September 27, 2013

Site Performance Optimization: MaxCDN, Nginx, CloudFlare and WordPress Caching
My blog has a problem. Or rather it had a problem but I'm making some big improvements to it to make it perform better. For many years, my site has suffered from slow performance. Much of that is my fault though. I tend to overload WordPress with lots of plugins. Plugins are bad, but they are in many ways, quite…
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May 30, 2012

5 Reasons Why You Should Repurpose Old Content from your Blog
I have often been asked: why the heck do you have those automated tweets of old content coming from your blog? What is the reasoning? They are outdated and might not be topical, could be viewed as out of context and, in my case, might be talking about technology, products or services that are over a year old. Think about it,…
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January 30, 2010

20+ Ways to Harden and Secure Your WordPress Blog
Recently, some high-profile blogs that are running WordPress have been hacked or hijacked by malicious users (e.g., TechCrunch). The worst thing is having to try to recover from such an event, you not only have to repair your site, but also your reputation. So, spending a little bit of time trying to prevent or at least make it a bit…
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December 21, 2009

WARNING: WP-Polls WordPress Poll Plugin Can Be Exploited
Last week, I ran a giveaway which, because of a variety of reasons, I had to cancel and declare "null & void". While I won't go into the details, I did want to bring some actions to the forefront, especially if you are using the WordPress plugin called "WP-Polls" which is a great plugin that provides users with the ability…
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March 18, 2009

How to Move a WordPress Blog from One Domain/Host to Another
Over that last couple of days, I have had the "pleasure" of moving a blog from one hosting provider to another (not that difficult of a task) but ALSO changing domains in the process. While I don't think this post should the definitive set of instructions, it is a combination of information that I read and gathered, in conjunction with…
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February 24, 2009

Fix It: Safari 4 Beta Crash on Startup â€“ Plug-in Issue
Today Apple released a beta version of Safari for both Macs and Pc's. I was very eager to try it out especially to see if it truly is "the world's fastest web browser." Also intriguing is the "coverflow-esque" feature, an eye candy pleaser. I downloaded the Mac-version beta from Apple and fired up the installer without much further thought. The…
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May 16, 2008

I wish a WordPress Developer would make the following plugin
I'm not a developer, more of a tinkerer, looking at people's code and tweaking things. Never had an hour of coding schooling in my life but I can step through some stuff and get the jist of it and even mod it to my own liking (fixed a few WP theme issues and plugins). There are a couple of plugins…
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December 27, 2007

Fix It: HemingwayEX without UltimateTagWarrior in WordPress 2.3
As mentioned in my previous post, in order to speed things up on my blog, I have removed the UTW (UltimateTagWarrior) plugins. Unfortunately, the theme that I use (and subsequently modified) relies on UTW for a lot of things. One of these was causing issues for users coming from a Google search related to Tags. For example, if you Google…
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September 25, 2007

Blog Fix: Twitter Tools plugin and WordPress 2.3
I'm going through and reviewing my site after updating it to WordPress 2.3 and it looks like there are still some hidden "issues" stemming from the migration to the new Category/Tagging structure. The latest one that I found is related to the "Twitter Tools" plugin. Update: Some people were reporting that "term_ID" was not working where "ID" was in capitals…
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September 24, 2007

Blog: WordPress version 2.3 scheduled to be released Sept 24, 2007
A fairly significant update to WordPress is slotted to be released today (09.24.07) with some interesting new features, including: Plugin Update Notification Tags! Improved Post and Draft Management Pending Review Advanced Visual Editor Buttons Pretty URLs Updated Default Blogroll Other "advanced user" stuff More details on the features/changes are below: Plugin Update Notification Not only are you now notified about…
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September 19, 2007

Pirate Humor for Official “Talk like a Pirate Day”
What fun would it be without some Pirate Humor on official "Talk like a Pirate Day" (TLAPD). Some (if not most) of these are true groaners but what the heck. It will also be interesting to see how my WordPress plugin for TLAPD translates these jokes! On with some jokes (don't make me walk the plank on these, I didn't…
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September 18, 2007

iPhone: TechDadBlog now optimized for iPhone with automatic theme!
For all of you new iPhone and iTouch users out there, this blog has been updated with a new theme (yes ANOTHER theme) that is specifically optimized for viewing on an iPhone or iTouch. Those people who are viewing through a computer browser will continue to see my black/red theme but readers who have one of those great new Apple…
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