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Web Dev + WordPress + Security

Get Yourself Some Backup Internet Service Providers

As a full-time web developer and typical human being, I rely on the Internet for a great many things. So when the Internet is not available, my work (and play) comes to a grinding halt. Fortunately my primary ISP is pretty solid, but it still goes down every once in a while. So to maintain my workflow (and general sanity), having a backup Internet service provider is absolutely essential. Here’s one way to do it.. Continue reading »

WordPress pre_get_posts + Combined Category Archives

This is a quick post following from the latest redesign of my WordPress plugins website, Plugin Planet. There, I make use of WordPress great query functionality to display archives of multiple categories. For example, here is the combined archive for BBQ Pro and Docs. So that category archive displays all documentation posts for BBQ Pro. Likewise for other categories, for example here is the combined archive for Banhammer Pro and Tutorials. That category archive displays all tutorial posts for Banhammer […] Continue reading »

Self-Hosted, Domain-Based Email Addresses FTW

I use domain-based emails for 99% of my email activity. The other 1% is comprised of assorted 3rd-party email services and temporary slash disposable addresses (like for testing purposes and one-off sign-ups, etc.). I can tell you whole-heartedly based on 20+ years working online that self-hosted email is THE WAY to go. Continue reading »

WordPress: Display Posts on a Page with Paging and Navigation

In WordPress themes and plugins, the Loop is used to display posts on the front end. Typically the Loop displays either a single post (like when you’re viewing a blog post), or multiple posts (like when you’re viewing a category archive). Things get more tricky however, when you want to display posts on a page. Continue reading »

Deleting Unused Online Accounts

Like many of you, I have been working online for years now, more than most. Over the course of the past 20 years, I have created accounts at hundreds and hundreds of websites. That includes all the work-related stuff, like web development, plus LOTS of social media sites, online services for everything from email to security monitoring. Not to mention all of the accounts created for mundane things like banking, utilities, Internet and phone service, and so forth. Continue reading »

Target User Agents and Reduce Spam via robots.txt

Bad robots

Your website’s robots.txt file probably contains some rules that tell compliant search engines and other bots which pages they can visit, and which are not allowed, etc. In most of the robots.txt files that I’ve looked at, all of the Allow and Disallow rules are applied to all user agents. This is done with the wildcard operator, which is written as an asterisk *, like this: User-agent: * This site’s robots.txt file provides a typical example. All of the allow/disallow […] Continue reading »

Disable Highlighting in Comments with Prismatic WordPress Plugin

Prismatic Icon

Prismatic is a free WordPress plugin that adds syntax highlighting to code samples. You can use either Highlight.js or Prism.js to make your code snippets look amazing. By default, Prismatic highlights code snippets in both post content and post comments. This quick tutorial shows how to disable highlighting in post comments by adding a simple code snippet to your WordPress. Estimated time to complete ~2 minutes. Continue reading »

Filtered Language Menus with Prismatic WordPress Plugin

Prismatic Icon

Prismatic is a free WordPress plugin that adds syntax highlighting to code samples. You can use either Highlight.js or Prism.js to make your code snippets look amazing. This quick tutorial shares a way to customize Prismatic to save time scrolling thru a bunch of language options. Huge time-saver and simple to implement in a few minutes. Continue reading »

Roll Your Own Simple Password Manager on macOS

Password Manager

I’ve tried 1Password and Dashlane, and several other popular password managers for both Mac and PC. It always seems to be the same thing: things start off great and then go downhill from there. For example, I was loving 1Password, and then it locked me out of my password file/account. Likewise for a couple of years Dashlane was great, but then they started making drastic changes like moving from standalone app to browser extension Web-based UI. The confusion involved with […] Continue reading »

4 Ways to Make a WordPress Site Private Access Only

LOTR: Doors of Durin

Have you ever wanted to make a WordPress site private? So that only specific users are allowed access? For example, for my found-images site eChunks.com, I decided to require user login in order to access any content. So now for that site, public access is not allowed, and any posts, images, and all other content is available only to logged-in users. This tutorial explains four ways to make a WordPress site private or members only, so that only authenticated/trusted users […] Continue reading »

How to Disable Chrome Scroll to Text Fragment

It is debatable whether or not Chrome’s new scrolltotextfragment feature is a significant security concern. When in doubt, play it safe. This quick post explains how to disable (or enable) Chrome’s scroll-to-text-fragment functionality. Continue reading »

How to Modify GET and POST Requests with WordPress

[ POST Requests ]

I’ve written before about protecting against malicious POST requests using Apache/.htaccess. In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to modify GET and POST requests using PHP and some core WordPress functionality (with no .htaccess required). Normally you would want to manipulate URI requests at the server level, but that’s not always possible (like on shared hosting). So in those cases where you want to modify GET, POST, or other types of requests on a WordPress site, check out the following […] Continue reading »

How to Monitor the WordPress Login Page

[ Monitor WordPress Login Page ]

There are all sorts of plugins that you can use to monitor and protect the WordPress Login Page. That’s not what this post is about. This post is aimed at developers and DIY site admins, who like to keep a close eye on site activity. Talking hands-on with code. How familiar are you with the traffic hitting your WP Login Page? Do you know the difference between a brute-force attack and legitimate login requests? The WP Login Page (wp-login.php) is […] 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 »

Ultimate Comment Blacklist for WordPress: How to Stop Spam Without Plugins

[ WordPress Ultimate Comment Blacklist ]

How do YOU stop comment spam? If you’re like a lot of WordPress users, you just grab another plugin or two and call it good. I mean after all, plugins like Akismet work great at stopping spam. The only downside is that, well, you’re relying on another plugin. And that’s fine for folks who just wanna “get ’er done”, although each active plugin requires additional maintenance and server resources. Continue reading »

X Theme Leftover Code Snippets

While working on the site’s 24th redesign, I ended up with about 10 code snippets that were awesome but ultimately not needed. So rather than just delete these tasty functions, I am posting them here for future reference. Who knows, during the next site update I may decide to implement or repurpose some of these techniques. And of course sharing is caring, so feel free to use any of these code snippets in your own projects. Check out the Table […] 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
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.
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
Crazy that we’re almost halfway thru 2024.
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