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Web Dev + WordPress + Security
Post Archive
987 posts

Blackhole Cleaner

My free WordPress plugin, Blackhole for Bad Bots, and the pro version, Blackhole Pro are not compatible with cache plugins. This is stated on the plugin home page, installation page, support page, readme.txt, documentation, plugin settings page, help tab, and just about every other possible location. Continue reading »

shapeSpace WordPress Theme Moved to Perishable Press

shapeSpace is the WordPress starter theme that I use to build sites like Perishable Press, Plugin-Planet.com, Digging Into WordPress, .htaccess made easy, and WP-Mix.com. I enjoy using shapeSpace because it includes all of the most commonly used template tags and outputs a minimal amount of clean markup. shapeSpace includes a robust set of custom functions within a lightweight set of template files. shapeSpace is a Classic WordPress Theme that balances simplicity with utility, flexibility, and performance. In a nutshell, the […] Continue reading »

The 404 Web

Over the years, I’ve changed thousands of URIs. Maybe hundreds of thousands if you count changing everything over from http:// to https://. It always feels kinda wrong to modify URIs. Maybe that comes with a basic understanding that Cool URIs don’t change. But I also understand that, in reality, URIs change constantly. It’s just the nature of the World Wide Web, an endless perpetually evolving flow of digital information, URLs and links included. As stated by the W3C: Continue reading »

Notes on Logging Into WordPress.org via Authenticator App

So yesterday I got a new phone and could not log in to my account at WordPress.org. Why? Because I had enabled Two-factor authentication (2FA) on my account as an extra layer of security. I had been completing this 2FA step on my old phone using the Google Authenticator app, which works great. The problem is that I had not yet transferred my Authenticator codes to my new phone. So when I tried to log in to my WordPress.org account, […] Continue reading »

Top 10 Ways to Ruin Your Video

“sMaSh tHe LiKe bUtToN” Back in the day, video clips were simple and straightforward. People who were making videos and sharing them online did so because they had something to say, share, or rant about. These days things are different. Churning out endless video content has become a big money machine. Lifestyle videos. Hilarious pet videos. How to win videos. Acting stupid videos. And anything else you can think of, there are people recording it and putting it out there […] Continue reading »

Rules Guiding My Web Dev Work

Was thinking of the things that are absolutely essential for my line of work, at least for my own operation working with WordPress and web development. Not so much the technical and code side of things, but more of the “meta” or “big picture” type of stuff. Some are simple and others require a bit of explanation. Some are specific to working on the Web, and some probably would apply to any line of work. But I am a web […] Continue reading »

How to Block Darknet Market Spam

Lately my some of my WordPress-powered sites have been hit with a very specific brand of comment spam, which may be referred to as “darknet market spam”. The spam is simple but persistent. And there’s a LOT of it. Very annoying. Fortunately it is trivial to stop. Here are a few ways to block teh darknet market spam.. Continue reading »

What I Want in an App

Simplicity. Focus. Usability. Consistency. Just works. I don’t mind paying for an app that provides these features. They seem like simple enough concepts. But many of the apps out there today seem to be struggling. I know I am just dreaming, but here goes.. Continue reading »

My Shortlist for Managed VPS Hosting

I’ve been online since 1999. So 25+ years of finding and dealing with a wide variety of web hosts. While painful at times, this experience enables me to get out there and find better web hosting at the drop of a hat. It’s been a while since I’ve written about my web-hosting experiences, so this post is to share a recent foray into finding a solid managed-VPS solution in the year 2025. Shortcut: Not interested in the diatribe? Jump to […] Continue reading »

Pro Version of Head Meta Data WordPress Plugin

Super pumped to finally launch Head Meta Pro! This is the premium/pro version of the free plugin hosted at WordPress.org, Head Meta Data. While the free version is great and serves many sites, there are more features that I wanted to add, like complete support for all the different page-views generated by WordPress. So with the free version, you can define one set of meta tags for the entire site. With the pro version, you can define unique sets of […] 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 »
.htaccess made easy: Improve site performance and security.
Thoughts
Fun tool for visualizing how different internet protocols work.
Working on a complete redesign of Perishable Press :)
The Office is Cheers with more irony.
More fine-grained control of macOS screen brightness: hold down Option + Shift before pressing either of the brightness keys. You get 64 increments instead of the usual 16.
REST Pro Tools featured in David McCan’s new video on locking down WordPress.
Gonna try exercise.
Launching my new plugin, REST Pro Tools 🛠️ Granular control of the WP REST API.
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