The competition is simple and without hidden agenda. Instead of asking a great big promotional agency to come up with ideas, we are challenging new designers to let their imaginations run wild. The Open Brief is about designers receiving credit for items that will be taken to the production level.

There is $AUD 10,000 in prize money up for grabs. 5 winning entries will be chosen at $AUD 2,000 prize money awarded to each for their designs.

Check out http://semipermanent.com/cc-index.html for full details.

What is the .htaccess file?

It’s a text file which normally resides in your main site directory and/or in any subdirectory of your main directory. There can be just one, there can be a separate one in each directory or you may find or create one just in a specific directory.

Any commands in a .htaccess file will affect both the directory it is in and any subdirectories of that directory. Thus if you have just one, in your main directory, it will affect your whole site. If you place one in a subdirectory it will affect all the contents of that directory.

In your root directory, simply add a file called: .htaccess

To prevent people viewing your .htaccess, add the following:

< Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
< /Files>

Page Redirects

When changing servers, moving content, or altering directory structures, to prvent 404 error pages, we can implement a 301 redirect, which will direct all incoming requests to their new permanant location:

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yourwebsite.com/newpage.html

Want to redirect your entire website?, not a problem:

Redirect 301 / http://www.your-new-website.com/

Prevent Directory browsing

Iif you don’t have an "index.htm" file in your directories, many servers will show nthe entire content of the folder when a user browses to it. rather than have to create an index file for each folder, simply add the following directive:

IndexIgnore *

You may want the directory to list, but hide certain file types, if so, use this:

IndexIgnore *.zip *.jpg

On the other hand, you might already have directory listings hidden, so, to over-ride this and show, use:

Options +Indexes

Prevent image hotlinking

When people "hotlink" to your images, this means they are linking directly to them within their websites (we are lucky Flickr don’t use this directive!). To disallow hotlinking, and server them up another image, simply use:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/imagetheif.gif [R,L]

Just change "yourdomain" to your domain name, and modify the path/name of the image to replace it. (perhaps an angry image of Mr T?)

Change Directory listing

Many websites ahev a splash page, or you may want to define the order ijn which a visiter will see your default pages. This is often quite good if you want to show a static page first. Simply add: (change to what you like)

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

MIME Types

MIME types are languages that your server understands. Most servers are setup to be able tio understand flash, mp3’s etc etc, if not, you can add like the following:

AddType application/x-shockwave-flash swf

View the entire list of MIME types at Webmaster-toolkit.

Error handling

Proper error handling is good for usability purposes, and helps your website maintain a professional feel. Some of the most common errors that occur are:

400 Bad request – Normally a malformed URL request or improper usage of a script.
401 Authorization Required – A result of attempted access to a Restricted Area without the proper credentials
403 Forbidden – When a user tries to access a file which has incorrect permissions
404 Not Found – A result of a file/image being moved, or normally a result of renaming an item
500 Internal Server – The server pooped itself

To avoid issues, and let the user know what the problem is, you can add the following directives to your .htaccess file. Note that we place these in a folder called errors, both this, and the name of the files can be changed, but I prefer to do it this way to keep it clean and easy to use. One other important thing I like to do is add this folder to the disallowed list in my robots.txt file in the root directory.

ErrorDocument 400 /errors/400.html
ErrorDocument 401 /errors/401.html
ErrorDocument 403 /errors/402.html
ErrorDocument 404 /errors/404.html
ErrorDocument 500 /errors/500.html

Block Users

Sick of pests, or want to deny certain ip’s from your website? you can deny these people by adding the following (just change the i.p. addresses to the ones you want:

order allow,deny
deny from 123.4.5.6
deny from 007.0.1.2
allow from all

Block Referring websites

Many sites may "hotlink" to your content or information, including showing your pages in inframes on theoir website. To overcome this, we can use similar to the following:

RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} websitetoblock\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} secondwebsitetoblock\.com
RewriteRule .* - [F]

[NC] Denotes it is case insensitive. If you get a 500 error after using this code, simply remove the # in front of Options +FollowSymlinks

Block Bots

There are MANY bad bots roaming the internet, many will scrape data, mine email addresses and more. To block these main ones, and send them to a 403 forbidden, add this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BlackWidow [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Bot\ mailto:craftbot@yahoo.com [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ChinaClaw [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Custo [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^DISCo [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Download\ Demon [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^eCatch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EirGrabber [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailSiphon [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailWolf [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Express\ WebPictures [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ExtractorPro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EyeNetIE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^FlashGet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetRight [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetWeb! [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go!Zilla [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go-Ahead-Got-It [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GrabNet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Grafula [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^HMView [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} HTTrack [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Stripper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Sucker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Indy\ Library [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^InterGET [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Internet\ Ninja [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JetCar [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JOC\ Web\ Spider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^larbin [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LeechFTP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mass\ Downloader [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^MIDown\ tool [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mister\ PiX [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Navroad [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NearSite [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetAnts [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetSpider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Net\ Vampire [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetZIP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Octopus [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Explorer [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Navigator [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^PageGrabber [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Papa\ Foto [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pavuk [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pcBrowser [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^RealDownload [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ReGet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SiteSnagger [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SmartDownload [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperHTTP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Surfbot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^tAkeOut [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Teleport\ Pro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^VoidEYE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Image\ Collector [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Sucker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebAuto [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebCopier [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebFetch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebGo\ IS [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebLeacher [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebReaper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebSauger [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ eXtractor [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ Quester [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebStripper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebWhacker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebZIP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Wget [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Widow [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WWWOFFLE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Xaldon\ WebSpider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Zeus
RewriteRule ^.* - [F,L]

File Permissions

Finally, don’t forget to set the file permissions of your .htaccess file to 644

Conclusion

well, this isn’t the be all and end-all of .htaccess information, but hopefully, it’s a good start and will help you on your way!

The aim of Archetoy is to promote artists and global exhibitions through publishing and community chat. Though in it’s infancy, Archetoy hopes to fill the void where many others fail.

Visit Archetoy today!.

What is It?

Get the glass is an amazing interactive online 3d flash game which is both fun and informative, which sets tasks for you to complete, as you wind your way towards the goal.

The Brains behind The Concept

San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners developed the campaign, whilst uber talented Swedish company North Kingdom created the online game.

About The Game

Walter and Lynn Adachi live on an island with their daughter Melissa and son Tad. Walter’s body is wasting away for lack of calcium. Lynn is suffering (and the rest of the family) from the side effects of PMS. Melissa’s hair and nails are a mess and Tad’s teeth are decaying.

The Objective

Your objective is to navigate the Adachi family in their plumbing service truck towards Fort Fridge where the glass of milk is kept, all the while being chased by a security vehicle. Throw the dice and fortune or misfortune awaits you as you move forward on this interactive boardgame. If you get caught up by the security, you’ll get chucked in Milkatraz, where you can Take your chance at escaping by spinning the wheel of fortune, email a friend to bail you out, or server your time, and lose a life.

Youtube has brought forth a lot of wannabe “jack-asses”, but is also a great playground for people with way too much time on their hands.

Here’s a couple of my all-time favorites.

Britney Spears Death metal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nypusXmF5BI

Cookie Monster – TNT ACDC – Death Metal version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPvxQ5cSeZQ

Cannibal Corpse Lounge Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc-V3NYckOI

Saysit.com is an “oldie” but a goodie site, worth adding to your favourites, and visiting when you get bored.

The site uses.php to create images on the fly. Your choice of background, (the Music cassette tape is my favourite), and add your own text overtop. press “create” and whoila!, it’s made for you. Nothing brilliant, but worthy of a chuckle or two.

Visit http://www.says-it.com/

Have fun!

Whilst working on a recent job, I was stuck with the dilemma of needing header images to replace the < h1> tag, which were still accessible. No probs i thought, there’s plenty of tutorials online. I came across the perfect solution to handle this, but i still had an inherent problem of my heading images taking a while to load.

This is a very neat solution, that overcomes this problem, very simply.

The simple method for Image replacement for H1 tags, is by using CSS. For accessibility purposes, the css tag display:none; cannot be used, as screen-readers will ignore this altogether, therefore making the page harder to understand.

We can, however, push the text to the left of the page, using text-indent, like: text-indent:-9999px;

Let’s get straight to it.

Ok, so, in your page, you have the following:

<h1 class="about_us">About Us </h1>

In our CSS we have:

.about_us {
    width:460px;
    height:250px;
    overflow:hidden;
    background:transparent url(../images/about_us.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat;
    text-indent:-9999px;
    margin-bottom:15px;
    }

This method, will replace the h1 heading, with our image (located in the images folder). We use the numbers 0 0 to position the image top & left, and set it to no-repeat so we only see the image once.Our text-indent:-9999px will push our text way to the left out of visual site, and still allow the text to be read by screen-readers.Now, if your image is big, this will take a few seconds to load (unless you use Javascript to pre-load), so we will wrap our H1 tag in a div, and apply some css, so, now our code looks like this:

<div class="h1_bg"><h1 class="about_us">About Us </h1></div>

and we add another class to our CSS:

.h1_bg {
    background: transparent url(../images/loading.gif) no-repeat 180px 100px;
    }
    

Since I wanted the loading image to be set in the middle of my larger image, i set it’s position to 180px 100px (left & top)

Even if you use a CMS with dynamic headers as I have where some sections don’t have a background image for a heading, the loading image won’t show, as it is set to 100px from the top position.The look & feel of using this site, makes it accessible & look dynamic, and it’s so simple!

Want to get your own "Ajax-Loading" style animated gif?, why not make one at: http://www.ajaxload.info/ Have fun!

Mighty Million launches its brand new website, and is unlike anything out there. Unique in its conception, MM is opening the door for bigger and better things for those involved.

Mighty Million (MM) is bringing together Artists, Musicians, Writers, Designers, Creatives and more. A social networking site, MM is the precursor to “Break Down The Door” and offers more than most.

There are no hidden agendas at MM, and everything is open to the public. The aim is to get one million paid members. The money gets invested into the DBTD development which offers everything for free. Each 1000th member of MM gets AU$1000, and after the millionth member, the competition opens for someone to win AU$1,000,000.00!

Members will get exposure, be able to sell their talents, as well as be part of an artistic revolution like nothing before. Made for the artists, by the artists.

Check out http://www.mightymillion.com today!

From May 24 to May 28 2007, the world’s biggest Star Wars party, is going to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. CELEBRATION IV is going to be huge, with guest appearances, stores, the “Stormtrooper Olympics” and more.

Check out http://www.starwars.com/celebration/ for full details.

Happy Birthday Star Wars!