Articles tagged as “reference”

Here is a list of all articles tagged as “reference”. If you enjoy the high-quality content that I provide here at Perishable Press, you may want to subscribe to our main content feed to stay current.

Understanding CSS3 and CSS2.1 Border Properties

Even before CSS3 introduced a cornucopia of new border properties, CSS2.1 provided plenty of great functionality, enabling designers to style and enhance borders in many different ways. But now with the many new border properties available with CSS3, much more is possible, including everything from background border images, asymmetrical border radii, border transformations, custom fitting, and much more. While not every browser fully supports all of these new stylistic possibilities, we can practice progressive enhancement to create beautiful, well-styled borders for modern browsers while supporting the dinosaurs with suitable fallback styles. Many of us know ...

Looking for a Publisher

After several months of working diligently behind the scenes, I am officially announcing my latest project: a new book on WordPress. Without giving away too much at this time, here are some facts about it: It’s focused on WordPress It’s co-authored between Chris Coyier and myself It’s going to be awesome Chris and I have been working on the book for several months now and are very pleased with the results. Both of us have some -- albeit limited -- knowledge of the publishing world. Truth be told, we don’t have a publisher yet and aren’t quite sure about how to go about finding one. Does anyone ...

Eight Ways to Blacklist with Apache’s mod_rewrite

With the imminent release of the next series of (4G) blacklist articles here at Perishable Press, now is the perfect time to examine eight of the most commonly employed blacklisting methods achieved with Apache’s incredible rewrite module, mod_rewrite. In addition to facilitating site security, the techniques presented in this article will improve your understanding of the different rewrite methods available with mod_rewrite. Blacklist via Request Method This first blacklisting method evaluates the client’s request method. Every time a client attempts to connect to your server, it sends a message indicating the type of connection it wishes to make. ...

Custom OpenSearch Functionality for Your Website

I recently added OpenSearch functionality to Perishable Press. Now, OpenSearch-enabled browsers such as Firefox and IE 7 alert users with the option to customize their browser’s built-in search feature with an exclusive OpenSearch-powered search option for Perishable Press. The autodiscovery feature of supportive browsers detects the custom search protocol and enables users to easily add it to their collection of readily available site-specific search options. Now, users may search the entire Perishable Press domain with the click of a button. And you can do it too! Adding customized OpenSearch-powered search functionality to your own site is a ...

Taking Advantage of the X-Robots Tag

Controlling the spidering, indexing and caching of your (X)HTML-based web pages is possible with meta robots directives such as these: I use these directives here at Perishable Press and they continue to serve me well for controlling how the “big bots” 1 crawl and represent my (X)HTML-based content in search results. For other, non-(X)HTML types of content, however, using meta robots directives to control indexing and caching is not an option. An excellent example of this involves directing Google to index and cache PDF documents. ...

Content Negotiation for XHTML Documents via PHP and htaccess

In this article, I discuss the different MIME types available for XHTML and explain a method for serving your documents with the optimal MIME type, depending on the capacity of the user agent. Using either htaccess or PHP for content negotiation, we can serve complete, standards-compliant markup for our document’s header information. This is especially helpful when dealing with Internet Explorer while serving a DOCTYPE of XHTML 1.1 along with the recommended XML declaration. According to the ...

More Killer CSS Reset Styles

Just a note to let everyone know that I have updated my previous CSS reference article, A Killer Collection of Global CSS Reset Styles. The updated version features two more excellent CSS resets, as well as the updated Meyer reset and a link to Eric’s official CSS Reset page. The two new reset styles are the Tripoli Reset and Tantek’s Reset: Tantek’s CSS Reset Dubbed “...

An Easy Introduction to Web Feeds

This article will help beginners understand a few “feed” essentials: what they are, how they work, and how to use them.. So you are a little new to the Web. As you surf around, you keep noticing these little orange squares and multicolored boxes placed next to phrases such as these: Subscribe via RSS Subscribe via XML Subscribe via Atom Subscribe via Feedburner Subscribe to My Feed Subscribe to Main Content Subscribe to Comments ..and so on. Although these invitations to “subscribe” come in many flavors, they are ...

What is My WordPress Feed URL?

For future reference, this article covers each of the many ways to access your WordPress-generated feeds. Several different URL formats are available for the various types of WordPress feeds — posts, comments, and categories — for both permalink and default URL structures. For each example, replace “http://domain.tld/” with the URL of your blog. Note: even though your blog’s main feed is accessible through many different URLs, there are clear benefits to using a single, consistent feed URL throughout your site. WordPress Post-Feed Formats ...

What is the Difference Between XHTML 1.0 Strict and XHTML 1.1?

As some of you (e.g., Louis) may have noticed during the recent site redesign, I decided to switch the default doctype from XHTML 1.0 Strict to XHTML 1.1. Just in case you were wondering, XHTML 1.1 is different than XHTML 1.0 in three important ways 1: On every element, the lang attribute has been removed in favor of the xml:lang attribute On the a and map elements, the name attribute has been removed in favor of the id attribute The “ruby” collection of elements has been ...

A Killer Collection of Global CSS Reset Styles

Using CSS to style semantically meaningful (X)HTML markup is an important key to modern web design practices. In a perfect world, every browser would interpret and apply all CSS rules in exactly the same way. However, in the imperfect world in which we live, quite the opposite frequently happens to be the case: many CSS styles are displayed differently in virtually every browser. Many, if not all, major modern browsers (e.g., Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Netscape, et al) implement their own generalized CSS rules, which ...

Much ado about nofollow: The Perishable Press Dofollow Series

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “Oh great, not another article about WordPress nofollow!!” Well, if that sounds like you, I have good news! This is the last post (at least for awhile, anyway) concerning all things nofollow, dofollow, and even no-nofollow, for that matter. In fact, this post isn’t even about nofollow! It’s simply a summary of the articles I have written involving nofollow-related topics. The articles fit together so well, one might suppose they were planned deliberately as a bona fide series. Hmmm.. I’ll leave it up to you to decide: The Perishable Press no-nofollow/dofollow Article Series Death ...

WordPress Plugins Featuring Nofollow Blacklist Functionality

Is that spam or are you just trying to comment? Removing nofollow attributes from your WordPress-powered site is a great way to encourage comments and attract visitors. Many commentators will leave useful, constructive feedback, but there will always be a few losers who would attempt to game your generous link love. Fortunately, identifying these mindless link whores is relatively easy. Here are a few priceless examples of actual spam (i.e., linked) comments left here at Perishable Press (links removed for obvious reasons): Work at Home Start earn $150/day right now. Part time work for everyone. Nationwide opportunity Our adress. Part Time Job Hi all! Yo u may find it interesting to visit ...

Comprehensive Reference for WordPress NoNofollow/Dofollow Plugins

Recently, while deliberating an optimal method for eliminating nofollow link attributes from Perishable Press, I collected, installed, tested and reviewed every WordPress no-nofollow/dofollow plugin that I could find. As of the writing of this post, I have evaluated 12 15 dofollow plugins, all of which are freely available on the Internet. In this article, I present a concise, current, and comprehensive reference for WordPress no-nofollow and dofollow plugins. Every attempt has been made to provide accurate, useful, and complete information for each of the plugins represented below. Further, as this subject is a newfound interest of mine, it is my intention ...

Bare-Bones HTML/XHTML Document Templates

In this post I have assembled a concise collection of conforming, bare-bones document templates for the following doctypes: Document Templates XHTML 1.0 XHTML 1.0 Strict XHTML 1.0 Transitional XHTML 1.0 Frameset XHTML Basic 1.0 XHTML 1.1 XHTML 1.1 XHTML Basic 1.1 HTML 4.01 HTML 4.01 Strict HTML 4.01 Transitional HTML 4.01 Frameset Doctype Declarations In addition to the complete document templates listed above, this post also ...

Unicode Character Reference for Bloggers

Virtually every article written here at Perishable Press requires at least one or two “special” characters. Some of these characters — such as quotation marks, hyphens, and dashes — are very common, while others — such as the copyright symbol, bullet, and arrow — happen less frequently. As a blogger, I find myself repeatedly using a select handful of very common special characters. Very rarely do I ever find myself blogging a latin “Ä” (i.e., capital letter “A” with a diaeresis). To save time and effort, I need a quick reference that targets only the characters I find useful as a ...

The Friendliest Link Targets in the Neighborhood

The target attribute for anchor elements () specifies the location in which the referenced document should load. For example, to open a link in a new window, we would use a target value of _blank. Although this is a commonly employed technique, the target attribute has been deprecated by the W3C and is not valid (X)HTML. Regardless, the target element remains a useful tool for practicing designers and developers. Here, we present the attribute values for the target element: Attribute values for the ...

URL Character Codes

URL’s frequently employ potentially conflicting characters such as question marks, ampersands, and pound signs. Fortunately, it is possible to encode such characters via their escaped hexadecimal ASCII representations. For example, we would write "?" as "%3F". Here are a few more URL character codes (case-insensitive):     %3E #     %23 %     %25 {     %7B }     %7D |     %7C \     %5C ^     %5E ~     %7E [     %5B ]     %5D `     %60 ;     %3B /     %2F ?     %3F :     %3A @     %40 =     %3D &     %26 $     %24 +     %2B "     %22 space     %20 References network-tools.com URL Encoding

Offline Resource Library

The Perishable Press Official Offline Resource Library(requires username & password)

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) Formats

There are currently three formats for expressing date/time in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). All examples represent the date, "July 04, 2050". The time for all three formats is expressed as "hour:minutes:seconds". Here is the preferred, standard format1 for the Internet. This format is defined by RFC 1123 (updated from RFC 822): # RFC 1123 Standard GMT Format Mon, 04 Jul 2050 07:07:07 GMT The programming language C uses the ANSI standard format1 in its asctime(): # ANSI Standard GMT Format Mon Jul 4 07:07:07 2050 The RFC 850 format2 is now obsolete (RFC 1036) and should not be used: # RFC 850 Standard GMT Format [obsolete] Monday, 04-Jul-50 07:07:07 GMT 1 Weekday abbreviations: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, ...

XHTML Document Header Resource

This XHTML header tags resource is a work in progress, perpetually expanding and evolving as new information is obtained, explored, and integrated. Hopefully, you will find it useful in some way. Even better, perhaps you will share any complimentary or critical information concerning the contents of this article. Table of Contents Important Information XML Declaration The !DOCTYPE The html tag The head tag The title tag base & item http-equiv link tags meta tags ...

Press Color Archive

Our official location for dumping notable color swatches: | #1A1A1A | #383838 | #666677 | #E1E1E1 | #F0F0F0 | #F2F2F2 | #F3F3F3 | #FFFFEE | #CCDDAA

A Complete CSS Template File

To help maintain consistency when developing new CSS-styled websites, we have created a complete CSS template file. The file contains every HTML/XHTML tag known to man. This includes tags such as BASEFONT and CENTER, which have been deprecated; tags such as COMMENT and MARQUEE, which are exclusive to Internet Explorer; tags such as SPACER and SERVER, which are exclusive to Netscape Navigator; and even tags such as !DOCTYPE and BASE, which are included merely for the sake of completeness. As CSS selectors, the tags are (almost all) empty, just waiting to be filled with declarations, properties, and values. Tags that have been deprecated, or that are exclusive to a specific browser, are ...

A Closer Look at Perishable Press

What is Perishable Press? Perishable Press began as a virtual journey into the digital chaos of the blogosphere. While initially designing the site, we began posting a variety of content, primarily information related to the project itself. During the development process, as the site exploded into a frenzy of ideas, possibilities, and experimentation, we continued to post code examples, useful links, and tons of reference material. Slowly, as the site began to attract visitors, we began to clarify our scope, define our niche, and produce content accordingly. Currently, the site enjoys a steady flow of visitors, a growing number of ...

Digital Units

Digital units and their relative capacities1: Byte: (100 bytes) A single digital character. Kilobyte: (103 bytes) A small page of digital text. Megabyte: (106 bytes) A small novel, or a screen-resolution digital image. Gigabyte: (109 bytes) A symphony in hi-fi sound, or a pickup truck filled with paper. Terabyte: (1012 bytes) One-tenth of the printed collection of the Library of Congress. Petabyte: (1015 bytes) All of the email produced in the world in one day, or about a half-million hours worth of television. Exabyte: (1018 bytes) Two exabytes estimated to be all the information generated worldwide in one year; five exabytes, all the words ever spoken by human beings. Zettabyte: (1021 bytes) Oprah Winfrey's annual salary. Yottabyte: (1024 bytes) Alot. References 1 Source: UC Berkeley, CNET News.com