Fall Sale! Code FALL2024 takes 25% OFF our Pro Plugins & Books »
Web Dev + WordPress + Security
Category: News
135 posts

20 Years Online

This year, Perishable Press celebrates 20 years on the World Wide Web. And, not counting the occasional minor bouts of site downtime, that’s 7,305 days, which is equivalent to 175,320 hours. Or 10,512,000 minutes. Or 631,139,040 seconds if you want to really be impressed. For me, two decades is a real milestone. Continue reading »

After 25+ Years, It’s Goodbye Hotmail

For me, 2024 is all about simplifying workflow and removing any speed bumps in my routine. Next stop: Goodbye to my two long-lived Hotmail accounts. I’ve had these accounts since forever, set up way back in 1998. For the first few years, I used my Hotmail accounts for everything. Then I got into web development and learned how to host my own email. As time went on, I used the Hotmail accounts less and less. Until now they are mostly […] Continue reading »

Sync News Feeds on All Devices for Free with Inoreader

There are plenty of ways to sync news feeds across all of your devices. There are free services, paid services, and even scripts that you can host on your server. This quick tutorial explains two ways to sync your feeds on any device. The first method uses the free service from Inoreader, which works via web browser on any device. And the second method combines Inoreader with the Reeder app for a better experience on macOS and iOS. Continue reading »

Subscribers: Update Your Feed URLs

This post is for any feed subscribers out there.. please update your feed URL if you want to continue getting Perishable Press articles in your feed reader. Again for those in the back: update the feed URL for Perishable Press if you want to stay subscribed. This is necessary because Google finally has killed the once awesome Feedburner service. Continue reading »

New WordPress Plugin: SAC Pro!

I’ve been developing WordPress chat plugins for over 10 years, and have received tons of great user feedback for the free version of Simple Ajax Chat (SAC). So many ideas and ways to improve the plugin that it just made sense to bring it all together and build a new “pro” version. So after several months of intense plugin development, I am excited to launch my latest WordPress plugin, SAC Pro. SAC Pro is completely rewritten from the ground up, […] Continue reading »

18 Years Online

This year, 2022, will be the 18th year that Perishable Press is online. The first year (2004–2005) was mostly behind-the-scenes development and site building. If you do a Whois lookup for the domain name, perishablepress.com, you’ll find the creation date is 2004-07-14. I had to look that up myself for this post. It was so long ago.. lol. So once the site went live in 2005, it was off to the races. Fast forward 18 years and here we are, […] Continue reading »

Enabling ModSecurity (Updated)

For years, I’ve not used ModSecurity for any of my own sites. Way back when I first tried ModSecurity, there were just too many false positives, so I stayed away from it, opting instead to develop my own fast Apache/.htaccess firewall. But my web host now is telling me that ModSecurity is required on all of their managed VPS plans. Continue reading »

New Book: Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress

I’m excited to launch my latest web-dev book, Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress. I got the idea for this book way back when I was first learning how to build dynamic websites. I thought it would be useful to bring together all of the best SQL snippets in sort of a “spellbook” or “cookbook”. After all, SQL queries can seem like magic to the uninitiated. By entering concise, well-crafted commands, SQL enables anyone to interact with any relational database. It’s […] Continue reading »

Migrating All Book Accounts to Perishable Press Books

Just a heads up! I’m in the process of migrating all book accounts to the new bookstore at Perishable Press Books. The goal is to streamline everything — all books and user accounts — under the new books domain. This will make everything much simpler for everyone. Eventually, the other book sites will be taken offline, after everything is migrated to the new bookstore here at Perishable Press. Continue reading »

Important Notice for Email Subscribers

Whoops! I spaced off sending this before July, so figured better late than never :) Hello! As you may have heard, Google/Feedburner is dropping support for their “Subscribe via Email” feature. This free service grabs the latest content from a site’s RSS feed and delivers it via email to a list of subscribers. So whenever a new post is published here at Perishable Press, Feedburner delivers an HTML-formatted copy direct your inbox. The subscribe-via-email service has been available for years […] Continue reading »

Plugin Planet 2021 Redesign

Finally! Writing this post is the final step in the 2021 redesign of my WordPress plugins site, Plugin Planet. The site launched seven years ago in 2014. I think I spent a couple of months or so building the original site to the best of my ability. That first design stood the test of time, and honestly it would have been fine for another couple of years or more. But after seven years of changes, modifications, swapping out plugins, adding […] Continue reading »

Purging Unused Data

As part of my yearly maintenance routine, I spend time each year going through a list of annual tasks. Things like archiving backups, removing unused apps, and of course purging and organizing data. As an aspiring minimalist, my approach is less is more. I am always downloading, consuming content, yes. But also I am constantly deleting and pruning as much as possible. It is a discipline and an art. Continue reading »

Wutsearch: Search Engine Launchpad

Recently launched a simple one-page website called Wutsearch. Wutsearch is a search-engine launchpad that I use for my homepage. Usually I work with several browsers open, each set to open multiple tabs on startup. For a long time, all those tabs were set to the Google homepage. Then DuckDuckGo. Now, it’s Wutsearch 🚀 Continue reading »

Building the Perishable Press Bookstore

After six months of on-again, off-again hard work (and plenty of unexpected challenges), I am excited to launch the new Perishable Press Bookstore. The old bookstore was located on a separate domain, but I wanted it to be better integrated with the main site here at Perishable Press. So now there is the site blog at perishablepress.com and the store at books.perishablepress.com. Continue reading »

Redesign #25: Performance Over Perfection

Welcome to the 2020 (25th!) redesign for Perishable Press. Like many of the previous designs, the new design is super minimal and organic. The #1 goal this time around was to find an optimal balance between performance and aesthetics. Or put another way.. Continue reading »

The Plan for 2020

I like sharing my plans with those who will listen. For example, last year I said what I was going to do in 2019, and as far as I can tell it is mission accomplished. Now my goals for 2020 are a little more structured and ambitious.. 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 »
The Tao of WordPress: Master the art of WordPress.
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
Newsletter
Get news, updates, deals & tips via email.
Email kept private. Easy unsubscribe anytime.