Archives for "Web Development"
Confessions of a web fiend
Remember this great Simpsons moment?
Ad Agency Chief: You know those radio ads where two people with annoying voices yammer back and forth? I invented those.
[Homer immediately punches ad agency chief in the face]
Ad Agency Chief [unperturbed]: Happens all the time.
I have a similarly shameful admission to make. Something so awful that I think I’ve only ever told a handful of people, small weedy people with no chance of being able to physically best me.
I created gambling popup ads.
There, phew… That felt good.
It was a long time ago, a time when innocents still noticed and clicked on gaudy ridiculous ads.
What feels even better though, is when you meet someone who did something just as shameful. The other day I met a guy who created pop-ups for herbal supplements. He had a look of genuine embarrassment when he said it.
I nearly cried.
I’m not alone.
So what did my ads look like? They included lots of things you immediately associate with urine-stained slot machines: Mermaids, treasure chests, palm trees. Here, see for yourself (the mermaid doesn’t have a beard, her spray-on tan has yet again badly failed her).
If there is a Hell (and there most certainly isn’t)Â I would go straight there to take my place in the section between the fiddlers and the people who produced How I Met Your Mother.
Top 5 WordPress Plugins
If you don't recognise this logo, skip this article
The Aliens finally arrive and obliterate earth, saving only you and 5 female field hockey professionals to continue humankind in a petting zoo on their home planet.
You are allow to rescue one film, one book, and 5 WordPress plugins to be preserved forever on an alien planet as examples of the artistic and technical peak of our civilisation.
Without hesitation you select Dumb and Dumber and its screenplay, but as for the plugins… You have to stop and think for a while.
Another way of framing this question could be, ‘what would be the plugins you would most likely donate to if you ever became mentally incapable of making sensible lucid decisions?’
NB. For people uninterested in this post, I’ve set an alternative assignment: Go away and work on just being better informed generally. Subscribe to a BBC podcast, read a news article that isn’t about the Perez Hilton lawsuit, or even just learn a new word (this is easy, just type something like ‘define: misanthrope’ into google).
Here’s my list. Bear in mind that to me, these plugins are the tools of someone primarily working on SEO stuff and online marketing.
#1. Redirection by John Godley
“Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors”
For me this is my number one plugin because it saves so much time as I am constantly changing url structures like a madman, but without any fear of negative repercussions with the search engines (do we still say ‘search engines’ or have I embarrassed myself? It suddenly struck me as sounding a bit early 2000s).
#2. All in One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert
“Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.”
I’m sure there are a million seo tools for WordPress out there but this is the one I choose early on, and I’m happy to stick with it until it develops AI and tries to explode my optic nerves.
#3. Breadcrumb NavXT by John Havlik
“Adds a breadcrumb navigation showing the visitor’s path to their current location.”
More often than not, a breadcrumb-style navigation helps usability massively, and this plugin perfectly anticipates everything you need in a breadcrumb. I just cracked a quarter chub.
#4. Advertising Manager by Scott Switzer, Martin Fitzpatrick
“Control and arrange your Advertising and Referral blocks on your WordPress blog. With Widget and inline post support, integration with all major ad networks.”
As an ad pimp, I love this plugin.
#5. Contact Form 7 and Really Simple CAPTCHA by Takayuki Miyoshi
“Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.”
“Really Simple CAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA module intended to be called from other plugins.”
Again, I’m sure there are plenty of other plugins providing basically the same functionality, but I do love these plugins for the ridiculous amounts of time it saves me from doing any manual work.
Honourable mentions
- Top Level Categories by Filipe Fortes
What it does: Removes the prefix from the URL for a category. For instance, if your old category link was/category/catnameit will now be/catname
I love it because: It gives me lovely urls. - WP-DBManager by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
What it does: Manages your WordPress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.
I love it because: By backing up my sites, it allows me to sleep at night - Inline Google Maps by Avi Alkalay
What it does: This plugin shows google maps anywhere on blogpage. Just add a permalink of google map to any text (with images) in a page, set title=”googlemap” and you’re done. Also works with complex multimarker maps and KML-based maps.
I love it because: I’m a lazy cunt. - p2pConverter by Brian D. Goad
What it does: This plugin allows you to easily convert a post to a page and vice versa through an easy to use interface. You may either click on your Manage tab in Administration, and you will see a Convert option under Posts and Pages sub-tabs, or click Convert while editing a post or page in the bottom right side bar.
I love it because: It saved me from MySQL hell
All Typographers can go to hell
Why is it that whenever web designers talk about typography in the most passing, innocuous way, they have an uncontrollable need to pay homage to trained typographers and generally act like obsequious little bitches? It’s not like what they do is all that challenging or skillful, so what’s with all the pathetic deference? Continue Reading