Now that my recent site overhaul project is nearly complete, I thought it would be useful to share my carefully developed “plan of attack.” The following seven-step strategy is designed to facilitate the entire renovation by logically ordering events and breaking down complex tasks. Upon execution, the following plan is designed to improve overall site functionality, presentation and structure, while factoring in several critical parameters:
- Modular time organization — due to my hectic schedule, it is necessary to break large projects down into manageable chunks.
- Separation of main site from test site — I need a clear distinction between Perishable Press and my many test blogs, pages, and projects.
- Separation of main content from tangential content — distinguishing between main content and other material (e.g., private content, FTP files, etc.) is critical.
- Facilitation of future WordPress upgrades — keeping up with WordPress is important. Before the site overhaul, upgrading was nearly impossible. In fact, the primary thrust of this site makeover is aimed at making it easier to stay current with WordPress.
Thus far, adhering to this plan has helped to eliminate confusion by simplifying an otherwise convoluted project. With this plan firmly in mind, stepping through the entire process happened in a clear, nearly mechanical fashion. Without a doubt, being prepared provided an expediency and thoroughness that would have otherwise remained elusive. Is this the “perfect” plan for renovating a rather large, preexisting site? Probably not. Will you learn something about preparing for and executing WordPress and other site upgrades by reading it? Probably. I suppose, in any case, that even if readers find the proceeding plan all but useless, posting it online is great for prosperity and may even serve useful as future reference material. So, without further ado, here is an outline of the activity recently unfolding behind the scenes here at Perishable Press.
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![[ Image: Psychedelic Balloon Scene ]](http://perishablepress.com/press/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/second-anniversary.jpg "Happy Second Anniversary!")
To celebrate the second anniversary of Perishable Press, I am taking the day off! To fill the virtual cyber-vacuum left in the absence of today’s regularly scheduled post, allow me to highlight a few of my favorite articles from our second year online:
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Two weeks ago, I decided to completely overhaul Perishable Press. The decision came after several months of smooth sailing with excellent site performance, an optimized theme, plenty of visitors, and even a comfortable posting schedule. All things considered, everything was peachy keen — until I began reflecting on the “big picture,” meditating upon certain aspects that are frequently taken for granted or simply overlooked during periods of hectic operation and maintenance. For example, while troubleshooting htaccess and PHP errors, webmasters generally don’t take the time to meditate on the structural and functional integrity of their overall site configuration.
Fortunately, I recently found the time to contemplate Perishable Press from a broader perspective, rethinking everything from themes and plugins to organizational architecture and permalinks. As I approach the completion of the most comprehensive site renovation ever, many significant improvements are currently underway. Here is a summary of the primary changes involving site structure, presentation, functionality and performance:
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Alrighty then! Looks like recent changes to site structure have really dropped a bomb on quite a few regular visitors out there. After switching over to the new default theme last night, I had setup an email notification system to alert me of all errors encountered at this domain (i.e., the main site and all test sites). Of course, I knew that at least a few errors would be inevitable, but I had no idea that I would receive nearly 300 of them!
After examining the nature of these errors, it appears that the bulk of them are the result of either Google showing confusion over the new image directory structure, or people visiting the site with a browser cache full of old theme files. Apparently, a few visitors were actually using some of the alternate themes that I had provided via the previous default theme. So, now that the alternate themes have been removed (temporarily, for a few months), visitors are experiencing errors when they visit the site. Uhh, not so good, especially for them.
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Just a note to let everyone know that I am switching the site’s default theme this evening. The new theme is similar, yet different (drop by to see what I mean), and will be switched over as soon as everything is ready behind the scenes (plugins, etc.). Also, until I am able to update the mobile CSS styles, the site may appear a little bonkers when viewed via mobile device. In the meantime, as the new theme goes live, many functional aspects of the site will also be changing (such as the WordPress 2.3 upgrade). So, as things unfold, please be patient with me, as I continue to work diligently to get everything working smoothly again. And, if you happen to notice any serious errors or discrepancies, please hoot and/or holla at me. That would be just swell. Thank you ;)
The amount of time I spend surfing the Web from a mobile device has steadily increased since the acquisition of my new favorite mobile device. Unfortunately, many sites have yet to implement (or even consider) support for mobile devices. Without proper formatting, such sites are virtually useless, requiring unnecessary download times, displaying unreadable pages, and serving unusable content. Given the inevitable ubiquity of mobile access to the World Wide Web, providing reasonable support for handheld browsers is becoming increasingly important. Without it, your site is left looking incomplete and unprofessional when viewed from mobile devices.
So, with that said, today I am happy to announce new mobile CSS styles for Perishable Press. Before today, browsing Perishable Press via mobile device was a royal pain, as the default CSS screen styles would transform the content into an unusable expanse of scrolling text and links. Staying current with site maintenance, comments, and updates was very difficult and time-consuming thanks to the improperly implemented screen styles. If your site is loading screen styles instead of an optimized set of styles for handheld devices, chances are high that your mobile visitors are few and disappointed.
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Ladies and gentlemen, things have become a little too comfortable around here. Themes are displaying with nary a hitch, files are being downloaded as expected, URLs are served like butter, and the site is experiencing fewer errors (PHP, 404, etc.) than ever before. After two years of perpetual updating, posting, fixing, and tweaking, Perishable Press is finally performing exactly as desired (all things considered, of course). Yes sir, things are running quite smooth indeed..
A little too smooth. Sure, given the comfortable equilibrium that I am currently enjoying, it would be very easy to kick back, get lazy, and just coast on autopilot for the next two or three years. Maybe drop a new theme every six or seven months and call it good. After all, I have finally developed a comfortable writing and posting schedule as well. So what’s the problem, then? Why change things now? Why deliberately create more work, hassle, and stress for myself? Surely, there is a good reason.
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Many changes around here lately — new styles, new software, new hardware, and a whole lot more. I will be covering several of these items in greater depth in future posts, but for now, here is an overview of some of the recent happenings unfolding here in Perishable land..
New Mobile Styles
I finally took the time to throw down some tuff mobile CSS styles for Perishable Press. Before, the site was virtually impossible to use via mobile devices because of the comprehensively applied screen styles, which completely overwhelm the screen real-estate and system resources of the average mobile device. The new styles are clean, lightweight and minimalistic. If you have mobile access, please drop by and share your experience with us. Even better, if you are able to capture screenshots, send ‘em along with your system stats and I will include them in an upcoming article focusing on the new styles.
Bad Behavior Upgrade
After streamlining the mobile CSS styles for Perishable Press, I discovered that mobile users were not able to leave comments on the site. After investigating the mysterious “Precondition failed” error associated with each mobile comment attempt, I traced the issue to an older version of Bad Behavior. After upgrading from version 1.2.4 to the currently fresh version 2.0.10, the “Precondition failed” error was resolved and mobile commenting was enabled. Next time you are in the mobile neighborhood, drop a shout and check it out ;)
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When I first began Perishable Press, I intended the site to focus primarily on the creative side of web and graphic design. However, I also wanted to share equally my ideas and experiences involving music, video, and other multimedia avenues of creative expression. Further, because I enjoy writing, and find myself frequently focusing on art, inspiration, and artistic expression, the initial plan encompassed a perpetual exploration and presentation of these topics here at Perishable Press.
Two years later, the original vision continues to change. Perishable Press has evolved into a site that focuses almost exclusively on technical aspects of web design. Although readers may occasionally experience a few digressions into graphic design, photography, and creative expression, these topics no longer represent the primary purpose of the site. Currently, visitors to the site will notice a plethora of content aimed at helping designers, developers, and bloggers excel on the Internet. Over the course of fifteen redesigns, the look and feel of Perishable Press has managed almost completely to evolve synchronously with the content. Almost..
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My apologies for recent periods of site unavailability. Apparently, my hosting company is having a difficult time with the server that happens to host Perishable Press. As far as I can tell, the server problems began Wednesday morning (due to a “traffic spike”). By Thursday morning, Perishable Press (as well as a few of my other sites) had been down for a period exceeding eight nonconsecutive hours.
According to my log files, Thursday itself was even worse, with server uptime struggling at an embarrassing 78.7%. And, although Friday looked considerably better, the site continues to experience periods of downtime that inspire me to begin (once again) the arduous process of switching to a more reliable host..
Currently, the site is up, but only after a lengthy period of downtime earlier this morning. I figured I had better post an explanation while I had the chance.. who knows when stability will be restored. To be fair, up until Wednesday, my hosting provider has delivered reliable, consistent uptime. I sure hope they get back into the groove.
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Hello, my name is Jeff and I am nofollow addict.
When I first began Perishable Press two years ago, in August of 2005, WordPress quickly became my blogging platform of choice. Everything about WordPress was great, so I had no trouble overlooking a few seemingly insignificant quirks, such as the nofollow attributes that are automatically applied to all comment links. In fact, at first, I really had no idea what they were or how they affected my site.
Eventually, as I began delving deeper into the Blogosphere, I realized that those harmless-looking nofollow tags were considered by many to be detrimental to the livelihood of the blogging community and its way of life. The arguments against nofollow and the reasoning behind the “no nofollow” movement resonated well with my sense of social equity on the Internet.
The more I looked into the nofollow issue, the more opposed I became to the idea of default WordPress installations generating nofollow links by default. In fact, after arming myself with as much information as possible, I made haste to jump on the anti-nofollow bandwagon and publicly regurgitated the arguments against the implementation of nofollow links.
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This post is hereby dedicated to the official logging of all unresolved and/or unexplained errors encountered during development or implementation of various plugins, extensions, themes, scripts, and/or anything else that results in bizarre and mysterious errors, bugs, or other anomalies. Further, we will also post any potential solutions, fixes, workarounds, or explanations for any errors logged in this post. This information is provided for reference purposes only — please share any related information you may have concerning any of the errors described in this error log. Please use the comment form below or simply contact us directly. Thanks.
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Compared to some of the big players out there on the internet, we here at Perishable Press run a relatively small website. We began this project in September of 2005 with nothing but a domain name and a pocketful of inspiration. During the first several months of development, our traffic statistics looked something like: one unique visitor and 10,000 hits (i.e., nobody but us).
Well, that went on for the first few months of 2006, and then something miraculous happened — we were linked to by another site and subsequently indexed by Google, and then Yahoo, and soon thereafter MSN. Within several weeks after being picked up by the search engines, our page rank was like 1 or 2 and our traffic was something like: 30 unique visitors and 1,000 hits (i.e., we were finishing up site development as more people began visiting).
Well, the next several months into 2006 — like, say, from around April to July — Perishable Press continued to produce content, articles, themes, scripts, and all sorts of links everywhere. We were making more noise and several more sites linked to us. Traffic began to increase into the 100’s, 200’s, and eventually leveled off around 300 unique visitors per day (with like 3000 hits due to continued site development, etc.). Things were officially up and running..
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Chilled-out Web Design As promised, the official website for Monzilla Media is released January 2nd, 2007. Several weeks went into the development of the site, which is designed to provide a concise overview of current events and projects. The online presence of Monzilla Media opens up a new realm of possibilities, with business now marketed worldwide via the internet. Monzilla Media specializes in providing highly customized web design with a sharp focus on standards, usability, and accessibility.
Check out Monzilla Media »
In our never-ending battle against spammers, leeches, scrapers, and other online undesirables, we have implemented several powerful security measures to improve the operational integrity of our perpetual virtual existence. Here is a rundown of the new behind-the-scenes security features of Perishable Press:
- Automated spambot trap, designed to identify bots (and/or stupid people) that disobey rules specified in the site’s robots.txt file.
- Automated disobedient-robot identification (via reverse IP lookup), admin-notification (via email) and blacklist inclusion (via htaccess).
- Automated inclusion of disobedient robot identification on our now public "Disobedient Robots" page.
- Imroved htaccess rules, designed to eliminate scum-sucking worms and other useless vermin.
- Automated tracking tools, designed to keep a close eye on any suspicious or questionable activity.
- Automated 404-error statistics, designed to optimize the elimination of 404 errors.
- Plus a few other secret-agent tricks that we are not at liberty to discuss ;)
As you can see, we have been pretty busy around here — fortunately, the new security features have been working flawlessly, reducing stolen bandwidth, potential spam, disobedient robots, and 404 errors. Hopefully, the end result of these new features will involve smoother site functionality and better browsing for everyone.
Ignore this post..
[Edit] Note to WP 2.0.5 users: Everything was working fine on this site before upgrading to WP 2.0.5. After upgrading, apparently, our feeds stopped validating* and the BDP RSS Aggregator plugin refused to update our own feeds. After several hours investigating the situation, we determined that the Live Comment Preview plugin was interfering with our feeds validating, while the upgraded WordPress (2.0.5) was responsible for problems with the BDP plugin.
Here is a copy of our recent comment posted at the BDP plugin website:
Comment by m0n on Wednesday 6 December 2006 at 4:28 am
I was running BDPRSS v.0.2.2 just fine before upgrading to WP 2.0.5. After the upgrade, I noticed that feeds from my own site are no longer updated. They are apparently polled, but reflect a ‘last updated’ value of the day I upgraded WP. I have, since the WP upgrade, posted several new articles that appear fine directly, through feedburner, etc.
I have tried just about everything (restoring old BDP databases, deleting and adding new feed entries in the admin panel, deleting cache, you name it, etc.). I have also tried upgrading to BDP 0.4.10, but to no avail. My own feeds will not update either in the BDP admin panel or on the web page itself. Adding different feed formats does not work either.
So, just a note to hopefully garner some more clues concerning this. I realize it may not be an emergency, because who reads their own feeds for crying out loud. Perhaps there are others out there with the same problem. If possible, try adding any of your own feeds (on WP 2.0.5) and see if they work. Well, thanks for listening!
The whole event pretty much zapped the weekend of any free-time, but the good news is that we managed to get everything working properly (according to our needs) once again — feeds all validate and we have previews of our own feeds via the BDP plugin — and we are still running WP 2.0.5! We’ll just bill the incident as another 8-hour "learning experience"..
If anyone is experiencing anything similar to the issues mentioned in this post, we would love to hear about it — drop us a line!
Update: [ May 28th, 2007 ] - Issue resolved! After moving the Perishable Press website to a new server, our WordPress feeds once again began updating directly through our own site (via BDP plugin, et al). Apparently, as our previous host continued to disable important PHP functions (as a solution to potential security vulnerabilities), the various plugins and scripts employing the disabled functions inevitably became useless. Thus, we attribute the source our non-updating feed issue directly to server limitations (and lazy technicians). While we cannot at this point discern exactly the cause of the problem, suffice it to say that our new host provides all the functionality needed for everything to run properly (and smoothly, we might add). So cheers to everyone who helped us with suggestions and ideas for this bizarre dilemma. We now enjoy fully functional and validating WordPress feeds. Case closed.
Footnotes
Perishable Press is now running WordPress 2.0.5. Everything went very well as we upgraded directly from version 2.0.2. Please report any errors or unusual/unexpected behavior (concerning this site). Your help is much appreciated.