Nothing beats that feeling of finding a gem of a comment amongst the spam. It’s like Easter Egg hunts for WordPressers. Don’t forget to check out our other editorial toons!
Torque Toons: Easter Eggs for WordPressers
WordPress Advanced Anti-Spam Techniques
Have you ever found yourself dealing with a spam attack on your site? If you have, you’d know. It almost always starts out as a trickle… Maybe it’s a couple comments about how enlightening your entry on the summer corn you made on the grill a few weeks ago was. Only all the comment author links are to pharmaceutical sites or places where you can buy knock-off high heels. And can an entry about corn really be enlightening? *sigh* This is spam, isn’t it? Well, let’s go ahead and flag those in Akismet so it can catch others like it. […]
The WordPress Weekend Roundup
A little backlogged is all I have to say – it was a very busy weekend for me and I’m just finally catching up on work that was supped to get done late last week. This happens on occasion and thankfully no ones breathing down my neck to get my stuff done – I create all the pressure I need on my own! Hopefully you had a great weekend and are looking at an awesome week this week!
Why We Created Sur.ly and Why it Matters
Before I start explaining the reasons why we developed Sur.ly, let me briefly tell you how this spam prevention tool works. It’s a new free WP plugin that can make your website or forum non-sensitive to spam attacks by replacing all unwarranted outbound links with safe links to interstitial pages on Sur.ly (hereafter I will clarify why this method to stop spam does matter).
Akismet: Sorry, I Took You for Granted
You know, this is a bit awkward to admit, but apparently I haven’t been paying for Akismet. Like, ever. It’s not that I was trying to skip over my duty to our wonderful spam fighting plugin or that I even was attempting to cheat any system that was made available to me – I simply did not think of ever coming back to the system and being reminded that I should pay for the service if I’m using it for a product or commercial service. And there’s really no one that I can blame except for myself – because Akismet […]
Die Spam! Blacklist That Shiz with This Gist!
Man. The growth of spam is ridiculous and I spend way too much time moderating comments on this blog than I would like to. Sure, there are a billion different ways to manage spam, ham, and everything else in between from a technology perspective (via plugins, 3rd party systems, honeypots, whatever) but sometimes it’s the more simple things that work the best. Take for example Grant Hutchinson‘s Blacklist Keywords for Comments text file that he shared via Github:
Plugins: For Good or For Evil?
As developers we have the incredible opportunity to provide real value to real people – it reminds me of Spiderman to the Nth degree and how Uncle Ben told Spidey: With great power comes great responsibility. You could also attribute this to Franklin D. Roosevelt as well who said: Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility. And for some it is truly a war that is going on in their minds and hearts! Take for instance Ben Gilbanks who is pondering what he should do in terms of a plugin that he is […]
I Got 99 Problems But SPAM Ain't One (Just Ham)
Akismet, the very popular spam-fighting plugin and service has recently crossed the 60 Billion (that’s with a ‘B’ folks!) spam “squashed” marking an incredible run. I’m not sure about you but I utilize Akismet for every single blog that I’ve every published for – it’s certainly not 100% fool-proof and perfect as “ham,” false positives, and missed spam. A typical question that I get from users and blog owners alike is what exactly is “ham”. Do you know?
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