Security-centered from concept to post-launch Patching

There are many aspects to a site that can ultimately become vulnerabilities, a way for bad-guys to cause damage (or worse) to your site.  Many website owners are aware of the importance of keeping the software within their websites (think core, theme, and plugin files on WordPress sites) as up to date as can be managed.  Unfortunately even keeping the software update isn’t always enough to keep more determined, skillful black-hat hackers/bad-guys from breaking your site.

In my approach to developing any applications that face the public web I practice the defense-in-depth method, which means multiple layers of security from Google’s reCAPTCHA on the login and registration pages to user-input cleaning; regular database maintenance and basic internal software upkeep is naturally involved, but, unfortunately, even the best laid plans of security experts and application developers cannot deny that a determined-enough hacker can still often find unforeseen vulnerabilities thus along with keeping the site secure from within and from the server side I also maintain regular backups of more than one kind.

Plugins

Site closed.
After considerable consultation the owners of ImpactChem.com felt they needed something that looked more their own than a simple Google Map showing the locations of their facilities, so I created a combination image over a jQuery-driven HTML map that upon hovering over a city on the map the user can see the address details in the bottom left corner.

Demonstration available on request.

As a means of offering site visitors for dfwnorml.org an easy means to contact their various elected officials I developed a plugin that makes looking those representatives’ contact details easier to access than ever.

See it in action:
https://norml.cosmosandcannabis.com/contact-your-reps-now

Restorations, conversions, contributions

A close friend asked to have their static HTML site converted to WordPress.

Site went out due to COVID.