The Halving Method
Working a great deal with blacklists, I am frequently trying to isolate and identify problematic code. For example, a blacklist implementation may suddenly prevent a certain type of page from loading. In order to resolve the issue, the blacklist is immediately removed and tested for the offending directive(s). This situation is common to other coding languages as well, especially when dealing with CSS. Identifying problem code is more of an art form than a science, but fortunately, there are a […] Continue reading »
Year-End Rambling, Boring Personal Stuff, Etc.
Sometimes I just need to type. To get it out. Small ideas, news, and other mental slices of personal relevance. If this just “ain’t your thing,” by all means, please move on to the next item in your reader. Otherwise, if I may ramble on for a moment with the privileged luxury of your gracious attention, I will attempt to elaborate a few of the recent mysteries swirling throughout the rushing vortex that is my life. First of all, the […] Continue reading »
Feedburner Alternative: Homegrown Feed Statistics for Your Blog
If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to use Feedburner to track your feed statistics, this article describes a relatively simple, “roll-your-own” alternative. Instead of redirecting your feed traffic through Feedburner, keep your original feed URLs and place the following code into a file named “feed_stats.php” (or whatever) and upload to your server: 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 »
Speed Linkin’ :: December 2008
Kicking things off for this month’s official Speed Linkin’ post is a site designed to help with all of your graphical background needs. Then, we move on to a lightweight forum plugin for WordPress. Ever feel lost when it comes to choosing the best lightbox script? Well it’s Ozh to the rescue with the excellent Lightbox Clones Matrix. Also handy is this incredible list of social media sites. As a big fan of ASCII art, I can spend hours playing […] Continue reading »
Valid, SEO-Friendly Post Translation Links
Ever wanted to provide automatic language translations of your web pages without installing another plugin? Here is a valid, SEO-friendly technique that takes advantage of Google’s free translation service. All you need is a PHP-enabled server and you’re good to go. Just copy and paste the following code into the desired location in your page template and enjoy the results. Once in place, this code will produce translation links for eight common languages for every page on your site. Grab, […] Continue reading »
Custom OpenSearch for Your Website
I recently added OpenSearch functionality to Perishable Press. Now, OpenSearch-enabled browsers such as Firefox and IE 7 alert users with the option to customize their browser’s built-in search feature with an exclusive OpenSearch-powered search option for Perishable Press. The autodiscovery feature of supportive browsers detects the custom search protocol and enables users to easily add it to their collection of readily available site-specific search options. Now, users may search the entire Perishable Press domain with the click of a button. […] Continue reading »
Yahoo! Lies about Obeying Robots.txt Directives
There are two possibilities here: Yahoo!’s Slurp crawler is broken or Yahoo! lies about obeying Robots directives. Either case isn’t good. Slurp just can’t seem to keep its nose out of my private business. And, as I’ve discussed before, this happens all the time. Here are the two most recent offenses, as recorded in the log file for my blackhole spider trap: 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 »
I Need Linux!
Thanks to a complete (and I mean complete) collection of screenshots graciously sent in by Brent Terrazas, I have been enlightened as to my need for Linux. Looking over the screenshots, I see a great deal of variation — more so than any of the Mac or PC browsers at my disposal — in terms of how designs are rendered on various Linux-driven browsers. The obsessive-compulsive designer in me suddenly sees an incredible need for my own Linux setup — […] 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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