Site Redesign Pre-Launch

SO… Welcome to the new design! Well, sort of.. What you’re seeing now is the “Quantify Theme”, a new WordPress theme designed for the technical/web-design writer with an eye for detail. This theme serves as the starting point for the new Perishable Press redesign and site overhaul. I was going to keep everything private during development, but the strangest things can happen.. Continue reading »

Notes on Switching Servers

Switching servers & migrating sites can be a HUGE deal (or not), depending on things like: Number of sites to transfer Size and complexity of sites Who is hosting your sites Experience I recently did this, switching from a 3-year run at ASO to my new home at Media Temple. Total of 24 properties, with WordPress running on around 10 sites. Past experience with VPS servers really had me paranoid about running out of memory. A few years ago, Perishable […] Continue reading »

The New Clearfix Method

Say goodbye to the age-old clearfix hack and hello to the new and improved clearfix method.. The clearfix hack, or “easy-clearing” hack, is a useful method of clearing floats. I have written previously about the original clearfix method and even suggested a few improvements. The original clearfix hack works great, but the browsers that it targets are either obsolete or well on their way. Specifically, Internet Explorer 5 for Mac is now history, so there is no reason to bother […] Continue reading »

Pimp Your 404: Presentation and Functionality

I have been wanting to write about 404 error pages for quite awhile now. They have always been very important to me, with customized error pages playing a integral part of every well-rounded web-design strategy. Rather than try to re-invent the wheel with this, I think I will just go through and discuss some thoughts about 404 error pages, share some useful code snippets, and highlight some suggested resources along the way. In a sense, this post is nothing more […] 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 »

Farewell to Alex King’s Popularity Contest

I finally broke down and uninstalled Alex King’s once-great “Popularity Contest” plugin for WordPress. The plugin had been active here at Perishable Press for over two years, and had provided fairly consistent and apparently accurate statistics while in service. Unfortunately, there were serious errors involved with the plugin way back during the WordPress-2.3 upgrade that were never addressed by the plugin author. There was an interim version of the plugin that had patched the error until an official update was […] Continue reading »

Notes on the 2008 Redesign: User Feedback

First of all, thank you to everyone who provided screenshots, feedback, and ideas for the new design. Your help is highly valued and greatly appreciated. From what I am hearing, the redesign seems to have been well-received, with many readers and visitors taking the time to leave a comment, send a screenshot, or email a message. As hoped, people seem to enjoy the vibrant colors, the translucent panels, and the fancy sliding menus. Other people have pointed out the site’s […] 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 »

WordPress Tip: Careful with that Autosave, Eugene

After upgrading WordPress from version 2.0.5 to 2.3.3, I did some experimenting with the “post autosave” feature. The autosave feature uses some crafty ajax to automagically save your post every 2 minutes (120 seconds by default). Below the post-editing field, you will notice a line of text that displays the time of the most recent autosave, similar to the following: Continue reading »

What is My WordPress Feed URL?

For future reference, this article covers each of the many ways to access your WordPress-generated feeds1. Several different URL formats are available for the various types of WordPress feeds — posts, comments, and categories — for both permalink and default URL structures. For each example, replace “http://example.com/” with the URL of your blog. Note: even though your blog’s main feed is accessible through many different URLs, there are clear benefits to using a single, consistent feed URL throughout your site. […] Continue reading »

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