Abhishek Deshpande

Category: Technology

  • PHPCamp: An Unconference for PHP Enthusiasts

    PHPCamp: An Unconference for PHP Enthusiasts

    Are you passionate about PHP? Do you love coding and want to connect with like-minded individuals in a dynamic and collaborative setting? Then mark your calendars, because PHPCamp is making a comeback after more than a decade!

    What is PHPCamp?

    PHPCamp is an unconference where PHP developers, enthusiasts, and experts gather to share knowledge, network, and collaborate. Unlike traditional conferences, an unconference is participant-driven, meaning attendees get to propose, vote on, and lead sessions.

    Why Attend PHPCamp?

    • Learn from Peers: Participate in sessions led by fellow PHP enthusiasts who share their insights and experiences. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced developer, there’s something for everyone.
    • Networking Opportunities: Meet and connect with fellow PHP enthusiasts from around the world. Exchange ideas, discuss projects, and maybe even find your next collaborator or mentor.
    • Hands-On Workshops: Engage in interactive workshops designed to enhance your skills. Get practical experience and learn new techniques that you can apply to your projects.
    • Stay Updated: Keep up with the latest trends and advancements in the PHP world. Learn about new tools, frameworks, and best practices that can help you become a better developer.

    Event Highlights

    • Participant-Driven Sessions: Propose and vote on sessions that matter to you. Whether you want to lead a session or simply participate, your voice matters.
    • Interactive Discussions: Engage in lively discussions on a wide range of topics, from basic PHP to advanced concepts.
    • Coding Challenges: Test your skills and compete with other developers in fun and challenging coding competitions.
    • Networking Events: Social gatherings, meetups, and networking lunches to help you connect with other attendees.

    My First Unconference Experience

    This year marks my first time attending an unconference, and I couldn’t be more excited. The unique format where participants drive the content makes it a truly collaborative and enriching experience. I’m looking forward to learning from my peers, sharing my own insights, and being part of a vibrant community. I’m especially thrilled to lead a session on “Transforming Legacy PHP Projects” where I’ll share strategies and best practices for modernizing old codebases.

    Interesting Topics at PHPCamp

    PHPCamp will feature a variety of fascinating topics, including:

    • Drupal/WordPress: Discover the latest developments and best practices in using Drupal/WordPress with PHP.
    • Site Reliability Engineering (SRE): Learn how to enhance the reliability and scalability of your PHP applications. Prometheus Monitoring is one I look forward to explore.
    • AI with PHP: Explore how artificial intelligence can be integrated with PHP to create smarter applications.
    • Open Source: Discuss the importance of open source in the PHP community and how we can contribute.
    • Headless CMS: Understand the benefits of using headless content management systems with PHP for flexible and efficient web development.
    • React, Inertia.js, Laravel and many more interesting sessions.

    How to Register

    Registering for PHPCamp is easy. Visit the official PHPCamp website, fill out the registration form, and secure your spot.

    Get ready for an unforgettable experience at PHPCamp. Whether you’re looking to learn, network, or simply have fun, this unconference has it all. After the last PHPCamp in 2011, this event is set to be a remarkable return.

    Date: 8th June 2024
    Venue: 5th Floor, MCCIA Tower, SB Road, Pune

    See you in Pune!

  • How to Prevent AI from Mining Your Site’s Data

    How to Prevent AI from Mining Your Site’s Data

    Do you want to share your website’s public content with AI robots for Generative AI or other Artificial intelligence for AI Training? If No, then this article is for you.

    Disclaimer:

    The insights in this article are based on information available at the time of writing. As the digital landscape evolves, so may the relevance of this advice. I encourage you to do your research to stay informed. I’m not liable for any changes after publication or the content of external links.

    In the past few days, there has been a rumour about Tumblr and WordPress.com being in talks about a deal with AI companies like OpenAI and Midjourney. The deal is about the blog’s content for AI Training. For now, there is no official statement from any of the companies, according to TheVerge

    WordPress ecosystem has two sides.

    One is WordPress.com, run by Automattic, which has a privacy option that disallows AI bots to parse the data. Read more about the Privacy Options.

    wordpress.com privacy settings

    Those who do not use it might have already shared or will share the data with AI Training.

    The second side is WordPress.org, which the WordPress Foundation manages. Self hosted WordPress has no privacy options for the bots yet.

    I’m a self-hosted WordPress user, I don’t worry about it. But if you think it’s important to protect your data from AI Bots, you can use the following two ways.

    1. Using robots.txt
      If you have ever updated robots.txt, use Darkvisitors robots.txt builder to generate AI bots-related agent data and update your robots.txt to add one layer of protection from bots to your site.
    1. Using ai.txt
      ai.txt is specific to AI Bots and works on the same mechanism as robots.txt. Check out the Spawning ai.txt generator that restricts or permits using your site’s content for AI training.

    In my opinion, anything published to the public should be open to all, whether it be a bot or a human. In the end, humans are using Generative AI for various activities.

    Happy Blogging 😉

  • Disable the Gravity Forms Widget in WordPress Dashboard

    If you have too many gravity forms and too much data in form entries, you might face a 5-6 sec slowdown.

    Adding the following snippet to your code snippet or function file to remove the dashboard widget will resolve the slowdown.

    function ad_remove_dashboard_widgets() {

	remove_meta_box('rg_forms_dashboard','dashboard','normal');
}
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'ad_remove_dashboard_widgets' );
  • Help google Identify the type of Links on your Website.

    Help google Identify the type of Links on your Website.

    It was Google’s birthday this month. Guess that’s the reason why Google is on release spree. Throughout this month, Google introduced many new features. Also discontinued some features in search and associated tools. I’ll write a post on each feature release as possible with impacts as and when shared by people.

    For this post let’s talk about Link Relationships.
    On 10th Sept 2019, Google Announced, that google is evolving link relationship attribute. NoFollow and DoFollow are the known attributes in Search Engine Friendly Sites ecosystem.

    Link Relationship work as Hints to google. It helps google understanding how to treat the link. Now Google announced two new attributes “UGC” & “sponsored”.

    rel=”sponsored” is to be used for in-content, adverts or any compensated link.

    “UGC” is for User Generated Content. rel=” UGC” is used for links in the Comment section or any content that is submitted by End-user. This is a good move as someday this will reduce the value of a link in comments. we can call it a step towards comments Spam.

    Google is respecting anyone who is started implementing these attributes, the impact might be seen after March 1, 2020.

    Here’s how to put in place before time.

    For rel=”sponsored”
    if you are running ads based on some Ad Network, then you don’t need to worry about it. if you are having some in-content sponsored links then you need to Update the Code Manually.

    For rel=”UGC”
    If you have any custom User-generated Content display, then updating links with rel=”UGC” is recommended. If you are using WordPress like me, then the Comments area is one which needs to be updated. You can install plugins WP Add Rel=”UGC” to Comments to your WordPress site. I know this feature should be a part of WordPress core, which is in process. UGC support will be added to Upcoming WordPress 5.3 which is scheduled to be released on 12th November 2019. Till then you can use the plugin mentioned above.

    For Beginners, who have no idea what ‘rel’ attribute is in the Link tag.
    rel value indicates the relationship of the target link from the website link is on. There are many existing Rel values. Some are acquaintance, alternate, bookmark, contact, colleague, copyrights and many more. You can find more about it on Microformats Official Documents.

  • WP Curtain Raiser 0.2 Released

    WP Curtain Raiser 0.2 Released

    Two years ago, I released a plugin on the WordPress repository which adds Curtain Raiser feature to your website for the Inaugural Ceremony.

    In India, an inaugural ceremony for Official Website is the most common thing for NGO’s and Government. This plugin is for those who need to add curtain raiser feature to the website for such an Inaugural Ceremony.

    What’s New in Version 0.2
    Version 0.2 has Solution for Static Home pages.

    A year ago Arvind, Friend from Mumbai WordPress Community Called me and shared the Issue. Version 0.1 works well with the site with a blog index as a homepage. When you load static page as the homepage, it loads curtains but loads blog index instead of the static page. Samir shared quick snippet to resolve it, and there is 0.2 available for Download.

    I look forward to hearing your feedback on it.

  • Peer certificate CN did not match expected!

    I was Configuring WP Mail SMTP Plugin for WordPress on client site. Default PHP mail function works well, but a couple of users reported mail getting delivered in the SPAM folder. So we decided to route mailing one of the Official ID using SMTP.

    We installed Plugin, Configured credentials. The task was like 10 min work, and the test mail was a failure. We had SMTP connect() failed Error in Debug Log. Found out it was a misconfiguration at the Server based on following Quotes found on Forums.

    “Note that the default value of SSLProxyCheckPeerCN is off in httpd 2.2.x and on in httpd 2.4.x. Note that SSLProxyCheckPeerExpire and SSLProxyCheckPeerName also now default to on in 2.4.”

    And

    check SSL module mod_ssl.so is loaded in httpd.conf

    Everything was just fine in httpd.conf which is auto-generated in Cpanel/WHM. So on searching Cpanel Support Forum Found out, there’s Hardening Setting in WHM > SMTP Restriction. So if you are stuck with it, make sure to disable it. SMTP will work like Charm.

  • My New Project: Good Finds

    My New Project: Good Finds

    While people are still posting about Ten Year Challenge Pics, I’m taking baby steps with the trend. For those who know me from my college days, I use to Post Tips and Tricks on my blogspot blog which started of curiosity of sharing good finds.

    In 2009, I took my first job and had a slowdown in blogging career. Finding new stuff, sharing that free and crazy stuff with friends holds rare pleasure. Over the years, I saw many cool tools, blogging about them remained in the draft.

    So In 2019, I’ve created a list on Github of such crazy things for Bloggers, Marketers and Developers. Here’s the link to Good Finds on GitHub.

    If you have any cool tool, feel free to Send Pull Request or share in Comment.

  • WordPress 5.0 Survival Kit

    WordPress 5.0 – Codename Bebo (for Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés) was released a day before yesterday. With many changes in WordPress Core, New Editor – Gutenberg replaced the Old classic TinyMCE Editor, which is an excellent move towards easy editing.

    Yesterday I upgraded my websites and Clients website to WP 5.0. With No Hassle, everything seems working fine to me. But I found little distress in Users about change in Interface, which is widespread resistance to change behaviour. Also saw some developers spreading rumours about Gutenberg is going to break your website. So here’s my Survival Kit for those who feel they can’t upgrade to 5.0.

    Following methods are for your Safely transition to WordPress 5.0

    1. Install a Classic Editor Plugin

    This one brings back the TinyMCE editor to your Latest Version of WordPress.

    2. Update the WordPress Settings to use classic Editor and don’t allow any of your user to switch to Gutenberg. Settings is available in Dashboard Left Menu > Settings Section > Writing.

    3. Install another Plugin: Fatal Error Notify

    This one will Notify you if you have any Errors in your website. So once you update to 5.0, this plugin will keep track of upcoming Errors. Don’t Forget to enter your mail id in this Plugins notification section.

    WordPress Releases are not just about features, and it comes with many security and bug fixes if you are one of those, who are not upgrading to WordPress 5.0 with fear that Gutenberg is going to break your site. You are keeping yourself vulnerable.

    With above three things you can continue your WP Journey without worry. Let your developer think about what mess he has developed that is not compatible with Latest release.

    Happy WordPressing 🙂

  • Resource for your Next WordPress (Theme) Site

    I don’t know How I left this Post pending in draft, While starting another project was searching for this post, and it was it Draft. In Jan 2018, when I was done with #WPMeta Website, I drafted this one.

    Here are some resources I used to code #WPMeta Website.

    1. Underscores (_s) – Starter theme
    Underscore is starter theme with all latest standards of WordPress system. Components provide the choice of multiple structures.

    2. Coolers – Color Scheme Generator
    Not Being Designer, I have a bad taste in colour combinations. Last time I was coding a theme, I used Kuler by Adobe, pretty complicated to use. Coolers.co, way to easy compared to Kuler.

    3. Mixfont – Font Combination generator
    Fonts combination is another UI part where I lack a lot. Mixfont is easy to go, test multiple Google fonts with each other.

    4. Fontello – Icon fonts generator
    Fontello is open source icon fonts generator. Remember the moment when you load font awesome library just for two icons. You are wasting your & users bandwidth. Just select your desired icons, build

    Do let me know what tools you like to use for your custom theme development.

     

  • Developing WordPress Frontend with Chrome Developer Tools

    This is a proposed outline for WordCamp Mumbai 2018 Speaker Application.

    I’m yet to post about my talks at WordCamp Kanpur and Ahmedabad, both are in the draft along with a long list of heading items that need detailing. So Instead of putting topics in the draft and piling them, decided to publish and continue as a series of Blog posts.

    Intended Audience: Designers / Developers
    Level of Understanding: Beginner / Intermediate

    The audience may already be familiar with the basic features of the Chrome Developer Tools: the DOM inspector, styles panel, and JavaScript console. But there are a number of lesser-known features that can dramatically improve workflows.

    This session will be demo based, will cover DevTools demo around following Topics:

    • Console Tricks for Debugging
    • Event Listeners
    • Accessibility checks
    • Workspaces for quick local development
    • Network throttling for testing your web on low-speed users
    • Performance tuning of a web page
    • and some tricks from Animation, Sensors & Rendering Tabs of DevTools.

    Whether stepping through JavaScript, Debugging CSS, Testing REST API calls, or auditing page performance, the window of Chrome’s DevTools is there to help.

    Whether I’ll be speaking or not at WordCamp Mumbai is not sure as its always hard for Organizers to Select sessions amongst so many awesome topics maintaining Attendees Flow of learning. I’ll make sure to post these tricks here on my blog.

    [Update – 06-04-2018]

    I had One hour Session at WordCamp Mumbai 2018, it was great experience for me, Thanks to Organizing team and Attendees. I’m yet to write detailed post about these tricks but you can find code demonstrated at my Github Repo. Please refer Notepad Point.txt (it has the flow we used in session)and Codes folder (for actual codes).