Beast-Blog.com
Mike Cherim's Professional and Personal Web Log

When checking my server logs I see a whopping 90% of visitors of all combined domains (I have a bunch) using Microsoft Internet Explorer, IE, when they visit my sites. The only time I see radical changes to this is when I have a site out for review or critique and it’s linked from one of the web developer forums I visit on and off. When a site is out for review I notice the number of other browsers goes up quite a bit, especially Mozilla’s Firefox (IE-using visitor numbers drop to 70-80%). It makes sense to me. After all one of the largest Firefox followings is from the web development community. That’s because web developers know and understand the clear benefits to using such a good browser. So, during these review periods I have a lot of Firefox-using web developers visting. Otherwise, the number drops once review time settles down. The masses revert to IE. So what am I getting at? What’s my point?

Continue reading “Web Developers and Firefox” »

To splash to not to splash? That is the question. And do you really need another page between the visitor and the content they are requesting? For those who are reading this thinking what the hell is he babbling about this time?, let me clarify things a bit. Do keep reading. *The subject of this post may reveal why only 50% of your site’s visitors are actually checking out the site.

Continue reading “Do you Need a Splash Page?” »

Coming soon! I’ve made a simple PHP-Driven CMS or Content Management System I’m calling the GreenBeast CMS v.1.0!

Continue reading “The GreenBeast CMS” »

Well, I finally did it. I re-did the GBHXonline.com hosting site. I felt it was time. I have learned so much about proper site building, web accessibilities, and semantic mark-up since I made version 2 that I just had to employ my new-found knowledge. It’s all about access and usability.

Continue reading “GBHXonline.com: Version 3” »

So he tells me: “Mike, check out what I’ve made in his usual modest way.” I do, and “Wow” is all I can say. The “he” I refer to is my friend Jonathan — who I consider a PHP guru of sorts. The thing he asks me to check out is a tidy little web application he made which he calls Chategory.

Continue reading “Chat Beast” »

On GBDC or Green-Beast.com I touch on web standards and how they are applied on that site. Here I will tell you more, in some detail, as that is was my “portfolio” site, whereas this site is for more lengthy discussion on these matters.

The big push nowadays is to separate the code or markup from the presentational styles. Want to see what I mean? Just look at the source code for Green-Beast.com. You will find no tables organizing things and no font tags declaring the color or type-face. That’s all done on a separate — and very easy to change and maintain — document called a CSS.

Continue reading “GBDC & Standards” »

Standards are important. It helps developers produce the same mark-up, which conversely corrects many browser-related issues — like those associated with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer® not displaying the same page as one would see with a more standardized browser like Mozilla’s Firefox®.

Continue reading “Web Standards” »