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Web Dev + WordPress + Security

Extreme Makeover for Gravatars in WordPress

Gravatars have become a popular way of adding spice to the “comments” page of many WordPress-powered sites. So popular, in fact, that the gravatar server is often overloaded, bogged down with millions of gravatar requests every second. This immense server load effects user pages everywhere, resulting in slow loading times, unresolved server requests, and missing gravatars. Such broken presentations appear unprofessional, tarnish reputations, and may provoke confusion. This article provides essential solutions for an extreme gravatar makeover.. Continue reading »

Customize WordPress Quicktags

WordPress Quicktags provide shortcuts for adding certain bits of code to your posts. The default set of quicktags includes some handy shortcut buttons for tags such as <strong></strong>, <a></a>, and <img />, as well as a few others. While the default set of quicktag buttons is occasionally useful, a quick bit of quicktag customization can easily transform your personal set of quicktag buttons into a deadly arsenal of time-saving code shortcuts. Continue reading »

Display the Total Number of WordPress Posts, Comments, and Categories

Would you like to display the total number of posts, comments, and categories for your WordPress-powered website? You can do it the easy way using my free WordPress plugin, Simple Blog Stats. Or you can display your statistics directly, by querying the WordPress database. Here is the code that can make it happen. Continue reading »

Conditionally Load WordPress Pages

Need to load a WordPress page conditionally? For example, perhaps you need a “special” page to appear for search results? Yes? This simple PHP/JavaScript solution may be just what the doctor ordered! Continue reading »

Execute External WordPress Functions

To execute WordPress functions in an external directory (i.e., outside of the WordPress install directory), it is necessary to include a call to wp-blog-header.php at the top of the external file. Continue reading »

Even More Server Drama

Several months ago, we encountered some problems with our hosting company and decided to switch servers. Then, after spending countless hours transferring our army of domains, the new server crashed and our databases were deleted. Further, after the transfer we quickly realized the inferior technological quality of our new host. Thus disgusted, we transferred everything back to our old server and hoped for the best. Continue reading »

Website Attack Recovery

Recently, every website on our primary server was simultaneously attacked. The offending party indiscriminately replaced the contents of every index file, regardless of its extension or location, with a few vulgar lines of code, which indicated intention, identity, and influence. Apparently, the attack occurred via Germany, through a server at the University of Hamburg (uni-hamburg.de). This relatively minor attack resulted in several hours of valuable online education. In this article, it is our intention to share experience with website attack […] Continue reading »

Create New Permalink Category

If you are running WordPress 2.0.2 and have enabled permalinks, you may have had problems creating a new category or page to your site. I recently encountered this dilemma and devised the following strategy for adding, editing, or even deleting WordPress categories and pages. Note: this tutorial assumes you are running Apache. Continue reading »

More Server Drama

After successfully migrating our domains to a new server at WebHostingBuzz.com, we continued writing articles, uploading, embellishing, and fine-tuning everything. Everything seemed fine. At first… Continue reading »

Server Migration Details

About a year ago we signed up with a hosting provider that offered one of the best hosting deals around: lots of space, bandwidth, and transfer — plus all of the usual server software amenities that make life easier. Everything went smoothly at first… In fact, the first six months of service were close to 100%. The few help-ticket items submitted were promptly resolved in a professional manner. We were ready to start some business and everything was going great. […] Continue reading »

HTTP Error Codes

A list of HTTP Error codes and corresponding definitions: Informational Codes 100 — Continue 101 — Switching Protocols Successful Client Requests 200 — OK 201 — Created 202 — Accepted 203 — Non-Authoritative Information 204 — No Content 205 — Reset Content 206 — Partial Content Client Request Redirected 300 — Multiple Choices 301 — Moved Permanently 302 — Moved Temporarily 303 — See Other 304 — Not Modified 305 — Use Proxy 307 — Temporary Redirect Client Request Errors […] Continue reading »

Stupid .htaccess Tricks

Welcome to Perishable Press! This article, Stupid .htaccess Tricks, covers just about every .htaccess “trick” in the book, and easily is the site’s most popular resource. I hope that you find it useful, and either way thank you for visiting :) In addition to this tutorial, you also may want to explore the growing .htaccess archive. Along with all things .htaccess, Perishable Press also focuses on HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, security, and just about every other aspect of web design, […] 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 »
GA Pro: Add Google Analytics to WordPress like a pro.
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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