Tag: WordPress

bookmark_borderDiscussing Design

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Sometimes I start writing a post with no idea where it will head. What follows is a bit of a meandering waffle…

Recently I asked for some suggestions for content (which I duly ignored, sorry about that). The still-blogless Donalda suggested:

Every so often you do a “here is what my site looked like in the past and here’s what it looks like now” thing, but with the last few changes you haven’t. I quite like those as I like to see where the design idea is headed. A discussion of DESIGN of blogs might mean a few folk not making the evil, evil mistakes that lots of neophytes do – not discussed in your talk, but very helpful, the usual suspects of links, and just a few ideas on what your next change will be.

The alternative was to post a photo of some kittens smothered in Nutella… or something… I forget why.

Why re-design?
I’ve been, rightly, accused of re-designing this site too often and thereby breaking my “brand”. Thing is, as this is very much a hobby, I don’t really care about that kind of thing. This site has gone through several iterations, starting pre-blog with a title of “Something” and a popup window featuring frames and tables for layout, to the current “blog” style which I’ve yet to make into a WordPress template, despite several requests1. In-between times I’ve ditched a ‘name’ and used the URL, and then gone back to a name, not to mention the fact that the site URL itself has changed from www.snowgoon.co.uk to www.gordonmclean.co.uk (or .com if you really want).

The reason I have a website at all stems from the need to experiment when I was learning HTML (the very first iteration of my website was purely a set of links with a lot of clever Javascript, lost in the murks of time that one) and it wasn’t until I started writing and publishing online that any idea of site construction really entered my head. This is why I still enjoy the process of designing and building a website, and still enjoy finding inspiration from many sources.

And yes, this is kind of at odds with the reasons why I joined 9rules, but who said I had to be consistent? Ohh I did… damn.

Where next for this site?
I like the current design. It meets MY needs, and hopefully isn’t too hard to use for you guys and gals either. The overflow section (on the left) is working OK but still needs some tweaking, and the main posts are looking fine. The Flickr integration and top navigation needs a little more refining but I do feel quite settled at the moment.

That usually means that in a couple of months I’ll be bored again. But which direction will I take next?

Well I’ll be steering clear of big bright colours and large sans-serif fonts (far too Web 2.0… whatever that is…), but I think I’ll be making more use of sections and graphics in the future. Mainly because my proficiency with PhotoShop is leaping forward (thanks to some other projects I’m working on) and because it’s the one area my sites have always lacked. In saying that, I have still to find a real balance between nice graphic embellishments and my desire to retain a minimal design. I may drop the number of colours in the future, and have one main highlight colour with the rest of the site relying on blacks, whites and hues of grey.

I may also experiment with a new layout, primarily offering a semi-fluid width for the main column (the one you are ‘in’ at the moment). Ideally the main column will be resizable but be limited to a maximum width… still figuring out how to do that one mind you. I will NOT be changing to a “content on the left” layout, I don’t think. Primarily because I think having the ‘other bits’ of your site hemmed in by the main content gives them some focus, whereas on content-left sites I rarely move my eyes to the right of the content and miss out on a lot of stuff that way (might just be me though).

All in all this site WILL change in the future, not anytime this month mind you but hey, who knows what the future will bring.

Site critique time then.

If this was YOUR site, what would YOU change?
Any examples of sites you like the look of are welcomed. Some examples that I keep returning to are:

  • Minor 9th – single colour highlight, clean, crisp design.
  • Daring Fireball – proves that dark backgrounds CAN work.
  • Warpspire – nice use of space, and nice approach for a ‘one post’ on page site.
  • …. you tell me!

Finally a mention for the Hemingway theme which you can find on the last site on the above list. I really like this approach, but find it at odds with my desire to have content easily available (not behind a click). Still unsure whether it’ll be an influence for any upcoming redesign but it does have some excellent ideas.

1 I may get around to it at some point, but I’ve still to get my head into the whole WordPress ‘template’ thing.

bookmark_borderMatchsticks

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Completely knackered. An accumulation of two or three weeks of late nights (bed at 1am, up at 7am) and I’m struggling to stay awake… it’s only 7.40pm but I could quite happily go to bed right now. The only reason I’m not going to is because I’d only wake up at 1am, wide awake, get up and end up staying up for a couple of hours…

Was in a Ford Ka last night for the first time, and was quite impressed, very roomy inside and took my largish 6′ frame comfortably, and I reckon you could get another 6 footer behind me too. The car in question also had that new car smell as my sister only received it on Tuesday, her first car! Which reminds me that I haven’t publically congratulated her on her new job.

She qualified with a degree in … umm… HR stuff… and has landed a 6 month contract (possibly longer) doing HR for a local hotel (technically for the part that runs the luxury lodges). Needless to say she’s well chuffed. Well done Jen, onwards and upwards (you’ve got the car, next is a flat!! 😉 )

In other news, my “presentation” is actually a seminar and will take place on March the 2nd in the Lighthouse in Glasgow, courtesy of Urban Learning Space. Places are limited and invitation only, and there will be around 20-25 people in attendance. I’ve made a start on the presentation and you guys and gals will be the first to see it, and naturally I’ll be expecting some feedback.

Right, I’m off to write up a proper spec for that WordPress plugin (see previous post), jot down a few ideas for another website (ohh I’ve not mentioned that yet, have I? bugger… all in good time I guess), make a nice cup of hot chocolate and retire to bed to finish Attention All Shipping.

bookmark_borderWP Plugin Idea

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May already exist. CBATG (well I did but only found one ‘unpublished’ plugin).

A plugin that will control the publishing of posts, only releasing one every X days.

For example, I could write five posts in one night, hit publish and forget about them. The plugin would publish the first one immediately, then set the date on the second one to X days from the first, the date of the third one to X days from the second and so on.

It would need to check the dates of previously published posts to get the gap between the first post and the most recently published one… in fact that’s all it would need to do. Check the db for the last published post, and change the date on the next post to X days from that. As WordPress will pre-publish to future dates that’s all it should need to do… Hmmm that doesn’t sound too hard actually. For someone else, obviously.

bookmark_borderMiscellany

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Is it rude to phone an establishment you’ve emailed and ask them to check their email? What’s the point of having a website and an email address if you don’t check them and respond to potential customers?! Eh!!

A question. Whilst driving to the airport to pick up my sister-in-law today I was bullied out of the outside lane by a very intimidating procession which including 5 police motorbikes, one large black tinted windowed Merc with blue lights flashing behind the grill and two larger black tinted windowed Range Rovers, also flashing flights behind grills and the rear windscreen. Who was it that garnered such obvious protection? Anyone got any ideas? They pulled in to Glasgow Airport somewhere but I lost them.
UPDATE: Could it have been someone travelling to Davos for the World Economic Forum?

If you are walking past someone and you stand on their foot, do you notice? Or do you wait until the person says something? I reckon I’d notice (and have in the past) yet three times this morning, whilst sat on the train, people walked past me, stood on my foot and didn’t even look back or offer any kind of apology. Hell I’d be happy if they just acknowledge the fact. Sheesh!
Update: This morning it was a knee swiftly and deftly applied to my calf. I looked up, the person then sat down opposite me and… nothing! Not even a hint of recognition that he’d just given me a dead leg. So I stood up and kicked him in the balls. (OK, not really)

WordPress. I can’t delete posts because, apparently, I need “sending referrers turned on”. I’ve tried everything suggested but still get the same message. I think it’s also stopping me from commenting on a couple of sites. Driving me potty. Any suggestions?

An answer. The answer to the how many toilets will Wembley have question is 2, 618. Apologies in the delay for telling you (but I guess no-one was that bothered as no-one reminded me).

Public speaking isn’t something I’ve done much of but I’ve been asked to present a seminar at an event in Glasgow. It’s pretty small scale, I think, and I’ve never done anything like it but I’ve already said yes, you have to do really, don’t you. It’s to be based on Scottish Blogs, and the whole ‘community’ aspect of blogging. I’ve put out a few emails already for some advice, and rest assured that I’ll be looking for some help from you lot as well!

bookmark_borderUpgraded

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What I did (for Lyle and anyone else).

Usual caveats apply, if you’ve done a lot of hacking then YOU need to know what YOU’VE changed. This is all taken from the WordPress Upgrade documentation. Worked for me.

The Preparation
1. Backup your database and the files on your site.
2. Download the WordPress ZIP file for 1.5.2.
3. De-activate all plugins on your site (will make your site look funny until the files are upgraded). I’d suggest taking a note of them as well, just in case you need to upgrade them too (I didn’t have to).

Note: It is NOT necessary to run install.php or upgrade.php as no changes are made to the database. As with all WordPress upgrades, the contents of your /wp-content/ folder should remain intact and unchanged.

The Upgrade
1. Delete /wp-admin/ folder.
2. Delete /wp-includes/ folder
3. Delete all the wordpress files in the root directory where the root index.php file is found. DO NOT DELETE wp-config.php. Note: My WordPress install is in a separate folder, I deleted all the files in my “WordPress” folder, leaving the remaining folders intact.
4. Download and extract the new version.
5. Upload the appropriate folders – /wp-admin/ and /wp-includes/ – and the files they contain.
6. Upload all the files in the WordPress root directory to your WordPress folder.
7. Re-activate your plugins.

Done. Hopefully. Was a breeze this time round, the docs could still do with a little “dis-ambiguating” and I guess it’s about time I used my membership of the doc team to good effect!

bookmark_borderHandling Referrer Spam

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Thankfully this is not an area I’ve had much experience in, so I’ve done a little Googling and come up with some interesting ideas and ways to handle referrer spam.

Firstly it helps to know if you are being hit hard by it, and for that you’ll need access to server logs or a basic statistics package for your website. If you start seeing odd names in your referrer logs and your bandwidth usage starts to skyrocket then read on.

Rather than waffle on at length I’ll quickly point you to a couple of articles, one short one “why are they doing it and what should we do about them?” and a more indepth article that also includes some proposals for handling referrer spam.

There is one simple way to handle referrer spam, that’s to block access to your site for the domain name that is being used. A lot of referrer spam will use sub-domains so blocking the top-level domain name handles all the sub-domains as well. For example:
If you are receiving refferer spam from naughty.example.com, bad.example.com, spammers.example.com and so on, then blocking “example.com” from accessing your site should block those other referrers.

Obviously the people behind referrer spam are aware of this and so use .com, .us, .tv and anything else they can get their hands on. For this reason, manually adding and blocking referrer spam sites is laborious, time-consuming and ultimately a losing battle.

However if, like me, you are only experiencing a small amount of referrer spam then here’s an article that explains how to create an “.htaccess” file to block referrer spam (scroll down to the “How to do this” section).

WordPress users try Referrer Karma (now running on this site), or bad behavior, and then anyone can use WannaBrowser to test if they are working.

So, hopefully I’ll be referrer spam free(ish) from here on out, ohh and if anyone gets a message along the lines of “Please click on the following link if you are not redirected automatically (sorry for the inconvenience)” then let me know.