Like the blog? Get the book »

Putting FTP Info in wp-config.php to Ease Updates

Putting FTP Info in wp-config.php to Ease Updates

Are you hosting your WordPress sites on one of those hosts where WordPress asks you to provide FTP details before upgrading itself or upgrading plugins? So when you click to do an upgrade, instead of just launching into the update process, you get a screen that looks like this instead:

Pimp your wp-config.php

Pimp your wp-config.php

Easily, the most important file in your WordPress installation is the wp-config.php file. It serves as your site’s base configuration file, controlling key aspects of WordPress’ functionality and enabling WordPress to do mission-critical stuff like connect to the database. Without wp-config.php, WordPress simply won’t work. So whenever you install WordPress, one of the first things to do is pimp your wp-config.php with some custom WP configuration tricks.

Optimize WordPress Performance with wp-config.php

Optimize WordPress Performance with wp-config.php

As you may recall, there are a ton of configuration tricks available for the WordPress wp-config.php file. So many in fact, that I think many people may have missed some of the choice definitions aimed at optimizing WordPress performance. In this post, we’ll explore the best ways to improve your site’s performance with WordPress’ wp-config.php file.

Round Up: 18 Free Plugins to Help Troubleshoot and Debug WordPress

Round Up: 18 Free Plugins to Help Troubleshoot and Debug WordPress

I’ve written numerous tutorials explaining how to troubleshoot WordPress, plugins, email, and more. When investigating issues, diagnosing problems, and hunting bugs, troubleshooting is a critical core skill for any web developer. To help readers level up their tool belt, here’s a quick round-up of free plugins to help troubleshoot any of your WordPress projects.

About the “Warning! WordPress Encrypts User Cookies” Error

About the “Warning! WordPress Encrypts User Cookies” Error

Upgrading from older versions of WordPress is designed to go without a hitch, but depending on the setup and the two versions involved, you may encounter some hangups along the way. For example, if you are upgrading from a version of WordPress older than 3.0, eventually you may encounter the dreaded “Warning! WordPress Encrypts User Cookies” error. This quick DigWP tutorial explains what it is, why it happens, and how to fix the problem asap.

How to Disable Gutenberg: Complete Guide

How to Disable Gutenberg: Complete Guide

Gutenberg soon will be added to the WordPress core. This is great news for some, not so great for others. With 99.9999% (estimate) of all WordPress sites currently setup to work without Gutenberg, the massive changes barreling down the pike are going to affect literally millions of websites. And as swell as the whole “Gutenberg” experience may seem, the simple truth is that a vast majority of site owners will not be prepared when it finally hits. Nor will many small business have time or budget to test and update client sites to accommodate ol’ Gut’.

Tips to Keep WordPress Secure

Tips to Keep WordPress Secure

With each passing day, strong security becomes more important. This article explains some ways to keep WordPress secure while improving the overall security of your WordPress-powered site. Most of the tips provided here are practice-based security steps that require no plugins or hacks. The idea here is that you don’t need to make changes to any code, or modify WordPress in any way in order to maintain strong security. These are security steps that most any WordPress user can use to help protect their site and keep WordPress safe and secure.

How to Remove Items from the WordPress Toolbar

How to Remove Items from the WordPress Toolbar

The WordPress Toolbar makes it easy for plugin and theme developers to add links and other items. This is great news if you find the added links useful; otherwise, the additional links may be more of a nuisance, cluttering up your current workflow. For example, the database-backup plugin UpdraftPlus adds an “UpdraftPlus” link. Some users probably think this is awesome, but for my own sites it’s just not necessary, and is something I would like to remove. So for this DigWP tutorial, we’ll use the UpdraftPlus Toolbar link to demonstrate how to remove unwanted items from the WordPress Toolbar in general.

Getting WordPress Background Updates to Work

Getting WordPress Background Updates to Work

The new background updates feature in WordPress 3.7 is great for security and productivity, but it can be tricky getting it to work. This post explains how the same technique posted here also worked for enabling background updates.

Best of DigWP.com

Best of DigWP.com

Chris and I launched DigWP.com back in 2009, and since that time have posted many WordPress tips, tricks, and techniques (well over 300 posts!).

So as 2013 fast approaches, it’s a great time to look back at the best of DigWP for each year, 2009 through 2012 — 4 years and counting!

Complete List of Default WordPress Files

Complete List of Default WordPress Files

When cleaning up hacked sites and testing .htaccess tricks, it’s nice to have a list of WordPress directory and file names for checking patterns and finding strings directly via Search/Find. Especially when working remotely, having a complete list of WordPress files available online can help expedite the attack-recovery process.

What to do when WordPress Auto-Update Fails

What to do when WordPress Auto-Update Fails

Ahh yeah, WordPress just rolled out another update to version 3.1.1. If you’re able to upgrade via the Admin, updating your site(s) should be a piece of cake: just log in, click a few buttons, wait a few minutes, and done. The convenience of automatically updating the WordPress core, plugins, and themes is awesome, but things can go wrong once in awhile and auto-updates can fail.

If this happens, getting back on track is a bit tricky, so here’s a quick guide to help restore site functionality and ensure a proper WordPress update.

Hosting Client Sites on a WordPress Network

Hosting Client Sites on a WordPress Network

Regular updates keep WordPress secure and expand the feature set, ensuring the platform meets both the developer’s and their client’s needs.

The flipside of regular updates is the maintenance of WordPress installs. Once you start maintaining more than a few installs for your clients, keeping both plugins and WordPress up to date can become a bit repetitive.

Change Your Database Prefix to Improve Security

Change Your Database Prefix to Improve Security

One of the awesome things about WordPress is that it’s a dynamic publishing system that uses a database to store your site’s information: posts, options, plugin and theme settings – all of this data is stored in your site’s database. It’s like the brain of your WordPress installation.

Unfortunately the WordPress database is also a prime target in many website attacks. Spammers and other bad guys target various database tables with automated scripts, SQL injection, and other malicious code. Needless to say it’s critical to protect your database and keep recent backups. One of the smartest ways to protect your site’s database is to change the default table prefix to something obscure and difficult to guess. Sort of like a password.

© 2009–2024 Digging Into WordPress Powered by WordPress Monzilla Media shapeSpace