Here at Perishable Press, the number of posts listed in my archives is rapidly approaching the 700 mark. While this is good news in general, displaying such a large number of posts in an effective, user-friendly fashion continues to prove challenging. Unfortunately, my current strategy of simply dumping all posts into an unordered list just isn’t working. I think it’s fair to say that archive lists containing more than like 50 or 100 post titles are effectively useless and nothing more than a usability nightmare. With growing numbers of blogs building up massive collections of posts, finding better ways to display vast quantities of archived material becomes increasingly important.

One solution that seems popular involves breaking the archives down into various categories, tags, and time periods. This provides meta-context to each list of titles and usually eliminates the need for any hideously long post listings. This solution works well, especially when the different category lists are displayed adjacently in multiple vertical columns. For example, a blog with three categories would do well to display each category’s archive listings in its own vertical column. Something like this:

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After upgrading WordPress from version 2.0.5 to 2.3.3, I did some experimenting with the “post autosave” feature. The autosave feature uses some crafty ajax to automagically save your post every 2 minutes (120 seconds by default). Below the post-editing field, you will notice a line of text that displays the time of the most recent autosave, similar to the following:

Surely, this relatively new feature provides an added layer of protection against lost work, but all is not perfect (yet) in the world of automatically saved content.

Several months ago, I lost several hours of work because the autosave feature completely failed to work, despite the periodically reassuring “Saved at..” message. After working for several hours with a false sense of security, WordPress choked and my post had vanished. In shock, I scoured the database for any trace of my recent efforts, but to no avail. The entire post had disappeared into the void. Utterly devastated and disillusioned, I decided to investigate the so-called “autosave” feature, learn what had happened, and take steps to avoid such travesty in the future. Here is a summary of my investigation..

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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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Welcome to the Perishable Press Redirection Lounge!

What?

We keep a very close eye on all 404 (resource not found) errors. Every time a legitimate 404 rears its ugly head, we take the necessary steps to solve the issue. In most cases, we use htaccess redirects to prevent 404 errors. Often, the missing resource remains available, but has been moved to another location. In this situation, we simply redirect visitors to the new location. Easy. However, there are also a relatively small number of 404 errors that are generated due to content that is no longer available. For example, temporary posts, test posts, and duplicate posts often result in 404 errors, even if they were only online for a very short time. So, rather than redirecting such requests to the home page or to the 404 page, we have created an exclusive Redirection Lounge at which roaming search engines, misguided robots, and wandering visitors may find information and reassurance.

Where?

This page is actually a post handcrafted especially for this very moment in time. The post is public, exists online, and is archived at Perishable Press. In other words, you are currently deep within the Perishable Press Archives. To escape such ancient realms, click here to return to the Perishable Press home page. Otherwise, click on some other link to fight your way out of the archive database. Otherwise, enjoy your stay here at the Perishable Press Redirection Lounge. It may not be exactly what you originally had in mind, but you have to admit, the solitude provides plenty of time to think about that interesting life of yours.

Why?

You are here because you tried accessing a resource at perishablepress.com that is no longer available. Please note that the content you are seeking has not been relocated, misplaced, or renamed — it is simply no longer available on this domain. Most likely, the content has been deleted permanently. If you are absolutely convinced that the content you are seeking is worth pursuing, please check out the Google index or the excellent Wayback Machine. Indeed, if the requested content were still available on this domain (perishablepress.com), our diligent web gimps would have redirected you swiftly to the new location of the resource. However, as the requested resource is not available, and because we try to avoid as many 404 errors as possible, we have created this Redirection Lounge to serve as our official redirect target for otherwise dead-end requests. We hope you find it as comfortable as it is informative.

Huh?

If you feel that you have arrived at the Redirection Lounge in error, or have information concerning the requested resource, please use our official contact form to drop us a line.

Let’s face it. Websites are as transient as the wind. Developers and designers spend countless hours producing sites that may exist online for mere months or even less before being restructured, redesigned or removed completely, forever disappearing into eternal nothingness — or, even worse, into the sterile void of a search engine database. Clearly not the best situation for designers looking to maintain a complete record of their online work.

Even for sites proactively encouraging their caching and archiving by the search engines, accurate and reliable online site preservation approaches the impossible. Unfortunately, search engines are extremely inconsistent when it comes to archiving websites. If you doubt that, try digging up one of your old sites and see how it looks as stored deep within the archives of say, Google or Yahoo. Search engine archives commonly omit associated CSS, JavaScript, and image files, rendering sites incomplete and useless as a design reference.

Local or offline site storage also is impractical, especially if your sites are database-driven and require a server to process content. Replicating the original server environment is usually a hassle, requiring database reconfiguration and URL path repairs. Further, databases frequently involve absolute URL’s, thereby rendering offline sites practically useless. Besides, many sites are often aesthetically redundant, consisting of hundreds of virtually identical, dynamically created pages. Such archived sites are waste of disk space, especially if their content is now obsolete or exists elsewhere online.

Rather than rely on the search engines or depend on impractical offline archiving methods, savvy web designers and developers should develop a concise, high-quality screenshot archive of all their work. A well-maintained screenshot archive is an invaluable design tool providing streamlined reference for future projects, source material, and portfolio development. Clearly, from a visual-design perspective, screenshot archiving is far more valuable, useful, and beneficial than traditional methods of storing antiquated or otherwise dismantled websites.

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Our official location for dumping notable color swatches:

• | #1A1A1A
• | #383838
• | #666677
• | #E1E1E1
• | #F0F0F0
• | #F2F2F2
• | #F3F3F3
• | #FFFFEE
• | #CCDDAA

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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