May 19, 2004
by meandean
Comments Off on Using MySQL with the MT-Blacklist to Auto Ban IP addresses
One of the downsides of increased blog popularity is an increase in comment spam attempts. Fortunately, using a variety of tools already at hand, I’m able to identify and block these persistent buggers automagically while I sleep. The Problem Last … Continue reading
April 16, 2004
by meandean
Comments Off on Mirroring Websites with wget, curl and/or tar
From time to time, it is a good thing to back up your entire site onto a different computer/server, even if your entire site is database-driven. Take my situation two weeks ago, when my former host provider shut down the … Continue reading
March 9, 2004
by meandean
28 Comments
An interesting thing happened to me while sitting poolside here at Aqaba, Jordan. I was talking to an individual who works for one of the larger Christian marketing firms. He wants to develop a lay-ministry website for a neighborhood prayer … Continue reading
March 4, 2004
by meandean
10 Comments
They say a picture is worth 1000 words. ‘Pelase’ don’t say something like this on your web church’s site (the sign is bad enough): Always test your new code. Mistakes like can really detract from your site’s content … I … Continue reading
February 14, 2004
by meandean
58 Comments
After almost a year of people emailing me and leaving comments, I’ve finally made the time to update my Scripturizer Perl Module. The changes aren’t big, but they provide dramatic relief to a series of annoyances that have encumbered some … Continue reading
November 23, 2003
by meandean
5 Comments
Originally published on March 24, 2003 when the war in Iraq was heating up and I found direct links to popular RSS news feeds were effecting the speed in which pages loaded on a friend’s blog whom I help maintain. … Continue reading
October 29, 2003
by meandean
8 Comments
As part of my ongoing online response to some great questions, I offer the following request by Colin Kuskie, webmaster for the Sunset Presbyterian Church: Hi Dean, My name is Colin Kuskie, and I’m Sunset Presbyterian Church’s volunteer webmaster/hostmaster. I’m … Continue reading
August 18, 2003
by meandean
2 Comments
I received a very nice email from Carolyn at the Faith Evangelical Church in Melrose, MA. She writes: My husband sent me this URL to improve the church website, but I feel over my head. In [point #] 7 you … Continue reading