Entries tagged "Web Development"
Increasing Productivity with Keyboard Shortcuts: Opening Web Links
This last week I needed to make sure dozens of links worked as expected. Normally, I would just click the links, but for some reason the browser would jump to the top of the page after clicking the back button causing me to lose my place. Instead of opening them in the same window, I needed to find an alternative for testing links. [Continue reading]
Security Issues with “You Are Now Leaving Our Website” Pages
If you've visited a government website, there's a good chance that you've seen the "You are now leaving our website" message. The message, as you have probably guessed, is displayed when a visitor clicks a link leading to an external website. Now I don't plan to discuss the validity of this technique, but the potential security risk if utilized incorrectly. [Continue reading]
Developing a Simple Website Template with PHP
When developing websites it's always a good idea to look for ways to make the final product easier to maintain. For websites which contain more than a couple of pages, it can be a real time saver if you build them utilizing a template. [Continue reading]
Problems with Google Analytics Code for Tracking PDFs
After struggling for nearly a week to install the asynchronous code for Google Analytics, I thought it would be good to share what I've learned. Hopefully this will save you a few sleepless nights. When I switched to the asynchronous tracking code, everything appeared to be working correctly. But for some reason PDF downloads and visits to external websites weren't showing up in the analytics. [Continue reading]
Future Proofing Your Google Analytics Code for Tracking PDFs
A few years back, I started using Google Analytics to get a better idea of what people are viewing on our websites. To be prepared for future revisions of the tracking code, I thought all I needed to do was store the code in a file called "GoogleAnalytics.html" and import it into the pages we wanted to track. Then as Google releases new versions of the tracking code, I would only need to update the GoogleAnalytic.html file for each website. [Continue reading]
Test Pages in the Wild
I recently listened to episode 10 of The Big Web Show titled "Less Is Always an Option". In the episode Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin interviewed Jason Fried, CEO and co-founder of 37signals. [Continue reading]
What’s on Your Error 404 Page?
I'm still learning the ins and outs of WordPress, which is the web-based software used to develop this website. As I was digging around, I stumbled across the Error 404 page. If you are a website developer you're probably familiar with the Error 404 page. For those unfamiliar, this page is displayed when someone attempts to visit a page on a website that does not exist because it was renamed, moved, deleted, etc. [Continue reading]
