Off and on i’ve toyed with leaving Google Analytics. The primary reason for this is their unruly tracking practices not respecting user privacy — at all. Google hoards and controls a ton of user data; user data they grab while users travel around the Internet. And, even when consumers grant consent for some things, it’s a blurry line that Google toes. I don’t need all the stuff Google tracks, like gender, about my visitors. A […]
Continue Reading …MailChimp is the gorilla of the email marketing world. I needed an alternative. With its growth and popularity over the years, the tried-and-true increase in prices and decrease in free-tier plan features has come along with it. We see it all too often in every industry.
Continue Reading …Yes, I know you’re busy, you have a social life, you’re a parent, you need sleep, you’re dealing with a chronic illness, etc. I get it.
Continue Reading …For the first time last week, i received a “Security Alert Digest” email from Github.
Inside were all the dependencies of a project, gatsby-starter, that had known vulnerabilities. It listed the name of the dependency, its version, and the version i should upgrade to to be safe. Okay.
Continue Reading …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 Accessibility 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 […]
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