Stupid Twitter Tricks

Might as well face it, Twitter is here to stay. Not that it’s all that bad, just used to be a lot more laid-back and enjoyable. These days it seems to have been taken over by the lowest common-denominator, mostly high-school twits or useless commercial propaganda. Even so, I still enjoy tweeting the occasional profound thought once in awhile, and even like to play around with various types of “advanced” Twitter functionality. You know, cool stuff like including “Tweet This!” links […] Continue reading »

How to Protect Your Site Against Content Thieves (and Other Scumbags)

Stolen content is the bane of every blogger who provides a publicly available RSS feed. By delivering your content via feed, you make it easy for scrapers to assimilate and re-purpose your material on their crap Adsense sites. It’s bad enough that someone would re-post your entire feed without credit, but to use it for cheap money-making schemes is about as pathetic as it gets. If you’re lucky, the bastards may leave all the links intact, so at least you […] Continue reading »

Associate Any File with Windows 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.. ;) Continue reading »

How to Take DVD/Video Screenshots on Windows

Taking screenshots of DVD, MPEG, AVI, and other video on Windows machines requires a couple of extra steps. A normal screenshot is easy enough to capture by pressing the “Print Screen” button on your keyboard. To capture a screenshot of video display, however, you need to disable hardware acceleration to make it work. To do this on Windows machines, go to your Desktop properties and click on the Settings tab. Click on the Advanced button and then on the Troubleshooting […] Continue reading »

5-Minute PNG Image Optimization

[ Screenshot: Smush.it Online Optimizer ]

A great way to improve the performance of your site is to optimize the size of your images. Smaller image sizes require less bandwidth, disk space and load time, and ultimately improve visitor experience. In this article, I share my effective 5-minute technique for optimizing PNG images. This is a two-step, lossless optimization process that removes as much extraneous data as possible without sacrificing any image quality whatsoever. It’s fast, free, and highly effective. Continue reading »

Miscellaneous Code Snippets for WordPress, Windows, and Firefox

One of the original purposes of Perishable Press involved serving as a “virtual dumpster” for all of my miscellaneous code snippets. Over time, I continued elaborating to greater degrees on the various code recipes that I was posting, until eventually those brief snippet posts evolved into complete, richly detailed articles (at least from my point of view). Now that I enjoy the luxury of writing for an incredible audience, I try to avoid posting anything that doesn’t include an accompanying […] Continue reading »

A Social Networking Nightmare

Picture it. You have just prepared some recent snapshots of your buddies from a gathering over the weekend. Special care was taken to choose the images, and resize the images appropriately. As you sign in to your favorite social networking site to upload these images, you realize your credentials are invalid. You type in permutations of your user-name and password, check the “Caps” Key, but find that you are still not allowed access to your account. Your account could be […] Continue reading »

Self-Publishing Survival Tips: On-Demand Book Printing at Lulu.com

For on-demand printing of books, calendars, and other desktop-published items, lulu.com is a popular choice. The on-demand service provides customers with online administration interface that provides automated tools for uploading, publishing, and managing their projects. Once published, books may be printed, purchased, downloaded, and/or distributed. Of course, the entire process of using lulu.com to publish and print projects is fairly complex, with many details contingent on your specific needs. As a recent customer of lulu.com, I thought I would share […] Continue reading »

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 […] Continue reading »

Why Can’t I Log IN to My LinkedIn Account?

This is great. A couple of weeks ago I twittered that I had canceled my LinkedIn account. Without going into detail, suffice it to say that my original account signup information was no longer valid and the LinkedIn support staff was unable to even locate my account, let alone reset my password or provide login access. I know the account was there, but no matter what I tried I could not login. So, without being able to update my information, […] Continue reading »

Monitoring Internet Activity for Windows and macOS

Monitoring your computer’s Internet activity is a powerful tool, enabling you to: keep an eye on background processes reveal viruses and other malware expose unauthorized access monitor running programs log process activity ..and much more. The best part? It’s super-easy. Here’s how I do it on Win XP: Open the command prompt and type “netstat -n 5 > scan.txt” After a minute or two (or any amount of time), press Ctrl+C to stop monitoring Type “scan.txt” to open the log […] Continue reading »

The Pros and Cons of Blogging

Among my friends, family, coworkers, and other social acquaintances, there are not many “bloggers.” In fact, there aren’t any. Two or three of my old friends have websites that are updated once or twice per year, but none are actively blogging and sharing their ideas with the online community. Many of my “non-blogging” peeps simply don’t “get it.” To them, the whole idea of consistently updating a website with new material seems like a big waste of time. In fact, […] Continue reading »

How to Edit the Firefox Custom Dictionary

As one who takes full advantage of the custom dictionary in Firefox, I occasionally find myself adding nonexistent or misspelled words to the dictionary by accident. Not wanting to deal with a false negative down the road, I always take the time to stop what I’m doing, locate the custom dictionary, and remove the erroneous term. Finally getting sick of trying to remember the esoteric location in which Firefox stores the personal dictionary, I decided to make a few notes […] Continue reading »

Are Adblock-Plus Visitors Seeing Your Content?

[ Screenshot: Adblock Plus Ruleset Filter Option Panel ]

As Firefox continues to grow in popularity, it is inevitable that more and more users will install plugins such as Adblock and Adblock Plus. As we know, such extensions work by filtering site contents through a list of predefined wildcard directives and other rules. Users may also customize the block-list by right-clicking on unwanted images or even subscribing to an automated filterset updater. Apparently, a significant number of Firefox users employ these extensions to help control the relentless flood of […] Continue reading »

Focus on the Details: Optimizing Images for Humans and Machines

[ Inverted close-up of an optimized flower ]

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 know more about your images and dig deeper. While checking out your […] Continue reading »

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 computer screen. Regardless of the type of site or blog you happen […] Continue reading »

« Newer Posts • 12345 • Previous Posts »