Since Twitter is requiring OAuth authorization for all API 1.1 requests, I had to modify the function which automatically refreshed my Twitter follower and tweet count every hour (caching it using WordPress’ Transients API). The workhorse for this function is Abraham Williams’ OAuth PHP library.
The CDNJS repository (powered by Cloudflare) claims to “host everything” (within reason based on popularity) and has faster response times than either Google or Microsoft’s much more limited content delivery networks (CDNs). There several WordPress plugins which automatically redirect script requests to CDNJS, but for the sake of optimization, there’s no…
Minimizing HTTP requests is one of the “rules” of general web optimization. Data uniform resource identifier (URI) schemes provide a great way to embed images within a page without requiring an HTTP request for each image. I used the data URI method to create a social bar (in this site’s…
Woopra Analytics allows administrators to exclude statistics based on a number of criteria (IP address, user names, etc.) However, for websites with only one administrator, a better approach would be to prevent loading the Woopra javascript (JS) in the first place whenever the admin accesses the site.
I browse through the blogosphere regularly, and it’s interesting to note how many webmasters have a section dedicated to the social networking. Whether it’s helping you find them on Facebook or Last.fm, or allowing you to share a particular page/post on Digg or Slashdot, the idea of social networking is…
To further modify my rendition of StudioPress’ Streamline theme, I implemented a tabbed sidebar. By doing so, I was able to display the same amount of information (recent posts, most commented posts, recent comments, etc.) without occupying as much screen real estate. Furthermore, tabbed menus prevent a visitor from being…
I came across a situation where I had to go through my WordPress database to update the URL information for one of my frequent commenters in light of his new domain name. Rather than modifying each of his comments one by one, I sought a single database query that would…
I used to solely employ Akismet to quarantine spam comments on RK.md, but after receiving hundreds of spam comments per day, a better solution was necessary. I sifted through the plugin repository and came across new preventative measures to eliminate spam in a slightly different way – by not allowing…
After trying out some new optimization schemes on this site, I was curious as to how concerned other bloggers are about the quality of their site’s performance. Using a Firefox plugin called YSlow (an extension to the Firebug plugin), my MacBook and I traversed the vast blogosphere in search of…