I love command line tools. I love learning of new ones to implement into my workflow. Pa11y is one such CLI that i’m using regularly these days. It helps me keep or get my projects into Accessibilty 18F shape. Very important to me that the web is as open and accessible to as many people as possible. Screw you, Dominos (i stopped being one of their customers because of their stance). Granted, if you have […]
Continue Reading …Although at the end of this month i’m publishing a post about Google Analytics alternatives, i still deem it necessary to educate and help people use the popular tools to their advantage.
Continue Reading …Yoast irks me. Why i left them maybe a year or so ago in lieu of The SEO Framework. I have gists and a post about Yoast removing Yoast superfluous code — <article> tags — from the <head> of the site, sending Yoast meta box to the bottom of Dashboard editor pages. Yoast was like a needy child, always nagging about something. It was also slowing down my site with its bloat. I needed something simple. […]
Continue Reading …Have you ever had people tell you your emails inexplicably went to their spam folder? Do you ever email yourself from your own domain, like say [email protected] to [email protected], but it goes to spam and that seems odd since it’s the same domain? Well, the problem is most likely related to DMARC. It stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) and is used by Google, Yahoo, and all other major email providers. It’s a […]
Continue Reading …I ended up having 100s of crawl errors in Google Search Console for URLs that were ending in /blah.php and macariojames.com/dir/subdir/subdir2/blah.php for some reason. Some even ended in .html, which was easy to resolve since WordPress doesn’t use .html files, but .php files. After failing to write my own .htaccess RewriteRule and RewriteCond code, i found some useful code that i was able to tailor to fit my needs. I’ve shared it below. This code […]
Continue Reading …Taking a break from my usual tech posts, i started researching the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) back in 2017, and i’m just getting back to finishing this piece in 2019. Important Note: i am NOT a lawyer nor trained in anything regarding legalese or the like. Nothing henceforth should be taken as legal advice; it’s just what i’ve been able to find after reading official governmental documents […]
Continue Reading …TL;DR Plugin developers should use if(is_admin()) and get_current_screen() to determine the page and load these scripts and files conditionally. And the non-plugin developers, we can dequeue the scripts and css files easily. In short: Be an awesome, caring and courtesy developer, please.
Continue Reading …Speed up a website by removing unused CSS from stylesheets. Use Chrome’s DevTools Coverage tool as a guide for what to remove.
Continue Reading …TL;DR Composer was using an outdated PHP, while my server was running the latest. Need to get them to use the same PHP version. Instructions below.
Continue Reading …Keeping a WordPress site secure is paramount. Without using plugins—we’re going DIY—here are ways to secure a WordPress site during your lunch break.
Continue Reading …Visual Studio Code is my editor of choice. Here’s a list of useful extensions and tips.
Continue Reading …One suggested solution was to install the GNU version of the sed command — npm install gnu-sed — but i eventually found a command-line solution once adapted to my situation that worked.
Continue Reading …Say you have JavaScript files that rely on images that live in your current theme directory — or elsewhere outside of the domain root — and they’re not loading without hard-coding the URL into your code. Or, you may be developing locally and when pushing to a sandbox or production server, tired of changing the file path depending on the server. You must register the script before calling wp_localize_script() then queueing it. This allows you to […]
Continue Reading …For various reasons, i recommend installing WordPress (WP) in a sub-directory rather than in the default root of the domain — such as in the /public_html or /htdocs directories. From here on out, i’m going to reference the root directory as mysite.com/. If you already have a site installed at the root directory, perfect. This guide is exactly for that situation. If you do a fresh install, these can be adapted to it. Just follow […]
Continue Reading …Job searching is stressful. Job searching while unemployed is even more stressful. Job searching while unemployed and dealing with bouts of depression is most stressful. But it can be easier, can be less daunting of an experience. I’m hoping what I’ve used over the years can help you get through the grind of looking for gainful employment. Be prepared to approach the job search like a typical workday. Updating your résumé and profile for every […]
Continue Reading …Local by Flywheel was running without a hitch for the 30 minutes after i initially installed it, setup a local site, and tried out various settings. I was working on a new post regarding local WordPress development using the app. It’s part of a series i’m writing on local development environments and workflows. While documenting the steps and time it takes to close and restart Local with a site running, i ran into an issue with […]
Continue Reading …Privacy and identity theft are a popular tandem these days. We increasingly erode our privacy with every new site or app sign-up — see FaceApp’s aging filter this past summer — but our ears prick up at the phrase identity theft. It’s an odd reconciliation. Passwords or PINs are the most popular way for people to maintain a shroud of privacy. In recent years, it seems there’s a widespread breach of accounts every week. Capital […]
Continue Reading …After not being thrilled with the results of one of my recent posts about finding an Evernote alternative, i’m now focusing on finding encrypted note-taking apps. Particularly encrypted Evernote alternatives. All the criteria from the previous post is the same, but being sure no third party employees of a company can read my notes is paramount. I have documented the apps i’ve researched below. TL;DR: Joplin is the Evernote alternative i was looking for with […]
Continue Reading …Evernote was starting to grind my gears when it came to its handling of code snippets, lack of keyboard shortcuts for many things i used often, and finally hitting me how expensive it was, amongst other “little” things that have changed over the years within the app.
Continue Reading …Updating an app installed on a Mac by an account you don’t have the password for, here’s how to bypass the grayed out Apple ID prompt: Go to the /Applications folder: Finder –> Applications Right-click the app that needs updating — in my case, XCode Click Show Package Contents Go into the Contents folder Now go into into the _MASReceipt folder. Delete/Move to Trash the receipt file (you may be prompted for a local administrator […]
Continue Reading …If you want to use a particular Google Font in a graphic, maybe a video overlay, or you want to self-host fonts on your own server to speed up your website, you’ll need a way to download the font and convert it to a web font. It can be a time-consuming endeavor. But it doesn’t have to be. A simple way to speed up the process is by using the web app Google Webfonts Helper […]
Continue Reading …I manage a ton of websites. Some servers house several separate installations, which makes it cumbersome to have to login through the web to manage each site. (No multi-site setups.) I decided last weekend after attending my third WordCamp ATL (#WCATL), i’d start to actually utilize wp-cli on a daily basis now that it’s matured and powerful. Heck, i even thought about writing an ebook on using wp-cli. Stay tuned. Anyway, to the issue at […]
Continue Reading …I wanted to add SSL to a website i quickly spun up on a Lightsail instance. It was running on a subdomain. I ran into a hiccup with getting the domain verified via TXT entries in DNS when using Let’s Encrypt to setup SSL on a subdomain via GoDaddy DNS. In case you’re interested, here are the commands i used to manually add SSL with Let’s Encrypt with domain verification and prompts. Via CLI: mycli:~$ […]
Continue Reading …MailChimp has been far from cooperative with helping developers speed up website loading by simply minifying their mc-validate.js file. There’s a growing thread on Twitter started over two — yes, 2! — years ago!
Here’s what i did to stop receiving terrible grades on GT Metrix and Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Continue Reading …Continuing with providing tips for website performance results — or just making sure we’re no longer getting a failing grade via performance reports from GTMetrix, Google’s PageSpeed Insights, or web.dev — here’s how to enable gzip compression on your Apache server. First, check if mod_deflate is installed and enabled. It should be installed and enabled since mod_deflate is a default module enabled out the box for Apache. Run apachectl -t -D DUMP_MODULES | grep deflate […]
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