Lessons Learned Concerning the Clearfix CSS Hack
I use the CSS clearfix hack on nearly all of my sites. The clearfix hack — also known as the “Easy Clearing Hack” — is used to clear floated divisions (divs) without using structural markup. It is very effective in resolving layout issues and browser inconsistencies without the need to mix structure with presentation. Over the course of the past few years, I have taken note of several useful bits of information regarding the Easy Clear Method. In this article, […] Continue reading »
Important Note for Your Custom Error Pages
Just a note to web designers and code-savvy bloggers: make sure your custom error pages are big enough for the ever-amazing <cough> Internet Explorer browser. If your custom error pages are too small, IE will take the liberty of serving its own proprietary web page, replete with corporate linkage and poor grammar. How big, baby? Well, that’s a good question. In order for users of Internet Explorer to enjoy your carefully crafted custom error pages, they need to exceed 512 […] Continue reading »
WP Core Hacks Used at Perishable Press
One of the necessary evils associated with creating a highly customized WordPress-powered site involves the inevitable necessity to hack the WordPress core. WordPress is built for mass-consumption and tends to cater to the largest audience possible, making it necessary to bend and poke around the corners to get WordPress to function in a more specific or specialized capacity. Continue reading »
Notes and Tips for Better Social Bookmarking
For those of you still hiding your bookmarks within the dark confines of your browser’s “favorites” menu, may I suggest stepping into the “here and now” with a fresh new approach: social bookmarking. Hopefully, most of my readers are already familiar with the many wonders of managing and sharing your bookmarks online, but for those who may still be questioning the whole idea, allow me to expound briefly on several of the immediate benefits: Universal access to your bookmarked sites […] Continue reading »
CSS Throwdown: Preload Images without JavaScript
Clean, easy, effective. You don’t need no stinking JavaScript to preload your images. Nope. Try some tasty CSS and (X)HTML instead! Here’s how to do it with only two easy steps.. Step 1 — Place this in your CSS file: div#preloaded-images { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; left: -9999px; top: -9999px; height: 1px; width: 1px; } Step 2 — Place this at the bottom of your (X)HTML document: <div id="preloaded-images"> <img src="https://perishablepress.com/image-01.png" width="1" height="1" alt="" /> <img src="https://perishablepress.com/image-02.png" width="1" height="1" alt="" […] Continue reading »
Computer Flashback: Windows 98 Run Commands
Even with all the fancy-pants new features found in Windows XP and now Vista, Microsoft Windows 98 (Second Edition) remains our favorite Windows-flavored operating system. We love it so much, we still use it on one of our trusty laptops. Over the years, we have discovered several very useful functions available via the command line or even the “Run” prompt (Start → Run…). Anyway, without spending too much time researching or explaining these wonderful tools, we figured posting the information online may […] Continue reading »
Smooth Operators: Sharpen your Google Search Skills
Coming soon to the World Wide Web: Everything. The perpetually evolving sum of human knowledge available online. Anywhere. Anytime. So, what are you looking for? Information concerning something, somewhere, about somebody.. You know it’s there somewhere. Sure, you could waste time by digging through that immense labyrinth of browser bookmarks, maybe eventually finding that one link that may or may not lead you to the page that you remember.. No thanks. The Web is far too rich in information to […] Continue reading »
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 provides a brief list of absolutely essential search sites with which it is highly recommended to register. […] Continue reading »
URL Character Codes
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 »
Hide Content on Windows 98SE
This brief tutorial on hiding content applies to Windows 95, 98, and 98SE. Although this method may be old hat or even irrelevant to the more experienced Windows users, I have found it useful on a number of occasions, and therefore think it’s worthwhile to share here at Perishable Press for future reference. Continue reading »
Perishable Press is operated by Jeff Starr, a professional web developer and book author with two decades of experience.
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