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Web Dev + WordPress + Security
202 posts related to: BBQ Firewall (Free WordPress Plugin)

WordPress Plugin: USP Pro

[ USP Pro ]

After months of deleopment and a low-key “soft-launch”, I’m pleased to announce my first premium WordPress plugin, USP Pro, the supercharged version of my free WP plugin, User Submitted Posts. USP Pro enables you to create and customize infinitely many front-end forms and display them anywhere on your WordPress-powered site. Continue reading »

2014 Micro Blacklist

[ 2014 Micro Blacklist ]

Over the past several months, I’ve assembled a “micro” blacklist to keep some recent threats at bay. Eventually, this will be integrated into the next nG Blacklist, but for now I just wanted to post and share with anyone else who is actively monitoring their server logs and aware of the recent spike in malicious activity. Continue reading »

2013 User Agent Blacklist

[ 2013 User Agent Blacklist ]

The 2013 User Agent Blacklist blocks hundreds of the worst bots while ensuring open-access for normal traffic, major search engines (Google, Bing, et al), good browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, et al), and everyone else. Compared to blocking threats by IP, blocking by user-agent is more effective as a general security strategy. Although it’s trivial to spoof any user agent, many bad requests continue to report user-agent strings that are known to be associated with malicious activity. For example, the notorious […] Continue reading »

2013 IP Blacklist

When time allows, I like to post my collections of the worst IP addresses for the current year. Certainly, there are pros and cons to using an IP blacklist. In general, IPs are easily spoofed, change frequently, and are therefore unreliable as a general security strategy. But as a short-term solution, IP blacklists serve as an excellent method for dealing with specific and/or ongoing threats and attacks. Continue reading »

5G Blacklist 2013

[ 5G (2013) ]

Following up on much feedback (and this post), here is an update for the 5G Blacklist for 2013. As explained in the 2012 article (and elsewhere), the 5G Blacklist helps reduce the number of malicious URL requests that hit your website. It’s one of many ways to improve the security of your site and protect against evil exploits, bad requests, and other nefarious garbage. If your site runs on Apache and you’re familiar with .htaccess, the 5G is an effective […] Continue reading »

(Please) Stop Using Unsafe Characters in URLs

Just as there are specifications for designing with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, there are specifications for working with URIs/URLs. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) clearly defines these specifications in RFC 3986: Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax. Within that document, there are guidelines regarding which characters may be used safely within URIs. This post summarizes the information, and encourages developers to understand and implement accordingly. Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Simple Basic Contact Form

[ WordPress Plugin: Simple Basic Contact Form ]

Simple Basic Contact Form is a clean, secure, plug-n-play contact form for WordPress. Minimal yet flexible, SBCF delivers clean code, solid performance, and ease of use. No frills, no gimmicks, just a straight-up contact form that’s easy to set up and style for any theme. For a contact form with more options and features, check out Contact Coldform, or continue reading to learn more about Simple Basic Contact Form. Either way, thanks for visiting. Continue reading »

CSS Hooks for User Submitted Posts

Here is a list of all CSS hooks available for the User Submitted Posts submission form. If you notice any errors or if I’ve missed anything, please let me know with a comment or by sending an email via my contact form. Thanks! Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Simple Ajax Chat

[ Simple Ajax Chat ]

Simple Ajax Chat displays a fully customizable Ajax-powered chat box anywhere on your site. SAC makes it easy for your visitors to chat with each other on your website. There already are a number of decent chat plugins, but I wanted one that is simple yet fully customizable with all the features AND outputs clean HTML markup for easy styling. Continue reading »

Blacklist Candidate 2012-11-13: Evil Scanner Edition

[ Blacklist Candidate Props ]

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted one of my Blacklist Candidate series articles. It’s always fun for me to talk (or write) about security related issues, especially when a quick slab of .htaccess can be used to take care of business. And that’s exactly what we have in this edition of the series, where I’m pleased to bring you Blacklist Candidate Number 2012-11-13: the “evil” scanner. Instead of scanning your site, collecting data, and moving on, Mr. 2012-11-13 continues to […] Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Show Support Ribbon

[ Show Support Ribbon ]

Show Support Ribbon is a free WordPress plugin that displays a customizable “show support” ribbon, banner, or badge on your site. Show support for your favorite cause, event, charity, political event, or anything else that’s awesome. Show Support Ribbon includes four built-in ribbon styles and makes it easy to customize further with your own CSS. Continue reading »

CSS Hooks for Contact Coldform

Here is a complete list of CSS hooks (selectors) for the freshly revamped WordPress plugin, Contact Coldform. Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Simple Blog Stats

[ Simple Blog Stats ]

Simple Blog Stats is a free WordPress plugin that provides a wealth of shortcodes and tags to display a variety of unique statistics about your site. Stats about your blog include total number of categories, comments, posts, users, tags, and more. SBS also displays recent comments and recent posts in posts, pages, and anywhere in your theme. Plus additional stats for Custom Post Types, word counts, and much more. Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Simple Custom Content

[ Simple Custom Content ]

Simple Custom Content is a free WordPress plugin that makes it easy to add custom content to your posts and feeds. SCS enables you to add custom content to all of your posts and all of your feeds, and provides several shortcodes for adding custom content in specific posts, pages, and just about anywhere. Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Simple Statistics for Feeds

[ Simple Statistics for Feeds ]

Simple Statistics for Feeds is a free WordPress plugin that makes it easy to track your feeds, add custom content, and display your feed statistics on your site. Simple Statistics for Feeds (SFS) tracks your feeds automatically, and provides a wealth of tools and options for further configuration and management. To see Simple Statistics for Feeds in action, check out my code-snippets site, WP-Mix.com (you can find the SFS count badge in the sidebar on any page). Continue reading »

SFS Open Tracking

[ SFS Open Tracking - Tools & Options ]

In the Simple Feed Stats plugin, Open Tracking enables you to track any web page or feed anywhere on the Web. This is done by using the open-tracking URL as the src for any <img /> tag. The SFS plugin then collects and displays the data, and provides shortcodes and template tags to display your feed stats anywhere on your site. In this post, we’ll see how to implement Open Tracking, walk through some examples, and glean a few tips […] 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 »
Banhammer: Protect your WordPress site against threats.
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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