![[ Image: Jonny Quest (Inverted) ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/subscriptions/subscriptions-quest.jpg "jonny123@gmail.com?")
After investigating some unusual 404 errors the other day, I found myself digging through the WordPress Admin Area trying to locate the “Subscribe to Comments” options panel. As it turns out, administrative options for the Subscribe to Comments plugin are split into two different areas. First, the S2C plugin provides configuration options under the WordPress General Settings > “Subscribe to Comments”, which enables users to tweak everything from subscription messages to custom CSS styles. New to me was the other […] Continue reading »
![[ WordPress RSS Feed ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/exclude-feed-content.png)
For future reference, this article covers each of the many ways to access your WordPress-generated feeds1. Several different URL formats are available for the various types of WordPress feeds — posts, comments, and categories — for both permalink and default URL structures. For each example, replace “http://example.com/” with the URL of your blog. Note: even though your blog’s main feed is accessible through many different URLs, there are clear benefits to using a single, consistent feed URL throughout your site. […] Continue reading »
Announcing an improved, Arabic version of my latest WordPress plugin, Contact Coldform. The new version features complete UTF-8 compatibility and has been completely translated to the Arabic language. Here is a detailed breakdown of changes made for the Arabic version: Continue reading »
Continuing my quest to stop comment spam without using plugins, I have decided to disable comments on “old” posts. In my experience, over 90% of comment, trackback and pingback spam occurs on posts that have been online for over a month or so, just long enough to be indexed by the search engines and picked up by spammers. Especially for older posts that have managed to acquire a little page rank, the frequency of spam attempts is far greater than […] Continue reading »
![[ The Flash ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/flash-disable-sql.jpg)
Recently, while dealing with the dreaded white screen of death, I found myself unable to login to the WordPress Admin area to manually disable all of the plugins used here at Perishable Press. In the past, I have dealt with this situation by simply deleting all plugin files from the server, however this time, time was of the essence — I had only a few minutes with which to troubleshoot, diagnose, and ultimately resolve the deadly white-screen syndrome. Fortunately, after […] Continue reading »
During my last redesign and site overhaul, I finally made the leap from WP 2.0 to 2.3. In the process of synchronizing data and removing unecessary plugins, I managed to replace several keyword- and meta-related plugins with the incredible All in One SEO Pack (AiOSEO). One of the plugins replaced by AiOSEO is Autometa, an otherwise very useful meta-keywords management tool. With AiOSEO installed, there is no need for Autometa. Over the course of a year or so, Autometa had […] Continue reading »
![[ Graphic: Inverted Triangular Fractal ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/wordpress-post-order.jpg "Organizational Bliss")
Recently, reader Luke Knowles asked how to customize the sort order of his posts in WordPress. Looking into a solution to this question proved quite enlightening. Within moments I was able to discern 4 methods for modifying post order, and then several days later I discovered 2 additional custom sorting techniques. After updating the reply to Luke’s comment, it seemed like some good information that other WordPressers may find useful. So, here are six ways to customize the sort order […] Continue reading »
Approximately 30 days ago, I completely uninstalled the Bad Behavior plugin from Perishable Press. As you may recall, many Bad Behavior users were unexpectedly locked out of their own sites and forced to either uninstall or upgrade in order to fix the problem. Of course, in my perpetual battle to optimize and streamline everything, I decided to drop Bad Behavior from the otherwise obligatory WordPress anti-spam trinity. 30 days later.. I am happy to report that Perishable Press has not […] Continue reading »
![[ Contact Coldform ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/wp-coldskins/coldform-icon_small.jpg)
With the recent release of my latest WordPress plugin, Contact Coldform, I am also creating a series of free, “drop-in” CSS skins for easy, “plug-n-play” customization. These skins employ valid, optimized CSS code designed for the following browsers: Continue reading »
![[ Image: Coldform Icon ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/wp-coldform/coldform-icon.png "Contact Coldform")
Welcome to the homepage for Contact Coldform, a secure, lightweight, flexible contact form with plenty of options and squeaky clean markup. Coldform blocks spam while making it easy for your visitors to contact you from your WordPress-powered website. The comprehensive Settings Page makes it easy to take full control with plenty of options and several built-in themes for styling the form. Coldform delivers everything you need and nothing you don’t — no frills, no gimmicks, just pure contact-form satisfaction. Now […] Continue reading »
![[ Photo: Bob Barker Pointing ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/blacklisted/2008-01-02.jpg "Come on down! You're the next hapless turd to get blocked!")
Welcome to the Perishable Press “Blacklist Candidate” series! In this first post, we begin a new tradition of exposing, humiliating and banishing spammers, crackers and other worthless scumbags.. Every Wednesday, I take a little time to investigate my 404 error logs. In addition to spam, crack attacks, and other deliberate mischief, the 404 logs for Perishable Press contain errors due to missing resources, mistyped URLs, and the occasional bizarre or even suspicious behavior of the search-engine robots. Whenever possible, I […] Continue reading »
![[ Screenshot: showing the relatively immense size of the WP-ShortStat table ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/wpstats-flush/stats-table_01.gif "Indeed, after only a month or so, our ss_stats table is over 180,000 rows thick and over 45,000 Kilobytes in size.")
In this article, I present a simple method for dramatically decreasing the size of your WordPress database by partially emptying old data from the WP-ShortStat table via the following SQL command: DELETE FROM `wp_ss_stats` ORDER BY `id` ASC LIMIT n That is the point of this entire article, which dips into just about everything one might need to know before employing such strategy. If you are familiar with SQL and understand the purpose and functionality of this command, feel free […] Continue reading »
![[ Photo: Macro shot of a Yttrium claw ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/wordpress-plugin.jpg "Unplug Unnecessary Plugins")
In this article, my goal is to help you optimize WordPress by replacing a few common plugins with their correspondingly effective code equivalents. As we all know, WordPress can be a very resource-hungry piece of software, especially when running a million extraneous plugins. Often, many common plugins are designed to perform relatively simple tasks, such as redirect a feed, display a random image, query the database, etc. For those of us comfortable with editing PHP and htaccess code, there is […] Continue reading »
In this article, I present several heavily commented examples of WordPress loops. I have found that many readers appreciate these types of loop examples, as it helps them to understand how the loop works while enabling them to easily copy, paste, and adapt the code for their own purposes. In our first example, we examine a basic WordPress loop. When implemented, this loop will display “x” number of posts, where “x” represents the number specified via the WordPress Admin reading […] Continue reading »
While planning my current site renovation project, I considered changing the format of my permalinks. Reasons for modifying the permalink structure of a site include: Continue reading »
It must be national “update-your-WordPress-plugins” month around here or something. First a completely renovated version of Category LiveBookmarks Plus, then a WP-2.3-compatible facelift for BlogStats PCC, and now a completely widgetized & automated version of the popular AddMySite plugin. Coincidence? — I think not.. Continue reading »
