Cleaning Up Google Search Results
This post is about how I cleaned up an incorrect URL in the Google search results. My business site is basically a one-page portfolio site, located at the URL https://monzillamedia.com/. But in the Google search results, the URL was showing as https://monzilla.biz/, which did not exist. So all potential customers were getting an error page. Fortunately I was able to re-acquire the monzilla.biz domain and redirect all traffic to monzillamedia.com. Continue reading »
Avoid Blasty for DMCA Takedowns
Blasty is a paid online service that sends DMCA takedown notices to infringing websites on your behalf. As the author of several books, I paid for one year of the service in March of 2018 to help combat rampant piracy. And for several months the service worked great. I enjoyed receiving the periodic email reports letting me know of successful takedowns. And I could log into my account and check out specific takedowns, view reports, and find all sorts of […] Continue reading »
How to Download Entire Websites on Mac
Concept One These days in this crazy world it makes sense to archive locally any critical online data. That way when the Internet is not working (for whatever reason), you still have access to your important infos and data. For those who are listening and interested in being prepared, here is the quickest, easiest way that I have been able to find to archive complete offline copies of websites to your Mac (or iOS). It makes use of a free […] Continue reading »
Automatic IP Blacklist
Recently a reader going by the name of Rock Star sent me a cool little PHP script that automatically updates your site’s .htaccess with a current list of bad IP addresses. This is useful because it gives you better “real time” protection against attacks and malicious requests. This tutorial shares the code and explains how to implement in two easy steps. Continue reading »
Facebook Not Letting Users Delete Their Own Comments
Here is video proof that Facebook is not letting people delete their own comments. The video shows me trying to delete two different comments, using three different browsers: Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. Watch the video and see for yourself. It’s been like this for at least several days now (not sure when it started). Very frustrating! Continue reading »
Enable PHP fsockopen with CSF
Recently started some sites with Liquid Web hosting, everything going extremely well all around. There was one hiccup (at least for me) where PHP’s fsockopen was not working. At the time, I was trying to figure out why the Whois Lookup feature used by Blackhole Bad Bots was not working. Initial investigation revealed that fsockopen() external HTTP requests were getting blocked somewhere. Everything else worked, including making the requests via cURL. Continue reading »
Difference between mod_alias and mod_rewrite
Most of the redirect techniques provided in my stupid .htaccess tricks article all use Apache’s alias module, mod_alias. You can also use mod_rewrite to redirect URLs. The main difference is that, with mod_alias, the server is responding to the client request with a redirect, so the client immediately is sent to the new location. Conversely, with mod_rewrite, the server simply returns the new content, so the client is not actually redirected anywhere. This makes mod_rewrite more advantageous because it happens […] Continue reading »
CLI Forward-Reverse Lookup
In previous posts, I’ve explained how to verify identity of search engines and other bots, by looking up the host name and then doing a reverse lookup to cross-check the IP address. This is often referred to as a forward-reverse lookup, or something to that effect. The point is, there are plenty of free online tools available for performing forward-reverse IP/host lookups. And online tools are great, but it’s also possible to do forward/reverse lookups directly via the command line, […] Continue reading »
Activate WordPress Plugins via the Database
Recently a reader named Chris asked, “how can we turn ON a plugin from the database?” He mentioned reading my previous article, Quickly Disable or Enable All WordPress Plugins via the Database, but for circumstantial slash technical reasons needed to do the opposite and enable a plugin directly via the WordPress database. I thought it was an interesting question that might actually be useful to discuss here at Perishable Press. Continue reading »
Twitter Login Verification Bug
A few days ago, I was unable to log in to my Perishable Twitter account. My login credentials simply did not work. I’ve been successfully logging into Twitter since 2007 with no problems. So it was surprising at first, and then I figured it was some sort of weird Twitter bug. So I began investigating and recording the events/details in this post.. Continue reading »
X Theme Leftover Code Snippets
While working on the site’s 24th redesign, I ended up with about 10 code snippets that were awesome but ultimately not needed. So rather than just delete these tasty functions, I am posting them here for future reference. Who knows, during the next site update I may decide to implement or repurpose some of these techniques. And of course sharing is caring, so feel free to use any of these code snippets in your own projects. Check out the Table […] Continue reading »
404 Fix: Block Nuisance Requests for Non-Existent Files
As I’ve written before, blocking nuisance requests can help save you money by cutting down on wasted server resources, memory, and so forth. It also saves you time, as your server access and error logs won’t be full of nuisance request spam. So you will have more resources and time for things that matter, like running your business, helping customers, improving code, etc. So to continue the proud tradition of blocking malicious traffic, this post builds upon previous blocking techniques […] Continue reading »
1password vs. Dashlane
I was a 1password user for years. Thought it was great, everything I needed without not too much bloat, ads, etc. Then one day 1password locked everyone out. As in can’t log in with the master password. So no access to any passwords, notes or anything. Business shut down. Thought I was hacked. Not a good feeling. Immediately after shooting an emergency email to 1password support, I began looking for a good replacement for 1password. Not even gonna wait 10 […] Continue reading »
WordPress and the Blank Target Vulnerability
For those who haven’t yet noticed, WordPress now adds rel="noopener" attributes for any external links added via the link Quicktag in the Visual/RTE. So if you enable the option, “Open link in a new tab”, WordPress automatically will add the rel noopener attribute to the link. This is to protect against CORS and other exploits that take advantage of blank-target links. It’s a smart move that may escape many in the WordPress community. So in an effort to help foster […] Continue reading »
Blocking the “ReallyLongRequest” Bandit
While browsing server logs, I kept seeing these super long request URIs that begin with “YesThisIsAReallyLongRequest…” and then the request string just keeps going for like 1 kilobyte worth of characters. Not just a few times, but many. In other words, somebody is going around and repeatedly hitting servers with gigantic-size requests. Probably to test server response using other people’s servers. Ummm, yeah kinda malicious. So I did some research and then blocked the “ReallyLongRequest” Bandit. Continue reading »
Basic Webpack Setup
Preparing for Gutenberg, I’ve been sharpening my JavaScript skillz. Getting further into things like Webpack, React, Node.js, and all sort of other awesome scripting adventures. As I dive further into JavaScript land, it’s amazing how much more quickly I am able to do things that I never had to do before relying so heavily on JavaScript. Even so, the extra tools are good to have in the ’ol developer tool belt, so I’ll be sharing much more about JavaScript stuff […] Continue reading »
