Articles tagged as “streamline”

Here is a list of all articles tagged as “streamline”. 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.

Top 5 CSS Shorthand Properties

An excellent way to simplify and streamline your Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is to take advantage of the many different shorthand properties available to you. Working with a lot of CSS, you eventually memorize these different shortcuts, but every now and then, I find myself needing a quick, straightforward reference for some of the more elaborate property combinations. In this post, I’ll show you the shorthand rules for the following properties: Font Properties List Properties Background Properties Border and Outline Properties Transition Properties (CSS3) These are the top 5 on my list of most complicated ...

Associate Any File with Notepad in Five Seconds

In my article, Associate Extensionless Files with Notepad, I explain how to navigate the labyrinthine maze of Windows dialogue menus to assign Microsoft’s Notepad text editor as the opening application for files without extensions. In this post, I’ll show you how to associate any file type with any program (including Notepad) in less than five seconds. Ready? Don’t blink, you’ll miss it.. ;) Modify any file extension association in five seconds Open the Windows command prompt and enter the following command: assoc .extension=fileType It’s that easy. What is happening here? Let’s break it down, just for fun: assoc — Windows file-association command .extension — ...

The Halving Method of Identifying Problematic Code

Working a great deal with blacklists, I am frequently trying to isolate and identify problematic code. For example, a blacklist implementation may suddenly prevent a certain type of page from loading. In order to resolve the issue, the blacklist is immediately removed and tested for the offending directive(s). This situation is common to other coding languages as well, especially when dealing with CSS. Identifying problem code is more of an art form than a science, but fortunately, there are a few ways to improve your overall code-sleuthing strategy. Firstly, think. I know this sounds trivial, but too many times do we as designers and developers get ...

Save Bandwidth by Serving jQuery, MooTools, Prototype via Google’s AJAX Libraries API

A great way to save bandwidth is to take advantage of Google’s AJAX Libraries API to serve your favorite open-source JavaScript libraries. Here is how Google explains it in their official documentation: The AJAX Libraries API is a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular open source JavaScript libraries. By using the google.load() method, your application has high speed, globally available access to a growing list of the most popular JavaScript open source libraries. The AJAX Libraries API provides your applications with stable, reliable, high speed, globally available access to all of the most ...

85 Firefox Shortcuts for Mac and PC

As my browser of choice, Firefox provides all the functionality I need for web design, application development, everyday surfing, and much more. With a handful of choice extensions installed, Firefox is a lean, mean “get-it-done” machine. Plus, I am always looking for new ways to boost productivity and increase efficiency. Of course, an excellent way to do this involves learning and using as many mouse and keyboard shortcuts as possible. Over the past few years, I have collected oodles of shortcut snippets ...

Obsessive CSS Code Formatting: Organization, Comments, and Signatures

One of my favorite aspects of producing clean, well-formatted CSS code is “meta-organizing” the document using comments. In CSS, comments are included in the stylesheet like so: /* i am the walrus */ When used constructively, CSS comments serve to break down documents into distinct regions, provide key information about specific declarations, and bring order to even the most complex stylesheets. In my experience, a well-commented stylesheet improves efficiency and optimizes comprehension. Working with CSS, you can add comments any way you want. There are many different ways to use CSS comments, and endless ways to get there. Let’s ...

Perishable Press HTAccess Spring Cleaning, Part 2

Before Summer arrives, I need to post the conclusion to my seasonal article, Perishable Press HTAccess Spring Cleaning, Part 1. As explained in the first post, I recently spent some time to consolidate and optimize the Perishable Press site-root and blog-root HTAccess files. Since the makeover, I have enjoyed better performance, fewer errors, and cleaner code. In this article, I share some of the changes made to the blog-root HTAccess file and provide a brief explanation as to their intended purpose. Granted, most of ...

Obsessive CSS Code Formatting: Indentation and Spacing

In the intriguing discussion following the first obsessive CSS formatting article, Jordan Gray brought up the age-old question regarding spacing: tabs or single spaces? I smugly responded that the issue has long-since been resolved, with tabbed spacing as the obvious winner. Let’s take a look at some serious CSS spacing examples.. 1) Strictly Single Spacing Here we have several code blocks showing consistent spacing via single blank space. Three key areas where single spacing is seen in this example: after the selector, and before each property and its corresponding value: div#example_01 { padding: 1px; margin: 11px; width: 111px; } div#example_02 ...

Perishable Press HTAccess Spring Cleaning, Part 1

While developing the 3G Blacklist, I completely renovated the Perishable Press site-root and blog-root HTAccess files. Since the makeover, I have enjoyed better performance, fewer errors, and cleaner code. In this article, I share some of the changes made to the root HTAccess file and provide a brief explanation as to their intended purpose and potential benefit. In sharing this information, I hope to inspire others to improve their own HTAccess and/or configuration files. In the next article, I will cover some of the ...

Obsessive CSS Code Formatting: Opening and Closing Brackets

Following my recent post on CSS code formatting, I was delightfully surprised to have received such insightful, enthusiastic feedback. Apparently, I am not the only person passionate about the subtle nuances involved with the formatting of CSS code. So, to continue the conversation, let’s explore several techniques for writing the opening and closing brackets of CSS declaration blocks. Formatting method #1 I have seen this method used more than any other. The opening bracket appears on the same line as the selector and the closing bracket appears on its own line after the final property: div#example_01 { padding: ...

Obsessive CSS Code Formatting: Patterns and Trends

Call me strange, but I format each of my CSS rules according to the following pattern: div#example element { margin: 5px 15px 5px 0; border: 1px solid #444; line-height: 1.5em; text-align: center; background: #222; font-size: 10px; display: block; padding: 5px; color: #888; float: left; } div#another div.example element { border: 1px solid #444; margin: 7px 0 17px 0; letter-spacing: 1px; font-weight: bold; background: #222; font-size: 1.1em; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 3px; width: 308px; color: #888; clear: left; float: left; } div#another div.example element { text-indent: -9999px; overflow: hidden; position: fixed; display: block; z-index: 9999; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; } Notice how the right-hand edge of each block suggests a diagonal line? This is accomplished by placing the longest declaration at the top of the style block, then the second-longest, and so on until the shortest rule is finally placed at the bottom. ...

Laser-Focused Feeds and Smarter Feed Management

My current adventure into the fascinating realms of site redesign and optimization has yielded several chunks of fruit related to managing and delivering feed content. One of my primary concerns regarding the overhaul of Perishable Press is streamlined content delivery and rights management. An important area of convergence for these two factors involves the management and delivery of a site’s syndicated content. In this article, I explain the shortcomings of many default feed configurations and present an effective overall strategy for better feed management. When it comes to managing syndicated content, ...

First 30 Days without Bad Behavior

Approximately 30 days ago, I completely uninstalled the Bad Behavior plugin from Perishable Press. As you may recall, many Bad Behavior users were unexpectedly locked out of their own sites and forced to either uninstall or upgrade in order to fix the problem. Of course, in my perpetual battle to optimize and streamline everything, I decided to drop Bad Behavior from the otherwise obligatory WordPress anti-spam trinity. 30 days later.. I am happy to ...

Do You Have a Year-End Maintenance Ritual?

Over the past several years working online, my year-end maintenance routine has evolved from simple website backups to a robust strategy involving many important and useful tasks. Some of the items on the list have indeed been performed multiple times throughout the year, but are included here to emphasize their importance. Additionally, many of these tasks are great for helping bloggers gain a clearer picture of their overall online empire, while attaining a sense of annual “closure” concerning the work of the previous year. So, let’s dig into my personal year-end strategy for cleaning things up ...

Perishable Press Site Renovation Strategy

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 ...

Rethinking Site Functionality, Presentation, and Structure

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 ...

Miscellaneous Happenings

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 ...

Five-Step Feed-Portfolio Makeover

Recently, I found myself drowning in an ocean of RSS feeds. Even after switching to Google Reader, which definitely speeds up the process of plowing through posts, I was wasting too much time consuming subscribed content. Thus, in an effort to find balance between saving time and staying current, I executed the following five-step feed portfolio makeover: Drop lame feeds. Previously, I had subscribed to a number of feeds simply because they were recommended or mentioned in an article somewhere. Unfortunately, sound referrals and interesting commentary do not necessarily equate with strong syndicated content. I often found myself reading post after post about stuff that was not useful or even interesting. ...

10 Firefox Extensions that I Use Every Day

In the Beginning.. Over a year ago, I posted an article recommending over fifty “essential Firefox extensions.” Excited to have discovered the miraculous joys of extending Firefox with such amazing functionality, I loaded my primary copy of Firefox with just about every potentially useful extension that I could find. Several weeks were spent playing with new features, customizing preferences, and configuring options to gel together in an orchestrated chorus of blissful browser harmony. After experiencing the functional firepower of my newly equipped technological terror, I was completely convinced that I had assembled the ultimate collection of Firefox extensions. And, as the power ...

Get Organized, Save Time with the HTC 8525 Pocket PC

The AT&T 8525 is the first UMTS/HSDPA smart phone to be offered in the United States. It has integrated Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, and supports AT&T’s new music, video, and location-based services. The Windows Mobile device also has push e-mail capabilities, a 2-megapixel camera, a spacious QWERTY keyboard, and good call quality. — CNET Editors’ Review of the AT&T 8525 Perishable Press via AT&T 8525 (click image for more..) Thusly inspired, I recently purchased an AT&T 8525 Pocket PC by HTC. The device now serves as my virtual satellite, keeping me connected to the internet, ...

Cultivating a Successful Screenshot Archive

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, ...

Launch Multiple Programs with One Click

Speed up your workflow by launching your favorite programs in one click using batch (.bat) files: Create a folder and add shortcuts to your favorite programs. Rename the shortcuts so that each consists of a single word. Create a text file and change the name to something.bat. Right-click on the .bat ("batch") file and select "Edit". Emulate the following template according to your specific programs. rem comments should begin with rem rem note: this file launches all of my favorite apps! rem note: replace the names below with your own.. @echo off start %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe start firefox http://google.com/ start dreamweaver start photoshop start winamp ...

WordPress on Crack: Tips for Faster Post Publishing

Apparently, article posting is painfully slow on 2-ish versions of WordPress. Indeed, we finally got tired of waiting several minutes every time we published, saved, or edited a post. After a bit of research, reading through countless complaints and suggested remedies, several key methods began to emerge. And, after taking the time to implement them, we have definitely enjoyed an substantial decrease in time required to publish, save, or edit posts. Please note that everyone’s site is configured differently. These are the tricks that helped us to speed up publishing, but they may not have the same effect for everyone. The following methods were executed for ...

Roll Your Own SEO Log

Introduction Search engine optimization (SEO) is the business of every serious webmaster. The process of optimizing a website for the search engines involves much more than properly constructed document headers and anchor tags. Websites are like trees: their roots are the growing collection of content presented through the branching universe of the World Wide Web. Or something. The point is that optimizing a website requires nurturing the site itself while also ensuring proper exposure to the requisite elements of the internet. The process of optimizing your first website may seem daunting. There are many aspects to consider and many websites with which to deal. ...

Customize WordPress Quicktags

Note: This condensed tutorial assumes you are working with WordPress 2+ and are familiar with editing .php and/or .js files. WordPress quicktags1 provide shortcuts for adding certain bits of code to your posts. The default set of quicktags includes some handy shortcut buttons for tags such as , , and , as well as a few others. While the default set of quicktag buttons is occasionally useful, a quick bit of quicktag customization can easily transform your personal set of quicktag buttons into a deadly arsenal of time-saving code shortcuts. First, open the quicktags.js file, usually located in the wp-includes/js directory. Next, scroll down to around line #40 and look for the following ...