settle into that wretched skin of yours,
but don’t try too hard or get too used it
because you are here today and gone tomorrow,
although it is only in retrospect that time passes quickly.

in the meantime, during the slow wait, time crawls as it flies.
so another year begins — much has changed, and much will change.

i am wide awake, watching, and waiting.

sunrise.

I have been drawing and sketching for over thirty years. The process of setting up for art, developing ideas, and letting the pens flow, really gets my juices flowing. Once that flow hits, and the music fades, hours disappear, manifesting imagination. This process is so familiar as to happen automatically, as a natural consequence of internal inspiration, artistic creativity, and the desire to express the subjective experience of my subconscious mind.

Another important aspect of exercising a creative lifestyle involves the observation and study of the natural world. Drawing from nature, or the practice of representational translationalism, serves this purpose well, as the concentration and discipline required to objectively witness and record visual experiences heightens the degree to which awareness and observation feed visual understanding. It is this comprehension of the visual world that enables the artist to effectively manipulate artistic elements to successfully convey the intended expression of creativity.

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Looking ahead at the events planned for this year, I feel the need to completely restructure, reorganize, and streamline my entire digital universe. This will take a sweet amount of time, I realize, but given the complex behemoth that my digital archive has become due to the accumulation of over seven years’ worth of projects, reformats, and acquisitions, the time is now.

It all started out simply, with my first computer a mere two folders, “art” and “business,” were all that I needed to keep things in order. As time progressed, there were a few digital expansions, where loads of new software, hardware, documentation, support files, and resulting experimental files were heaped onto the already flimsy organizational structure that my “archive” had at that time become. Then there was college, various lines of employment, and a million scanned documents determined too important to simply toss. By this time, my artistic output had increased as well, with bandwidth intensive projects like Dead Letter Art, F-Disk Media, and StopSystem, my then new 250GB external hard drive was almost full. Along the way, I’m afraid, most attempts at “starting fresh” and reorganizing everything were shortsighted if not temporarily efficient.

So now, after having attained a small foothold on the internet with a newly designed, all-powerful Perishable Press website, I have taken a few steps back to contemplate the “big picture” and evaluate an optimal plan of attack. I truly cannot believe how inefficient and unorganized my system has become. Truly, it is a mess.

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Welcome to Perishable Press! This article, Stupid htaccess Tricks, covers just about every htaccess “trick” in the book, and is easily the site’s most popular offering. In addition to this htaccess article, you may also want to explore the rapidly expanding htaccess tag archive. Along with all things htaccess, Perishable Press also focuses on (X)HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, security, and just about every other aspect of web design, blogging, and online success. If these topics are of interest to you, I encourage you to subscribe to Perishable Press for a periodic dose of online enlightenment ;)

Table of Contents

• General
  1. htaccess definition
  2. htaccess comments
  3. important information
  4. performance issues
  5. regex character definitions
  6. redirection header codes
• Essentials
  1. htaccess comments
  2. enable basic rewriting
  3. enable symbolic links
  4. enable AllowOverride
  5. rename the htaccess file
  6. retain httpd.conf rules
• Performance
  1. disable AllowOverride
  2. pass the character set
  3. preserve bandwidth
  4. disable the server signature
  5. set the server timezone
  6. set admin email address
  7. enable file caching
  8. set default language & character set
  9. declare specific/additional MIME types
  10. send headers without meta tags
  11. limit request methods to GET/PUT
  12. process files according to request method
  13. execute various file types via CGI script
• Security
  1. prevent access to htaccess
  2. prevent access to any file
  3. prevent access to multiple file types
  4. prevent unauthorized directory browsing
  5. change the default index page
  6. disguise script extensions
  7. limit access to the LAN
  8. secure directories by IP or domain
  9. deny/allow domain access for IP range
  10. deny/allow multiple IP addresses on one line
  11. miscellaneous rules for blocking/allowing
  12. stop hotlinking, serve alternate content
  13. block robots, rippers, and offline browsers
  14. more stupid blocking tricks
  15. even more scum-blocking tricks
  16. password-protect directories
  17. password-protect files, directories, and more
  18. require SSL (secure sockets layer)
  19. automatically CHMOD various file types
  20. disguise all file extensions
  21. limit file upload size
  22. disable script execution
• Usability
  1. minimize CSS image flicker in IE6
  2. deploy custom error pages
  3. provide a universal error document
  4. employ basic URL spelling check
  5. force media downloads
  6. display file source code
  7. redirect visitors during site development
  8. provide password-prompt during site development
  9. prevent access during specified time periods
• Redirects
  1. important note about redirecting via mod_rewrite
  2. redirect from www-domain to non-www-domain
  3. redirect from an old domain to a new domain
  4. redirect string variations to a specific address
  5. other fantastic redirect tricks
  6. send visitors to a subdomain
  7. more fun with RewriteCond & RewriteRule
  8. more fun with Redirect 301 & RedirectMatch 301
• WordPress
  1. secure wordPress contact forms
  2. wordpress permalinks
• Random
  1. activate SSI for HTML/SHTML file types
  2. grant CGI access in a specific directory
  3. disable magic_quotes_gpc for PHP enabled servers
  4. enable MD5 digests
  5. expression engine tricks
• References

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The latest Perishable WordPress theme, Information, enjoys a fixed-width, XHTML strict layout with a sprinkle of JavaScript for panel dropdowns and double link pops ( i.e., all the trimminz ).. Information will be released to the public in the near future.

Screenshot of Information on Firefox

Download Information (coming soon!)

Headline 2.0 released! — Like the Apathy Theme, Monzilla’s new Headline theme for WordPress is bandwidth friendly, XHTML strict, and employs universal fonts & colors. Also like the Apathy theme, Headline presents as a digital version of the classic printed newspaper. Indeed, whereas Apathy is a full-screen, fluid three-column layout, Headline is a condensed, fixed-width three-column layout that looks great even at 800×600 resolution. The latest version, Headline 2.0, also features additional graphical embellishments, enhanced list action, sharper layout, cleaner code, and improved functionality.

Screenshot of Headline 2.0 on Firefox

Download Headline 2.0 [ v2.0 | ~135KB | .zip | 1674 downloads ]

Previous version

• Headline 1.0 [ 1022 downloads ]

The Apathy theme is a crisp, universal three-column dynamic layout that is extremely lightweight and casual. The theme emulates a digital version of the traditional newsprint format, and validates as XHTML strict. Although the CSS only approaches valid, Apathy appears virtually identical on all modern browsers. If you are focusing on text-based content and strive toward coherent, concise presentation, the Apathy theme will serve you well..

Update: Apathy version 2.7 now is officially released! The new version features a triple-loop, liquid-width, three-column layout as well as a completely redesigned code base and improved graphical interface. Further, Apathy 2.7 includes many new configuration options and provides detailed comments and installation instructions. Plus, Apathy employs strictly valid XHTML, nearly valid CSS, universal fonts, and browser-safe colors. Check it out!

Screenshot of Apathy on Firefox

Download Apathy [ v2.7 | ~96KB | .zip | 2511 downloads ]

Previous versions

• Download Apathy v1.0 [ 950 downloads ]

The Perishable Press portfolio of themes for the WordPress publishing platform is developed and maintained by Monzilla Media. When complete, our WordPress theme portfolio will consist of 26 alphabetically named themes, a unique theme for every letter of the alphabet. Currently, eight of our thirteen themes have been prepared and are available for public download.

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Modernista!

File under: Inspiration, Creativity, Graphics, and Flash: Modernista!

This website is the product of over three months of code, design, redesign, and eyedrops. It takes advantage of WordPress 2.0, which has been functioning flawlessly. The Monzilla website (and all subsequent sites) will also employ WP 2.0, or whichever version is the most current at the time of design.

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