How to Enable PHP Error Logging via htaccess

In this brief tutorial, I will show Apache users how to suppress PHP errors from visitors and enable PHP error logging via htaccess. Tracking your site’s PHP errors is an excellent way to manage and troubleshoot unexpected issues related to plugins and themes. Even better, monitoring PHP errors behind the scenes ...

Focus on the Details: Optimizing Images for Humans and Machines

In this article, I discuss how to get the most out of your site’s images by optimizing them for both people and search engines.. For many sites, images play an important role in the communication process. If used correctly, images have the power to make your articles come alive with clarity and vibrancy. Some visitors may merely notice the image and continue reading, while others will want to ...

Quick JavaScript Tip: Auto-Highlight Form Inputs and Textareas

I realize that probably everybody already knows this elementary and absolutely dead-simple JavaScript tip, but I was surfing around the other day and encountered a page that made great use of some auto-highlighted textarea content. The idea is simple, include a snippet of JavaScript to enable users to automatically highlight/select upon focus any chunk of text located within a form input or textarea element. I would imagine this trick works with just about any element — buttons, ...

5 Easy Ways to Display Syntax Highlighted PHP Code

A great to way to share your PHP code with visitors is to display it directly in the browser with automatically generated syntax highlighting. Here is a screenshot showing an example of syntax-highlighted PHP code: Displaying your ...

Three Ways to Allow Hotlinking in Specific Directories

After implementing any of the hotlink-prevention techniques described in our previous article, you may find it necessary to disable hotlink-protection for a specific directory. By default, htaccess rules apply to the directory in which it is located, as well as all subdirectories contained therein. There are (at least) three ways to enable selective hotlinking: Place hotlink images in an alternate directory This method ...

Stupid htaccess Trick: Enable File or Directory Access to Your Password-Protected Site

In this brief tutorial, we are going to enable users to access any file or directory of a site that is password-protected via htaccess. There are many reasons for wanting to employ this technique, including: Share public resources from an otherwise private site Enable visitors to access content during site maintenance Testing and formatting of layout and design during development As a webmaster, I have used this technique on several ...

Easily Adaptable WordPress Loop Templates

In this article, I present several heavily commented examples of WordPress loops. I have found that many readers appreciate these types of loop examples, as it helps them to understand how the loop works while enabling them to easily copy, paste, and adapt the code for their own purposes. In our first example, we examine a basic WordPress ...

Prevent JavaScript Elements from Breaking Page Layout when Following Yahoo Performance Tip #6: Place Scripts at the Bottom

By now, everyone is familiar with the Yahoo Developer Network’s 14 “best-practices” for speeding up your website. Certainly, many (if not all) of these performance optimization tips are ideal for high-traffic sites such as Yahoo or Google, but not all of them are recommended for smaller sites such as Perishable Press. Nonetheless, throughout the ...

Ultimate htaccess Blacklist 2 (Compressed Version)

[ Keywords: htaccess, rewrite, blacklist, block, deny, spam, spammers, scrapers, rippers ] In our original htaccess blacklist article, we provide an extensive list of bad user agents. This so-called “Ultimate htaccess Blacklist” works great at blocking many different online villains: spammers, scammers, scrapers, scrappers, rippers, leechers — you name it. Yet, despite its usefulness, there is always room for improvement. For example, as reader ...

Fixing Mint after Switching Servers

After switching Perishable Press to its current home at A Small Orange, I began noticing an unusual problem with referrer data displayed in Mint. Specifically, the first item recorded in the XXX Strong Mint data panel — for both “Most Recent” and “Repeat” views — displayed several thousand hits for various site resources, all from ...

htaccess Combo Pack: WordPress Permalinks and non-www Redirect

WordPress users employing permalinks via htaccess to optimize their dynamic URLs transform complicated-looking links such as: http://example.com/blog/index.php?page=33 ..into search-engine friendly links such as: http://example.com/blog/post-title/ Every rewritten URL relies on a common set of htaccess rules to transform the links. The htaccess rules for all WordPress permalinks look like this for root WP installations: # BEGIN WordPress RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond ...

Absolute Horizontal and Vertical Centering via CSS

Recently, a reader named Max encountered some scrolling issues while implementing our absolutely centered layout technique. Of course, by “absolutely centered” we are referring to content that remains positioned dead-center regardless of how the browser is resized. After noticing the scrollbar deficiency, Max kindly dropped a comment to explain the issue: [...] the div solution works well, only one problem maybe somebody can help:...

Super Loop: Exclude Specific Categories and Display any Number of Posts

[ Keywords: wordpress, loop, have_posts, category, categories, post, posts, asides, excerpts ] Readers occasionally ask for help with their WordPress loops. Usually, these requests involve modifying the loop with some customized functionality. Frequently, such customization involves one of these popular behaviors: Exclude a specific category Exclude multiple categories Display only one post or excerpt Display some fixed number of ...

MySQL Magic: Find and Replace Data

Recently, I needed to find and replace all instances of “http://website” in the wp_comments table of the WordPress database. Fortunately, SQL provides a simple way to find and replace data with its wonderful UPDATE function. General Example Using the SQL UPDATE command is straightforward. Here is the general syntax: UPDATE table_name SET field_name = replace( field_name, 'string_to_find', 'string_to_replace' ) ; Simply replace the table_name and both instances of field_name with ...

Permanently Redirect a Specific IP Request for a Single Page via htaccess

Not the most interesting title, but “oh well”.. Recently, a reader named Alison left a comment requesting help with a particular htaccess trick. She wanted to know how to permanently redirect (301) all requests for a specific page when requested from a specific IP address. In other words, when a visitor coming from 123.456.789 requests the page requested-page.html, the visitor will be redirected to just-for-you.html. All visitors not ...

CSS Throwdown: Preload Images without JavaScript

Clean, easy, effective. You don’t need no stinking JavaScript to preload your images. Nope. Try some tasty CSS and (X)HTML instead! Here’s how.. (only two steps!) Step 1 — Place this in your CSS file: div#preloaded-images { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; left: -9999px; top: -9999px; height: 1px; width: 1px; } Step 2 — Place this at the bottom ...

Wrapping Your Head around Downlevel Conditional Comments

[ Keywords: downlevel, conditional, comments, hidden, revealed, positive, negative, ie ] If you think you understand the logic behind Microsoft’s downlevel conditional comments, you are sadly mistaken. Sure, they seem simple enough on the surface, but as you really try to wrap your head around how and why they work, the subtle complexities of downlevel conditional comments may leave you dazed and confused... In our ...

Computer Flashback: Windows 98 Run Commands

[ Keywords: windows, 98se, 98, run, commands, command, dos, ms-dos, msconfig, regedit ] Even with all the fancy-pants new features found in Windows XP and now Vista, Microsoft Windows 98 (Second Edition) remains our favorite Windows-flavored operating system. We love it so much, we still use it on one of our trusty laptops. Over the years, we have discovered several very useful functions available via ...

Ultimate htaccess Blacklist

[ Keywords: htaccess, rewrite, blacklist, block, deny, spam, spammers, scrapers, rippers ] For those of us running Apache, htaccess rewrite rules provide an excellent way to block spammers, scrapers, and other scumbags easily and effectively. While there are many htaccess tricks involving blocking domains, preventing access, and redirecting traffic, ...

Use PHP to Create Symbolic Links without Shell Access

[ Keywords: symbolic, links, symlinks, symlink, shell, access, php ] On Unix systems, a symbolic link refers to a file that points to another file or directory. Symbolic links serve as powerful tools for web designers and developers. Using shell access, creating a symbolic link requires only one line of code: ln -s /home/username/public_html/directory1 /home/username/public_html/directory2 Simple enough. Assuming you have access to the linux shell. Unfortunately, many shared hosting environments ...

Smooth Operators: Sharpen your Google Search Skills

[ Keywords: Google, search, tricks, tips, hints, reference, cache, link, site, info, intitle, inurl ] Coming soon to the World Wide Web: Everything. The perpetually evolving sum of human knowledge available online. Anywhere. Anytime. So, what are you looking for? Information concerning something, somewhere, about somebody.. You know it’s there somewhere. Sure, you could waste time by digging through that immense labyrinth of browser bookmarks, maybe eventually finding that one link that may or may not lead ...

Go Back via JavaScript and PHP

Use this simple code as a button that will return users to the previous page: Here it is as a simple text link: « Go back You can make things easier by serving PHP and printing the link automatically. Here is the button link: echo ""; And here is the PHP code to print a "Go back" text link: echo "...

Random Fixinz for Hotmail via Outlook Express

Note: The methods described in this post apply to older versions of Internet Explorer (<6) and Outlook Express (<6), and are provided here for reference purposes only. Fix the "Unable to poll for new messages" error Here is an error message that some Outlook Express users receive when sending or receiving email, or after creating a new email account: Unable to poll for new messages on your HTTP server. Account: 'Hotmail' Server: 'http://services.msn.com/svcs/hotmail/httpmail.asp' Protocol: HTTPMail Server Response: 'End tag 'D:response' does not match ...

Hide Content on Windows 98SE

This brief tutorial on hiding content applies to Windows 95, 98, and 98SE. Although this method may be old hat or even irrelevant, I have found it useful on a number of occasions, and therefore found it worthwhile to include here for the sake of prosperity. On Windows 98SE (and others), it is possible to create a folder that is both listed and inaccessible via the Windows file system. Using an old DOS trick involving an obscure character ...

Maximum and Minimum Height and Width in Internet Explorer

Behold the seventh wonder of the virtual world: max/min-height and max/min-width properties are possible in Internet Explorer! Indeed, by taking advantage of IE’s proprietary CSS attribute, expression, you too can whip IE widths and heights into desirable proportions. The CSS expression attribute enables JavaScript commands to be executed within Internet Explorer. JavaScript via CSS? Thanks, Microsoft! Why is this so great? Well, because in other, standards-compliant browsers, max/min-height and max/min-width properties are easily accomplished with this simple bit ...

Rename the Recycle Bin in WinXP

To rename the Recycle Bin in Windows XP, create a new text.txt file in your favorite directory and add the following lines: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder] "Attributes"=hex:50,01,00,20"CallForAttributes"=dword:00000000 Next, rename the file extension from ".txt" to ".reg" -- the other part of the file name may be whatever you prefer (e.g., RecycleBin.reg). Then, double-click the file to have Windows import it into the Registry. Now go right-click your Recycle Bin and use the new option to Rename it. To remove renaming functionality for the Recycle ...

Industrial-Strength Spamless Email Links

In our previous article on creating spamless email links via JavaScript, the presented method, although relatively simple to implement, is not the most effective solution available. Spambots, email harvesters, and other online scumbags relentlessly advance their scanning technology, perpetually rendering obsolete yesterday’s methods. In the case of spamless email links created client-side via JavaScript, many spambots now are able to decipher certain email addresses hidden within the JavaScript code itself. Spambots scan ...

Keep it Dark: Hiding and Filtering CSS

Hiding and filtering CSS rules for specifically targeted browsers is often a foregone conclusion when it comes to cross-browser design considerations. Rather than dive into some lengthy dialogue concerning the myriad situations and implications of such design hackery, our current scheduling restraints behoove us to simply cut to the chase and dish the goods. Having said that, we now consider this post a perpetually evolving repository of CSS filters.. Hide CSS from IE3, IE4, NS4 This method employs JavaScript ...

Delete index.dat on Windows 98SE

This brief tutorial on removing (and replacing) the "index.dat" file applies to any Windows OS running on MS-DOS. Although I haven’t researched this officially, it appears that all Windows versions released prior to Windows 2000 are running on the 16-bit MS-DOS kernel. Conversely, Win2000 and WinXP operate on a 32-bit kernel and thus do not utilize MS-DOS. Thus, this method focuses on removing the index.dat from machines running Windows 95, 98, and 98SE. As you may be ...

Path to Outlook Express Files on WinXP

Trying to backup your Outlook Express .dbx files on Windows XP may prove difficult if you can’t find them. Well, fret no more, my friend. Here is the generalized path to the Outlook Express folder, which contains all of the .dbx files for a particular user. Copy, paste, and shortcut: C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{12345678-1234-ABCD-EFGH-1234567890AB}\Microsoft\Outlook Express * [username] = each user will should have their set of .dbx files. * {12345678-1234-ABCD-EFGH-1234567890AB} = represents a unique alphanumeric string.

Embed External Content via iframe and div

By using an within a , it is possible to include external web content in most any web document. This method serves as an excellent alternative to actual frames, which are not as flexible and definitely not as popular. Indeed, with CSS, the placement, sizing, and styling of div’s provides endless possibilities for embedding external or even internal web content into pages that would otherwise require the use of frames, Flash, or JavaScript. This method works ...

Auto-Focus Form Elements with JavaScript

After digging through the WordPress source code, I stumbled upon this very useful JavaScript method for auto-focusing form elements upon page load. Here is the JavaScript code (place within the document head): function formfocus() { document.getElementById('element').focus(); } window.onload = formfocus; ...and corresponding (X)HTML markup (abbreviated for clarity): In this example, the first form element ...

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 ...

Perishable Press Triple Loop for WordPress

Two of the themes developed by Perishable Press, Apathy and Information, depend on three WordPress loops to operate as intended. For each of these themes, the three loops consist of two "side" loops and one main loop. The side loops each display posts from one specific category, while the main loop displays posts from every category not specified in the side loops. There are many different multi-loop configurations ...

Add RSS Feed Link Icons to WordPress Category Listings

This brief tutorial explains two methods for adding RSS feed link icons to category listings. Let’s say that you have a list of category links, where each link targets a specific category view. Now let’s say that, next to each category link, you would like to provide a icon that links to that particular category’s syndicated feed. So, rather than cluttering up your page with two sets of category links -- one for category views and another ...

Firefox CSS Magic

Consider this post an evolving receptacle for Firefox-specific CSS tricks. Change the color of highlighted text *::-moz-selection { background: #FF3C00; /* the background color of the highlight */ color: #FFF; /* the color of the text within the highlight */ } Change the opacity of an element div#division { /* choose either attribute */ -moz-opacity: 0.99; /* possible values: 0-1 */ -moz-opacity: 99%; /* possible values: 0%-99% */ } Control item selection of an element div#division { ...

Extreme Makeover for Gravatars in WordPress

Strategic Methods for Improving Gravatar Functionality in WordPress Gravatars have become a popular way of adding spice to the "comments" page of many WordPress-powered sites. So popular, in fact, that the gravatar server is often overloaded, bogged down with millions of gravatar requests every second. This immense server load effects user pages everywhere, resulting in slow loading times, unresolved server requests, and missing gravatars. Such broken presentations appear unprofessional, tarnish reputations, and may provoke ...

Delete Unwanted Context Menu Items in WinXP

Within the right-click context menu is the option to create "New" file items. While the list of available documents within the "New" submenu often contains several useful file types, such as .txt or .zip, it also contains lots of unnecessary entries. To clean up the "New" right-click context menu, open the Registry Editor, regedit.exe, and Find all instances of "ShellNew". Examine the search results. Every ShellNew branch belongs to a specific type of file. As each ShellNew branch ...

Folder Background Images in WinXP

This brief tutorial explains how to add a background image to any folder in Windows XP. First, make sure all hidden files are visible on your system. Then, open the folder for which you wish to add a background image. Within the folder, right-click and select Properties » Customize tab » Customize. There, choose any icon, click Apply and OK. That process should have created a "desktop.ini" file. Open that file with a text editor and add these lines ...

One Link to Open Them All

Welcome to Perishable Press! This article explains several methods for opening multiple frames with a single link. For more excellent (X)HTML information, check out the (X)HTML tag archive. If you like what you see, I encourage you to subscribe to Perishable Press for a periodic dose of online ...

IE Scrollbar Colors

Changing the color of scrollbars for Internet Explorer may very well be the oldest trick in the book. In fact, this post exists mostly for the sake of prosperity, as we here at Perishable Press strive to eliminate our entire offline library of website design notes by transferring them to the World Wide Web. Although library conversion requires time, patience, and determination, changing the color of IE scrollbars is relatively simple. Simply associate these CSS rules to ...

Fun with Downlevel Conditional Comments

Ever since Internet Explorer 5 (IE5), Microsoft has included browser support for "downlevel conditional comments," a non-scripted method of browser detection. Downlevel conditional comments (DCC) are a useful tool for targeting directives to specific versions of Internet Explorer. Downlevel conditional comments consist of an opening statement and a closing statement. Taken together, the statements enclose markup, CSS, JavaScript, or any other element typically included within an (X)HTML document. The DCC may be placed anywhere within the document ...

Nifty CSS Link Hover Effect

This nifty CSS link hover effect magically reveals a hidden span of text after specified links. The trick employs an anonymous span nested within an anchor tag. CSS then acts upon the markup with a set of rules that basically says hide the nested span until the link is hovered. Here is an example. Here is the CSS code and XHTML markup that makes it happen: a:link, a:visited { text-decoration: underline; color: #990000; } a:hover, a:active { text-decoration: none; color: #990000; } li a:link span, ...

Auto Clear and Restore Form Elements

Using a small bit of JavaScript, it is possible to auto-clear and restore form elements when users bring focus to them. Simply copy, paste, and modify the following code example to achieve an effect similar to this:   ...

Display the Total Number of WordPress Posts, Comments, and Categories

Would you like to display the total number of posts, comments, and categories for your WordPress-powered website? Here is the code that can make it happen 1!...

Spamless Email Address via JavaScript

Let’s face it, spam sucks. Give spammers the figurative finger by using this nifty bit of JavaScript to hide your email address from the harvesters. Here is an easy “copy-&-paste” snippet for including a spam-proof email address in your web pages. Although there are a million ways of doing this, I am posting this for the record (and because I just can’t stand deleting usable code). This ...

Crazy CSS Underline Effects

Check out these crazy CSS underline effects: u.double { /* -- double underline -- */ border-bottom: 1px solid; } .altdouble { /* alternate double */ border-bottom: 3px double; line-height: 1.7em; } u.triple { /* -- triple threat -- */ border-bottom: 3px double; line-height: 1.9em; } Double Underline Effects! (via u.double class) Alternate Double Underline! (via .altdouble class) Triple Underline Effects! (via u.triple class) Note: if these examples do not display correctly with the current theme, ...

CSS Hack Dumpster

Consider this page a virtual dumpster of wonderful CSS hacks.. Commented Backslash Hack V2 This hack effectively hides anything after the “\*/” from MacIE5: /* commented backslash hack v2 \*/ div#something { boder: thin solid red; } /* end hack */ May also be used for CSS import directives: /* commented backslash hack v2 \*/ @import url(http://www.site.com/stylesheet.css); /* end hack */ Fix Division Widths in IE Fix IE’s crazy box rendering. The first line limits to only IE. The second line * html ...

Conditionally Load WordPress Pages

Need to load a WordPress page conditionally? For example, perhaps you need a “special” page to appear for search results? Yes? This simple PHP/JavaScript solution may be just what the doctor ordered! Simply replace “condition” with the required condition (or delete the if (condition) {} qualifier entirely), and then change the path and file names to suit your specific needs:...

Execute External WordPress Functions

To execute WordPress functions in an external directory (i.e., outside of the WordPress install directory), it is necessary to include a call to “wp-blog-header.php” at the top of the external file. For example, if your WordPress-powered blog is located in a subdirectory called “blog” and the external file is in the domain root (e.g., the external file is located directly in http://domain.com/), add the following code to the top of the external file: This may be generalized ...

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