Open Source

In production and development, open source as a development model promotes a universal access via a free license to a product’s design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone.

Complete guide for maintaining, optimising WordPress websites for optimum performance, maximum speed for loading webpages, maximum security for preventing website hacking & highjacking by intruders

Mandar Apte Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress Leave a comment

Introduction

 
I have been using WordPress for almost more than 5 years now.

 
I will explain in below post step by step procedure to harden, secure & optimise WordPress for best performance & security.

 
So First thing first,

 

Introduction to WordPress

 
What is WordPress: WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. WordPress was used by more than 23.3% of the top 10 million websites as of January 2015. WordPress is the most popular blogging system in use on the Web at more than 60 million websites.

 
As we know of today WordPress is offered in two different formats, One is managed & hosted by team at WordPress.com & second as self hosted by user using downloadable installable package available at WordPress.org.

 

Difference between WordPress.com & WordPress.org

 
Following things really differentiate WordPress.com and WordPress.org from each other

 
1st Difference
WordPress.com: User provides the content & website is managed by team at WordPress.com
WordPress.org: Content provided by User & Managed by User itself

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How to fix WordPress.com Jetpack error called Your website needs to be publicly accessible to use Jetpack: site_inaccessible. Error Details: The Jetpack server was unable to communicate with your site [HTTP 404]. Ask your web host if they allow connections from WordPress.com

Mandar Apte Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress 1 Comment

As we know WordPress community exist on wordpress.com & wordpress.org

 
WordPress.org is downloadable CMS (Content Management System) distribution for self hosted used by web designers & web developers.

 
Being CMS lead developer Automattic want’s it’s wordpress.com experience available to it’s wordpress.org users. So they developed plugin like JetPack for WordPress self hosted websites.

 
JetPack Error Description: Your website needs to be publicly accessible to use Jetpack: site_inaccessible
Error Details: The Jetpack server was unable to communicate with your site [HTTP 404]. Ask your web host if they allow connections from WordPress.com. If you need further assistance, contact Jetpack Support: http://jetpack.me/support/

 
Your website needs to be publicly accessible to use Jetpack- site_inaccessible Error Details- The Jetpack server was unable to communicate with your site HTTP 404

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How to fix error ‘Safari can’t open page – because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy.’

Mandar Apte Apple, Apple macOS, Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress 3 Comments

Safari can’t open page - because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy

 
This happens to most of WordPress blogs when you sign in to your website’s Admin (wp-admin) page & whenever you try to navigate to different page or open a new page this error get displayed every time you do it.

 
Error: Safari can’t open page – because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again.

 
Here is how to fix this,

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Increasing page views per visit (session) ratio by sticky top navigation bar, here is how to create sticky navigation bar that becomes fixed to the top after scrolling

Mandar Apte Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress Leave a comment

It is well known tried & tested method to have sticky navigation bar at top when you have responsive website design & layout.

 
A fixed navigation bar at top helps mobile user or desktop website user to have fixed area where he can find navigation icons & links through which he can browse & navigate current website. Having fixed navigation bar at top helps webmaster to increase page views i.e. it helps webmaster to increase page views per visits ratio.

 
Yes, it occupies space at top but helps user to have navigation links handy whenever he want to browse the website. Space constraints only refer to mobile devices with small screen size.

 
Following is the code which help you to have fixed navigation bar. Copy paste following css code in your style.css

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Twitter Follow button is not loading or it is taking indefinite time to load, Here it is how to fix this with easy solution?

Mandar Apte Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress Leave a comment

To increase user interaction, web traffic & user sharing we all add Twitter Follow button to encourage user to follow the WebMaster on twitter to get future updates about new blog articles through Tweets on Twitter.

 
But few day back I found out that my website was facing problems due to single Twitter follow widget in sidebar it was taking 1 minute or more load it increased my page load time by 40 seconds on average.

 
So what I did was simple,

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How to fix WordPress Automatic Update Error called ‘[function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in’ & another error called ‘Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required’, ‘(include_path=’.:/usr/local/php-5.3.27/share/pear’)’.

Mandar Apte Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress 6 Comments

When WordPress.Org releases new update to it’s WordPress standalone CMS (Content Management System) for that you may have set your website to get your installation updated automatically or you may like to do it your self at your preferred time. What ever case may be.

 
But because of server load on part of your web host you may get error something like this with screwed up blank website with following error printed on screen:

 

Warning: require(/nfs/domains/your-domain-name.com/html/wp-includes/session.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /nfs/domains/your-domain-name.com/html/wp-settings.php on line 122

Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required '/nfs/domains/your-domain-name.com/html/wp-includes/session.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/php-5.3.27/share/pear') in /nfs/domains/your-domain-name.com/html/wp-settings.php on line 122

 

Real cause of above errors:

 
Above mentioned errors are generated because of interrupted WordPress updates mostly because of heavy load on your web host’s online server. As update fails all files mismatch with consistent version number so some old source files remains as it is & only remaining few get updated with new version. So it is problem of source code version consistency.

 
How to fix this:

 
Error 01: [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in

 
Error 02: Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required & (include_path=’.:/usr/local/php-5.3.27/share/pear’)

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How to Stop SPAM by blocking SPAM sender’s IP Address, An ultimate solution to block SPAM forever by using order allow deny ip in .htaccess

Mandar Apte Apple, Apple macOS, Open Source, Tutorials 1 Comment

Before Moving Forward Read Important Note Below:

 
.htaccess deny rules are meant to block web requests (HTTP, HTTPS) to the directory in which the .htaccess is placed. Spam messages are sent via SMTP, and this protocol is not affected by the .htaccess file on your website. The .htaccess file will only work to prevent these IP’s from visiting your website, but will not have any effect on their ability to send you e-mail via SMTP.

 
If they are using a form on your website to send the spam messages, this might still be a valid solution. Otherwise, it is extremely unlikely that this will resolve your problem. If you are unsure of how the spam messages are being sent, you can refer to the message headers of the spam you are receiving. Now note down IP address from where SPAM is being sent to your E Mail ID & then block those IP under SMTP block list inside your Mail Server settings.

 
Gone were the days when you have to read & reply only 2 to 3 emails a day. In today’s technology age if you are from IT (Information Technology) related company you may be receiving 50 emails a day & replying & writing same & 50 additional emails to peoples & colleagues.

 
But it gets worst when Spammer starts to send you 50 SPAM mails everyday & if you have email ID attached to your personal domain other than that’s of Yahoo! & Gmail then you are irritated & disgusted to hell as you are receiving 50 to 100 SPAM email without indication hoe to stop & unsubscribe from that.

 
In my case I was receiving 50 mails per day for 1 month & beyond i.e. for 45 days & I was already blocked 700 email IDs in email block list.

 
I even contacted my hosting service provider but no prevail they just run away from problem by saying blocking the address is only the solution & only advice & help they can provide.

 
So I investigated on my own & finally I found the solution,

 
& Here it was:

 

Note: I assume you are on Macintosh system using OSX or any other operating system with local email management client like ‘Apple Mail’.

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How to fix ‘Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content’ error on Google PageSpeed for your WordPress Website

Mandar Apte Google, Google AdSense, Google Analytics, Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress 7 Comments

Here is how you may want to tune up your WordPress website performance i.e. how much time it takes to download your website from server to your visitors’ computer, mobile or tablet.

 
In era of responsive design we tend to embed more than one Javascript or CSS files such as bootstrap css & js file bundles.

 
And if you have integrated third party advertising in your website then vendor like Google they add their own javascript file through their AdSense ad code that you can’t control.

 
But here is simple way out of this problem.

 

Important Note: Compressing, Minifying or Deferring Files may have adverse effect on functionality of website because of dependencies so first do following steps on your local server if everything looks to be working fine then you can update same files on Live servers. Just for safety & security purposes.

 

Here is example:

 
When you ‘Analyse’ your website on Google PageSpeed you get warning something like this:

 
Your page has 4 blocking script resources and 8 blocking CSS resources. This causes a delay in rendering your page.
None of the above-the-fold content on your page could be rendered without waiting for the following resources to load. Try to defer or asynchronously load blocking resources, or inline the critical portions of those resources directly in the HTML.

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How to change opacity or transparency of Background Color in CSS without affecting text, images or other web properties

Mandar Apte Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress Leave a comment

There are instances when you think that would be great idea if you can able to change opacity of background color of div without affecting text, image & other web properties present inside same div of HTML & CSS.

 
Yes, that is possible… Here is the Answer:

 
What you normally do is specify background color in CSS using hex i.e. Hexadecimal values like this:

 

.navbar {background-color: #ffffff;}

 
But if you use rgba to specify background color in CSS you can utilise it’s feature called Alpha i.e. RGBA is short form for Red – Green – Blue – Alpha

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How to enable HTTP persistent connection or HTTP keep-alive for your website for faster page speed using .htaccess file

Mandar Apte Apple, Apple macOS, Open Source, Tutorials, WordPress Leave a comment

As Wikipedia explains:

 

HTTP persistent connection, also called HTTP keep-alive, or HTTP connection reuse, is the idea of using a single TCP connection to send and receive multiple HTTP requests/responses, as opposed to opening a new connection for every single request/response pair. The newer SPDY protocol uses the same idea and takes it further to allow multiple concurrent requests/responses to be multiplexed over a single connection.

 

Note: I assume you have adequate knowledge of handling your server & server settings & you are well versed in your field

 
You can put following code in your .htaceess file which is available in your root of your server’s html folder

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