How to Fix _blank Target Vulnerability
In this article, I am reposting part of my recent tutorial, WordPress and the Blank Target Vulnerability. That post is aimed at WordPress specifically, however most of the article applies to HTML in general. So the tutorial below explains how to fix all “blank target” links, regardless of whether or not WordPress is involved. Continue reading »
Remove or Hide File Extension with .htaccess
A common question I get is how to change or hide file extensions using .htaccess. Apparently search engines prefer “pretty” permalink URL structures over query-strings and file extensions. This is one reason why WordPress provides an SEO-friendly permalink option for URLs; because it is preferred over the default plain query-string based format. From the Permalinks settings screen in the WordPress Admin Area: Continue reading »
Video Course: WordPress on Shared Hosting
After months of hard work, my latest LinkedIn/Lynda.com video course has launched! The course walks through the entire process of getting WordPress installed and running on shared hosting. If you’re new to WordPress or the Internet in general, and want to start your own WordPress-powered website, this course will help you do it as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Continue reading »
Custom Widget Names with Dashboard Widgets Suite
Quick tutorial for my Dashboard Widgets Suite plugin. This post explains how to customize the DWS widget names on the Dashboard. Normally each DWS widget displays the widget name along with “Widgets Suite” and a little gear icon that links to the plugin settings. Several users have asked if there is a way to change the text, specifically how to remove the extra text and gear icon. So this article explains how to do it as of Dashboard Widgets Suite […] Continue reading »
How to Block IPs with 6G Firewall
This quick post is aimed at users of the 6G Firewall. The latest 6G update removes the IP-address blocking section to improve firewall compatibility and implementation. So now with the IP section removed, you may be asking “how to block an IP address with 6G?” Well good news, this tutorial explains how to do it. Continue reading »
.htaccess Redirect Examples
Finally put together a giant list of .htaccess redirect examples. It’s meant as a quick copy-&-paste resource for those who may be looking for an assortment of redirect techniques. Here you will find redirects via mod_alias and mod_rewrite. Examples include redirecting to and from any directory, subdirectory, resource, URL, and much more. Most of these examples are taken from my previous article, Stupid htaccess Tricks; other examples are taken from previous .htaccess tutorials here at Perishable Press. Enjoy! :) Continue reading »
How to Modify HTTP Headers in the WordPress Admin Area
WordPress provides the wp_headers filter hook and send_headers action hook to add and modify HTTP requests. For front-end pages, these are ideal hooks that should be used whenever possible. Unfortunately however neither hook works on all pages in the WordPress Admin Area. After some experimentation, I found an easy solution to modify HTTP headers on any/all pages in the Admin Area. Continue reading »
Best Date Format: Year Month Day
Arguably the most common way to express a date is to include the day of the month, the month, and the year. And there are many ways to order that information. For example, day, month, year, like 20/11/2020. Or perhaps a more common example is month, day, year, like 12/30/2024. Any programmer will tell you that there are endless variations and possibilities. With the scripting language PHP for example, there are many ways to format a date. So it begs […] Continue reading »
Bluehost, Sitelock, SSL, and .htaccess
Apparently, Bluehost partnered with a company called SiteLock sometime last year. Supposedly Sitelock is a “website scanner that proactively checks for malicious threats and vulnerabilities”. I guess the service operates on Bluehost servers, and today they sent a scary email letting me know that “malware was detected” on my Bluehost site. Here’s the thing though. I host only one site at Bluehost, and it is a simple one-page site with only a few simple files. So I was surprised by […] Continue reading »
Facebook Endless Scroll Not Working
For the past several days, I’ve noticed that “endless” scrolling or “infinite” scrolling is not working on Facebook. Just want to ask any other FB users if you are experiencing the same thing. Continue reading »
ALL Security is Security Thru Obscurity
ob·scure adjective 1. not discovered or known about; uncertain. In the purely literal sense, the concept of obscurity applies to every transaction on the Web. The HTTP request knows not, nor could possibly know, the actual response it will receive from the server. There is only expected response. Online nothing is certain until it is. Continue reading »
Vanilla JavaScript Smooth Scroll
While working on the site’s 24th redesign, my goal was to simplify the UI as much as possible. As much as I enjoy lots of cool effects, I wanted the new design to be as minimalist as possible. So that meant dropping a LOT of little bells and whistles that were included in the previous design. One feature that didn’t make the cut was smooth scrolling to internal anchor targets. Like when you click a link that takes you #somewhere […] Continue reading »
CSS Background Hover Slide Effect
While working on the site’s 24th redesign, I played around with a number of styles to customize the appearance of links. As you can see by hovering over any link, I decided to keep the styles as minimal as possible while still letting the user know that, “hey, this is a link”. This quick post shares one of the link styles I was considering, it’s sort of a “slide-up” background-color effect that happens when the user hovers over the hyperlink. Continue reading »
Perishable Press 14th B-Day
Perishable Press turns 14 this year! Amazing how quickly time flies, especially when you enjoy your work. This site started back in early 2005. I remember reading a ton of books on web design, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and everything in between. I soaked it all up like a sponge, and then practiced my new skills by developing Perishable Press, writing articles, sharing code, and helping all sorts of awesome people wherever possible. Truly an amazing journey that I hope continues […] Continue reading »
7G Firewall : Log Blocked Requests
This tutorial explains how to log requests that are blocked by the 7G Firewall. This is useful for testing, debugging, and just keeping an eye on things. Learn how to log requests from Apache mod_rewrite and download my custom 7G logging script. It’s a complete example that shows how to log rewrite requests via PHP. All open source and free :) Continue reading »
7G Firewall
The 7G Firewall is here! 7G is now out of beta and ready for production sites. So you can benefit from the powerful protection of the latest nG Firewall (aka nG Blacklist). The 7G Firewall offers lightweight, server-level protection against a wide range of malicious requests, bad bots, automated attacks, spam, and many other types of threats and nonsense. Continue reading »