Web Development Insight

As I was looking over the files on the server for a web site I’m working on, I noticed many extraneous files and a few unused folders. They show up as ‘unmatched’ in Expression Web so they are easy to find.

One thing to note is several search engines indexed these orphan files. Not good. I either redirected them or ignored them depending on the relevancy of the web page.

This excess baggage had accumulated over a few years and it was cleanup time. Check your site for unused files and folders - you may be surprised at the amount.

Doug

This blog was updated automatically using the automatic WordPress upgrade to version 2.5 from version 2.3.3. I have read others have had varied success with the process. I will not go over the details of installation because it is readily available on the website.

One of the plug-ins I use did not get restarted which was easily done manually. Note the wp-content directory is not upgraded so any themes or plug-ins are not damaged.

One thing AWU does not do is update your local copy. Only the server copy is upgraded. Your local copy can be easily updated by copying the updated files from the server to the local drive.

Having success with 3 upgraded blogs, I will use this plug-in in the future.

If you have Vista and have upgraded to service pack 1 you can reclaim 1.5 GB of disk space.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 installer will not remove the older versions of Vista files from the hard drive. This is because the older files may be required in case you decide to uninstall SP1 later from the system. It has been reported that this amounts to 1.5 GB of disk space. If you are satisfied with the performance of Windows Vista SP1 and unlikely to remove it later, why not reclaim some disk space by removing all the older Vista files. Note that once this is done SP1 cannot be uninstalled.

It is easy and takes less than a minute. Just open your Windows command prompt and type vsp1cln.exe (short for Vista SP1 Cleaner).

vsp1cln.exe is added to your Windows Vista System folder after you install Vista SP1

This will make Windows Vista Service Pack 1 permanent on this computer. All the older files are deleted now and your hard disk has about 1.5 GB of extra space.

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As with all investments it is wise to consult your financial adviser and do your due diligence.

This is a bit off the subject but is important.

I noticed my computer time was off a few minutes. Big deal. But when I tried to update the time (in XP double click on the time in the notification area, internet time tab, then ‘update now’ button) an error occurred (RPC not available). I tried this with a few different time servers (I use clock.via.net) and all gave the same problem.

Without boring details, what I did was verify the operating system files were intact and correct.

This sounded like a long shot but amazingly it worked.

I would recommend doing an operating system verify once a month or if you have strange problems with your computer.

Doug

I just had a harrowing experience: some of the custom 404 pages I set up were returning the wrong HTTP status code. A nonexistent page should return a 404 status code and be redirected to a custom 404 page (the structure is another story in itself). But…the nonexistent pages were returning a 200 status code, which means everything is ok…and it’s not.

This is the way I was given by my host (actually one of the ways) to redirect a 404 to a custom 404 page:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) /custom404.php

This does redirect a nonexistent web page to the custom404.php page but it causes the bad page to return a 200 instead of a 404.

ErrorDocument 404 /custom404.php

This is what I replaced the last three lines with. Now the errant pages return a 404 rather than a 200.

BTW, I use Fiddler to check the return codes.

Doug

I tried everything I know of to get one of my sites (dougthecook.com) back into Live search index. Over a period of a few days it degraded to being delisted. Anyway, after a few weeks of being unlisted, a friend of mine suggested I add the RSS feed of dougthecook to my “My MSN” account. A few days later, there is dougthecook.com - back in the index.

Doug

This article is not directly related to web development but I think a lot of people will benefit from it.

I’m sure a lot of people have cable modem. My recent experience probably affects most people who live in an establishment that is several years old.

Problem

The cable connection I have is good: 10MB is what the ISP says but I can get 12MB on a good day…when it is connected. I noticed I have had dropouts lately - the cable modem disconnects for a while then reconnects. Blame always went to my ISP. I did the usual reboots, turn off the cable modem for 2 minutes, woof woof. No luck.
Finally, today, cable modem would not connect. The ISP ran tests and said I had no signal. I asked: no signal or weak signal? You’re right: a weak signal. An appointment was scheduled for tomorrow.

Solution

The electrical engineer part of me said go out and check the connection at the house. Which I did. I opened the cable box (held by a nail) on the side of the house and checked it. The ground wire was not installed correctly. It was wrapped around a screwhead rather than put in a screw tightener (the wire is put between the tip of a screw and metal. The screw is tightened against the bare wire to give it an electrical connection). I gleefully ran to check the cable modem: still not connecting.

I went back to the scene of the crime and decided to check where the ground wire went. It was held against the main house ground wire with a tightener. I loosened the tightener and whoa…the wire and the main ground wire were white. The white coating is oxidation of the copper wire. I cleaned both connections with steel wool until they were bright and shiny. Then they were reconnected.

Next I checked the connection where the main house ground wire connects to a metal stake driven into the dirt. Same thing. Both the house wire and the stake were not shiny. So I steel wooled both and reconnected. I glumly walked to check the cable modem: yahoo! a connection! And 12MB download speed!

Epilogue

My house is 11 years old so it doesn’t surprise me the ground wires were corroded. What bothers me is that since the main house ground wire was corroded was my family at risk? After all the 3rd prong on an outlet is (supposed to be) connected to earth ground through the main house ground wire. If the connection is bad is the entire house not safe? I’ll try disconnecting the ground wire and measuring the outlet with a 3 prong socket tester.

My closing suggestion is to check your whole house ground connection or get someone to do it - especially in an older house.

My guess is all electronics, and family members, are better off, starting today.

Doug

Here at Smartlab Software we pride ourselves in trying to make a website as accessible as possible. We try and make the sites conform to section 508 (government) standard and WCAG priorities 1,2, and 3 as best we can. It makes good business sense.

One of the most common improvements is to add a label tag for every text and textarea input tags in a form.

current method

<p><input >Full Name</p>

using a label

<p><input id="fullname" type="text" >
<label for="fullname">Full Name</label></p>

If you want the text to appear before the input box move the label tag before the input tag like this:

<p><label for="fullname">Full Name</label>
<input id="fullname" type="text" ></p>

As you can see it is pretty easy to add the label tag. Your users will thank you for it.

Certain email addresses are reserved for a specific use. Their primary function is to make it easy for the administrators of various servers when they need to contact the most responsible person for a particular service.
The following names are reserved for this use:

* postmaster@mydomain.com
* abuse@mydomain.com

postmaster

The most responsible person for these services are most likely a system administrator or webmaster. The postmaster is responsible for any and all email that is sent through a system connected via the Internet. The most common reason that the postmaster will be contacted is when there is either a misconfiguration of the mail-server, or it is generating unsolicited bulk email (usually through a virus or Trojan).

Several RFC (request for comment) require a postmaster@mydomain.com account:

• RFC822 6.3
• RFC1123 5.2.7
• RFC2821 4.5.1

abuse

Though not required by any RFC, it is common to have an abuse@mydomain.com so administrators, or anyone for that matter, may contact you if your email is being abused.

I have both of mine forwarded to a catchall email account.

One drawback of having “known” email addresses is spammers know the common ones (like postmaster, abuse, info, test, …) and will try and exploit them.

Doug