Google Analytics users who can access it will find a display of their website’s traffic graph along with another bar below that is showing the alerts for the corresponding days. Alerts are color coded with automatic alerts using a light green and custom alerts a light blue color. There will only be automatic alerts in the beginning.

The automatic alerts will give a webmaster immediate information about traffic jumps. This includes major traffic changes to certain pages on the website, a change in a page’s bounce rate, pageviews or a higher or lower than usual visitor stream from a specific country, state or region.

This gives the webmaster a quick overview of traffic developments on a specific web project or website. There are certain possibilities where Google Analytics Intelligence module can help. Webmasters could for instance investigate traffic increases or decreases more effectively as it will for instance display a decrease in traffic to a very popular page on the website. The webmaster could then analyze the issue further.

It is furthermore possible to create custom alerts and this could be very interesting to some webmasters. Custom alerts are created from a list of available alert conditions. The webmaster selects a traffic type to be monitored. This can be all traffic, traffic from a campaign, keyword, medium and landing or exit page. This traffic type is then combined with a metric that is triggering the alert. This again can be pageviews, total visitors, revenue or pre-defined goals. The selected metric is then given a threshold value. An alert is then automatically created whenever that value is crossed.

Another interesting option is to look at weekly or monthly reports which even gives a better overview as day to day variations are something that every webmaster has to live with. Google Analytics Intelligence is available in the left sidebar menu of the Google Analytics account.

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There are various options to test a website in different versions of Internet Explorer. Some, like IETester, make it possible to install multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same computer system. Others, like Browsershots, are online tools that can test a website in various web browsers as well.

A third possibility is now offered by Microsoft directly in the form of virtual PC images. Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 are provided as virtual PC images. It is possible to download a virtual PC image for each web browser running under Windows XP or Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8 images running under Windows Vista.

The Windows XP images have a size of around 600 Megabytes each while the Windows Vista images triple that size. The only limitation is an expiration date for the virtual PC images. The Windows XP images will expire in January 2010 while the Vista images will expire 120 days after their first execution. These expiration dates make the virtual PC images a less than favorable solution but its probably better than not testing the various editions of Internet Explorer at all.

Users who are interested in the virtual PC images can download them directly from the Microsoft website.

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Wampserver is an Apache web server for the Windows operating system. It provides in many regards the same functionality of other web server solutions like XAMPP or Home Web Server which we have reviewed in the past. The latest version of the local web server package will install Apache 2.2.11, MySQL 5.1.36 and PHP 5.3.0 on the local computer system.

One interesting unique feature is the ability to add different versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP to the installation in the form of add-ons. This can be very handy to test a website locally under multiple different Apache, MySQL or PHP release versions.

The installation of Wampserver will always install the latest versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP. One interesting security feature is the ability to limit access to the web server to localhost. It is required to click on the “put online” option to make it available to other computer systems as well.

Additional Apache, MySQL and PHP versions can be installed from the Wamp add-ons page. All add-ons are provided as executables that can be installed easily on the operating system.

Webmasters who need to test code offline can use Wampserver to do so. It is especially useful to test code against multiple versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP. Something that the other home server solutions do not provide.

Wampserver is Open Source and can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

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According to Mashable there are two clues that your blog has been successfully attacked by the computer worm:

There are two clues that your WordPress site has been attacked.

There are strange additions to the pretty permalinks, such as example.com/category/post-title/%&(%7B$%7Beval(base64_decode($_SERVER%5BHTTP_REFERER%5D))%7D%7D|.+)&%/. The keywords are “eval” and “base64_decode.”

The second clue is that a “back door” was created by a “hidden” Administrator. Check your site users for “Administrator (2)” or a name you do not recognize. You will probably be unable to access that account.

Webmasters are asked to update their blogs to the latest version of Wordpress immediately. Those that have been hit by the computer worm should backup all files, export their settings, and do a clean install of Wordpress. More help is offered at the Wordpress website.

Rant:

It’s Sunday and it is time for a little rant. Webmasters who do not update their blogs as soon as a new version of their blogging software is released are acting stupid. A Wordpress update usually takes less than ten minutes and ensures that the blog and server is protected from attacks like these. Webmasters who do not have the time to perform these updates should consider switching to a hosted blogging platform like that at Blogger or Wordpress.com. The automatic update option that has been introduced in recent Wordpress versions makes it even easier to update the blog as soon as a new version is released. Webmasters who cannot do this should not operate a self hosted blog, period.

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The relevant characters that need to be escaped are ', ", &, < and >. (I had to escape them while writing this article to avoid xml errors on the page. Webmasters have several options to escape these characters. They can escape them manually, use an online tool to convert them (see How To Display Valid Markup Code In Websites) or a software program like the XML Escape Tool.

Source code has to be pasted into the first form field in the application window. The tool can then escape the source code if the user clicks on the Escape button or unescape the source if the Unescape button is pressed.

The resulting code can be copied automatically to the Windows clipboard. The benefit of using a desktop software program to escape the characters is that it works if no Internet connection is available. Users who want to try the software can download it from the developer’s website.

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It is not often that a search engine invites users to test it’s search infrastructure. Google invited webmasters yesterday to test out their next-generation search engine infrastructure. Interested users can point their web browsers to http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ to perform a live test.

For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.

Webmasters usually have the advantage of being able to check how their websites rank for certain keywords which makes it easier for them to spot differences. Most users who commented in the original post at the Google webmasters website mentioned that search results in the new search engine would be more relevant. It was also noted that less spam websites would occupy a position on the first three search results pages.

A quick test for some of the keywords that Ghacks ranks for did not reveal any major changes. Please post your opinion about Google’s next-generation search infrastructure in the comments.

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1. Comment moderation and spam

Comment moderation and spam are two of the most time consuming aspects of a webmaster’s workday. A high profile blog can get thousands of spam comments a day which are then queued up in a spam folder somewhere. Even the best antispam tools do not offer a 100% protection against spam. Another trade-off is that false positives tend to increase with every new antispam plugin and script installed which can frustrate visitors so that they either stop posting comments or leave the site to never come back.

2. Email Support

Most websites have a contact form or other means of contacting the webmaster or a person responsible by email. These emails can contain tech support topics, requests (either for new articles, help, guest blogging or advertising), comments, spam or rude remarks. Tech support questions are usually the most time consuming to answer especially if it is not possible to test the problem locally. Webmasters obviously do not have to answer emails but it is good behavior if they do in a timely manner (except for spam and the rude remark emails). It is still a time consuming process especially on high traffic websites.

3. Updates and Security

It is of uttermost importance to run the latest version of scripts and software on a website. Old versions can contain security or memory holes, incompatibilities or missing features. Many hackers wait for security releases and start searching for websites that still run an older version on the day the new releases get announced. Updates on the other hand are only one part of the security concept. Scripts on the server side can improve security by preventing brute force attacks or notifying tech support. Webmasters do not necessarily have access to these features especially on shared hosting but some security add-ons and features can be installed by them as well. This includes setting the right access rights for directories, making sure to use non-standard usernames, directories and database prefixes or installing scripts and plugins that increase a website’s security.

4. Features and Plugins

Webmasters have to keep an eye on the development of new plugins and features. Wordpress webmasters for example have thousands of plugins at their disposal that get constantly updated. Additions are posted in the dozens daily and it can be quite hard to keep up with them. There is however always the possibility to find a plugin or script that adds a new interesting feature to a website or is able to replace an existing script by providing an increase in performance or functionality. One of the main reasons why many webmasters stick with one content management system is that it is easier to keep an overview of the advancements (and other things including security) that are made.

5. Design

Not all webmasters have to be design-aces. It is perfectly possible to download templates and themes for many different types of content management systems or websites and use these with little modification. Another option is to order a custom theme from a designer. Small changes on the other hand are usually performed by the webmaster. This includes changing a logo, adding a graphic or other elements.

6. Performance

A slow loading website does not necessarily mean that the server the website is hosted is not capable of delivering the performance the website needs. Other things can play a role here including scripts and plugins installed. External scripts, like advertisement or third party widgets, can slow down a website tremendously. Even more so if the domain the data is loaded from is experiencing technical problems as well. A webmaster needs to make sure that the website can be loaded as fast as possible. While third party scripts are usually in the top list of elements that slow down a website the problems can also be caused by large multimedia contents like unoptimized images, broken scripts, not optimized loading sequences or not making use of compression techniques or image concatenation.

Many tools can help in the analysis including the XHTML Validator over at W3C, Firebug or YSLOW.

7. Testing and Compatibility

A website has to be tested with various web browsers to ensure that the user experience is similar in all cases and that it is possible to connect to the website with all popular web browsers. Webmasters also do a lot of testing that include testing advertisement, plugins, scripts or element positions on their website. A classical example is to test various advertisement positions on a website to find the one that is yielding the highest earnings for the webmaster. Other possibilities include testing various positions for content to increase pageviews or decrease the number of visitors who leave a website on the first page without visiting a second one.

8. Advertising

Not all websites and blogs run advertisements. Webmasters who do place ads on their websites open a new can of worms. Statistics have to be checked regularly to make sure that the ads perform well. Ads need to be tested (if possible) in various ways including different positions, color schemes and even different advertisers. Monitoring various webmaster forums and blogs for new advertising opportunities and tips is a must do.

9. Hosting, Domain and Billing

Webmasters using free webhosts do not have to worry about these. But webmasters with their own domain name and web hosting account need to keep an eye on a few things including expiration dates and paying subscriptions in time. This is usually not a big issue and not that time consuming unless hundreds or thousands of domains are hosted at dozens of different web hosters or web servers.

10. Networking

Networking is probably the most important aspect of being a webmaster. You tend to get the best tips from a network of webmasters who work in the same niche. I consider the day I met Everton from Connected Internet one of my luckiest days in my life. Not only have we exchanged information that helped us get rich (haha) and improve our websites; No, we also decided to run a joint project which turned out to be very profitable.

Not everything is about being profitable of course. Some tips are only passed around in close circles because many webmasters do not post their findings and experiences on forums or websites. This can be a better way of placing ads on a blog, a new plugin or script that a website benefits from or general tips.

Verdict:

I’m not sure if this article covered all the aspects. There are probably more including tax reports, law suites and the like. Please post a comment if you have something to add or would like to voice your opinion on the subject. Being a webmaster is more than meets the eye.

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Another option is to make use of a service called 404 toons which is basically a custom 404 error page that is displaying an animation that is talking to the lost user and provides a link back to the homepage of the website. It is probably a good idea to display some of the characters that can be displayed to the visitors.

A selection of characters are available ranging from a Mafia dude, policeman to a secret agent and an alien. Some characters offer multiple animations. It might be a good idea to check out the page listing all available characters on the 404 Toons website. All characters can be downloaded in one package from the website.

The developers are also offering custom characters and a professional voice recording service on their website. This is not only available for 404 error pages but also other purposes like instructions on a website.

You might also be interested in our best of 404 error pages which contains screenshots of some great 404 error pages.

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It is therefor essential for webmasters to regularly check the links that are posted on their websites and blogs to make sure that they are still pointing to the initial resource and do not return a 404 not found instead.

One of the best ways for Wordpress webmasters is to install the Wordpress plugin Broken Link Checker which will automatically check all posted links in all blog posts regularly to ensure that the links are valid. The initial lookup can take between a few minutes to several hours depending on the amount of posts and links on the blog. It took about 10 hours to find and check all links that have been posted at Ghacks.

The broken link count will be updated all the time and it is possible to deal with those links right away even if the plugin is still having links in the work queue. A click on the broken link count will open a table that displays 20 broken links per page.

The webmaster can display details about the link which will list the date of the link check and the error code that was returned. It is possible to delink right from the table which will remove the a tag from the link and keep the anchor name. Other possibilities are to exclude the link from future checks (good for false positives), to edit the url or to edit the post itself.

The plugin will automatically line-through broken links that have not been dealt with by the webmaster to inform visitors that the links are not working. The Broken Link Checker plugin is an excellent way of finding and removing broken links from a Wordpress blog.

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The very same page contains additional options to shorten the message and post it to Twitter or Facebook. Both of these options require a Stumbleupon account which gets linked to the Twitter and Facebook account.

Su.pr provides two interesting options that can make it interesting to users. The first is that every url that gets shortened gets also submitted to Stumbleupon. That option might be especially interesting to webmasters who post their new blog posts or websites to Twitter or Facebook anyway. This way they can post it to Stumbleupon as well which usually generates some extra traffic. Some webmasters have experienced hundreds of additional visitors coming from Stumbleupon using this method. A Wordpress plugin has been provided by Stumbleupon to automate the process.

It is furthermore possible to move the shortened url from su.pr to the domain the blog is hosted on so that links will point to that domain instead.

The second interesting aspect of Su.pr is an extensive statistics section which will give the user traffic details about the url that has been posted. This includes clicks, referrers, re-tweets and reviews. A last option that sounds interesting is the ability to schedule posts.

Su.pr is a convenient URL shortening service with some interesting features. It could become very popular with webmasters who post their articles and websites to Twitter and Facebook. Their main benefits are the statistics that are provided and that the url gets posted to Stumbleupon as well.

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There are however only a few software programs available that can lookup domain name registration information. The Domain Name Status Reporter supports the most popular domain name extensions like com, net and org but also country specific domain name extensions such as de, ca or fr.

It is possible to add new domain extensions in the options. All it takes is to enter the domain extension and a whois lookup server that is providing those information. Domain names can be entered manually or automatically from a text file. Each domain name will be listed in a table that is displayed in the main interface.

A click on Lookup All will perform the domain name registration lookup. The program will display if the domain name is available or taken. If it is taken it will display information about the registration date, the domain registrar, the domain expiration date and the last domain update.

The program is missing the means to automate the lookups so that the added domain names would be regularly checked.

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The changes don’t come without a hefty price tag, however. Flippa will also be introduced with a new fee structure more expensive than SitePoint’s previous fee structure. Flippa will be charging a “success fee” similar to eBay’s final value fee. SitePoint has not yet announced whether or not they will be offering a marketplace for hosting, link sales, or scripts. User feedback made on SitePoint forums in regard to the change has been mostly negative. Many Twitter users are also spreading news of the change with retweets at the TechCrunch twitter account saying “SitePoint Spins Off Website Marketplace As Flippa, Upsets Users.”

SitePoint co-founder, Mark Harbottle commented, “If you want to come across to flippa and sell your site in the professional marketplace we’re creating for serious buyers, we welcome you with open arms. If not, please do go to digitalpoint. List your site for free and see if the old adage of “you get what you pay for” applies.” This commented shocked and appalled many Digital Point users, many of which felt the remark by Mark Harbottle was “unprofessional” and that it was a “low blow” to the DigitalPoint.com webmaster community.

Mark Harbottle also commented, “Meanwhile while you all whine and complain about the fees, the design, etc. the smart sellers are listing their sites on flippa.com and they are attracting the majority of the buyer interest,” which many SitePoint users found it not only hurtful for being called whiners and complainers, but also that this blow came after the announcement that fees will be rising. It came as a shocker that those who list their sites on SitePoint were insulted and told to leave if they don’t like the changes. This change comes at a key period in the US economy where consumer spending has hit only one point higher than the US all time low

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The Page Speed tab can be used to analyze the active website. A website optimization report will be generated that groups the findings into priorities. The high and medium priority groups list elements that should be optimized to increase the performance of the website. Low priority items on the other hand are fully or partially optimized items that can still provide some performance gains but not as much as the medium or high priority items.

Each entry is listed with a short description, priority and an expanding area that lists the elements that are affected and optimization tips on how to resolve the issue. This usually requires some research on how to implement the optimization, the Page Speed homepage is usually a good starting point as it contains some tips on how to resolve some of the issues. Some issues cannot be solved by the webmaster at all, like compressing or combining externally loaded JavaScript.

The Page Speed Activity tab on the other hand displays a timeline of all browser activities including JavaScript processing which makes it easier to spot scripts and elements that are increasing the loading times.

The data is divided into blocks that define elements like network latency, DNS lookups, connection establishment, and JavaScript processing.

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Not so with Font Friend, a bookmarklet that simplifies the font selection process greatly. A click on the bookmarklet on any website will display it in an overlay in the lower left corner of the browser window. The font selector can be used to change various characteristics of the fonts used on a website. The options are divided into font family, font variant, font weight, text transform and a html element selector.

The html element selector defines the elements on the page that will be affected by the font change. Included are headline tags, body, paragraphs and the option to select a custom element.

The font family offers a selection of 23 different font families including the popular families arial, verdana, times new roman and georgia. Font variants can further change the appearance of the fonts on the active website.

Webmasters who are currently testing various fonts for their website might want to check out the bookmarklet which can be simply added to the bookmarks and executed by left-clicking it on the right website.

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The following list is a collection of webmaster tools that should help most webmasters. Many would consider them basic tools that every webmaster should know and use. Most of the tools are accessible from all operating systems and web browsers.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Webmaster Tools

Each of the three major search engines provides access to webmaster tools. These tools might require an account but will display all kind of information about the website that is related to the specific search engine. This includes crawling errors, statistics about indexed pages, sitemaps and troubleshooting help.

Google Webmaster Tools
Live
Yahoo Site Explorer

Markup Validation Service

The W3C Markup Validation services checks the syntax of webpages. It will report syntax errors which the webmaster should fix as soon as possible as invalid markup can lead to all sorts of problems including browser crashes, broken design or missing elements. It is a good idea to check the source check box on the page which will display the source code of the webpage which makes it way easier to locate the erroneous syntax.

W3C Markup Validation Service

Web Browsers

Testing websites in different web browsers is a must for every webmaster. What displays fine in Internet Explorer can throw up error messages in Opera or Firefox.

Firefox
Google Chrome
Internet Explorer
Opera
Safari

Web Statistics

Web Statistics are tools that record and analyze traffic that is arriving at a website. These tools provide extensive information about visitors (where do they come from, which pages did they access, how long did they stay), referring websites, errors and additional information. Webmasters have the choice to install a third party tracking code or run a web statistics script on their server directly. Running a third party tool will decrease the load on the server as no processing power is needed to crawl and analyze the access logs. Their disadvantage is that a piece of JavaScript has to be loaded on every user request which increases page loading times. It also means that data about the traffic is available at a third party site.

AWStats (Server)
Google Analytics (Third Party)
Sitemeter (Third Party)

Resources:

Robots.txt

Robots.txt files can be used to guide search engine bots on a website. They can allow or prevent access to certain files and directories.

Robots.txt

.htaccess

Htacess is a very powerful configuration option included in Apache web servers. It can be used to do various things like password protecting directories or redirecting 404 pages to another page.

.htaccess

Firebug

If there was one Firefox add-on that webmasters could use they would certainly pick Firebug. The add-on can be used to display realtime information about the active website in the web browser. Webmasters can select elements on the website to be taken directly to the code that is creating that element including its CSS properties. It can also be used to monitor network activity and to debug JavaScript. Several extensions are available for the add-on to increase the functionality further.

Firebug (requires Firefox)

Selenium

Selenium is a web application testing system for the Firefox web browser that can be configured to perform clicks, typing and other actions on the website which can be played back at a later time using variables like different web browsers or languages.

Selenium (requires Firefox)

If you can think of any other resources that are missing in this list let us know.

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The following web development articles have been published in January 2009 at Ghacks:

How does PHP work?
HTML Playground
PHP – what role does it fill
Standardizing variables to code faster
Web Development: A brief history of time()

You can download the pdf document by clicking on the link below.

ghacks web development january 09

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Most search engines do not talk about SEO. This has lead to an incredible amount of SEO related content on the Internet which is usually a mix of experience, rumors, false assumptions and guesswork.

In a somewhat surprising move Google published the SEO Starter Guide on their website. The guide concentrates on onpage SEO and mentions offpage SEO only briefly. Experienced webmasters will not find anything revolutionary in the pdf document which is clearly aimed at webmasters who never came in contact with SEO articles before.

It’s a good read for those webmasters. One thing that’s done well in the SEO guide is the screenshots that are tied to Google search results to show the effects of certain elements on the website.

No secrets are revealed in the guide but since it is only 22 pages it might be a good read for just about anyone.

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Another option that speeds up the process quite a bit when working on the Internet is the Domain Lookup add-on for Mozilla Firefox. It does not automate the whole process but provides enough automatism to be a great asset for every webmaster or domain hunter.

Domain Lookup can send the marked text to a selected domain registrar checking if the domain name is still available. The query will be opened in a new tab. Spaces will automatically be removed from the query: “business news” would be stripped to “businessnews” since domain names cannot contain spaces.

The fastest way to check the domain is by using the shortcut key [CTRL SHIFT D] which can be edited in the options. It is furthermore possible to use the right-click context menu to start the domain search.

The default registrar Godaddy can be changed to numerous others depending on the user’s preference. The author explicitly states to let him know about missing registrars so that they can be added. The list is pretty extensive though.

It is also possible to select the domain extension or multiple extensions that should be checked. The default extension is .com but it is possible to add additional extensions including several country domain extensions.

Selecting multiple domain extensions can have the consequence that multiple tabs have to be opened to check the availability.

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Users need an Open ID to log into the service and a Twitter account to publish the RSS News Feed to. It basically works like this. The user creates a new account at Twitterfeed using an Open ID account. He can then create a new Twitter Feed to the account by supplying a Twitter account and a feed url of the feed that he wants to add. Once that has been setup Twitterfeed will publish new items on the Twitter account automatically until the user pauses or deletes it again.

The feed is not authorized which means that anyone can post any feed to Twitter which could be interesting for some users who would like to post a number of feeds to a Twitter account. A number of feeds? The number of feeds that can be published does not seem to be limited which in effect means that someone could create a new Twitter account and publish all of his favorite RSS News Feeds to it.

This could be useful if access to RSS News readers is limited or blocked in a network while access to Twitter is not. It could also be a nice service that webmasters could offer their readers. Spam could be a issue on the other hand.

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Rarst posted a process on his own website that makes it possible to check all feeds for dead links. The process can be broken down to exporting all feeds in an opml file, extracting the links into a new text file and checking the links with a link checker.

Some feed readers might provide an easier way of discovering dead blogs either because the owner abandoned it or deleted the website completely. Google Reader for one is offering a feature called Subscription trends which show inactive feeds. Users have to click on the Trends link in the top left menu and choose the inactive tab under Subscription trends to get there.

The user can display the top 10, top 20 or top 40 inactive blogs. The name of the blog and the data of the last update is shown in the menu afterwards. It is then easy to unsubscribe to blogs that have not been updated by clicking on the trashcan icon.

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