Transcript

00:05 hello everyone welcome to Weaver cast
00:08 Weaver cast is a weekly podcast where we
00:11 go over some great tips and tricks for
00:12 rapidweaver and web design i am your
00:15 host Joe workman I am an independent mac
00:18 and web developer based in this san
00:20 francisco bay area today is show number
00:23 20 it is Monday februari 24 2014 and
00:28 Weaver cast is never long in the 1
50:30 minutes so let's get started so today
00:33 we're going to go over pretty quickly
00:35 but really depends on how how much I
00:38 talk we'll see um but we're going to go
00:40 over some cool little tips and tricks
00:42 for some geeky stuff with web design the
00:45 htaccess file and then we're going to
00:48 quickly touch on the robots.txt file
00:51 that's really quick one just for you
00:54 know controlling what search engine see
00:56 and what not but what is an htaccess
00:59 file now it only works if your web
01:03 server is running Apache and that is
01:06 probably going to be most users that are
01:08 running wrap weaver websites and whatnot
01:11 because most hosts run apache on the
01:13 linux is by far probably the most
01:16 implemented web server technology out
01:19 there is apache so HT access is a file
01:23 configuration file for Apache for your
01:26 website and you can do all kinds of
01:29 things and I'm going to quickly just
01:31 kind of spurt out I think I have like 1
51:34 different tips for you today I'm going
01:36 to quickly show you the the blurb that
01:38 you're going to put into the HT Access
01:40 file and what it does and how you can
01:43 tweak it and and all that jazz now
01:46 traditionally HT access files it's just
01:49 a plain text file the name of it is dot
01:52 HT access ok so you name the file that
01:56 any transfer it to the root of your
01:58 website so it will be in the root folder
02:02 of your website needs to be there now
02:06 there are newer versions of patchy which
02:09 probably most of you are running newer
02:11 versions of the latest versions
02:13 that support this what I'm going to talk
02:15 about is you can actually th TXS files
02:18 so what that means is at the root of
02:21 your web server you can have HT access
02:24 and that is like your global
02:26 configuration file right for your entire
02:29 site then you can actually define
02:32 htaccess files in various folders
02:34 throughout your website and basically
02:38 these settings that you have in those
02:39 sub HT access files will take effect for
02:42 the folder and blow that you have it in
02:44 right so if you want some specific
02:46 settings for parts of your website you
02:48 can do that most of the time even for me
02:52 I don't do that I have file a
02:55 centralized file that I manage for my
02:57 website at the root of my website and
03:00 that pretty much does everything that I
03:02 need it to but if you need that ability
03:07 to basically have different
03:08 configurations for different parts of
03:10 your website totally possible just take
03:13 that same htaccess file and throw in a
03:15 different sub folder so that's basically
03:19 it let's jump in and get geeky now I
03:24 should note that every snippet that
03:25 we're going to be seen today is
03:27 available inside the rapidweaver
03:28 snippets open source project this is a
03:32 project that I created that is available
03:34 to everybody for free so if you are
03:37 interested in the rack Weaver snippet
03:39 share go ahead and check out my github
03:41 account and there's full instructions on
03:43 how you can download and access this
03:46 great share of snippets okay so tip
03:49 number one is doing a simple redirect so
03:53 here's a perfect example I have a mac
03:56 app currently called climate it wasn't
03:58 always named climate its original name
04:01 was my nest and if users now go to / max
04:07 / my nest which used to be a teen URL on
04:10 my website they will get redirected in
04:13 this instance to Jagran annette / mac /
04:17 climate as you see this is really simple
04:20 to do you simply start your line with
04:24 redirect
04:25 space 301 because we're saying that we
04:30 want to do a 301 redirect now there are
04:32 different redirects and look those up if
04:34 you need to but a 301 redirect is mostly
04:37 what you're going to be doing that tells
04:39 the search engines that this is a
04:41 permanent redirect this web page has
04:43 permanently moved from location a which
04:46 we defined here as / mac / my nest so
04:50 let's move from location a to location B
04:53 which is Joe workman net / mac / climate
04:56 now there's one thing I should probably
04:58 should noted before his comments in HT
05:01 access if you ever start a line with a
05:04 hash sign or a pound sign this is where
05:08 you can actually define and add comments
05:11 to your HT access files okay so tip
05:14 number two here really simple it is
05:16 defining custom 404 pages or custom
05:20 error pages so most the time if a user
05:23 goes to a URL on your site and that URL
05:26 doesn't exist you get a page not found
05:28 error so it's really simple to do that
05:30 as we see the few sample configurations
05:33 here it's just saying error document
05:35 space the error code that you want to
05:38 capture so in our case we want a 404 and
05:41 then you're going to define the path to
05:43 the actual file that is going to get
05:47 redirected to the user so inside your
05:50 rep remover projects or whatever tool
05:51 using you're going to create a I have a
05:54 slash errors / 404 in my configuration
05:57 so I have in rap weaver i created a fate
06:01 a page where the folder is set to slash
06:04 errors / 40 for the page name is set to
06:07 index 2.html and then you could design
06:09 the page to be whatever you want okay
06:12 and then inside your htaccess file that
06:14 way whenever anyone visits a error page
06:17 or a page that doesn't exist they will
06:19 get redirected to your 404 page pretty
06:22 cool okay so this next tip is all about
06:26 speed and what this configuration here
06:30 does is it checks if your apache server
06:32 supports a couple modules that are
06:34 installed and if said modules are
06:37 installed it will
06:39 before the contents of particular files
06:43 are sent to the web browser they will be
06:45 compressed so really what's going on
06:48 here is we are improving the transfer
06:50 speed from the web server TV web browser
06:53 now here's another tip for compression
06:56 uh this is very similar maybe your web
06:59 server supports mod gzip which is
07:01 another again this configuration your
07:03 chest tests for that first now normally
07:06 you're not going to use this tip and
07:07 then one I just went over you're going
07:09 to use one or the other so check if your
07:11 if your web server supports mod gzip
07:13 then you can use this one and this
07:15 essentially does the same thing where
07:17 it's compressing CSS HTML javascript
07:20 files before they actually get sent down
07:23 to the web browser now this next tip is
07:26 really simple this is essentially
07:29 disables directory access so you know
07:33 sometimes you go to a website directory
07:34 you know a web URL and you don't have to
07:37 page name in there and sometimes if you
07:39 just have the directory you can actually
07:41 see a list of files inside the web
07:44 browser this will disable that
07:47 functionality this will allow that not
07:49 to happen so if you don't have an index
07:51 2.html or an index PHP file in a
07:54 particular directory this will not allow
07:57 the user to view the contents of that
08:00 directory okay so this next tip here is
08:04 around security of files what files can
08:08 be viewed in the browser or not viewed
08:10 in the browser a perfect example is
08:13 you'd never ever want your HT Access
08:16 file to be seen inside the web browser
08:19 right this is a very secret file we
08:21 don't want you know hackers or anyone to
08:24 be see exactly what the configurations
08:25 of our web server are to potentially
08:27 exploit any holes right so this first
08:30 one here we're saying files HT access so
08:33 explicitly naming a particular file and
08:35 then we're saying you know order is
08:38 allowed to nigh and we're going to deny
08:40 for all we want 0 access to this HT
08:43 Access file on the web browser now you
08:46 can do this with any file let's say
08:47 there's a you know a secret file dot jpg
08:50 where you don't want that to be viewable
08:51 in the browser at all for
08:52 some unknown reason you can definitely
08:54 prevent people from seeing that file and
08:57 last thing we can do file match so you
09:00 can basically say anything that has HT
09:04 access to HC password ini files PSD
09:07 files so a lot of these you know dot log
09:10 files if you don't want any of those to
09:13 be seen within the web browser you
09:15 basically deny from all for all of those
09:18 well everyone that wraps up today's show
09:21 I hope you learn some tips and tricks I
09:23 you know we hope I being get too
09:25 confusing for you again all of these are
09:29 available on the open source snippet
09:31 chair so make sure you check that out
09:33 it's a great resource for everybody and
09:35 you know pls contribute the more that
09:38 people contribute to the share the
09:40 better it can be for everybody right so
09:42 it's pretty cool as always if you have
09:45 any questions comments or concerns go
09:47 ahead and send us an email or hit me up
09:50 on the various internets I am at Joe
09:52 workmen at Twitter and app.net send us
09:56 an email Joe support at Georgia net and
09:59 go check out my products they make these
10:01 cool podcasts free and available for you
10:03 so Joe we're going out net / rap
10:06 Weaver's all my great rap Weaver add-ons
10:08 Joe or net / mac is some light awesome
10:12 mac apps and check out my book
10:13 rapidweaver book calm so thank you very
10:16 much everybody I hope you have a great
10:18 week and all talk to you later bye"}]