CSS: Odd Bug with Colons and Combined Pseudo Elements
According to specification (and these helpful posts by Chris Coyier), CSS pseudo elements like ::before and ::after should be written with two preceding colons. It can be confusing because while pseudo elements are prefixed by two colons, like ::element, pseudo selectors (aka pseudo classes) are prefixed by only one, like :selector. So that’s the context for an odd little CSS bug.. Continue reading »
Vanilla JavaScript Smooth Scroll
While working on the site’s 24th redesign, my goal was to simplify the UI as much as possible. As much as I enjoy lots of cool effects, I wanted the new design to be as minimalist as possible. So that meant dropping a LOT of little bells and whistles that were included in the previous design. One feature that didn’t make the cut was smooth scrolling to internal anchor targets. Like when you click a link that takes you #somewhere […] Continue reading »
CSS Background Hover Slide Effect
While working on the site’s 24th redesign, I played around with a number of styles to customize the appearance of links. As you can see by hovering over any link, I decided to keep the styles as minimal as possible while still letting the user know that, “hey, this is a link”. This quick post shares one of the link styles I was considering, it’s sort of a “slide-up” background-color effect that happens when the user hovers over the hyperlink. Continue reading »
FAQs for User Submitted Posts
This post contains overflow FAQs for the free version of User Submitted Posts (hosted at WordPress.org). I am moving a bunch of the FAQs to this post in order to clean up the plugin’s ever-growing readme.txt file. For FAQs about the Pro version of USP, check out USP Pro – FAQs & Presales over at Plugin Planet. Note that these FAQs are in no particular order. So without further ado.. Continue reading »
Blackhole for Bad Bots – Quick Start
Welcome to the Quick Start Guide for the standalone PHP version of Blackhole for Bad Bots. This post basically is a condensed summary of the original Blackhole tutorial. So if you are new to the concept of blocking bad bots, check out the original tutorial. Otherwise, for those that are familiar, the following guide should simplify things and help you get started with Blackhole as quickly as possible. Continue reading »
Action & Filter Hooks for User Submitted Posts
The free version of my WordPress plugin User Submitted Posts is better than ever, with a wealth of new action and filter hooks, enabling developers to customize everything from shortcode output to post data, alert messages and more. Drop in for a quick summary of all new USP hooks. Continue reading »
Update: Ajax Error Log – Version 2.0
Another update! This time to the vanilla/PHP version of my Ajax Error Log. As with the new WordPress version, this update improves the script’s design, performance, and security. Continue reading »
Update: Ajax Error Log for WordPress – v2.0
New version of Ajax-Powered Error Logs for WordPress now available for download. The functionality is the same, but the script is rewritten for better design, performance, and security. Continue reading »
Roll Your Own “What’s My IP Address?” Page
My current ISP likes to keeps things spicy by changing my IP address every few months or so. There are a million ways to get this changing IP information, but as an obsessive web developer, I like to roll my own whenever possible. That means using my own resources instead of spending time and energy elsewhere. So the goal for this project is to create a web page that does one thing very well: display the visitor’s current IP information. […] Continue reading »
Ajax-Powered Error Logs for WordPress
In my previous post, I share my technique for Ajax-Powered Error Logs. That tutorial shows you how to set up dynamic error monitoring on any typical website, but the script requires some tweaking to get it working with WordPress. In this quick post, I explain how to set up Ajax Error Logs specifically for WordPress sites. Continue reading »
Ajax-Powered Error Logs
As an obsessive website administrator, I like to keep a keen eye on my error logs. Once a week, I download my PHP, 404, and other error logs, and analyze them as closely as time allows. Monitoring site errors and other traffic patterns leads to many of the security-related articles I post here at Perishable Press, including resources such as the 5G Blacklist, Ultimate HTAccess Blacklist, and the Blacklist Candidate Series. Easily, one of the best ways to protect your […] Continue reading »
Ajax RSS Feeds with More Sidebar
After implementing Chris Coyier’s More Sidebar technique here at Perishable Press, I needed a good source of “filler” content for the “more” blocks. After experimenting with multiple loops and template tags, the idea of sliding in RSS feeds seemed like a better solution. Replacing some empty space with great content is a win-win for everyone. For example, I display a few of my recent tweets in the sidebar to help fill a lil’ space. It’s a great way to share […] Continue reading »
Ajax Slide & Fade Content with jQuery
I recently redesigned my business site, Monzilla Media. The new design features a clean and simple single-page, fixed-sidebar layout. Visitors use the various links in the fixed sidebar to quickly and automatically scroll through to any section. In the Portfolio section, each item contains a “Details” link that loads more content into the fixed sidebar. As the site is mostly static, I wanted this bit of functionality to really shine, and after much testing and tweaking, ended up with a […] Continue reading »
Display Latest Tweet with Show/Hide Cookies
My previous theme displays my latest tweet at the top of every page. It turned out to be an excellent technique for getting more followers – visitors see the tweet, click the link, and possibly follow me on Twitter. There is even a cookie-powered “Hide” link for uninterested visitors to hide the tweet for awhile. I received quite a few requests for a tutorial on the technique, so here is how to display your latest tweet with show/hide cookies. For […] Continue reading »
WordPress Plugin: User Submitted Posts
User Submitted Posts enables your visitors to submit posts and images from anywhere on your site via template tag or shortcode. User-submitted posts optionally include tags, categories, post titles, and more. You can set submitted posts as draft, publish immediately, or after some number of approved posts. Also enables users to upload multiple images when submitting a post. Everything super-easy to customize via Admin Settings page. Continue reading »
Protect Your Site with a Blackhole for Bad Bots
One of my favorite security measures here at Perishable Press is the site’s virtual Blackhole trap for bad bots. The concept is simple: include a hidden link to a robots.txt-forbidden directory somewhere on your pages. Bots that ignore or disobey your robots rules will crawl the link and fall into the honeypot trap, which then performs a WHOIS Lookup and records the event in the blackhole data file. Once added to the blacklist data file, bad bots immediately are denied […] Continue reading »
