Blog

  • WP Engine’s SSH is Happening

    Over the last few months I’ve had privilege to be part of WP Engine’s SSH alpha/beta. SSH access is a big deal for WP Engine and for the entire managed…

  • Replacing Dropbox with B2 Cloud Storage for WordPress Backups

    Managed WordPress web hosts typically do nightly backups. That’s a great start however if something is important you should have multiple backups. My secondary backup method is a daily script…

  • Cleanup with WP-CLI and Regex

    Recently one of my customer’s WordPress sites was filled with random hidden span tags containing a single word: “Save.” The source is a mystery, however I suspect it came from…

  • Disabling Emails on WordPress Staging Sites

    Using a staging site is great for troubleshooting, however you don’t typically want your staging site sending out email notifications. Luckily there is an easy solution to this problem by…

  • Keeping Paid Themes & Plugins Updated

    WordPress makes is fairly straightforward to update your themes and plugins. Tools like ManageWP make it easy to update everything for all of your WordPress sites. That said, keeping your…

  • WooCommerce Keyless Activation System for Extensions

    The main WooCommerce plugin is free but WooCommerce is more than just a single plugin it’s an entire ecosystem unto itself. Recently WooCommerce changed how they handle their paid extensions.…

  • WP Engine and Email Notifications

    Having your website send emails successfully is more difficult than it should be. Earlier this year WP Engine moved all of my dedicated servers over to Google’s infrastructure. Google’s has…

  • Talk from WordCamp Lancaster 2017

    In March I gave my first WordCamp talk at WordCamp Lancaster called “Staying Sane While Maintaining Hundreds of WordPress Sites”. It was a great experience and I will plan on…

  • Remote commands over SSH from WordPress (Using phpseclib)

    I commonly want WordPress to run code, like a bash script, directly on the command line. In PHP there is a set of functions which is commonly disabled for security…

  • Backup Offloaded Amazon S3 Uploads

    If you’re using WP Offload S3 to free up local storage then you’ll also need to backup your Amazon S3 uploads. Rather than running two separate backups, one for the website…