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Web Dev + WordPress + Security

Preloading Images with CSS and JavaScript

[ Preloaded Image via CSS + JavaScript ]

Fast-loading pages reduce errors, conserve bandwidth, and please visitors. One way to decrease loading times and enhance performance involves maximizing image display efficiency. Your mantra for achieving image efficiency should be “reuse, optimize, and preload.”. While each of these methods plays an important role, this article will focus on methods for preloading images. Consult your server error logs to identify web pages that may require image help. Note: preloading images does not reduce bandwidth! It only decreases apparent load time, […] Continue reading »

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 »

Delete Unwanted Context Menu Items in WinXP

Within the right-click context menu is the option to create "New" file items. While the list of available documents within the "New" submenu often contains several useful file types, such as .txt or .zip, it also contains lots of unnecessary entries. So let’s delete any unwanted context menu items in WinXP.. Continue reading »

Folder Background Images in WinXP

This brief tutorial explains how to add a background image to any folder in Windows XP. Really enables you to customize your workflow and experience using WinXP. Estimated time to completion: around 5 minutes (it’s easy). 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 »

Associate Extensionless Files with Notepad in Windows XP

There are several files that appear not to have extensions in Windows XP. Perhaps the best known example is the HOSTS file. Files such as the HOSTS file that appear to be “extensionless” actually contain an invisible period “.” — or dot — at the end the file name. It is this invisible dot that will enable us to select a specific program with which to open files with no extensions. Continue reading »

Backup Block Senders List in Outlook Express

Follow these steps to backup the “Block Senders” list in Outlook Express: Continue reading »

Amazing Keyboard Shortcuts

Well, they aren’t really that amazing, but for Windows and Linux users, they sure save time. 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 »

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 »

Electric Sheep and the ASCII Matrix

[ Electric Sheep ]

Paying homage to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, via collective digital screensaver morphology happening over at electricsheep.org. A virtual gallery of visually inspiring graphics generated via system of networked computers. Update: I think the original Electric Sheep site was sold to a company that sells “Electric Sheep” software or something. It still may be cool and inspiring, but maybe do some research before making any serious investment (of time or money). Continue reading »

Moses Lake Sunsets

Moses Lake Sunset 01

Sunset views from the Desert Oasis, Moses Lake Washington. Some interesting facts from the Moses Lake Wikipedia page: Moses Lake, on which the city lies, is made up of three main arms over 18 miles (29 km) long and up to one mile (1.6 km) wide. It is the largest natural body of fresh water in Grant County and has over 120 miles (190 km) of shoreline covering 6,500 acres (2,600 ha). Before it was dammed in the early 1900s […] 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 »
Head Meta Pro: Perfect Meta Tags for WordPress
Thoughts
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.
The algorithm is way too hypersensitive.
Working on a new pro WP plugin :)
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