Category Archives: Good reads

Posts of book reviews, or links to articles or blog posts on other websites

Cloudflare and the Internet Archive are joining forces

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I have mentioned before that the Harvey Mercheum website uses the Cloudflare Content Delivery Network (CDN) to help ensure reliability and security. I have also mentioned that all content created for the website is stored in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. I recently read that these two services are joining forces in a unique and creative way to help increase reliability of the Web:

Cloudflare and the Wayback Machine, joining forces for a more reliable Web

I am proud to be associated with these great services, and am excited to see what other collaborations might happen in the future.

What separator should I use in my titles?

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I’m glad I am not the only one to worry about such things. Back when I first started the Harvey Mercheum website, a double greater than symbol was the title separator. I do not recall if I chose that, or if it was a default, either in WordPress itself, or in the Suffusion theme I used originally. I think it was when I was setting up Yoast that I changed it to the vertical bar, also known as the pipe. According to this article from Search Engine Journal, I made a good choice:

Three Ways a Pipe or Dash in Title Tag Makes a Difference

I’m still here

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Sorry for not posting last weekend. I am very fortunate, in that I am still employed, and my employer gave me the equipment I need to work from home. The trick is, now that I am spending forty hours a week sitting in my chair, staring at my monitor, I really don’t want to spend my free time doing more of the same, even if it is for my projects not work. It took me about a week to get used to working from home, hopefully I will find a work/life balance that allows me to enjoy working on the Harvey Mercheum website again.

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Hyperlinks now underlined, external links indicated

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Earlier this month, I read this post about accessibility testing:

Beyond automatic accessibility testing: 6 things I check on every website I build

Step five makes the point of not conveying information with color alone, and goes on to cite hyperlinks as an example. Hyperlinks should be underlined to easily differentiate them from normal text. I realized that the Harvey Mercheum website was just using color to indicate a hyperlink, and decided to implement underlines. After some experimentation, I decided to only do this for the “content area” of the pages, in other words not the menus, sidebars or footer.

Once I decided upon the underlines and was already working with the website’s Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), I wanted a clearer way to indicate whether the hyperlink was internal or external. I mentioned early last year about how I checked to make sure all internal links open in the same tab, and external links open in a new tab. I read this post on wpmudev:

How to Style External Links in WordPress Like Wikipedia

Then, rather than worry about licensing an icon, I found this way to create one on the fly as a Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG):

CSS: Style external links

I love learning new (to me) technologies such as CSS, and I am always looking for ways to improve the Harvey Mercheum website. What do you think of these changes? Leave a comment below, or use the Contact the Curator form to let me know!

Featured image credit: Andreariverac [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Enhanced use of Gutenberg blocks

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I had written back in February about how I had had problems with the new WordPress block editor, Gutenberg, and about how I overcame these problems by changing all my content to “Custom HTML” blocks, with “More” blocks as required. I have now gone back through the 425 posts that make up the Mercheum Blog and made better use of some of the other block types available by default.

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Top 12 Easy to Read Fonts

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It was exactly a year ago that I commented on the Roboto font’s popularity, and now I am pleased to see that Roboto made it to Vistaprint’s Top 12 Easy to Read Fonts. I knew it was a Google font, but did not know it was created for Android (specifically 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”) or used in the Chrome web browser.

I use Vistaprint for business cards, both personal and for the Harvey Mercheum, and have been very pleased with their quality. Some day I need to have these cards redone with “https” instead of “http”…

Nostalgia is good for you!

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Anyone who has read anything I have written knows that I have a strong sense of personal nostalgia. Looking back at my childhood, to when I first started collecting comic books and my father reading them along with me, that was a good time in my life. I usually feel a touch of sadness while looking back, and sometimes I worry that this sadness is bad for me. Well, I need not worry, according to this post from the Spring/Summer 2019 edition of The Intelligent Collector magazine:

The Balm of Nostalgia

Long-time readers of the Mercheum Blog will recall that I was interviewed in the Fall 2017 issue of that great magazine.

hobbyDB works to preserve collectible websites

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Back in January, I found the hobbyDB website. I just read this very interesting post on their blog:

When Collectible Websites die – does the Data die too?

Readers of the Mercheum Blog know that I am very concerned with the preservation of the content I have created. I do not feel that hobbyDB is a perfect fit for all the Harveyana that the Harvey Mercheum embodies, especially the various bits of corporate ephemera that I have promised to share with you. I am, however, very pleased to learn about the efforts that hobbyDB is making, and I still need to investigate how I can contribute.

What All Collectors Must Know

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I just read a great post on the Intelligent Collector website:

What All Collectors Absolutely, Positively Must Know

While some of the people interviewed were concerned with the value or authenticity of items purchased, I liked the quotes that emphasized buying what you care about. Shortly after I started the Harvey Mercheum website, I started buying every new Harvey-related item I could find. I quickly ran out of money, and did not even put a dent in the list of items I had found. I now buy items I feel are unique or otherwise important parts of the history of Harvey Comics. In short, I try to buy items that I care about.

Long-time readers of the Mercheum Blog may recall me doing an interview that was published in the Fall 2017 issue of Intelligent Collector magazine.