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Notes from the Riksi studio in Melbourne. Plain guides on WordPress, Shopify, front-end code, speed and the tools I use every day.

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Dev log Performance Core Web Vitals in plain English: LCP, INP and CLS What the three Core Web Vitals measure, the numbers that count as good, how to measure them on real visitors, and the fixes that help most on WordPress sites. September 25, 2026 5 min read

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Dev log Security Security headers for WordPress, without a plugin Five HTTP headers that close common holes in a WordPress site. The few lines of PHP I use to send them, and how to check they work. September 25, 2026 4 min read

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Dev log Accessibility WCAG 2.2: the nine new success criteria and how to meet them WCAG 2.2 added nine new rules and removed one. Here is what each new rule asks for, which ones count at level AA, and the code I use to meet them. September 25, 2026 6 min read

A robots.txt example for search and AI crawlers

Dev log SEO & AI search How AI search finds your site: crawlers, robots.txt and llms.txt AI answers start with a crawler. I explain which bots fetch your pages, which ones train models, and how I let AI search in without giving away content. September 25, 2026 5 min read

A browser open at homeassistant.local:8123 next to a small single-board computer

Diary Smart home Install Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi Put Home Assistant OS on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with Raspberry Pi Imager, boot it on Ethernet, finish setup at homeassistant.local:8123 and turn on backups. June 11, 2021 4 min read

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Dev log Shopify Fix the Shopify app ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE “key” error The "key argument must be of type string... Received undefined" error in a Shopify app means your API secret isn't loaded. I explain why, and how to fix it. April 28, 2020 4 min read

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The folder layout Deployer creates on the server

Lesson Guides Deployer, the PHP deployment tool: get started Deployer puts PHP sites live with no downtime and rolls back with one command. Install it, write a deploy.php, deploy a Laravel or WordPress site and roll back. March 21, 2020 3 min read

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Dev log PHP How to increase the PHP memory limit (and WordPress too) Fix "Allowed memory size exhausted" by raising memory_limit in php.ini, .user.ini or .htaccess, or WP_MEMORY_LIMIT in wp-config.php. Then check which one wins. February 15, 2020 4 min read

Ex-GST sums: $110 divided by 1.1 is $100, so the GST is $10

Trick Everyday How to calculate an ex-GST price in Australia Divide the GST-inclusive price by 1.1 to get the ex-GST price, or divide it by 11 to get the GST. So $110 is $100 plus $10 GST. February 1, 2020 4 min read

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Dev log WordPress How to add /blog/ to WordPress post URLs Put /blog/ in front of every post URL with a custom permalink structure. Keep custom post types out of it with with_front, and keep old links working. January 20, 2020 4 min read

Terminal showing wsl --install

Trick Terminal Use the Linux command line on Windows 11 and 10 with WSL Open PowerShell as administrator, run wsl --install and restart. You get Ubuntu with a real bash shell, running alongside Windows. November 19, 2019 4 min read