[theforum] Advice from Primates

[Erika]

The objunky article was called, "Advice from Primates."  It's not 
available, save a couple of pages cached on google.  It was published 
October 1998. I found a remnant in which one Martin Burns describes how 
to create a custom 404 page w/ .htaccess.

Hey, that's good idea.  We should do that for evolt.org.
;-b

Erika

PS one reason for reduced tippage may be thechat.

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from "Advice from Primates" - re-posted w/o permission.

The staff of Webmonkey has two sources of great pride. First is our 
endless knowledge of 1970s TV trivia. We're not just talking What's 
Happening? and Different Strokes. No, no. The staff has a level of 
extensive, detailed recall from daytime, prime time, and syndication 
that borders on scary. Some people who have "achieved a little more" or 
maybe "made some money" find this a bit pathetic and allude to time that 
could have been spent studying. Some family members talk about what 
might have been.

I should get on to the other source of pride.

That is, our readers. We feel that the Webmonkey audience is among the 
brightest and most creative on the Web. Many are professionals who code 
or design for a living and do some amazing work.

When I told my aunt about this she said, "those who know do...." Then 
she asked if I had gotten around to the GREs in the last six years.

Anyway, about a year back we decided to set up a mailing list. Called 
Monkeyjunkies, it's a place where pros can get advice, criticism, or a 
snippet of code from the most qualified people out there. The 
conversation covers a wide range of topics: Perl, Apache, JavaScript, 
browsers, design, graphics, and just about anything else that's relevant 
to Web professionals.

But, of course, the conversation doesn't always stay so focused. People 
are people - ideas will lead to other ideas, minds will wander, and, 
before long, something gets posted to the list that has little or 
nothing to do with Web publishing.

That's cool - more or less anyway. Nobody wants to be a fascist and 
outlaw certain posts, but we do want to keep our mailing list pretty 
much on target. That's why the <objunky> was created. Here's Taylor's 
description:

       If you post a chatty, off-topic, or noisy post in which you 
aren't directly asking or responding to a Web question, you need to 
"pay" the list for the lowered signal-to-noise ratio. So you must 
include an ob(ligatory)junky (spelling intentional) tip. Give us a bit 
of knowledge on Web publishing in any area you want that is pertinent, 
insightful, or just plain helpful. If you can't think of a tip, then you 
probably shouldn't be chatting.

Over time, dozens - even hundreds - of tips surrounded by the <objunky> 
tags have been posted to the list. They provide some great advice for 
nearly everyone working the Web. Over the next couple of days, we're 
going to show some tidbits of knowledge that should help you in your work.

Today, we're going to look at some JavaScript objunkies. Tomorrow, we'll 
look at advice for graphics and design. Following that, we'll look at 
backend tips.

Before we get going, credit should be given where it's due. The list 
from which we drew these objunkies is maintained by Jonathan Lim. He 
receives no bananas, toys, or ointment for his prehensile tail in return 
for his work. He just does it for the betterment of monkeys everywhere. 
Thanks, Jonathan.

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