As you may or may not know, I’m a keen a musician and arranger. In my spare time I like to record my brass quintet arrangements and publish regular multitrack videos on my YouTube channel. With so many musicians and music teachers isolated at home right now, I’ve been getting a heavy stream of questions…
How to play vinyl over bluetooth speakers
Have you ever wanted to play your vinyl records over a wireless bluetooth speaker? I have a high quality Bose sound system at home – it has excellent sound, plus is completely wireless. So it really bugged me to add a bunch of wires, or potentially even a separate amp + speakers just for the…
How to solve problem renewing SSL certificate when using cPanel AutoSSL and Cloudflare
Are you having problems renewing an SSL certificate using cPanel’s AutoSSL feature on a domain which is also using Cloudflare? Read on for a solution, and an explanation for why this happens. The Symptoms Typically, you’ll be alerted to the fact that your SSL certificate is having problems renewing or has expired when you receive…
Combating automated spam and human spam in Gravity Forms submissions
Spam is one of the banes of the internet. 🙁 Here are some quick tips for how to combat automated spam and human spam in Gravity forms submissions. Combating automated spam: Turn on the anti-spam honeypot located in the Advanced Form settings. Edit your form, go to Form Settings (hover over the title/description area and…
Block brute force on wp-login with CloudFlare page rules
As a WordPress user, developer or web host you may have experienced the pain of a brute force attack targeting wp-login.php. What is a brute force attack? It’s when a malicious script hammers your wp-login.php page, trying usernames and passwords, over and over again, trying to break in. If you have a weak username or password,…
Resizing images for WordPress – How do you get images looking good in WordPress?
WordPress is quite smart and does it’s best to resize images on the fly, but if the image has very different dimensions to the space, WordPress will either severely crop, stretch or squash the image to make it fit the space. It is after all, only a computer program. 😉 For best effects, you should…
New Plugin: Email Text Customizer for WooCommerce
Email Text Customizer for WooCommerce is a simple WordPress plugin allowing you to customize the text of all WooCommerce emails without having to delve into template code. Why Email Text Customizer? I’ve been working with several clients recently who run popular online stores powered by WooCommerce. In all three cases, the site owners wanted to edit…
New plugin: Sticky Side Buttons
Today I published my 16th free WordPress plugin, Sticky Side Buttons. The plugin is simple and functional, allowing you to create one or more floating buttons that stick to the side of your site as the user scrolls. Use it for sticking information like phone number, email address, social icons, store locations etc. Why Sticky Side Buttons? The…
Simple website in 2 hours on a $400 budget! Sela theme + custom colour
Today I was asked to whip up a simple website with a budget of $400, and only a few hours to do it. Here’s the result: heikefowler.com.au The site uses the free Sela theme from wordpress.org which I chose because it’s free, it’s minimalist (making it simple & quick to customise), it’s clean and professional (which suits the client’s style) and…
How to install SSL on a WordPress site
Step 1 – Install an SSL certificate This is done at a server level (via your cPanel). Most hosts make free SSL certificates available using a service called “Let’s Encrypt” or another equivalent provider. These free certificates are ‘domain validated’ and offer a sufficient level of protection for personal sites and small business sites where…