Articles tagged with “Websites

Another Exciting Perishable News Update
It’s been awhile since my last personal news post, and I figure that enough has been happening to warrant yet another exciting news update. Yay! ;) So let’s see, first on my mind is the recent launch of the new design for Monzilla Media, the official site for my personal website and graphic design business. The first two versions of the site were ...
Bloggers Toolbox: Strategic Elements for a Perfect About Page
As a quasi-reclusive introvert with paranoiac-critical tendencies, one of my least favorite aspects of blogging involves creating those dreadful “About” pages that reveal unknown things about you. About pages are important to many people, providing a way to learn about and connect with the person or people “behind the blog.” After all, websites are relatively impersonal, as viewers are required to extract meaning and personality from behind a large, square piece of machinery. Regardless of the type of ...
New Widgetized Version of AddMySite Released!
It must be national “update-your-WordPress-plugins” month around here or something. First a completely renovated version of Category LiveBookmarks Plus, then a WP-2.3-compatible facelift for BlogStats PCC, and now a completely widgetized & automated version of the popular ...
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Favicons
Fifty Favorite Favicons If you have a website, you need a favicon. For those who may not know, favicons are the small, square icons that frequently are associated with websites. Favicons appear in many places, including browser toolbars, bookmarks, tabs, and address bars. Favicons provide immediate visual identification of their represented sites, enabling super-easy navigation for Web users. While ...
Mind-Blowing Web-2.0 Design Trends
The über-trendy “Web-2.0” paradigm seems to be floating quite comfortably throughout the blogosphere these days. In fact, with it’s current mainstream popularity, the Web-2.0 mentality enjoys de facto status as the dominating influence behind modern website development and design. Not too long ago, however, Web-2.0 hovered quietly amidst the thinking of cutting-edge entrepreneurs and developers, as they strove toward freshness, simplicity, and usability. Before it's rise to media fame, Web 2.0 was merely a loosely defined set ...
Web Host Recommendation: A Small Orange Delivers Superior Service
Perishable Press switched to A Small Orange [ASO] in March of 2007. At the time, I was looking for highly recommended shared hosting with several key features: Solid customer service and extremely reliable server uptime Unlimited domains with plenty of disk space and bandwidth Unlimited Email accounts, MySQL databases and everything else A Small Orange delivers all of the above in every ...
How to Block IP Addresses with PHP
[ Keywords: block, deny, ip, address, php, spam, htaccess, redirect ] Figuratively speaking, hunting down and killing spammers, scrapers, and other online scum remains one of our favorite pursuits. Once we have determined that a particular IP address is worthy of banishment, we generally invoke the magical powers of ...
The Search is on for High-Quality, Ad-Free Sites
Shouts out: First of all, to everyone who reads my content on a regular basis, thank you! Things are finally rolling along quite smoothly, and I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that I truly appreciate your kind participation with Perishable Press. We have some great things planned in the near future, and look forward to sharing them with you. Business Currently, I have several ...
SEO 101: Best Practices
[ Keywords: seo, search, engine, optimization, optimize, websites, domains, links ] After studying Peter Kent’s excellent book, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, several key methods emerged for optimizing websites for the search engines. Although the book is written for people who are new to the world of search engine optimization (SEO), many of the principles presented throughout the book remain important, fundamental practices even for ...
Yes, I Took the Survey
ALA 2007 Survey Web designer? Go take the survey!  
Wild Bill Recommends: Bizarre Flash Diversions
"Indeed.." "Perhaps it’s time for a bizarre diversion..." Wild Bill recommends these bizarre Flash websites for your personal entertainment, education, and enjoyment:   monoface For a few delightful moments of splendid online fun, prance on over to the hilariously interactive Flash interface currently on display at monoface. Once there, click the "shuffle face" link a few times to get the general idea, ...
Search Engine Registration Notes
In his excellent book, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, Peter Kent explains that many search engines actually get their search results from one (or more) of the larger search engines, such as Google or The Open Directory Project. Therefore, the author concludes that it may not be necessary to spend endless hours registering with thousands of the smaller search sites. Rather, the author ...
SEO 101: Establishing and Evolving an Effective Link Strategy
Introduction Optimizing your website for the search engines involves many important aspects including keyword development, search engine registration, and SEO logging. This Press post scopes yet another critical weapon in the SEO wars: establishing and evolving an effective link campaign. Within your SEO log, you should devote an entire section to the logging of all link-related activity associated with optimizing your ...
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 ...
Theme Edits for IE7
This post is a working repository of code edits and other changes made to Perishable Press themes in order for them to function properly in Internet Explorer 7 (IE7).. Jupiter Theme *:first-child+html div.comwrap { overflow: visible; } Lithium Theme *:first-child+html div.comwrap { overflow: visible; } Casket Theme Removed html selector from first ruleset.
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 ...
SEO 101: Keyword Development and Deployment
Keyword Development Keywords play a vital role in search engine optimization (SEO), and -- if used properly -- have the potential to increase the flow of traffic to your site. It is beneficial to maintain an active list of keywords for each of your websites. Each list should be a continually evolving set of important, relevant keywords. The idea here is to develop a consistent practice of actively seeking better keywords, thereby producing your very own customized keyword ...
Imported Graffiti Art in the Desert Oasis
Aside from an occasional gang squirt, Moses Lake, Washington has no graffiti art scene of which to speak. Yes, there are many vast, open walls available for inspired artists to develop into colorful statements of creative expression. However, city officials and general public opinion frown on graffiti art as worthless, wicked vandalism. Granted, the city does offer several commissioned murals, mainly scenic visions of the ordinary rural variety. Unfortunately, those of us craving authentic expressions of genuine ...
Website Attack Recovery
Recently, every website on our primary server was simultaneously attacked. The offending party indiscriminately replaced the contents of every index file, regardless of its extension or location, with a few vulgar lines of code, which indicated intention, identity, and influence. Apparently, the attack occurred via Germany, through a server at the University of Hamburg. This relatively minor attack resulted in several hours of valuable online education. In this article, it is our intention ...
Get Back
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a trip into the online past, offering glimpses of ancient website relics. Reaching back through the virtual dark ages of 1996, the Wayback Machine chronicles over 55 billion pages. Although many of the pages appear incomplete due to missing images, the Wayback Machine provides an invaluable resource, enabling users to experience and learn from the arcane internet of yesterday. Check out these archaic online offerings: netscape.com, circa ...
Migration and Propagation Business
The overly dramatic process of transferring our Online Empire to a new server and then back again manifests several valuable lessons. Please look back your note and observe the following suggestions during any future server migration and/or domain propagation events... Domain Propagation When switching servers, do not cancel the old account until absolutely positive it is no longer needed. Edit all Domain Name Servers (DNS) with the new server Internet Protocols (IP’s) as soon as ...
Server Migration Details
About a year ago we signed up with a hosting provider that offered one of the best hosting deals around: lots of space, bandwidth, and transfer — plus all of the usual server software amenities that make life easier. Everything went smoothly at first... In fact, the first six months of service were close to 100%. The few help-ticket items submitted were promptly resolved in a professional manner. We were ready to start some business and everything was ...
Perishable Domains
The Perishable Domain Portfolio is an integrated netwerk of highly specialized websites, each serving a unique purpose*. All of our websites are hosted, developed, and maintained by Perishable @ Monzilla Media. art{space} magazine art{space} magazine art{space} magazine online investigates the internal and external environments of artists and other creatives. Articles focus on artists’ objective and subjective creative environments while exploring the dynamic interaction between them. Many art{space} ...

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About Perishable Press

Perishable Press is the virtual playground of Jeff Starr — visionary, founder and lead developer of Monzilla Media, a small web and graphic design company in the lush desert oasis of Moses Lake, Washington. Perishable Press features articles and tutorials on many aspects of digital design..

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Tons of Firewalls

Tuesday, 7 October 2008, 1:45 am

Recently overheard on conservative talk radio (instructing listeners how to obtain a free promotional video from their new website):

“This website has tons and tons of firewalls, so you have to use your real email address to download the video..”

The Quiet Search Revolution

Monday, 6 October 2008, 12:15 pm

Just a thought.. As awesome as Google is these days, it would suck if they ended up owning the entire search-engine business. When they get to the point where all competition is impossible (due to their sheer size, financial resources, media influence, etc.), how many alternate search engines will have the resources for continuous improvement and top-quality search results? When this happens, we will have no choice but to do exactly what Google tells us to do.

As deeply ingrained as it is for everyone to instinctively and unthinkingly turn to Google for their search activity, it is time to leave a few alternate search tabs open for as much use as possible. Instead of using Google just because that’s what you always do, try your search on MSN, Yahoo, Ask, or any of the other independent search engines instead. Sharing traffic with other search engines is a nice, quiet way to keep the competitive spirit alive and well in the search-engine business.

Disappearing WordPress Posts

Wednesday, 1 October 2008, 7:50 pm

Today I experienced difficulties while trying to publish or even save new posts in WordPress. I would compose the post as usual, add all of the keywords, tags, meta tags, and so on, but as soon as I clicked the “Publish” or “Save” button, the post would just disappear from existence.

The weird thing is that during the drafting process, WordPress’ default auto-save feature showed that the post had been saved at expected intervals. Unfortunately, after trying to publish several different posts, WordPress showed absolutely no record of the posts ever being created. They simply vanished into thin air.

Fortunately, a little investigation revealed the culprit. If you should find yourself dealing with this same issue, here are some different things that you should try. First, re-upload fresh copies of your entire WordPress installation. I don’t know why exactly, but apparently various files can either go stale or completely disappear from the server. Overwriting or writing fresh files may do the trick.

If that doesn’t work, check your WordPress database for errors. In my case, a little investigation revealed that something had caused a couple of fatal errors in the wp_posts table. Fortunately, checking and repairing the table solved the issue.

Tumblr Battles

Wednesday, 1 October 2008, 5:30 pm

Please excuse the duplicate Tumbr posts.. seems there is no way to ping Tumblr to refresh/rebuild the RSS feed according to changes in post content. So, to resolve the issue I have discussed now like two or three times regarding paragraph elements and proper feed formatting, I have no choice but to repost a majority of my text posts.

This is necessary for the proper import and display of my Tumblr feed into WordPress. Currently, there are five items displayed at once, each styled according to proper inclusion of paragraph tags. Thus, whenever the Tumblr feed “forgets” to enclose single-paragraph posts with the proper tags, the result is an unstyled post entry displayed on my site.

Assuming that makes sense, you will please excuse my dust while I repost a few older entries in an attempt to reconstruct (the hard way) a properly formatted Tumblr feed.

More Optimization Measures

Wednesday, 1 October 2008, 5:27 pm

Another important step in improving the performance of my recent redesign involves the optimization of both CSS and JavaScript content. During development there were around 15 server requests for these two types of files, 10 JavaScript files and 5 CSS files. This was okay for my own use, but would not work for production purposes.

Optimizing these file types involves consolidation, compression, and caching. Consolidation of 10 JavaScript files into three is huge improvement. Now I deliver one JS file for the functionality of the site, one for Mint, and another for Analytics. Likewise for the stylesheets; after consolidation, a single stylesheet is delivered to all modern browsers. There are two additional stylesheets as well, but they are targeted at IE6 and mobile browsers and will not load elsewhere.

Once the files were consolidated as much as possible, it was time to optimize or “crunch” them. Using the sexy Flumpcakes CSS optimizer, I was able to reduce my stylesheets by around 25%. Likewise for JavaScript, I used xtreeme.com’s optimizer to shave an additional 20% off the size of my JS content.

Finally, once I had consolidated and compressed my JS and CSS files as much as possible, I wanted to further my optimization efforts by ensuring that these files were cached by the browser. By setting far-future Expires headers for everything but the statistical files, my site gains an additional performance boost by eliminating the need to reload preexisting content.

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  • Adam Singer: Thanks for this. You're right, if it isn't broken, don't fix it. I was about to update my permalinks and install a plugin to redire...
  • Marilyn: It looks great on my browser! I wish I had that much creativity in my head! It's gorgeous!...
  • Randy: "Too girly?" It looks like a great design. Define "too girly!"...
  • Christopher Ross: .htaccess based redirects are wonderful. I'm always baffled by web professionals who don't take the time to learn more about them....
  • federico: Hi Jeff... tnx so much...it worked perfectly... c u Federico...
  • Cooltad: The skin seems (mostly) fine in my expert opinion. Your one of the few people able to make a design with a transparent table and a b...
  • Neal: The free Intro to Linux book is a great place to start http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/mirrors/LDP/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html ...
  • Louis: @Jeff: Your “Archives” page is slick, although I would expect a cleaner implementation from such a vehement advoc...
  • Jeremy: Well I think that you may be over-critical, I don't see a darn thing wrong with it - I like it a lot!...
  • Jeff Starr: Alright, this is exactly the kind of information I was hoping to get. Lots of great ideas and recommendations here. I will be reading...

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