March 4 Random Tech/Web Area galin
http://ramblingfisherman.com/2011/10/stamp-river-good-weather-is-finally-here-and-on-the-forecast/ WordPress offers a lot of plugins. Most of them useful. One that I install on customer sites that works fine does not work 100% across the board on all of the websites I make.
http://livingriver.eu/?page_id=412 WP-Super Cache is a very useful caching plugin that has worked for me for every customer site I have made. It involves a little bit of tinkering, but even a computer novice could get it functioning in some manner. These caching plugins are very useful because they increase the speed of your site by caching the page. Web browsers cache as well, but this plugin is very useful for the first time visitor who does not have any history saved of your site yet.
The one problem I have had is with an entertainment site I made, PetVideoParty.com. I recently designed this site using the random video player design that my friend and I have been brainstorming and constantly redesigning. The problem is when installing the caching plugin it caches the entire video player, taking the randomness away. So for now, we have nothing installed. The plugin creators indicate there are ways around this by saying there are ways to not cache specific parts of the page. So far, all of the suggestions show no results.
It seems these caching plugins need some work before acheiving perfection. For sites that revolve around constantly changing content and delivering a unique experience to each new user upon each visit, they fall short.
For the customer this should not be an issue. When installing WP-Super Cache, I always make sure to go through and do a thorough check of the site to make sure nothing is misbehaving from caching. Unless if a customer is looking for a random video player (or other random content delivering mechanism), I see the issues discussed never becoming an issue for a customer. After all, we want your site to be as fast and useful as possible, so caching add-ons will never go away.
February 18 Customer Website Tips galin
Do you want to let people comment on your blog but are too afraid of being overwhelmed with spam? Spam is out there and out there like crazy on blog sites.
One of my personal projects involves a random youtube video site. We post each video through the blog posting, on exactly the same screen on WordPress that I am writing this right now. We get some comments sometimes that make me laugh. Here is an example.
Example Spam – “I like the valuable info you provide in your articles. I will bookmark your blog and check again here frequently. I am quite sure I’ll learn many new stuff right here! Good luck for the next!”
My thoughts – (We don’t write articles spammer.. this is just a YouTube video you are commenting on but thanks for the words of encouragement! I’d love to post your comment so it gives you a link back! Wait…)
Well lucky for you, if you want to give people the freedom to comment on what you write, there is Akismet. Akismet is a plugin built for wordpress that automatically deletes spam for you. It involves having a library of “spam comments” that it knows to flag and remove for you.
Setting up Akismet is simple. It is already available to activate in your “Plugins” menu on your WordPress admin screen. Once activated it will ask you for an Akismet key. To do this, simple go to the Akismet Website and sign up for Akismet.
February 7 Development Techniques galin
People sometimes look at the prices we offer and wonder how we can offer things for such a low price? The answer is WordPress.
When I was initially getting into web design, I learned about WordPress from a co-worker. The best thing about WordPress is its popularity. So many features have been developed for it. Most of the time when you have a development demand for something, you can find the need pre-developed on the Internet to either fit your need or at least get you started. Just looking at their available plugins site should give you a good idea.
You may be saying, well if everything is that simple, why are you telling that to us?
First, nothing is as simple as it sounds. Sure, developers are making new things every day for WordPress, but knowing what to do with what they made, including both using it and tweaking the code, is where we possess great strength. On top of that, we aren’t trying to get rich off the stuff we do for you. That is why we start so low with our prices: we like to think of it as us just charging you for the time involved.
Our goal is to get rich, just not through a typical customer. Our personal projects, may it be only with ourselves or a joint venture where we partner up with someone, are where we want to make our money.
