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Web Dev + WordPress + Security
Author: Jeff Starr
953 Posts
Jeff Starr is a web developer, author, and teacher specializing in web security and building awesome things with WordPress. His favorite online projects include Plugin Planet, DigWP.com, and WP-Mix.com. Jeff writes books, runs his own business, writes about web development, and makes video tutorials at Lynda.com/LinkedIn. More »

Migration and Propagation Business

The overly dramatic process of transferring our Online Empire to a new server and then back again manifests several valuable lessons. Please look back your note and observe the following suggestions during any future server migration and/or domain propagation events… Continue reading »

More Server Drama

After successfully migrating our domains to a new server at WebHostingBuzz.com, we continued writing articles, uploading, embellishing, and fine-tuning everything. Everything seemed fine. At first… Continue reading »

Perishable Press Server Migration

As you may have read, we recently transferred our online empire to a new server. Although the overall process went smoothly enough, several learning opportunities unfolded during the migration of our humble Perishable Press website… Continue reading »

Server Migration Details

About a year ago we signed up with a hosting provider that offered one of the best hosting deals around: lots of space, bandwidth, and transfer — plus all of the usual server software amenities that make life easier. Everything went smoothly at first… In fact, the first six months of service were close to 100%. The few help-ticket items submitted were promptly resolved in a professional manner. We were ready to start some business and everything was going great. […] Continue reading »

Head Meta Data

Head Meta Data (previously known as Head MetaData Plus) adds a complete set of <meta /> tags to the <head></head> section of all posts and pages on your site. Including meta information about your site is a great way to refine definition, enhance branding, and improve the semantic quality of your pages. Continue reading »

Stylish Deleted Text

Fashion stylish deleted text in XHTML via the über obscure del tag. Code example: <del datetime="1999-Dec-31T23:59:59+00:00" title="Text deleted: 31-Dec-1999 @ 23:59"> Terminate me. </del> Live example: Terminate me. Continue reading »

Title Attributes for WordPress Post Navigation

Improve accessibility by adding title attributes to your WordPress userspace. Note: This article applies specifically to WordPress 2.0.2, but may be generalized to any WP 2.0+ version. By default, WordPress navigation links omit the title attributes for both page and post views. Title attributes for links provide additional information that can improve the accessibility of your website. This is especially true when images or text symbols exclusively are used for navigation. To add title attributes to WordPress page-view links (e.g., […] Continue reading »

Upgrading Tag Functionality

Before today, the extent of my concern with tags involved local post tags via UTW and meta keywords via Autometa. Wanting to dive deeper into tagging, I added metadata Technorati tag links as icons appearing after each local tag link, generally located within post meta information. Adding the icon links is easy. Go to the UTW Options panel and in the “Global Formatting Settings” section, select the Technorati Tag. Then simply add the following (or something similar) to your index.php […] Continue reading »

Permalink Enlightenment

I recently enabled the permalinks feature for a fresh WordPress 2.0.2 upgrade. The process required several hours of research and approximately 90 minutes to fully implement. This brief article summarizes the process and applies to the following setup: Continue reading »

Obscure XHTML Tags

Well, maybe not that obscure.. <pre> — Preformatted character data <em> — Renders as emphasized text <strong> — Renders as strong emphasized text <tt> — Renders font as teletype or monospace <dfn> — Defines a definition term <code> — Defines computer code text <samp> — Defines sample computer code <kbd> — Defines keyboard text <var> — Defines a variable <cite> — Defines a citation <strike> — XHTML Transitional only <del> — Indicates deleted text <ins> — Indicates inserted text <dl> […] Continue reading »

Robots Notes Plus

About the Robots Exclusion Standard: The robots exclusion standard or robots.txt protocol is a convention to prevent cooperating web spiders and other web robots from accessing all or part of a website. The information specifying the parts that should not be accessed is specified in a file called robots.txt in the top-level directory of the website. Notes on the robots.txt Rules: Rules of specificity apply, not inheritance. Always include a blank line between rules. Note also that not all robots […] Continue reading »

HTTP Error Codes

A list of HTTP Error codes and corresponding definitions: Informational Codes 100 — Continue 101 — Switching Protocols Successful Client Requests 200 — OK 201 — Created 202 — Accepted 203 — Non-Authoritative Information 204 — No Content 205 — Reset Content 206 — Partial Content Client Request Redirected 300 — Multiple Choices 301 — Moved Permanently 302 — Moved Temporarily 303 — See Other 304 — Not Modified 305 — Use Proxy 307 — Temporary Redirect Client Request Errors […] Continue reading »

PayPal Sucks

Update: The following rant was written almost 20 years ago. Since then, PayPal has improved in some areas, not so much in others. Currently I am using PayPal to accept online payments and donations. This post remains online for historical purposes only, take it with a grain of salt. PayPal is too automated. The phone service is automated, slow, and worthless. Plus, the number for help is not toll-free — I had to pay for PayPal’s auto-garbage phone system. Plus, […] Continue reading »

Lightbox Notes

To add Lightbox functionality to any single image: Add rel="lightbox" to the anchor tag. Add a title="" attribute to the anchor tag. Add an alt="" attribute to the image tag. To add Lightbox functionality to any series of images: Add rel="lightbox[value]" to the anchor tag of each image. Add a title="" attribute to the anchor tag of each image. Add an alt="" attribute to the image tag of each image. Any set of pictures with the same rel="lightbox[value]" will display […] Continue reading »

Nine Feet

I’m a moral in a secret box, An earthworm, chewing through a sour meal, A home, still within the daisy farm. Oh, black ants, parasites, nematodes. This trunk’s cold with its precious relics. Jackpot’s dying for foxy diggers. I’m an end, a joke, a passing fad. I’ve left my mark to make a payment, Jumped in the lake with my mom and dad. Continue reading »

Digital Units

Digital units and their relative capacities1: Byte: (100 bytes) A single digital character. Kilobyte: (103 bytes) A small page of digital text. Megabyte: (106 bytes) A small novel, or a screen-resolution digital image. Gigabyte: (109 bytes) A symphony in hi-fi sound, or a pickup truck filled with paper. Terabyte: (1012 bytes) One-tenth of the printed collection of the Library of Congress. Petabyte: (1015 bytes) All of the email produced in the world in one day, or about a half-million hours […] 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 »
WP Themes In Depth: Build and sell awesome WordPress themes.
Thoughts
I disabled AI in Google search results. It was making me lazy.
Went out walking today and soaked up some sunshine. It felt good.
I have an original box/packaging for 2010 iMac if anyone wants it free let me know.
Always ask AI to cite its sources. Also: “The Web” is not a valid answer.
All free plugins updated and ready for WP 6.6 dropping next week. Pro plugin updates in the works also complete :)
99% of video thumbnail/previews are pure cringe. Goofy faces = Clickbait.
RIP ICQ
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