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Web Dev + WordPress + Security
Popular Posts
959 posts (organized by popularity)

Creative Writing Exercise, Part 2

A Borges1 scene written in the style of Hemingway: Nick looked for his explanation. He reached into his pack and easily remembered. It felt good. Nick knew the answer. It is not complete. It is not untrue. The answer looked like a big picture of everything, just like Jenkins had said. Nick remembered Jenkins. It had been a long time since he had seen him. Jenkins was not like Bill and John. They said the answer was plain and ordinary. […] Continue reading »

Action & Filter Hooks for User Submitted Posts

The free version of my WordPress plugin User Submitted Posts is better than ever, with a wealth of new action and filter hooks, enabling developers to customize everything from shortcode output to post data, alert messages and more. Drop in for a quick summary of all new USP hooks. Continue reading »

WordPress: Plugin Development

After months of hard work, I am excited to announce the launch of my new video course on developing WordPress plugins. It covers the entire process of building, securing, and optimizing your own plugins, including 50+ ready-to-go plugin demos and examples. The course is focused on developing plugins using the WP API and Standards. Covers basics and gets into advanced topics like HTTP API, REST API, and WP Cron. Truly packed with practical examples and techniques to help you create […] Continue reading »

Life, Twinkies, Zombies and Death

I have to admit, I am completely intrigued with human ideas, thought, and opinion. My favorite part of blog posts are the comments, and the best part of the newspaper is the opinion page. When talking with people, I am generally the one doing most of listening. In fact, I find that the more I listen, the more people are willing to talk. Often, they will talk with apparent and utter disregard for anything that I may have to add […] Continue reading »

Apache Redirect Range of IP Addresses (IPv4 and IPv6)

There are numerous ways to redirect requests using Apache’s mod_rewrite and mod_alias. This concise, friendly tutorial explains different ways to redirect a range of IP addresses, either IPv4 or IPv6. Continue reading »

A Moment of Clarity

Finally, after seven years of working online.. a moment of clarity. It all seems so clear now: your blog is an extension of yourself, a digital representation of your very being. Online, your site is you, revealing your interests, personality, intelligence, wisdom, and anything else that may be deduced from various levels of inquiry. Whether you realize it or not, your website is more than a well-presented database, it is your virtual self, your virtual existence in the infinite realms […] Continue reading »

Block revslider Scans

One of the most annoying, persistent scans I’ve seen in a long time are those hunting for the revslider vulnerability. In the five or so months since the exploit was discovered, many sites have been compromised. And based on what I’ve been seeing in my traffic logs, the risk is far from over. Apparently every 2-bit script kiddie and their pet hamster wants a piece of the “revslider action”. Continue reading »

Make Your First Post Suck, Everybody Else Does

Your first post is going to suck. Everyone’s first post sucks. It’s a fact of blogging. Despite your best intentions to write a stellar first post, it isn’t going to happen. Even after all the hard work setting up and configuring your blog, all the time spent obsessing over every CSS rule and semantic detail, and imagining your very best content presented at the very outset of your blog’s career — even after all of that, an award-winning first post […] Continue reading »

Native Sun Botanicals Website

The Native Sun Botanicals (NSB) website is now online. Native Sun Botanicals specified a precise “look and feel” for their site, which is currently a “brochure” site that conveys some basic product information. As a botanical manufacturer slash supplier, NSB strives to present a clean, refreshing image that is sophisticated yet simple. The site is designed to be standards-based, accessible, and optimized for search engines. Continue reading »

Example of a Spoofed Search Engine Bot

While solving the recent search engine spoofing mystery, I came across two excellent examples of spoofed search engine bots. This article uses the examples to explain how to identify any questionable bots hitting your site. Continue reading »

All the little .txt files you can put in the root directory of your website

The ones I know of: ads.txt humans.txt robots.txt security.txt This site makes use of robots.txt and humans.txt. I don’t need ads.txt because 3rd-party ads aren’t currently running on the site, and security.txt seems not necessary as the site’s contact form is easy enough for anyone to find. Continue reading »

BAM: 5 New WordPress Plugins. Ahh Yeh.

I’ve been super busy this year, cranking out some useful new plugins. Nothing as awesome as Banhammer Pro, but some pretty useful new plugins nonetheless. So I’m launching a total of five new WordPress plugins. The first four basically are utility plugins designed to make WordPress life easier. The 5th and final plugin (for awhile at least), is Contact Form X, which I am now using as the contact form here at Perishable Press. Contact Form X I know what […] Continue reading »

Why Facebook is Not Worth It

Recently I found myself listening to someone who was trying to convince me that I should be doing more on Facebook. For reasons like attracting new customers and making more money. It was pretty sad listening to the spiel, but I do care about people and their opinions, even when they are wrong. 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 »

7G Out of Beta

The 7G Firewall was released about a year ago as beta, and has had time now to mature/develop into a stable release. So this is just a heads up that 7G is now officially out of beta and ready for use in live/production environments. Continue reading »

WP Cron HTTP Auth

Welcome to the official homepage for my free WordPress plugin, WP Cron HTTP Auth. This page explains what the plugin does, how it works, and where to download and get support. The plugin actually is very simple, however, so there is not a lot to explain. If you are looking for plugin documentation, visit WP Cron HTTP Auth at WordPress.org. There you will find installation steps, support forum, translation tools, and more. 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
I live right next door to the absolute loudest car in town. And the owner loves to drive it.
8G Firewall now out of beta testing, ready for use on production sites.
It's all about that ad revenue baby.
Note to self: encrypting 500 GB of data on my iMac takes around 8 hours.
Getting back into things after a bit of a break. Currently 7° F outside. Chillz.
2024 is going to make 2020 look like a vacation. Prepare accordingly.
First snow of the year :)
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