Journal

Notes from
the work.

Practical thoughts on building better websites, solving the awkward problems, and keeping things running.

Rows of physical servers with metal ventilation grilles, status lights and Ethernet cables in a working server room.

PHP2SHELL: what happened and how to secure your WordPress site

PHP2SHELL exposed a risk below WordPress itself. Understand the October 2026 incident, the PHP patches and follow-up advisory, and the security checks every site owner should make.

A laptop and connected portable backup drive on a naturally lit wooden work desk.

How to update WordPress without breaking your live site

A practical workflow for WordPress updates: prepare a recoverable backup, test a staging copy, check the journeys that matter, and plan a safe release.

A laptop displaying a WPForms contact-form confirmation with the generated eight-digit request ID 88045722.

Update field value before submission in WPForms

Use the wpforms_process_filter hook to update a hidden field before a form submission is processed.

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