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Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers

Advanced Web Development by AskApache is a Firefox Collection I created since I’m always trying new Addons out and using multiple computers and I wanted a quick and easy way to install my favorite’s and keep a running list.

As this screenshot shows, I only use a handful of add-ons at a time. These buttons allow me to clear the DNS/Cookies/Cache for whichever site I’m on when I click it. Very very helpful for me as a web designer. The 4th button there is just a restart button. Other than those, Firebug, YSlow, LastPass, and Web Developer are the only ones I always use regularly.

I like the idea of the last.fm but it’s not as powerful as the site, which is awesome. Lately listening to Kings of Leon Radio…

Tagged: askapache, Firebug, Firefox, Firefox Addons, Web Development, webdev, YSlow | 2 Comments | Continue...

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Windows Optimization – Intense Part II

If you ever wanted to know the best way to defragment and speed up your Windows-Based PC, I mean you really wanted to know, here is the 2nd part to my article on Windows Speed Optimizing that details the process I have found works really well. Definately not a quick process, and certainly not the best ever, just my best ever and one that you only have to do once to get the benefits.
This article has a lot of incredibly useful (and FREE) tools I recommend, which you can grab and use without reading the article..

Tagged: Defrag, Defragmentation, Deframenting, Disk IO, MyDefrag, PageDefrag, Registry Optimization, SpinRite, UltraDefrag, Windows XP | 5 Comments | Continue...

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Custom bash_profile for Advanced Shell Users

Want to get started with my custom bash aliases and bash_profile without reading this page? Execute the following in your shell and rock and roll.

curl -o ~/.askapache-bash-aliases http://z.askapache.com/askapache-bash-aliases.txt
curl -o ~/.askapache-bash-profile http://z.askapache.com/askapache-bash-profile.txt
source ~/.askapache-bash-profile

Tagged: .bashrc, advanced, alias, bash, bash alias, bash_profile, function, linux, scripts, shell script | 2 Comments | Continue...

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An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All

So my blog as been rather quiet for almost a year now, and very few updates if any have been released for my Password Protection PLugin, my Google 404 Plugin, and definately not for my AskApache CrazyCache plugin, which I will be releasing last… So for all of you who’ve helped me out by sending me suggestions and notifying me of errors and sticking with it… Just wanted to say sorry about that, and thanks for all the great ideas.. Well, I’ve been sticking with it as well believe it our not. I manage to get free days once in a while, and then its time to jam.

Tagged: AskApache Google 404, AskApache Password Protection, Fsockopen, WordPress Plugins, wordpress security | 1 Comment | Continue...

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Htaccess SEO Trends by Google

htaccess vs. httpd.conf

Tagged: Google, SEO | 1 Comment | Continue...

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Advanced Htaccess – SSI, ErrorDocuments, DirectoryIndexing SEO

3-Part article covering practical implementation of 3 advanced .htaccess features. Discover an easy way to boost your SEO the AskApache way (focus on visitors), a tip you might keep and use for life. Get some cool security tricks to use against spammers, crackers, and other nefarious sorts. Take your site’s error handling to the next level, enhanced ErrorDocuments that go beyond 404’s.

Tagged: errordocument, htaccess, htaccess rewrite, mod_include, Server Side Includes, SSI | 1 Comment | Continue...

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Ultimate Htaccess Tutorial for .htaccess files

This is not an introduction to .htaccess… This is the evolution of .htaccess… The BEST, the ORIGINAL, the NEWEST, and the most HIGHEST, FLYEST .htaccess tricks I can find.

Originally known as the “Ultimate .htaccess Guide”, its changed over the years by adding new .htaccess tricks and .htaccess examples to it.. I also add my favorite .htaccess links, the best .htaccess articles on AskApache, the coolest .htaccess experiments, the Web’s best .htaccess hacks, and update this article on the regular.

Tagged: .htaccess examples, Apache, Cache, caching, Files, FilesMatch, Google, Hacking, howto, htaccess, htaccess guide, htaccess help, htaccess howto, htaccess rewrite, htaccess tricks, htaccess tutorial, httpd, mod_rewrite, Mod_Security, rewritecond, rewriterule, sample .htaccess, Security, SEO, seo secrets, SetEnvIf, ssl, ultimate htaccess | 55 Comments | Continue...

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Advanced .htaccess Tricks for Securing Sites

This is all new, experimental, and very very cool. It literally uses .htaccess techniques to create several virtual “locked gates” that require a specific key to unlock, in a specific order that cannot be bypassed. It uses whitelisting .htaccess tricks to specify exactly what is allowed, instead of trying to specify everything that isn’t allowed. Also, by setting specific cookies/tokens after successfully passing through a gate, we can then require the exact cookie/token from the previous gate, which stops an attacker from skipping or bypassing gates.

Tagged: advanced, Hacking, htaccess, mod_rewrite, phpBB, Security, ssl | 6 Comments | Continue...

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SEO Secrets of AskApache Part 2

This is part II of the Advanced SEO used on AskApache.com Series and describes how to control which urls are indexed by Search Engines and how to move them higher up in Search Results.

Tagged: askapache, Pagerank, SEO, seo secrets | 3 Comments | Continue...

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Top 3 Speed Tips for Sites using Google Analytics

Top 3 ways to speed up websites that use Google Analytics. Host Script Locally, Fix Google-Analytics Cookie Domain, and Failsafe Loading for optimum tracking statistics.

Tagged: cookie, Google, Google Analytics, Javascript | 9 Comments | Continue...

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Serve External Javascript Files locally for Increased Speed

One way I speed up AskApache.com is by downloading external third-party javascript files to host on my own server instead of externally. In addition to the obvious speed boost, this lets you configure the caching and compression settings for the files.

Tagged: bash, shell script, Shell Scripting | 5 Comments | Continue...

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COMPUTER SECURITY TOOLBOX

List of mainly obscure security software geared more for the master pentester. These are mostly for unix, bsd, and mac and many are difficult to install and setup (require custom servers, inside access points, obscure libraries). Only programs that output data are included, so no actual exploits or anything. Most of these output extremely useful albeit extremely technical information.

3 Comments | Continue...

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About AskApache

Purpose and Goal of AskApache
To provide free access to knowledge and data with the goal of empowering people.. or more melodramatically: “Power to the People!”
Why the name AskApache? AskApache was chosen to show and pay respect to the contributors of the Apache Web Server. Literally it means to ask Apache when facing a problem, by searching the Open-Source, contacting a board/list, or browsing the documentation.

The Author
I work for a multimedia production / brand development & marketing company here in Indianapolis, the greatest city in the world! I started this blog in Dec., ‘06 to familiarize myself with WordPress as a blogging platform among other things for my job. I help expand/create a growing companies market-share online (and offline) by managing and building the brand and developing high-quality leads and loyal customers by building online funnels fed by SEO traffic and on/offline marketing campaigns. Other than the design and development costs for our minimum 12 month contract, we operate using a gain-share formula where we receive a percentage of the increased revenue that results from our services. This translates to fanatical attention to improving the bottom-line, and focus on long-term sustainable growth and overall success.
My Background
I started on MS-DOS, then Windows 2.11 (released 1989), and learned BASIC for my first language. I frequented BBS’s for awhile before the “Internet Browser” became available.. meaning I would use term and super slow modem connection.
Security Focus
Most people like me who were lucky enough to discover the Internet (gopher, ftp, etc.) at the time when you could only surf the web using text-based tools were also lucky to learn alot of great security information that was freely shared all over the world by various hackers and groups.
Security Path
From those early days on I was heavily involved in …

4 Comments | Continue...

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Fsockopen Power Plays

PHP’s fsockopen function lets you open an Internet or Unix domain socket connection for connecting to a resource, and is one of the most powerful functions available in the php language.

Tagged: Cache, Fsockopen, Hacking, HTTO, linux, Networking, Performance, PHP, Pipelining, Socket | 3 Comments | Continue...

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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

112 Comments | Continue...

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Upgrading to DreamHost Private Servers

DreamHost PS gives you your own “virtual machine”, protecting your CPU and RAM on your physical machine for faster websites. Here’s what I like and dislike about DreamHostPS, and some of the issues and solutions for migrating.

14 Comments | Continue...

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SEO Secrets of AskApache.com

Learn how in a year, with no previous blogging experience this blog was able to rank so high in search engines and achieve 15,000 unique visitors every day. Uses combination of tricks and tips from throughout AskApache.com for Search Engine Optimization.

Tagged: askapache, SEO, seo secrets | 5 Comments | Continue...

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Hacking VLAN switched networks

There isn’t much vlan info on the net in terms of specifics and I had to learn all about it because I needed to log in to a switch that was on a different vlan. With the help of the Ettercap developers NaGA and ALoR I figured it out.

Tagged: Hacking, VLAN | 1 Comment | Continue...

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Apache SSL in htaccess examples

SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLRequireSSL
SSLRequire %{HTTP_HOST} eq "google.com"
ErrorDocument 403 https://google.com

Some of the Ins and Outs of using SSL Connections with Apache.

Tagged: apache ssl | 9 Comments | Continue...

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Auto-Login to Google Analytics to impress Clients

Google Analytics for your clients sites is a no-brainer, it ROCKS! I have 100+ client sites running Analytics and all of them have trouble-free (no password or username to remember) access to their site reports. Thanks to the method in this post, my clients couldn’t be happier..

Tagged: Analytics, Forms, Google | 17 Comments | Continue...

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Updated robots.txt for WordPress

Implementing an effective SEO robots.txt file for WordPress will help your blog to rank higher in Search Engines, receive higher paying relevant Ads, and increase your blog traffic. Get a search robots point of view… Sweet!

Tagged: robots.txt, SEO | 38 Comments | Continue...

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Instruct Search Engines to come back to site after you finish working on it

Nifty SEO tip to get Search Engine Bots to check your site every hour until you finish working on it and tell them you are finished.

Tagged: 503, Google, htaccess, mod_rewrite | 10 Comments | Continue...

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Preload flash .flv files into browser cache

How I was able to preload many flash flv and swf files on one of my clients sites that has a lot of online video and relatively small traffic. Their site visitors would usually watch 3-10 videos per visit and so to make the videos load almost instantly on every page I came up with a way to preload the top 10 .flv files and the swf flv player files as soon as the visitor successfully started watching the 1st video. Of course I also setup .htaccess caching on the server so that once they downloaded the files into their cache they would never request them from the server again. I was having fun with this so its pretty funky and uses some really cool combinations of javascript, swf preloader from xml, css classes to help automate it all..

Tagged: Cache, Flash, preload | 4 Comments | Continue...

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Speed Up Google Analytics, use local ga.js

Host Google Analytics ga.js file locally for increased speed! Makes web pages load faster.

8 Comments | Continue...

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Search Engine Verify Plugin Updated

This plugin has been updated for WordPress 2.5 and includes more options to get your site indexed by Google and Yahoo.

3 Comments | Continue...

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Advanced WordPress 404.php

For the AskApache Google 404 WordPress Plugin update I added a new 404.php that is more advanced than anything previously seen for a 404.php

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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.

1 Comment | Continue...

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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).

16 Comments | Continue...

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Skeleton .htaccess file for Powweb Hosting

If you have a Powweb Webhosting account, you will appreciate this simple skeleton .htaccess file for use on their systems.

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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.

2 Comments | Continue...

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Fetch Feed Subscribers from Google Reader

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Redirecting RSS 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.

Tagged: FeedBurner, htaccess, Redirect, rewrite, WordPress | 7 Comments | Continue...

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SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase Examples

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

Tagged: Examples, htaccess, mod_rewrite, mod_setenvif, SetEnv, SetEnvIf | 4 Comments | Continue...

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HTTP Status Codes and .htaccess ErrorDocuments

There are a total of 57 HTTP Status Codes recognized by the Apache Web Server. Wouldn’t you like to see what all those headers and their output, ErrorDocuments look like?

Tagged: Apache, errordocument, htaccess, HTTP Error, HTTP Status Codes, PHP, Redirect, Status Code | 17 Comments | Continue...

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Surf the net anonymously with Tor

Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that give you a very good level of anonymity, using Tor with privoxy and FoxTor for firefox gives you privacy at the touch of a button.

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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!

8 Comments | Continue...

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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.

9 Comments | Continue...

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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.

Tagged: ASP, ColdFusion, htaccess, HTTP-EQUIV, Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python | 7 Comments | Continue...

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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!

3 Comments | Continue...

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Renaming Sponsored Links in AdSense

Google AdSense calles their AdSense Ads, “Sponsored Links”, while Text-Link-Ads.com recommends “Sponsored By”. Of course it is against the Google Adsense TOS to rename your ads, but in general, for non-adsense, what do you like to call your sponsored links?

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