site, I’ve put together two new pages that round-up my Demos and Tools. The demos are organized into sections, Ajax, CSS, PHP, and so on. Most of the tools are for encoding and decoding, but will eventually include stuff for CSS, .htaccess, JavaScript, et al. Both of these new pages are readily accessible from the top menu bar (see left screenshot). It’s better than fun! Continue reading »

List All Files and Folders Recursively via Terminal

From time to time I have occasion to generate a list all WordPress files or similar. As I’m not an expert in Terminal, it took awhile to figure out the magic recipe.. now having collected some useful commands, I want to post ‘em for future reference. Continue reading »

Learn the Way of WordPress

It’s been quiet around here, but I have a good excuse. I spent the last six months writing, designing, and publishing my third book, The Tao of WordPress. This is an excellent book for beginners, students, designers, and basically anyone who wants to learn how to get the most from WordPress. The book “soft-launched” last week, and now I want to share the news with readers here at Perishable Press. Continue reading »

New Design in Progress

My new book is doing well, so I have some time to work on my sites. Here at Perishable Press, I’ll be working on a redesign, refreshing some older content, and posting some new articles. Continue reading »

Welcome
Perishable Press is operated by Jeff Starr, a professional web developer and book author with two decades of experience. Here you will find posts about web development, WordPress, security, and more »
Blackhole Pro: Trap bad bots in a virtual black hole.
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I live right next door to the absolute loudest car in town. And the owner loves to drive it.
8G Firewall now out of beta testing, ready for use on production sites.
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Getting back into things after a bit of a break. Currently 7° F outside. Chillz.
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First snow of the year :)
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