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Web Dev + WordPress + Security

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 »

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 Disable WordPress Automatically Generated Images – Complete Guide

[ WordPress Image Sizes ]

As you may know, WordPress creates numerous copies of all images uploaded via the WP Media Library. These additional images are generated in various sizes, depending on your settings and other factors. This may be totally fine in general, but if you are working with lots of images on your site, the extra files can really eat up your disk space. This can be wasteful, specially if your site does not make use of all the extra images. So to […] 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 »

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 »

Custom Widget Names with Dashboard Widgets Suite

[ Dashboard Widgets Suite - Default Widget Names ]

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 »

.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 »

7G Firewall : Log Blocked Requests

[ 7G Firewall (Beta) ]

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

[ 7G Firewall (Beta) ]

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 »

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 »

Cleaning Up Google Search Results

[ Drawing: Abstract Entity Pursuing Clean Search Results ]

This post is about how I cleaned up an incorrect URL in the Google search results. My business site is basically a one-page portfolio site, located at the URL https://monzillamedia.com/. But in the Google search results, the URL was showing as https://monzilla.biz/, which did not exist. So all potential customers were getting an error page. Fortunately I was able to re-acquire the monzilla.biz domain and redirect all traffic to monzillamedia.com. Continue reading »

Difference between mod_alias and mod_rewrite

Most of the redirect techniques provided in my stupid .htaccess tricks article all use Apache’s alias module, mod_alias. You can also use mod_rewrite to redirect URLs. The main difference is that, with mod_alias, the server is responding to the client request with a redirect, so the client immediately is sent to the new location. Conversely, with mod_rewrite, the server simply returns the new content, so the client is not actually redirected anywhere. This makes mod_rewrite more advantageous because it happens […] Continue reading »

Activate WordPress Plugins via the Database

Recently a reader named Chris asked, “how can we turn ON a plugin from the database?” He mentioned reading my previous article, Quickly Disable or Enable All WordPress Plugins via the Database, but for circumstantial slash technical reasons needed to do the opposite and enable a plugin directly via the WordPress database. I thought it was an interesting question that might actually be useful to discuss here at Perishable Press. 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 »

404 Fix: Block Nuisance Requests for Non-Existent Files

[ Han Solo shutting up C-3PO in Empire Strikes Back ]

As I’ve written before, blocking nuisance requests can help save you money by cutting down on wasted server resources, memory, and so forth. It also saves you time, as your server access and error logs won’t be full of nuisance request spam. So you will have more resources and time for things that matter, like running your business, helping customers, improving code, etc. So to continue the proud tradition of blocking malicious traffic, this post builds upon previous blocking techniques […] 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 »
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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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