by WebKeyDesign | Dec 27, 2005 | Web Site Basics
With WordPress 2.0 coming out this week, it only seems fitting that I write something about Content Management Systems. Many webmasters find it hard to choose the right CMS or weblog script to run their site. Other than trying out the demos on sites like OpenSourceCMS.com and reading an occasional review, most CMS scripts are not very well reviewed. Just recently though, MacInTouch.com started one of their user contributed reports on the subject of CMS scripts. Although the report is for webmasters currently interested in running a CMS script on Mac OS X, the information and user comments on different scripts is helpful for your basic Linux server setup.
Content Management System (CMS) Report
by WebKeyDesign | Dec 21, 2005 | Webmastering
Last year, Charles Arthur interviewed a link spammer for The Register, detailing why and how, link spammers target weblogs. The entire story is interesting in that the spammer describes how most sophisticated comment spam is actually done through proxy machines so that the spammer is not penalized by his own isp. However, the story of link spammers is no different than most other stories on the Internet. It all eventually leads to the idea that the ethics of committing such actions are very debatable, but that due to lack of consequences, the strategy continues to be very popular. This reminds me of something I read a long time ago about how locks on doors are not really for thieves, but for everyone else; meaning that a thief will break your window to get inside and rob you, while a normal person will only be tempted if you leave your doors unlocked. This is the same reasoning for spammers. If they can make money by spamming you, without being penalized, they will. In the business world marketing is everything and the temptation to view link spamming (or any type of spamming) as legitimate marketing is so great that many spammers do in fact view themselves as any number of labels, such as: affiliate, search engine optimiser, advertising consultant, or simply marketing.
The Webmaster’s Spam Problem
Regardless of what the ethics are, Comment Spam, is in the end the webmaster’s problem and no one else’s. This means that just as the link spammer invests lots of time in tweaking his arsenal of spam tools, the webmaster must invest in some counter initiatives to protect his site and content. For WordPress users, the WordPress Codex has lots of helpful information on combating comment spam, but while browsing a blog myself, I noticed a completely different strategy. The webmaster for a blog had added a warning to the bottom of her blog that warned spammers that any comment spam would result in their domain being reported to Google as a spammer.
Google actually maintains a Report Spam page, in which you are encouraged to report domains that are using deceptive practices to achieve higher search engine rankings. I am not sure if Google would accept link spammers and the domains they market as actual spam domains, but ultimately it is up to Google to decide this. I will note that Google is known to check the sites of the person who submitted the complaint as well, so Google does not take these complaints at face value.
A while back Google worked with MSNSearch and Yahoo!, to implement the nofollow attribute for links, which was suppose to prevent blog comment spam by giving no emphasis or weight to comment links, but obviously this has not totally deterred link spammers. The rel=”nofollow” attribute is implemented in WordPress 1.5 and other major blog scripts, yet I still receive many comment spam entries weekly.
It is evident that dealing with spam is going to be an ongoing task for webmasters, and that this is just one of many problems we have to deal with as the price of having a space on the Internet.
by WebKeyDesign | Dec 19, 2005 | Software
If you ever used Mac OS 9 extensively, one of the things you probably miss on Mac OS X, is the old Apple Menu. Mostly because the Apple Menu was sort of an applet launcher. While the OS X Dock now takes over a lot of those duties, it is somewhat lacking as a program launcher, because sometimes a drop down menu is so much more easier to deal with than 20 or so icons. You can however setup a folder and create aliases for all your favorite applications, then drop the folder onto the Dock so that this gives you a menu of programs to choose from in the Dock. A better idea though is to use a program launcher of some sort, of which there are many.
For me, Ranchero Software’s TigerLaunch is my favorite program launcher. It is simple to use, and does only one thing, it gives you a right side menu with a list of programs to launch. There is a simple Configure option which lets you pick any of the programs in your Applications folder and deselect the ones you do not want showing up. If you install new applications, the Refresh option will automatically add any new programs and you will need to open up the Configure option if you need to deselect them.
You can under Accounts in System Preferences add TigerLaunch to your startup list of programs, so that next time you restart your Macintosh, TigerLaunch will automatically startup without you having to manually launch it.
Best of all Ranchero Software does not charge anything for TigerLaunch.
TigerLaunch requires Mac OS X 10.1 or greater and I have personally used it on 10.3 and 10.4 without any problems.
by WebKeyDesign | Dec 19, 2005 | XHTML
Short inline quotations can actually be incorporated into your html via the q tag. This allows you to skip the actual quotations marks.
<p>
Steve Jobs told us,
<q> lang="en-us">design is not just what it looks like and feels like, design is how it works.</q>
</p>
Note that it is also a good idea to add the lang attribute when using q elements.
You can use the lang attribute other tags such as the paragraph tag, if for example you had one paragraph in a different language than your document.
by WebKeyDesign | Dec 17, 2005 | XHTML
One easy way to start coding semantically is to use lists tags. For me personally, lists tend to organize my HTML code and make content more readable in general. Lets look at three basic tags that everyone can use, starting with the most common.
The Unordered List
This is probably the tag that we rely most often on. Many designers use it to create link menus as well as the occasional content list. In our example we are going to organize some audio tracks that I got from Apple’s iTunes Store.
<h4>My iTunes Music</h4>
<ul>
<li>Man In the Box - Alice In Chains</li>
<li>Cool - Gwen Stefani</li>
<li>Killing Me Softly with His Song - Fugees</li>
<li>Not Gonna Get Us - t.A.T.u.</li>
<li>Born Under a Bad Sign - Jimmy Hendrix</li>
</ul>
The above code will render with a bullet for each item, and automatically indent. It should look something like this:
My iTunes Music
- Man In the Box – Alice In Chains
- Cool – Gwen Stefani
- Killing Me Softly with His Song – Fugees
- Not Gonna Get Us – t.A.T.u.
- Born Under a Bad Sign – Jimmy Hendrix
But how about if I wanted to organize each of my iTunes tracks? Perhaps I had many of them and I wanted to have them all numbered. In this case, the standard unordered list tag is not what I really need.
The Ordered List
Enter the ordered list tag which can automatically number all my items for me.
<h4>My iTunes Music</h4>
<ol>
<li>Man In the Box - Alice In Chains</li>
<li>Cool - Gwen Stefani</li>
<li>Killing Me Softly with His Song - Fugees</li>
<li>Not Gonna Get Us - t.A.T.u.</li>
<li>Born Under a Bad Sign - Jimmy Hendrix</li>
</ol>
Using CSS, I can also style the ordered list using the list-style-type property so that the default list style can be:
- decimal: 1, 2, 3,…
- upper-alpha: A, B, C,…
- lower-alpha: a, b, c,…
- upper-roman: I, II, III,…
- lower-roman: i, ii, iii,…
- none:
The standard decimal default, of the ordered list for my iTunes tracks automatically numbers each of the items for me, so that I do not have to worry about actually adding numbers between the li tags.
My iTunes Music
- Man In the Box – Alice In Chains
- Cool – Gwen Stefani
- Killing Me Softly with His Song – Fugees
- Not Gonna Get Us – t.A.T.u.
- Born Under a Bad Sign – Jimmy Hendrix
However, after ordering my iTunes tracks, I decide that I would rather organize my tunes according to artist, since my collection has grown and now includes multiple tracks from the same artist.
The Definition List
In this case, I am going to change my list and make things even more structured.
<h4>My iTunes Music by Artist</h4>
<dl>
<dt>Alice In Chains</dt>
<dd>Main In the Box</dd>
<dd>Would? (Unplugged)</dd>
<dt>Gwen Stefani</dt>
<dd>Cool</dd>
<dt>Fugees</dt>
<dd>Killing Me Softly with His Song</dd>
<dt>t.A.T.u.</dt>
<dd>Not Gonna Get Us</dd>
<dt>Jimmy Hendrix</dt>
<dd>Born Under a Bad Sign</dd>
</dl>
By using the multiple dd tags, for the same dt tag, I have an easy way of organizing my songs by artist.
My iTunes Music by Artist
- Alice In Chains
- Main In the Box
- Would? (Unplugged)
- Gwen Stefani
- Cool
- Fugees
- Killing Me Softly with His Song
- t.A.T.u.
- Not Gonna Get Us
- Jimmy Hendrix
- Born Under a Bad Sign
By using common list tags like the Unordered List, Ordered List, and Definition List you can quickly add structure to your HTML and at the same time use CSS more effectively to quickly add design elements to your page.
