Web Development, WordPress, Apache, .htaccess, tutorials, mod_rewrite, phpmailer, programming articles

SEO Boost from Google 404 Plugin

1 minute Install!
Turns every 404 Not Found error into a SEO traffic generating event! Now you have many unique users with unique IP addresses and cookies searching your blog on all of the Google Indexes… Sweet!

«Take My 404 for a Test-Drive

Hackers Declare Total War against Scientology

For the good of your followers,
for the good of mankind,
and for our own enjoyment,
we shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form.

Securing php.ini and php.cgi with .htaccess

If you have a php.cgi or php.ini file in your /cgi-bin/ directory or other pub directory, try requesting them from your web browser. If your php.ini shows up or worse you are able to execute your php cgi, you’ll need to secure it ASAP. This shows several ways to secure these files, and other interpreters like perl, fastCGI, bash, csh, etc.

Is Your Password Crackable?

I’ve put up a new tool to check the strength of your password hash, that locates weak passwords by searching Rainbow Tables for md5 or sha1 hash match. Locate and fix this common security vulnerability before being exploited.

Firefox Adsense WordPress Plugin

If your WordPress blog uses AdSense, and you love Firefox you will love this plugin. When a user downloads and installs Firefox through your referral, we’ll credit your account with up to $1.00 (more details).

IP Abuse Detection for DreamHost

Scan Apache logs for IP address that are probably evil, then generates an .htaccess file to DENY them all.

Come On and Sprite for your Website

Let me show you an example that works so well I am using it right now on my site. Every page in fact. If you are a young or up and coming web developer with skills to pay the bills, lets make the future Net fast, learn about optimization and refactoring while you still have the chance.

Custom Boot Menu in Windows XP

One of the first things that I do upon receiving a new Windows computer is immediately create a poweruser-style customized boot menu. Then every time I boot I can choose Safe Mode, Recovery Console, Debug, whatever I want! It’s quick and easy to set-up and everyone should have one, soo sweet!

Fetch Feed Subscribers from Google Reader with CURL

PHP curl example utilizing cookies, POST, and SSL options to login to Google Reader and fetch the number of subscribers for a particular feed url.

Redirect Wordpress Feeds to Feedburner

FeedBurner is so RAD! I love it. Here’s an alternative method to redirect scrapers and feed requests to your feedburner url, in my case, I use Branding by feedburner, which is so hot, taking advantage of CNAMEs in your DNS record.

SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase Examples

SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase directives conditionally set environment variables accessible by scripts and apache based on HTTP Headers, Variables, and Request information.

Apache Environment Variables CGI Script

My improved version of the common printenv / test-cgi scripts for debugging Apache environment variables set in .htaccess files

mod_rewrite Fix for Caching Updated Files

Web Developers sometimes use file.ext?v=004 as a version control system to force visitors to use updated files. This is terrible. Instead link to apache-003.css and set it to be cached forever. When you change the file you just change the links to apache-004.css. That eliminates millions of bandwidth and resource robbing If-Modified-Since requests. You only need Apache with mod_rewrite, and 1-10 minutes!

Boost SEO, Drive Traffic with the 404 Error Page Plugin

The best (so far) AskApache Plugin is now even bestester! Turns every 404 Not Found error on your blog into a search engine optimized, traffic driving event!

PHP5 Custom Install Shell Script Example

Today I successfully learned how to compile and run multiple custom php installations for a DreamHost account, and to get it working I came upon a simple shell script that I made a couple changes to.

Robots.txt Secrets From Matt Cutts

The secrets in this post were really more of enlightening bits of seo wisdom. The secret is how to combine robots.txt with meta robots tags to control pagerank, juice, whatever.

WordPress What Is This Plugin

It shows a semi-transparent box on the document you are viewing that tells you if its a page, single, feed, category, etc..

CSS Cross-Browser Compatibility Tip

What I used to do when I was still learning CSS was to check the web page in each of the various problematic browsers to make sure the display stayed the same. I have several actual machines and several vmware virtual machines running various browers but I decided to skip all that extra time and effort and just use an online tool to do it for me. The tool views my page in all the various browsers and generates a screenshot image from each browser so that I can see if there are issues with my CSS.

Prevent WP-Cache from Caching index

Disable caching on WordPress index pages when using WP-Cache with this neat mod to the famously speedy cache plugin.

Best Free Online Banking for Web Professionals

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 10 years managing my money online, and I want to let you all know my two favorite free online banks, Etrade and WaMu.

301 Redirect Cheatsheet

Ultimate Redirect Cheatsheet for multiple programming languages. Redirecting Users with Javascript redirect, meta refresh redirect, and php redirect, also htaccess methods, python, coldfusion, asp, perl, etc.

Smart HTTP and HTTPS RewriteRule Redirects

This is freaking sweet if you use SSL I promise you! Basically instead of having to check for HTTPS using a RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =on for every redirect that can be either HTTP or HTTPS, I set an environment variable once with the value “http” or “https” if HTTP or HTTPS is being used for that request, and use that env variable in the RewriteRule.

Simple PHP Anti-Spam Captcha Script

Prevent automated web robot tools and spammers from taking advantage of your site with this simple php script that I hacked up earlier today to use on my Advanced HTTP Header Viewer.

Best CSS .Classes for CSS Toolbox

CSS is one of the most useful tools I have in my toolbox as a Web Developer. Having a CSS Toolbox containing good CSS Classes that you repeatedly use is quite helpful for us XHTML / web-standards / best-practices developers. Check out 10 of my favorite CSS classes.

Review: Posh CSS

PoshCSS.com has links to nice and new CSS Articles. Don’t worry, they aren’t snobs. ;)

Referer Spoofing Using JavaScript

Even though at the moment I’m more into AJAX and simple behavioural unobtrusive javascript more than java, I still remember how excited I was back in 1995 when Sun released both beta and alpha Java versions to the public.. In fact I still have my Java 1.0 Unleashed book, which I’m looking at right now.

Tips on Writing WordPress Plugins

Thought I’d give you all the tips and tricks that I’ve learned and use when developing WordPress plugins.. which can be quite fun!

A better way to use PDF files online

.htaccess and php example serves .pdf files to give visitors the choice to open in an external program or save to disk without having to open it in the browser

PDF Before and after Fix - Firefox

The Latest and Greatest php.ini

Grab the latest php.ini developmental version and discover new or previously hidden php runtime configuration settings… ahead of everyone else!

Apache Directives and Modules on DreamHost

Apache .htaccess Directives and Loaded Modules allowed on DreamHost Apache Server 2 Setups.