Dirk's tips and tricks!

Thanks to everyone who has emailed to say hello. A number of people have asked about my links and how I get them to open up in their own separate windows. I’ll answer that question in a minute or two, but before I do I’d first like to explain why I use the "new window" technique.

I work hard on my site and just like anyone else; I get very excited when visitors come to call. It is my hope that once company is seated and enjoying my humble abode, they will stay long enough to break blog with me and sup upon the simple fare I offer up to the cultured and sophisticated palettes of those who grace me with their undeserved presence.

(Excuse for a moment whilst I wipe the brown from my nose.)

However, like any good host there are tasty tidbits I believe in serving up to my guests as an accentuating side dish. After all, who amongst us does not enjoy tasty links basting in savory sauces bubbling merrily away in sterling silver chafing dishes? While these delectable treats are enjoyable, they are not the house specialty we take such pride in serving up here at the Anne Dirk’s Liberal Holocaust Museum and All Night Diner.

Now, in my own travels along the lesser known byways, subways and small-rural-back roads of the vast internet super highway I have often stopped to visit the occasional roadside attraction. In these quaint blog and breakfast stops I too have been offered up a variety of tasty regional links. Being the gourmand that I am I sample a link, which takes me to a site, where I sample a link, which takes me to a site, where I sample a link and the next thing you know I am several hundred miles away from the lovely spot I wanted to visit in the first place. Yes, we all know what happens next...

Driving in reverse is never much fun, especially if you are now hundreds of miles from the beginning of your original journey. Repeatedly mashing the previous button on the browser and having to retrace every single t-o-r-t-u-r-o-u-s step that’s led to whatever god-forsaken-little-hole-in-the blog you find yourself in at any given moment in the wee hours of the night is not an enjoyable task. (I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but some of the sites out there on the internet are not so much fun as here.)

So, how do we solve the dilemma of serving up tasty links to our visitors without whisking them off to blogs unknown from whence they may never return?

I’m so glad you asked!

We offer up our hot steaming links served on the festive TARGET TAG tray! It’s easy, here, let me show you one I prepared earlier.

I turn your attention to the serving of links located on the right side of this page. (Notice also how well they go with cheese.) See the word, Wizard? That’s right; it is a link to one of my friends. Now, I like her because she always makes me laugh when she drops by for coffee. I think she lives deep in a magical forest in a glen filled with gnomes and little bunny rabbits. (I also think she also has a house made of gingerbread.) S-h-h-h... We’ll talk more of that later.

So, I’d like to introduce her to the nice people who come here to visit without having them wind up trapped in her gingerbread-house-of-horrors, where she performs god-only-knows-what-arcane-and-unholy rituals upon them in the secret basement located under the floor boards of her living room.

(Especially if you happen to be an innocent young man who has lost his way in the forest.)

How do I do that? By adding the magical escape tag TARGET to her link. First, we go to templates. Then we enter the scary land of HTML coding. Don’t be afraid, I’m here with you. See the ul> places where your links are located? Good... Now, just at the end of the link address where it ends with .com”. Put your cursor just behind the quotation marks and add one space. Careful...

Now, type in TARGET=”BLANK”. Well done! Now, save changes.

From now on whenever visitors open links on your home site, those links will open in a separate window. Go ahead, click on the wizard link, and when she answers the door of her gingerbread house and tries to snatch you up and put you in her basement, click on the little x located in the top right-hand corner of the window. You’ll be magically whisked to safety!

Go ahead and try it. I’ll be waiting right here when you get back.

Cool, huh?

Dude, you should have seen the look on her face when you just disappeared like that.

I think she might even have kicked a gnome...