Integrity Link Checker for Mac… Can I do without Xenu?

If you manage websites of any decent size, you’re probably familiar with Xenu Link Sleuth for PC. It’s an incredibly powerful tool that allows you to check links on your site for errors. Well, bummer for me, it’s Windows only and I’m on a Mac. I’ve pretty much replaced every other application that I used on Windows, but a Xenu replacement was the, shall we say, missing link? (har har.) So, after a client emailed me with yet another broken link on his website, I finally went on the hunt.

There appeared to be two major contenders when I Googled “link checking tool for mac”…

Braxton’s Link Tester (BLT) looked pretty good. The website displays a 3.5 mouse rating from Macworld. After reading Macworld’s review, I ruled it out because there is no option to exclude specified URLs or domains.

Then, I found Integrity by Shiela Dixon at Peacock Media. Integrity is inspired by Xenu, and it’s freeware. Hooray! Have I found the last piece to my Mac migration puzzle? Am I finally free of the PC?

I’ll be using Integrity over the next few days and will post a full review in a couple weeks. Check back for updates!

My New Year’s Resolution: 1024×768

Screen Resolutions

And it might be yours too!

It’s worth taking a look at your analytics “Screen Resolutions” report from time to time. The last time I heard someone quote a statistic on how many people used 800×600 resolution the number given was 40%. I did some checking, and while some of our web sites had numbers near 40%, many sites were much lower. Some sites had numbers as low as 5 to 10%.

(I believe that these numbers will drop even further, now that some of the 800×600 crowd have received new computers for Christmas.)

While there’s no absolute rule on when to drop support for 800×600 browsers, it’s probably a safe bet once the traffic is under 5%~6%. If you have an high-traffic web site, and 5% is still a large number of visitors, it may make sense to stay compatible for a while longer.

For the most part, fixed-width sites can now enjoy some extra screen real-estate by making 1024 the new “minimum width.”

Happy New Year!

How to Modify a WordPress Theme

Found a great set of articles on how to modify a WordPress theme. What I didn’t find was a concise “table-of-contents” set of links to the entire series… So here it is:
Dissection of a WordPress theme: Part 1
Dissection of a WordPress theme: Part 2
Dissection of a WordPress theme: Part 3
Dissection of a WordPress theme: Part 4

Many thanks to John Godley & UrbanGiraffe