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Web Dev + WordPress + Security
Post Archive
987 posts

Ultimate Block List to Stop AI Bots

More than you might think, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) bots are crawling your site and scraping your content. They are collecting and using your data to train software like ChatGPT, OpenAI, DeepSeek, and thousands of other AI creations. Whether you or anyone approves of all this is not my concern for this post. The focus of this post is aimed at website owners who want to stop AI bots from crawling their web pages, as much as […] Continue reading »

Wutsearch Update v1.8

Pleased to announce a new update for my pet project, Wutsearch, a search launchpad that puts all of the best search engines on one page. So you can easily search your favorite engines with a few clicks. I use Wutsearch as my personal homepage on my local devices. It is lightweight, fully customizable, with no ads and is free forever. This year celebrates Wutsearch’s 5th year in service. Continue reading »

8G Firewall Update v1.4

Good news! The 8G Firewall is updated to version 1.4. This latest update resolves numerous false positives and bugs that have been reported since version 1.3, when 8G was taken out of beta and officially launched last year. Continue reading »

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 »

How to Download Error Logs in Plesk

Quick tip that I want to keep for future reference: where/how to download the error logs for a site in Plesk. Normally in Plesk, to view a site’s error (and access) logs, you visit the Logs screen and select whichever logs, which then are displayed within the web page. So you can view all the log information within the Plesk UI. In general, the log viewer in Plesk works great and is configurable, etc. Continue reading »

Examples of Email Phishing in 2024

I enjoy sharing the pathetic phishing emails that make it past my spam filters. After watching various waves of phishing campaigns come and go over the past 20 years, I have come to accept that it’s just a part of life on the Web. Phishing scams have been happening since the dawn of the Internet, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. About the best you can do is practice safe email handling practices and never open any links or […] Continue reading »

3 Ways to Disable WordPress XML-RPC for Better Security

I’ve written before about how to protect WordPress XML-RPC and why it’s important. In this quick post, I explain three easy ways to to disable WordPress XML-RPC to help improve the security of your WordPress-powered site. Continue reading »

Custom Headers with Simple Download Counter WordPress Plugin

Quick tip for my free WordPress plugin, Simple Download Counter. SDC is optimized for successful downloads in most server environments, but there always is an exception to the rule. For example, on some servers, a download’s content-length header may be calculated incorrectly for GZIP and possibly other file formats. This tutorial explains how to define your own headers for downloads when using Simple Download Counter, so you can dial in perfect downloads for any server configuration. Continue reading »

8G Firewall Addon: Protect Against Rogue PHP File Attacks

Been getting hit with massive attacks on all sites. Very large VPN/proxy network. Relentless requests 24/7, thousands of requests every minute, just non-stop attacks. All URL requests targeting rogue PHP files. The attacks were weighing on precious server resources. Server held up fine but this nonsense needed to stop. So I wrote a tight little addon for my 8G Firewall. Blocks the entire attack with just a few clicks.. 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 »
BBQ Pro: The fastest firewall to protect your WordPress.
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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