![[ Image: Abstracted Documents ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/abstracted-documents.jpg)
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 the most advanced SEO-wizards. This article divulges these very useful SEO practices and organizes them into manageable chunks. Continue reading »
![[ Image: Fred Rogers with Shoe ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/mister-rogers.jpg "R.I.P. Mister Rogers (March 20, 1928 — February 27, 2003)")
The target attribute for anchor elements (<a></a>) 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: Continue reading »
![[ Image: Harvesting the Land ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/harvesting-com-logs.jpg "Harvesting Raw Logs")
For those of you using cPanel as the control panel for our websites, a wealth of information is readily available via cPanel ‘Raw Access Logs’. The cPanel log files perpetually are updated with data. Each logged visit includes information about the user agent, IP address, HTTP response, request URI, request size, and a whole lot more. To help you make use of this potentially valuable information, here is a quick tutorial on accessing and interpreting your cPanel raw access logs. […] Continue reading »
First of all, congratulations if you are geeky enough to understand the title of this article. Many would be like, "CSS, MS.. IE, error ..what..?" Whatever. If you get the title, you will get the point of this utterly pointless exercise. If that is the case, prepare for a delightful romp through geekland. Otherwise, save your precious time and stop reading here (exit strategy). Continue reading »
ALA 2007 Survey Web designer? Go take the List Apart Web Design Survey! It’s an easy way to crowdsource insight into the rapidly growing field of web design. So take a moment to share some anonymous statistics, which will help the community understand more about our skills, education, employment, income, and more. So what are you still waiting for? Go take the survey! Continue reading »
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 provides a brief list of absolutely essential search sites with which it is highly recommended to register. […] Continue reading »
Optimizing your website for the search engines involves many important aspects including keyword development, search engine registration, and SEO logging. This Perishable Press tutorial scopes yet another critical weapon in the SEO wars: establishing and evolving an effective link campaign. We will begin our article by focusing on incoming and outgoing link strategies, proceed with a few tips for internal links, and then conclude with some ideas for getting links. Continue reading »
URLs 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), for easy copy/paste reference. Continue reading »
![[ DLa: 20.50 ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/dla-pig-logo.png)
Dead Letter Art (DLa) is an esoteric underground art collective. The collective consists of eight core members that have known each other since high school, and have been creating and sharing their art for well over fifteen years. Sharing many common interests and influences, the DLa collective explores diverse artistic media, both individually and collectively. Their vast media expertise includes everything from drawing and painting to website development and multimedia production. Further, the group also embraces the fine art of […] Continue reading »
![[ Macromedia Flash ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/embed-fash-video-object.png)
Here is a collection of code snippets for embedding Flash and video using the HTML <object></object> tag. Useful for sites showcasing dynamic multimedia content. Continue reading »
![[ Mint Icon ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/fluid-mint.png "Have a Mint")
As many statistics freaks already know, Mint is an excellent way to keep a close eye on your site’s visitors, referrers, most requested resources, and much more. Even better, Mint’s functionality is easily enhanced via a growing collection of free extensions referred to as “Peppers”. Peppers provide Mint functionality for a wide range of statistical operations, including everything from geographical IP information to nice, graphical summaries of collected data. Continue reading »
This post is hereby dedicated to the official logging of all unresolved and/or unexplained errors encountered during development or implementation of various plugins, extensions, themes, scripts, and/or anything else that results in bizarre and mysterious errors, bugs, or other anomalies. Further, we will also post any potential solutions, fixes, workarounds, or explanations for any errors logged in this post. This information is provided for reference purposes only — please share any related information you may have concerning any of the […] Continue reading »
Compared to some of the big players out there on the internet, we here at Perishable Press run a relatively small website. We began this project in September of 2005 with nothing but a domain name and a pocketful of inspiration. During the first several months of development, our traffic statistics looked something like: one unique visitor and 10,000 hits (i.e., nobody but us). And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, everything changed.. Continue reading »
![[ Monzilla Media 2007 ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2007/misc-chunks/monzilla-media-2006-2007-thmb.jpg)
Obsessive Web Development As promised, the official website for Monzilla Media launched on January 2nd, 2007. Several weeks went into the development of the site, which is designed to provide a concise overview of current events and projects. The online presence of Monzilla Media opens up a new realm of possibilities, with business now marketed worldwide via the internet. Monzilla Media specializes in providing highly customized web design with a sharp focus on standards, usability, and accessibility. Continue reading »
In our never-ending battle against spammers, leeches, scrapers, and other online undesirables, we have implemented several powerful security measures to improve the operational integrity of our perpetual virtual existence. Here is a rundown of the new behind-the-scenes security features of Perishable Press. Continue reading »
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): Continue reading »
