bob matyas

New Version of Block AI Crawlers Plugin I released a new version of my Block AI Crawlers WordPress plugin. It adds a few new crawlers and updates handling of some others. Here are the changes: 1.5.6 – 02/15/2026 Fix: Update Claude blocking New: Block MistralAI-user New: Block LinerBot New: Block Google-CloudVertexBot New: Block VelenPublicWebCrawler

I released a new version of my Block AI Crawlers WordPress plugin.

New Version of Block AI Crawlers Plugin I released a new version of my Block AI Crawlers WordPress plugin. It adds a few new crawlers and updates handling of some others. Here are the changes: 1.5.6 – 02/15/2026 Fix: Update Claude blocking New: Block MistralAI-user New: Block LinerBot New: Block Google-CloudVertexBot New: Block VelenPublicWebCrawler

I released a new version of my Block AI Crawlers WordPress plugin.

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Whenever I setup a new Cloudflare Pages instance I get confused and start deploying a Worker, run into failing builds, get frustrated, and then realize I missed a little “Looking to deploy Pages? Get Started” link on the bottom of the screen. 😡

https://wp.me/paBqch-kM

I recently listened to the first podcast in a new series titled “How the Got Owned”. It’s a documentary series taking a historical look at hacking throughout the decades. The first episode covered the 1980s and it was an interesting discussion about early computer networking, law, and the emerging…

Configuring Proton SMTP for Reliable WordPress Emails I recently learned that my preferred email provider — Proton — has the ability to send emails via SMTP now. This is something that other mail providers offer, if I’m going to implement it, I’d prefer not to route my emails (and potentially emails from others via contact forms) outside of the Proton ecosystem. As a quick improvement, I decided to configure Proton SMTP for my site.

Configuring Proton SMTP for Reliable WordPress Emails

I recently learned that my preferred email provider — Proton — has the ability to send emails via SMTP now. This is something that other mail providers offer, if I’m going to implement it, I’d prefer not to route my emails (and potentially…

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The Chrome CSS Wrapped 2025 is my favorite of the various “wrapped” roundups that I have seen this year. It’s exciting to see how far CSS has come in the past year. I definitely look forward to trying out some of these features soon.

https://wp.me/paBqch-dz

Using TizenTube for Ad Free YouTube Viewing on Samsung TVs I don’t watch a lot of YouTube on my television, but whenever I do, I’m always amazed by the number of ads that interrupt even short video clips. In the past, I have solved this by using SmartTube (an app for Android that removes ads and sponsor segments) on an Amazon Kindle Fire Stick. However, I recently needed to implement an ad blocking solution on a second television, and I’d rather not purchase another Fire Stick.

Using TizenTube for Ad Free YouTube Viewing on Samsung TVs

New Version of Block AI Crawlers Plugin Released I recently published a new version of my Block AI Crawlers WordPress plugin. It’s built to be an easy way to give site owners the option to block AI bots and crawlers from accessing their site. It does this by adding robots.txt entries asking known AI bots not to crawl your site.  If someone doesn’t want their content used to train an LLM, I think it’s fair to give them that option.

I released a new version of my "Block AI Crawlers" plugin for WordPress.

Why I Migrated from Astro to WordPress: My Experience I recently migrated my personal site from Astro (a JavaScript-based static site generator) to WordPress. I’d been happily running my site on Astro for a while, but over time I found myself missing the convenience and integrated tooling that I use every day in my WordPress work. I really like WordPress, I think it’s a great — probably even the greatest — option for many websites.

Why I Migrated from Astro to WordPress: My Experience

I recently migrated my personal site from Astro (a JavaScript-based static site generator) to WordPress. I’d been happily running my site on Astro for a while, but over time I found myself missing the convenience and integrated tooling that I…

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I always enjoy listening to Syntax’s “Spooky Stories” podcasts. Each year they share web dev horror stories. From dropped databases to deploys gone wrong, the episodes are always a good listen: https://syntax.fm/show/950/even-scarier-web-dev-nightmares-spooky-stories-pt-2

https://wp.me/paBqch-5E