Brian Cook Presents

I’m a bona fide Firefox fan (I also like a little alliteration). Ever since installing Firefox way back in 2005, I’ve loved the tabbed browsing, sane handling of CSS and overall vibe of the community. In all of those departments, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer compares unfavorably. One of the greatest things about Firefox is how open […]

I’m no computer programmer, despite how useful it would be to know a programming language or two. Since what I do is almost exclusively online, PHP would make the most sense. As it stands, I have just enough PHP knowledge to be dangerous, which is exactly how I like it. Somehow, when you learn something […]

Paid links work. In any competitive industry, smart link-buying is necessary if a site wants to rank in the SERPs. From Google’s perspective, it’s the single biggest threat to the relevance of their algorithm. So what should they do about it?
What They’ve Tried

It’s programatically easy to detect a large number of bought links. Anyone still […]

There is so much of interest on the web today that I can’t resist a short, sweet post about my favorites. First up is a hilarious post on MikeDuncan.com that features a real-life letter that was sent to our office. Check it: Dear Sir, Please unsubscribe me from your internet.
I’ve also joined Twitter, which I […]

For a long time, the Cookblog has been foxy in Firefox and AAAIIIEEEYYY! in IE. Recently, it became obvious that I could no longer call myself a web designer while allowing such a cross-browser compatibility issue exist on my very own website. After a little research and a fairly large amount of work, I came […]

The CookBlog now has its own Firefox Extensions page! Get yourFirefox Extensions fix, comment on them, suggest your own or request an extension you’d like to see.

The selection is a bit thin at the moment, but there will be more extensions on the way. Until then, you can visit the official site for Firefox extensions:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1 […]

Most people are completely ignorant, as I was, about the back ends of websites. How are pages generated? How do browsers understand and render them? How do developers build them? These aren’t common questions, especially in the era of GUI (Graphical User Interface), which basically means making everything pretty and simple for “normal” users. As […]

Truly classic design elements transcend specific media. Casting an eye over old books can inspire imaginative solutions for web design. And why shouldn’t those books be French? The Frogs are renowned for their appreciation for the finer things: food, wine, art, deodorant… So without further ado, here are 11 terrific elements of design from old […]

It’s 2008 and things are going well. I’ve got a good year to look forward to, what with Borgamo growing, a trip to Europe on the horizon and plenty of web design projects with which to further my education. Already I’ve been harnessing some power searches on the major engines, Google, Yahoo and Live Search, […]

While I work with websites every day as a job, the CookBlog is a labor of love. My 8-5 is a constant struggle to raise the organic search rankings of my employer’s sites. The CookBlog is a place for me to hone my CSS skills, keep a journal and hopefully write articles that appeal to […]