Fixing WordPress’ Shortcodes Ultimate Carousel Captions Overlapping Images

WordPress’ Shortcodes Ultimate plugin has earned its popularity by being reliable, flexible, and thoughtfully designed. Its wide collection of shortcodes works well across many WordPress themes, and the Image Carousel in particular is fast, responsive, and visually polished right away.

As with any powerful plugin, some styling choices are opinion driven. One such choice is how image captions are displayed in the carousel. By default, captions appear directly on top of the image.

In many cases this looks fine, but in others it can create layout and readability issues.
 
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Mastering Loops in VBA for Office Developers

Loops form the backbone of iterative programming in VBA for Microsoft Access, allowing developers to process recordsets, validate form inputs, or manipulate arrays efficiently without writing repetitive code. VBA provides four primary loop structures, Do loops (with While/Until variations), For Next, and For Each, each designed for specific scenarios such as conditional repetition or fixed-range traversal. Selecting the right loop depends on factors like whether the iteration count is known upfront, the need for early exits, or the data structure involved, such as DAO recordsets common in Access databases.
 
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Showcase of Some of What is Possible

Over the years, I’ve pushed the limits of Microsoft Access and a variety of other tools, discovering just how far creativity and persistence can take you. I wanted to share a few examples from those experiments which I hope will serve as inspiration for other developers looking to explore new possibilities.
 
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Proton Moves Out of Switzerland; Why It Could Change the Future of Online Privacy

For decades Switzerland was the ultimate symbol of privacy and security. From secretive banking laws to strict data protections the country earned a reputation as a safe haven. But Proton’s recent decision to move its servers out of Switzerland is shaking that image and forcing privacy advocates to rethink everything.

This article is based on insights from CyberInsider’s exclusive report on Proton’s move, which breaks down the new Swiss surveillance law and its implications for online privacy.
 

A Shocking Announcement

Proton stunned the online privacy community when it revealed it would relocate its infrastructure out of Switzerland. This is not a minor operational tweak. It is a direct response to a new Swiss surveillance law called OSCPT, which expands government access to communications and weakens metadata protections.

While Proton can still protect the content of your emails and messages, the metadata, the information about who you contact and when, is increasingly exposed. Metadata is powerful because it can reveal patterns even when the content itself remains encrypted.
 
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Reports of a Possible Card-Skimming Incident Involving Canada Computers’ Online Store

I want to share some information I recently came across that raised enough concern for me to feel it was worth passing along.

I do not have firsthand knowledge of this situation, nor do I know the original source personally. However, I encountered multiple online discussions and videos while browsing, and the consistency of the reports prompted me to dig a bit deeper and share what I found so others can stay informed.

 
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Top Free No-Signup Tools to Debloat Windows in 2026

Windows ships with excess apps, ads, telemetry, and AI elements that hinder speed and privacy from day one.

Below are a few free tools, working as portable files or scripts for quick cleanup on Windows 10 or 11.
 

Why Bother Debloating?

Preinstalled games, streaming apps, and background trackers consume resources while cluttering your interface. Debloating, de-cluttering, decrapifying (that’s a real term!) sharpens performance, saves battery, and reduces data sharing thus helping somewhat protect some of your information through tweaks to your computer settings.
 
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“Your Data, Your Choices”, A Microsoft Privacy Fairytale

Not listen, see or hear

Opinion Piece

Microsoft has once again gathered us around the campfire to tell a soothing bedtime story called “Your Data, Your Choices: Understanding Microsoft’s Privacy Commitments” It is a heartwarming tale about trust, transparency, and the idea that this time they really mean it.

I want to believe. Truly. But Microsoft has been the “it is not what it looks like” tech company for so long that even Clippy would quietly slide off screen.

After all, when you are truly confident, you do not need to keep reassuring everyone.

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Making Invisible Internet Explorer Instances Visible

While investigating behavior I had previously documented in which SuperAntiSpyware spawns hidden iexplore.exe processes. Rather than terminating them blindly, I wanted a way to make every existing Internet Explorer instance visible so I could see exactly what was going on.

Internet Explorer is not just a browser. It is also a COM automation server. This allows applications, scripts, and services to create Internet Explorer instances in the background for tasks such as report generation, authentication flows, or legacy system integrations. When those instances are created with their visibility turned off, or are never explicitly shown, they can remain running long after their original purpose has passed.

Task Manager will show the process, but it offers no insight into why it exists or what it is doing. Ending the process may remove the symptom, but it does not explain the behavior and can potentially disrupt the software that created it.

What I wanted was simple.

If Internet Explorer is running, I wanted to see it, see what it was up to.
 
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4 PowerShell Scripts for Managing Windows Services (List, Disable, Restore, Automate)

I spent some time today experimenting with ways to “debloat” Windows trimming down unnecessary background services that quietly drain performance and slow startup times. While exploring different approaches, I ended up writing a few practical PowerShell scripts to make the process faster, safer, and easier to audit.

Managing Windows services manually through the Services console quickly becomes tedious, especially when you need to repeat tasks across multiple machines. PowerShell solves that problem by offering a simple, repeatable way to inspect, modify, and restore service configurations with structured output that can be logged or shared later.

In this post, I’ll walk through four PowerShell scripts I created to help manage and streamline Windows services effectively. Each script logs results to a CSV file, making it easy to track changes or share insights with others.
 
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Microsoft Releases Emergency Update for Critical Office Zero-Day CVE 2026 21509

Microsoft has just released an out of band security update to address a critical Office zero-day vulnerability, tracked as CVE 2026 21509, which is already being exploited in the wild. This development underscores the importance of staying vigilant and keeping software up to date.
 

What is CVE 2026 21509?

CVE 2026 21509 is a newly discovered vulnerability in Microsoft Office that allows attackers to execute malicious code on affected systems. Since it is being actively exploited, organizations and individual users are at immediate risk if the update is not applied.

 
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