Archive for the ‘web design’ Category

Fast FTP

Monday, March 13th, 2006

What if you wanted to quickly move 1,000 local files to your webhost?

My suggestion is to compress all of those files into one large file. FTP that one large file to your server. Then Telnet/SSH to the specific directory where that file lives and uncompress it.

FTP clients such as CuteFTP Professional have a Compressed Transfers feature that allows for streaming compression for faster transfers as well as manual compress/deflate to/from ZIP, CAB or GZIP/Tarball archives. This feature compresses the files into one file, and then FTPs them across much more quickly than moving them individually.

If your FTP client doesn’t have a similar feature, then you can simply compress the files using your favorite compression program.

Then you will need to use a Telnet/SSH connection to your webhost, log in and uncompress your files using the following commands:

All of the below commands assume that you are within the same directory that the compressed file is in. To be sure type:

ls {enter}
If the file is there, you’re ready to go. If not type:
cd /big/dom/xdomain/www/directory/ {enter}
replacing the path with the correct path to your file.

If a file ends in .zip (for example, file.zip) type:
unzip file.zip

If a file ends in .tar (e.g., file.tar) type:
tar -xvf file.tar

If a file ends in .gz (for example, file.gz) type:
gzip -d file.gz

If a file ends in .tar.gz (e.g. file.tar.gz) type:
gzip -d file.tar.gz
and then
tar -xvf file.tar

If a file ends in .tgz (e.g. file.tgz) type:
tar -xvzf file.tgz

Process php on html pages

Thursday, March 9th, 2006

Previously I posted about a gentle introduction to php.

To make your .htm or .html pages process like they were .php, just add this line to your .htaccess file:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html .php .htm

Or use:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^index.html /index.php

The .htaccess directory-level configuration file can also be used for:

Custom Error Pages
Password protection
Redirects
Prevent hotlinking of images
Preventing Directory Listing

A Gentle Introduction to PHP

Friday, March 3rd, 2006

PHP started out as a (relatively) simple server-side scripting language called Personal Home Page, developed by Rasmus Lerdorf. It has grown to a full-fledged programming language supported by scores of open-source developers.

A Gentle Introduction to PHP

Window Spawning and Remotes

Wednesday, March 1st, 2006

Ever since Netscape Navigator 2.0, many major web sites have used “JavaScript Remotes” as a convenient navigation tool. These first-generation remotes were based entirely on JavaScript. First you call a function to launch the remote, then another one, when the user clicks a link or submits a form, to load an URL in the main window. Until someone uncovered an undocumented feature, which made targeting the main window from within a remote as simple as loading a link in a frame.

How to launch a new window with HTML.
How to launch a new window with JavaScript.
How to specify the new window’s attributes.
How to manipulate the new window after creating it.
How to embed links and forms in the remote’s document.

Free .info Domain Registrations

Thursday, February 23rd, 2006

1&1 is offering limited no cost .info domain registrations with free privacy protection. You can take advantage of this offer by following this link.

On the main page you’ll see a “Limited Time Offer” box. Click on it.

In the middle of the page that follows you’ll see a box labeled “Domains” with “Instant Domain” as a subheading. Click on the small “sign up” link near the bottom righthand corner of that box.

This gets you to the “Instant Domain” page. Click on the “sign up” button on this page. You should now be on a page that says “Register Free .info Domains”.

From here you select the domains you want to register. They’ll be added to your shopping cart for zero dollars. There’s a limit of 5 domains.

Email Address Hiding with CSS

Thursday, February 9th, 2006

Previously we detailed the Enkoderform method to avoid spam from posting your email address on the web.

Here’s another technique using the :before and :after pseudo-elements of CSS. The reader’s comments are pretty interesting.

A lot of people seem to be missing the point of this article. What’s described is nothing more than a proof-of-concept technique; it is by no means perfect, or even the best way of masking your email address. I wrote this because it demonstrates some under-used CSS features that happen to solve a common problem. In the worst case scenario, it works as well or better than most other techniques, and at full steam, it’s pretty nifty.

Mac Browser Compatibility Tester

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006

How does your website look on Apple Safari ? Safaritest – mac browser compatibility tester – will return a screenshot of your page as viewed with Safari.