We’re excited to introduce our free SVG QR code generator that’s as easy as pie and doesn’t require any sign-up whatsoever.

Why SVG?

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is the go-to format for anyone who values print quality and versatility. Unlike pixel-based formats, SVGs ensure that your QR code remains crisp and clear no matter how much you scale it. Whether you’re printing a large poster or adding a tiny code to a business card, SVGs maintain the integrity of your design. That’s why we chose to create a QR code generator that provides SVG output, ensuring professional quality every time.

How Does It Work?

With our free SVG QR code generator simply enter the text or URL you want to encode, hit ‘Generate’, and voilà – your QR code is ready to be downloaded as an SVG file. It’s built directly into our website, so you can create QR codes from any device, anytime.

No Sign-Up, No Fuss

These days a QR code generator should be accessible, free and easy to use. That’s why our QR code generator is completely free and doesn’t require any sign-up. You won’t need to enter your email address or create an account. We respect your privacy and your time – it’s all about getting you the tools you need with no strings attached.

Give It a Try!

Say goodbye to the hassle of sign-ups and hello to the simplicity of our free SVG QR code generator. Try it out for yourself and see just how easy it is to create high-quality QR codes for all your needs. Visit Thrive Web’s QR Code Generator and start creating today!

The post Free SVG QR Code Generator appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

Why is this useful? We use to help combat spam and fraudulent entries, also knowing where your users are can help you better understand and serve your audience. If you’re seeing a lot of form submissions from Australia, for instance, maybe it’s time to think about tailoring some of your content or offers to appeal to your Aussie visitors.

The plugin is super simple to use. It introduces a new merge tag: {user:country}. When someone fills out a form, the tag is replaced by the country of the user’s IP address. It’s all powered by IPStack, a nifty IP geolocation service.

To get started, you’ll need to install the plugin and pop your IPStack access key into the IPLocation Settings on your WordPress dashboard. After that, you’re good to go and can use the {user:country} merge tag in your forms. You can make a free key here https://ipstack.com

Once it’s activated and you have added your key in the settings. You need to manually create a hidden form field and add the new merge tag: {user:country} in the advanced section. See below.

That’s about it! We hope you find this little plugin helpful.

Give it a whirl, and let us know what you think.

Wanna give it a go? Download the plugin here and we have a Github repo here

The post Gravity Forms IP Location Add-On appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a method for email authentication that allows the recipient to verify that an email message was actually sent by the domain it claims to be from, and that the message has not been altered in transit.

Here’s how DKIM works:

1. The sending mail server generates a digital signature for the email message. This signature is based on the contents of the message header and body, as well as a private key that is unique to the sending domain.
2. The signature is added to the message header as a DKIM-Signature field.
3. When the email message is received by the recipient’s mail server, the server retrieves the public key for the sending domain from DNS (Domain Name System) records.
4. The server uses the public key to decrypt the digital signature in the DKIM-Signature field and verify that the signature is valid. If the signature is not valid or cannot be verified, the email may be rejected or marked as spam.

By using DKIM, email receivers can trust that the email was indeed sent by the domain it claims to be from, and that the message has not been tampered with in transit. This helps to prevent email spoofing and phishing attacks, which can be used to trick users into divulging sensitive information or downloading malware.

How does the server retrieve the public key?

When an email message is received, the receiving mail server can retrieve the public key for the sending domain from DNS (Domain Name System) records.

The public key is published in a DNS TXT record under a specific subdomain, typically named “default._domainkey”. The subdomain is created by the domain owner and contains a public key in the form of a long string of characters.

For example, if the sender’s domain is “example.com”, the receiving mail server can query the DNS for the TXT record of “default._domainkey.example.com”. The TXT record contains the public key that the receiving mail server needs to verify the signature on the email message.

Once the receiving mail server has retrieved the public key from the DNS record, it can use it to decrypt the digital signature in the DKIM-Signature field and verify the authenticity of the email message.

What if default._domainkey is not the user?

If the “default._domainkey” subdomain does not exist or is not set up for the sending domain, DKIM verification will fail, and the email message may be rejected or marked as spam.

In order for DKIM to work correctly, the domain owner must publish the DKIM public key in a DNS TXT record under the “default._domainkey” subdomain. The public key must be generated by the domain owner and should be kept secret, as it is used to generate the digital signatures for all outgoing email messages.

If the domain owner has not set up DKIM, or if the DKIM configuration is incorrect, DKIM verification will fail, and the email may be treated as suspicious or fraudulent. In such cases, the recipient mail server may apply additional anti-spam or anti-phishing measures, or the email may be rejected outright.

Why is it called default._domainkey?

The subdomain “default._domainkey” is the default name used for the DKIM public key record in DNS. This naming convention is specified in the original DKIM standard (RFC 4871).

The subdomain name is constructed using the literal string “default._domainkey” followed by the domain name of the sender. The subdomain name is used to identify the DKIM public key record in DNS and allows for multiple DKIM keys to be published for different purposes or subdomains.

For example, if a domain owner wants to use different DKIM keys for different email services, they can publish separate keys under different subdomains. They might use “mail._domainkey” for their email service and “news._domainkey” for their newsletter service, for instance.

In summary, the “default._domainkey” subdomain is the default naming convention for DKIM public key records in DNS, and it helps identify the public key for a specific domain name.

Suppose they use different DKIM keys. How does the mail server know what they are?

When a receiving mail server receives an email message, it looks up the DKIM public key for the sender’s domain in DNS by querying the “default._domainkey” subdomain, as we discussed earlier.

However, it’s possible for a domain owner to use different DKIM keys for different subdomains or email services. In that case, the domain owner would need to create separate DKIM public key records for each subdomain or email service, and publish them in DNS under their corresponding subdomain.

For example, if a domain owner has two subdomains: “mail.example.com” and “news.example.com”, they could publish two separate DKIM public key records in DNS under the “mail._domainkey.example.com” and “news._domainkey.example.com” subdomains respectively.

When an email message is received, the receiving mail server can query the appropriate DKIM public key record in DNS based on the domain or subdomain from which the message was sent. By using the correct DKIM public key, the receiving mail server can verify the digital signature and determine whether the message is authentic and has not been tampered with in transit.

In summary, if a domain owner uses different DKIM keys for different subdomains or email services, they must publish separate DKIM public key records in DNS for each one. The receiving mail server can then look up the appropriate DKIM key in DNS based on the domain or subdomain from which the email was sent.

Suppose the public key is incorrect. Can you find the domain it’s connected to?

If the public key in a DKIM signature is incorrect or invalid, it may not be possible to determine the domain it is associated with directly from the signature. However, DKIM signatures include information about the domain used to generate the signature, so it may be possible to identify the associated domain by examining the DKIM signature header.

The “d=” tag in the DKIM signature header specifies the signing domain that is responsible for generating the DKIM signature. The receiving mail server can use this information to query DNS and retrieve the DKIM public key for the associated domain.

If the DKIM public key retrieved from DNS does not match the public key in the DKIM signature, the email may be treated as suspicious or fraudulent, and additional anti-spam or anti-phishing measures may be applied.

In summary, if the public key in a DKIM signature is incorrect, it may be possible to identify the associated domain by examining the DKIM signature header and retrieving the DKIM public key from DNS. However, this may not always be possible, and DKIM verification may fail if the public key is invalid or cannot be retrieved.

How do you generate a private key?

To generate a private key for DKIM, you can use a cryptographic key generation tool, such as OpenSSL. Here are the basic steps to generate a private key:

1. Install OpenSSL on your system, if it is not already installed.
2. Open a command prompt or terminal window.
3. Type the following command to generate a private key:

openssl genrsa -out private.key 2048

This command generates a 2048-bit RSA private key and saves it to a file named “private.key” in the current directory.

4. Securely store the private key. You should keep the private key in a safe place and protect it from unauthorized access. It’s also a good idea to create a backup copy of the private key and store it in a separate location.

Once you have generated the private key, you can use it to generate the DKIM signature for your outgoing email messages. The public key corresponding to the private key should be published in a DNS TXT record under the “default._domainkey” subdomain of the sending domain, as we discussed earlier, so that recipients can verify the authenticity of the email messages.

Where is the private key stored?

The private key generated for DKIM is a sensitive piece of information that should be stored securely to prevent unauthorized access. Typically, the private key is stored in a file on the server that is responsible for sending email on behalf of the domain. The location of the private key file can vary depending on the email server software being used, but it is usually located in a specific directory, such as “/etc/opendkim/keys” for OpenDKIM.

It is important to ensure that the private key file is only accessible by the email server software and authorized administrators. To achieve this, file permissions should be set so that only the owner of the file (i.e., the email server user) has read and write access, and other users have no access to the file.

It’s also a good idea to create a backup copy of the private key and store it in a secure location, such as an encrypted USB drive or a password-protected cloud storage service. This ensures that you have a copy of the private key in case the original file is lost or becomes corrupted.

How do you generate a public key?

To generate a public key for DKIM, you need to use the private key that you generated earlier. Here are the basic steps to generate a public key:

1. Open a command prompt or terminal window.

2. Type the following command to generate the public key:

openssl rsa -in private.key -outform PEM -pubout -out public.key

This command reads the private key file “private.key”, and generates a corresponding public key in PEM format, which is saved to a file named “public.key” in the current directory.

3. Securely store the public key. The public key should be published in a DNS TXT record under the “default._domainkey” subdomain of the sending domain, as we discussed earlier. You should also keep a backup copy of the public key in a safe place, in case it needs to be re-published or updated.

Once you have generated the public key, you can publish it in DNS, and use it to generate DKIM signatures for your outgoing email messages. The private key corresponding to the public key should be kept securely on the server that is responsible for sending email on behalf of the domain.

DKIM plays a crucial role in email authentication, providing a mechanism to verify the authenticity and integrity of email messages. By understanding how DKIM works and following the key generation process, domain owners can implement robust email authentication practices, reducing the risk of email fraud and impersonation.

Hopefully, this has demystified DKIM and answer some questions you make have related to email delivery.

The post How does email DKIM work? appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

Simply create a simple HTML maintenance page with no images. You can do this via the terminal.

$ nano maintenance.html

Then paste in the generic Site Maintenance page as HTML below.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Site Maintenance</title>
<style>
    body { text-align: center; padding: 150px; }
    h1 { font-size: 50px; }
    body { font: 20px Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #333; }
    article { display: block; text-align: left; width: 650px; margin: 0 auto; }
    a { color: #dc8100; text-decoration: none; }
    a:hover { color: #333; text-decoration: none; }
</style>
<article>
    <h1>We'll be back soon!</h1>
    <div>
        <p>Sorry for the inconvenience but we're performing some maintenance at the moment. We'll be back online shortly!</p>
        <p>- The Team</p>
    </div>
</article>

Exit nano and save this file.

Then you need to update the .htaccess with a redirect to your maintenance.html page. This will block all traffic to your site and admin areas.

$ nano .htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^192\.3\.2\.1
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/maintenance.html -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/maintenance.html
RewriteRule ^.*$ /maintenance.html [L]
</IfModule>

You can replace ^192\.3\.2\.1 with your IP while keeping the same format so you will still have full access.

Maintenance Mode via Terminal

You can also set the default version of Maintenance Mode with a single line via terminal.

Connect to your server using SSH.

Navigate to the root folder of your WordPress installation.

$ echo '<?php $upgrading = time(); ?>' > .maintenance

To disable maintenance mode, remove the .maintenance file using the rm command:

$ rm .maintenance

If you want to display a custom message, refer to the first option.

The post How to make a quick WordPress maintenance mode with .htaccess appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

Here’s how it works…

• Enter any version of the URL you want to scan
• Click search and wait while it looks for the important WHOIS information
• Links will be generated for reseller finder tools
• Checks for MX records and if it is cloud-hosted or server hosted
• Checks for SPF records and A record inclusion
• Shows DNS records
• Shows A records including www
• Checks for Cloudflare Proxy
• Show root and www CNAMEs
• Checks the reverse DNS matched the A root record
• Checks for any missing records

Cool, right?

Download the Chrome extension or access the scanner directly at domainscanner.thriveweb.com.au. You can also create a shortcut in Chrome by visiting the scanner page, navigating to your browser Options (three stacked dots on the top right of your browser window) > More Tools > Create Shortcut to run the scanner like an app in its own window.

Do you find this tool useful? We would love to hear your feedback!

The post Domain Scanner appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

So, what to you do?

The easiest fix is to restore your site from a clean backup and then run all available updates. The security issue with this plugin has been fixed, however you should identify the hacked files in your site installation so you can tell if your restore is clean or not.

Here’s what to look for:

• PHP file names in your directly with randomised strings like sdfkjhds.php
• Code injected into the top of index.php, wp-settings.php or wp-config.php  (in our case, we have seen the code similar to below injected into these files).

/*23f09*/
@include "\057srv\057use...
/*23f09*/

• PHP code can be hidden in .ico files such as ./wp-content/languages/.31845625.ico (this is often imported into an active PHP file via an include. If you open these files as text you will see code similar to the below).

<?php
$_w3kz6u0 = basename/*vxr6j*/(/*1bl*/trim/...

Once you have found some of these files you will be able to identify a clean backup. If you don’t find any, you will need to try to clean your site manually.

Remove the hack manually

• Firstly, make a full backup of your website. We suggest using a plugin like UpdraftPlus to do this.
• Now, you should manually re-install WordPress. Download the most up-to-date version here.
• Delete everything except your wp-content folder and the wp-config.php file and then re-upload a fresh copy of your core files. This will make sure you don’t have any hacked files hanging around.
• Then, look for any PHP filenames like contain a random string or generally look out of place. These should be safe to remove.
• Using terminal you can search and for any fake .ico files and hidden files using the below.

$ find . -name *.ico -path '*/.*'

• Inspect the index.php, wp-settings.php, and wp-config.php files. If there is a wp-xmlrpc.php file added to the core, delete it.
• In terminal, check for PHP files using the @include

$ grep -R -l --include \*.php "@include "

• You can also look at any recently changed files which is an easy way to spot potential hacks.

$ find ${1} -type f | xargs stat --format '%Y :%y %n' 2>/dev/null | sort -nr | cut -d: -f2-

• Once all the hacked files are removed, update your WordPress and server password.
• We recommend setting up site monitoring with a plugin like iThemes Security. The free version comes with file change detection and will send a report directly to your email.
• We also recommend scanning your site with Sucuri and Ninja Scanner as an extra measure of security.

Did this help you? Or is there something that we missed? At Thrive we are the digital experts and can help you get out of a rut. Fill out our contact form today and we will be happy to help you out!

The post WP File Manager Hack – How To Repair/Clean Your Site appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

What’s included?

• Multiple email signature templates to choose from, coded for use across all email platforms.
• Upload your custom logo
• Fill out your important details like your name, phone number, website, etc
• Choose custom colours to use in your signature

How does it work?

• Choose your layout template (some templates might not display every field).
• Choose your theme colour.
• Choose your signature logo, as well as the logo ratio to help it look the best it can.
• Fill out all the fields with your information. For fields that you don’t want or need, just leave them blank and they won’t show on your signature.
• Choose which social media you want to display.

Now, let’s add it to your Gmail

• First, view the signature in your browser. You must use Chrome.
• Click in the browser window and select all (Cmd + A for Mac or Ctr + A for Windows )
• Copy the signature (Cmd + C for Mac or Ctr + C for Windows)
• Open up your Gmail account
• Click the cog up the top right and select View All Settings
• Scroll down to the signature box at the bottom of the page
• Click inside the signature text box and select all to clear any formatting (Cmd + A for Mac or Ctr + A for Windows ) and paste in your new signature (Cmd + C for Mac or Ctr + C for Windows)
• Save your changes and send yourself a test email!

Wanna give it a go? Download the plugin here and we have a Github repo here

The post WordPress Email Signature Generator appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

Create Your Server

• Firstly, you want to create your new Lightsail server. Check out this setup guide from ServerPilot.
• ServerPilot says that you need a manual install, but that isn’t necessarily the case. All you need to do is enable root logins via the Lightsail console then reset the SSH.

$ sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

PermitRootLogin yes

sudo systemctl restart ssh

• IMPORTANT! Don’t forget to create a static IP (check Networking tab). This can’t be undone.
• Now you can setup ServerPilot on the server. Refer to ServerPilots setup guide on how to do this.
• We assume at this point you have SSH logged into the server as Ubuntu.

Enable Password Logins

• To enable passwords logins for all user accounts, first edit sshd_config file:

$ sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

PasswordAuthentication yes

• Now disable password logins for the Root and Ubuntu accounts. You can use terminal via the Lightsail website or by adding your public key to the server.

PermitRootLogin no

• Enter these match rules at the bottom of the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file then restart the SSH. This will disable the password login for the root account ubuntu but keep it active for the other app user accounts.

Match User ubuntu
PasswordAuthentication no

sudo systemctl restart ssh

• Next, navigate to the Networking tab in Lightsail. Here you can click Add to create a new firewall rule.
• Select HTTPS from the new rule’s drop-down list and click Save. See more here.
• In terminal you can stop the server resetting the hostname on a reboot by setting the preserve_hostname from false to true

$ sudo nano /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg

preserve_hostname: true

Add Your Subdomain

• Create a new fully qualified subdomain (or use any subdomain you own, just point it back to your server IP). Make sure you replace servername with your own server name and subdomain.domain with your custom subdomain.

$ sudo hostname servername

$ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname subdomain.domain

Example: sudo hostname asterix.thriveweb.com.au

• You may need to replace the generated name with your custom subdomain. There should only be the subdomain.domain in this file.

$ sudo nano /etc/hostname

$ sudo nano /etc/hosts

• If needed, edit the last line to include your new subdomain.

Example: 127.0.0.1 asterix.thriveweb.com.au

• Now you can change the hostname and smtp_helo_name

$ sudo nano /etc/postfix/main.cf

From: myhostname = $myhostname.example.com

To: myhostname = subdomain.domain

Setup DNS Wildcard

We suggest you set up a wildcard subdomain in Cloudflare which you can do for free. This will allow you to have anything.server.domain and will automatically point the A record to the server without having to go into your domain control panel to make temporary domains. You still need to add it into Serverpilot under the appropriate app of course.

• Create a new A record in Cloudflare with your server nickname name with an astrix (*) in front.

Example: *.asterix.thriveweb.com.au

Check Server Health

• Use terminal to install htop which is super useful for checking the health and performance of your server.

$ sudo apt install htop

Disable PHP Errors

Run this full command and if you get an error relating to a missing PHP file then remove the lines that relate to that version of PHP.

echo 'display_errors = false' | sudo tee --append /etc/php5.5-sp/php.ini &&
echo 'display_errors = false' | sudo tee --append /etc/php5.6-sp/php.ini &&
echo 'display_errors = false' | sudo tee --append /etc/php7.0-sp/php.ini &&
echo 'display_errors = false' | sudo tee --append /etc/php7.1-sp/php.ini &&
echo 'display_errors = false' | sudo tee --append /etc/php7.2-sp/php.ini &&
cat /etc/php5.5-sp/php.ini &&
cat /etc/php5.6-sp/php.ini &&
cat /etc/php7.0-sp/php.ini &&
cat /etc/php7.1-sp/php.ini &&
cat /etc/php7.2-sp/php.ini &&
sudo service php5.5-fpm-sp restart &&
sudo service php5.6-fpm-sp restart &&
sudo service php7.0-fpm-sp restart &&
sudo service php7.1-fpm-sp restart &&
sudo service php7.2-fpm-sp restart

Setup Server Monitoring

• For the best server monitoring, we suggest using StatusCake
• Login or signup and navigate to the Monitoring page
• Select Create New Server and give it a name
• Put in 75% for all options
• Add email and Slack notifications
• Click Save and Generate Install Code
• Use SSH to login to the server via terminal

Test Server Emails

To make sure all of this has worked we suggest you check your email spammyness after these changes using mail-tester.com on a live domain.

• Use the simple PHP script below on a ServerPilot app that will send an email to the test email address you are given from mail-tester.com.

<?php
$from = "you@domain.com";
$to = "your-code@mail-tester.com";
$subject = "PHP Mail Test script";
$message = "This is a test to check the PHP Mail functionality.";
$headers = "From:" . $from;
echo mail($to,$subject,$message, $headers);
echo " Test email sent to " . $to ;
?>

• Edit the file with your correct details and Save to trigger the email send.

Increase Email Limits

AWS have limits on your email send count.

• You will need to fill out this form to request this limit is removed.
• It’s important to include a note like below to the form:

Please note this is a Lightsail server. We are using the server for websites and will in no way use the server for spam. We also want to host some busy WooCommerce shops that send a lot of email notifications. We build websites for our clients find out more here: https://domain.com/

• Include the static IP in the Elastic IP Address field
• Enter a FQDN (like asterix.thriveweb.com.au) domain name that points to the server in Reverse DNS Record for EIP 1 (they set up the Reverse DNS).
• Now, send it!

Did you find this guide useful? Let us know what you thought or if you have anything to add.

The post AWS Lightsail for Serverpilot appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

Features

• Fully responsive layout for mobile and widescreen browsing
• Advanced Javascript syntax and CSS extensions
• Free and serverless framework
• Responsive image loading with the integration of Uploadcare
• Seamless CMS integration with Netlify
• Comprehensive blog setup with optional use of categories
• Fully customisable interface
• Pre-loading links and data for lightening fast navigation

View the demo or download.

We are on Github if you want to know more or contribute!

The post Yellowcake – Gatsby Starter Project appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.

This gallery takes advantage of the built-in gallery features of WordPress. Simply use the WordPress admin to create a standard gallery and insert it in the page.

The gallery is built using PhotoSwipe from Dmitry Semenov along with Masonry to generate the thumbnail grid layout. You can adjust the size of the thumbnails and full-size images in the settings. You may need to rebuild your images using a plugin like Regenerate Thumbnails.

What has changed?

• Better code structure
• Lazy loading for large galleries
• New integrated resize thumbnails function
• New clean admin panel
• Settings located in Settings > Photoswipe 2.0

Help! The gallery doesn’t work!

This is usually caused by a Javascript conflict. The easiest way to track down the problem is to remove or disable other scripts. Try the following:

• Disable other plugins. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).
• Switch to the most recent WordPress base theme to rule out any theme-specific problems.
• Use a browser debugger to find the error (Chrome is the best). This may help you track down the conflict.
• ADVANCED! If it’s a theme issue you may have some scripts embedded in your theme that are causing a conflict. To disable these look inside the header.php, footer.php or functions.php files.

Wanna try it? View the demo or download.

We are on Github if you want to know more or contribute!

The post PhotoSwipe Masonry 2.0 appeared first on Thrive Digital Web Design Gold Coast.