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Quick Accessibility Testing
A recent project of mine required me to do a quick review of the accessibility level of a site. Nothing serious, just to show what was possible to test and where the site scored right now. I managed to assemble a small list of tools that I believe did a rather good job. This article […]

WordPress Theme Releases For 1 / 23
Two Column Themes Orange and Black This is a widget ready two column theme with contrasting colors. It makes use of orange and black colors. Content area is quite big allowing to fit in more content, sidebar is to the left of the page. Sidebar comes built in with Recent Entries and Recent Comments so you do not […]

Two Column Themes

Orange and Black

This is a widget ready two column theme with contrasting colors. It makes use of orange and black colors. Content area is quite big allowing to fit in more content, sidebar is to the left of the page.

Sidebar comes built in with Recent Entries and Recent Comments so you do not have to install those plugins.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Simpleton

Simpleton is a two column theme which makes use of simple colors. The theme comes built in with recent comments and recent themes. The sidebar is big enough to fit in two rows of information.

The theme is widget ready.

Demo | Release Page | Download

UnGrid

UnGrid is a three column theme based on grids which is widget ready. The theme features an integrated banner management and a featured about section.

Font color is a bit light and could do better with a darker shade. Features a extended footer section to display more information. Comes in Greenish / Pink and Blue colors.

Demo | Release Page / Download

Three Column Themes

iPhone Theme

Widget Ready theme with vast use of rounded corners for headers. The main header area is a bit small which makes it hard to have a custom logo. Makes good use of gray color throughout the theme.

Sidebar is divided into two columns with additional space to show off 125 X 125 banners.

Demo | Release Page | Download

MackOne

A fluid theme based on dark colors consisting of red and black. The background and graphics are appealing. Makes use of white text for better visibility on the dark background.

The theme is widget ready and comes built in with related posts, Flickr support, recent comments, WordPress native tags and Socializing options.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Blue Iris

Blue Iris is a fluid three column theme with widget ready sidebars. Colors are mostly made up with variations of blue. The theme has a wide content area making it easier to add wider images.

The header section and sidebars can do with a bit of improvement. Sidebars are fitted in too close together.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Configuring WP Permalinks
Quite often, we hear of the terms (permalinks or pretty permalinks) which can also be called SEO-friendly URLs. These URLs are not only SEO friendly, but I believe they are human friendly as well. By default, WordPress uses URLs that look like a mishmash of letters and numbers with a few question marks mixed in […]

Quite often, we hear of the terms (permalinks or pretty permalinks) which can also be called SEO-friendly URLs. These URLs are not only SEO friendly, but I believe they are human friendly as well. By default, WordPress uses URLs that look like a mishmash of letters and numbers with a few question marks mixed in for good measure. These types of links are frowned upon by search engine spiders and as a human being, they are also hard to read.

Fortunately, WordPress provides a way for us to change this linking structure to something understandable. WordPress calls these Permalinks. Permalink settings can be configured a number of different ways. One of the ways to quickly configure permalinks is by choosing one of the Common Options. These common options include:

Default - http://www.domain.com/?p=123

Date and name based - http://www.domain.com/2008/01/15/sample-post/

Numeric - http://www.domain.com/archives/123

There is no sense in using the default option so choose either Date and name based or Numeric if you don’t feel like tinkering with the Custom Structure.

The custom structure of the permalinks settings area allows you to customize the way permalinks are displayed by using any combination of the following permalink tags.

%year% - 4-digit year (for example, 2008)

%monthnum% - 2-digit month (for example, 01 for January)

%day% - 2-digit day (for example, 15)

%hour% - 2-digit hour of the day (for example, 20 for 10PM)

%minute% - 2-digit minute (for example, 50)

%second% - 2-digit second (for example, 24)

%postname% - Text separated by dashes which usually ends up being the post name. (for example, configuring-wp-permalinks)

%post_id% - The unique, numerical ID of the post (for example, 124)

%category% - The text of the category name that the post is filed in (for example, how-to)

%author% - Text of the post author’s name (for example, ronald-huereca)

Example of custom structure in use:

Custom Structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/

Link Output: http://www.domain.com/2008/01/16/

Make sure that you include the back slashes at the beginning of the custom structure, after each tag and at the end. This will ensure that WordPress writes the correct rules in the .htaccess file via mod_rewrite.

For my own blog, I seem to have done fairly well in the search engines by using the Custom Structure method and using the %postname% tag. I can’t say for sure which combination would do better or worst for search engines. The only thing I can suggest is that you configure your permalinks to look whats best for you.

*WARNING*

Changing the structure of your permalinks affects all of the permalinks on your blog. This is important to know because search engines will have indexed posts on your site via their permalinks. If you change the permalink structure mid stream, you will end up invalidating all of those links.

What to do if you don’t have a .htaccess file?

If you notice that you don’t have a .htaccess file within the same directory as your WordPress installation, you can create one by first creating a blank .txt file and saving the file as htaccess.txt. Upload this file via FTP to the same folder that houses your WordPress installation. Once the file is uploaded, set the permissions to the file as 666. Next, rename the file to .htaccess. Now you should have a blank .htaccess file for which WordPress can write the proper permalink rules to.

Servers That Don’t Use Apache Or mod_rewrite.

If the webhosting server you are on does not have the apache module mod_rewrite enabled, you can still use the permalink settings in WordPress by placing index.php in front of any custom permalink tags.

For example: /index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/

Equals: http://www.domain.com/index.php/2008/01/16/

Using index.php in this way eliminates the need for a .htaccess file.

I hope this little primer on how to configure your permalinks within WordPress was helpful. I’ve seen too many blogs out on the net that have yet to take advantage of this awesome feature. As I’ve said before, using any sort of permalink structure is better than the WP default. Not only is it beneficial in terms of SEO, but it also makes it easier for human beings to see at a glance, what a particular link is pointing to without having to visit the page.

If you use the custom structure aspect of permalinks, I’d be very interested in knowing which configuration of permalink tags you have chosen to use and why.

IE8 renders the acid 2 test
I’m not sure why I don’t see that many people talking about the fact that IE8 renders the acid 2 test perfectly now. It really seems Microsoft is starting to move forward again, after starting to feel some pressure from the open source world. Will they be able to pick up the speed needed to […]

Productivity Boost: Key Stroke Launchers

Productivity is a tricky thing. Once you’ve found your way to get things done, you aren’t likely to change anything until the system (your workflow or your tools) doesn’t work any more. For instance, many developers tend to use the very same versions of applications they’ve been using over years. After all, you get things done and you’ve got used to it — so why should you introduce any changes? “Never touch the running system” is the principle which is often followed in such situations.

However, this approach has its drawbacks. For instance, you might simply be not aware of some useful tools which would save you many headaches, a lot of money and dozens of sleepless nights. Using them, you can become more efficient, more productive and consequently minimize the time you spend on tiring, monotonous daily routine tasks.

Over the next months we are going to cover a number of useful tools, services and applications which might help you to improve your workflow and increase your productivity. Most of them will turn out to be life-savers in practice, as they help you to accomplish some tasks automatically and you would need to do them manually otherwise.

In this article we present some free key stroke launchers — desktop-applications which you can use to start some other applications without a single mouse click.

Productivity is a tricky thing. Once you’ve found your way to get things done, you aren’t likely to change anything until the system (your workflow or your tools) doesn’t work any more. For instance, many developers tend to use the very same versions of applications they’ve been using over years. After all, you get things done and you’ve got used to it — so why should you introduce any changes? “Never touch the running system” is the principle which is often followed in such situations.

Touch The Running System!

However, this approach has its drawbacks. For instance, you might simply be not aware of some useful tools which would save you many headaches, a lot of money and dozens of sleepless nights. Using them, you can become more efficient, more productive and consequently minimize the time you spend on tiring, monotonous daily routine tasks.

Over the next months we are going to cover a number of useful tools, services and applications which might help you to improve your workflow and increase your productivity. Most of them will turn out to be life-savers in practice, as they help you to accomplish some tasks automatically and you would need to do them manually otherwise.

In this article we present some free key stroke launchers — desktop-applications which you can use to start some other applications without a single mouse click.

Key Stroke Launcher?

If you are a professional web-developer you might have dozens of different tools you use on a regular basis. And, once you have them, you also want them to be ready to hand once you need them. However, the regular Windows start menu consists of a long list of applications, and the desktop is usually full of icons, so it’s pretty hard to have a big picture of what is where placed.

Not every application’s shortcut is perfectly arranged for a quick launch, because the programs are not sorted in an alphabetic order or the desktop looks like an icon-jungle. So you need to navigate through the Start menu or minimize some windows to finally click on the desktop icons. That’s not effective.

Good news: you can do better. In such cases you can use Launchy, KeyBreeze or Google Desktop to improve your productivity.

Launchy

Launchy is a free, lightweight Windows utility which helps you to open files, folders, web-sites and applications with a few key-strokes. In the shape of a little search bar, the tool appears to your service by pressing the Alt + Spacebar key combination.

Just type the first letters of the program you’d like to start or site’s URL you’d like to visit and the tool provides you with possible matches of your query.

Image: Launchy

Apart from a number of plug-ins, Launchy also offers some further functionalities for specific search. To look up some topic in Wikipedia or Google, type in “wikipedia”, or “Google” then hit the tab key and enter the topic you are interested in. If you’d like to check the weather, type in “weather”, then input the zip code, city name or state. Similarly, you can also play your favourite tracks and search local directories for some file.

If you don’t like the default look or would like to change it from time to time you can can select one of the skins. You can find a number of Launchy skins here; however, most of them don’t work with the latest version of the tool, so you might need to download the previous version (1.25).

“Aero” skin

Launchy is the winner in the category “Best new project” in the Sourceforge.Net 2007 Community Choice Awards.

Keybreeze

Similarly to Launchy, KeyBreeze is a free key stroke launcher which tries to guess the application, document or site you’re looking for. However, it has a dozens of further features which can serve as little productivity tweaks.

The tool also enables you to perform system tasks, control windows on your screen and use macros for some repetitive tasks, such as backing up files and folders.

If you’d like to insert some phrase you tend to use often in your conversation, you can instead of using some data stored on your PC, you can use text functions which will paste predefined text automatically into the document or text field which is currently active.

What makes KeyBreeze particularly useful is that you can create notes and to-do lists on the desktop and also set reminders — instantly.

There is also a portable USB version of the tool as well as a number of plug-ins which are available on the official web-site.

Google Desktop

Actually, Google Desktop has proved to be the ultimate solution when it comes to desktop search. Coming with a Google Sidebar, Desktop brings the advanced search functionalities as known from the conventional Google search.

However, Google Desktop can also be used as the ultimate key stroke launcher. Once the tool has finished indexing your data, you can hit Ctrl twice and the quick search box will appear. As Google Desktop provides full text search over email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail and web pages that you’ve viewed, you can launch applications, open files and load web-pages in a browser without a single click.

Apart from that, there are a number of great uses for Google Desktop, such as file versioning or file recovery. You can also place gadgets on your desktop to show you new email, weather, photo and personalized news. In fact, we’ve covered a number of useful gadgets and modules for Google Desktop in our article Google Gadgets, Widgets and Modules.

Conclusion

Whatever tool you choose in the end, used properly, it will save you a number of unnecessary clicks and help you to get a little more productive without any effort. On a large scale these small changes can completely reduce annoying tasks you needed to do on a regular basis. Just getting rid of them is a significant step towards a more effective and productive workflow.

Future of web standards (my take)
Stuart Landridge sums up the ongoing debate about the future of CSS. My thoughts on this are that we should: 1. Let browser makers run loose with implementing new features, based on feedback from web developers. 2. Have a standard body (or some other group) that look at those existing features and see how they can be […]