As announced at IE Death March, I recently dropped support for Internet Explorer 6. As newer versions of Firefox, Opera, and Safari (and others) continue to improve consistency and provide better support for standards-based techniques, having to carry IE 6 along for the ride — for any reason — is painful. Thanks to the techniques described in this article, I am free to completely ignore (figuratively and literally) IE 6 when developing and designing websites. Continue reading »
Graham Smith of ImJustCreative.com recently interviewed me on a wide variety of topics, including everything from blogging and web design to theme development and social media. The interview is presented as more of a dialogue between Graham and myself, and will be presented as a three-part series. Continue reading »
One of my first article series, the WordPress Basics series walks beginning users through some of the most rudimentary but essential WordPress tasks. From logging into the WordPress Admin and creating posts to setting post options and uploading images, the WordPress Basics series takes absolute newbies from zero to published in less than an hour. WordPress Basics: Login to Admin WordPress Basics: Publishing Posts WordPress Basics: Saving and Editing Posts WordPress Basics: Setting the Date, Author, and other Post Options […] Continue reading »
An ongoing series of articles on the fine art of malicious exploit detection and prevention. Learn about preventing the sneaky mischievous and deceptive practices of some of the worst spammers, scrapers, crackers, and other scumbags on the Internet. Continue reading »
Here at Perishable Press, I love to write about minimalism, simplicity, and usability in user-interface and web design. I have always enjoyed the minimalist aesthetic, as my Perishable Theme plainly illustrates. Fortunately, many designers and developers have embraced the minimalist concept, and continue to produce and promote minimalist design principles in their designs. As often as my schedule allows, I like to take the time to explore and share some of my favorite minimalist designs, and so far have managed […] Continue reading »
As my readers know, I spend a lot of time digging through error logs, preventing attacks, and reporting results. Occasionally, some moron will pull a stunt that deserves exposure, public humiliation, and banishment. There is certainly no lack of this type of nonsense, as many of you are well-aware. 3G Blacklist Even so, I have to admit that I am very happy with my latest strategy against crackers, spammers, and other scumbags, namely, the 3G Blacklist. Since implementing this effective […] Continue reading »
While we all watch as Internet Explorer 6 dies a slow, painful death, many unfortunate designers and developers continue to find themselves dealing with IE6’s lack of support for simple things like minimum and maximum widths. Fortunately, there are solutions to this problem, primarily in the form of CSS expressions such as this: /* set the minimum width for IE 6 */ #target_element { width: expression((document.body.clientWidth < 335)? "333px" : "auto"); /* min-width for IE6 */ min-width: 333px; /* min-width […] Continue reading »
My favorite series of articles here at Perishable Press, the “Obsessive CSS Code Formatting” articles explore the esoteric minutia involved with producing clean, well-formatted CSS code. From indention and spacing to opening and closing brackets, the obsessive CSS code series explores techniques and tricks used to transform ordinary stylesheets into streamlined masterpieces of inspiring beauty. Creating poetic CSS integrates the high art of employing consistent coding patterns and formatting methods with the practical functionality of proper syntax, logical structure, and […] Continue reading »
The “CSS Hackz Series” focuses on useful hacks, tricks, and workarounds for specific presentational and styling issues on various browsers. Although a majority of these articles provide solutions for Internet Explorer, other browsers are covered as well, either specifically or in general. The articles in the “Hackz” series are written to be as clear and concise as possible, focusing on application rather than theory. Thus, these posts cut right to the chase, presenting comprehensive methods and techniques aimed at those […] Continue reading »
After announcing my intention to redesign Perishable Press, I received some great feedback addressing everything from site architecture and navigation to appearance and usability. As the conversations continue, I want to spend some time thinking about usability, navigation, columns and sidebars. The current minimalist design features a single column layout with no sidebars. Content is located prominently front and center, with all navigational links appearing in either the oversized “footer” area or at the end of each individual post. As […] Continue reading »
Recently, I have been getting a lot of requests for multiple-loop configurations in WordPress. It seems that multiple-column, multiple-loop configurations are in high demand these days, especially ones that display posts like this: First column, first loop: display posts #1-5 Second column, second loop: display posts #6-10 Third column, third loop: display posts #11-15 Using WordPress and a little CSS, this configuration is relatively easy to accomplish. Let’s cut right to the chase.. Continue reading »