WordPress site hacked! How to Identify, search, and destroy malicious code

So recently when doing an update to a client’s site, I noticed some strange at the top of php file. Uh-oh, I’d seen this before and knew what that meant. The site was hacked. Expecting the worst, I logged into my site and started to identify, search, and destroy this code. Since the steps to do […]

What is Base64 Encoding, How Does it Work, and Why Should I Care?

The short answer is that Base64 can be a code obfuscator, a potential a code-envelope, or an digit shrinker. The good news is that although it does involve math, there are plenty of online tools to do all the repetitive boring stuff (what computers are good at). First, let’s looks at what is so magical about 64.

Why VARCHARs (Strings) make bad Keys.

keys

When you construct a database, you often have to make decisions based on incomplete information. Oftentimes you’re given a small subset of data and you have to decide what kind of datatype goes where, how entities naturally link to each other and when to denormalize.

There’s one debate when it comes to building out tables for databases and that’s what do you use as the key.