I’ve seen the ‘web 2.0′ layout (full width background, centred content) done in some pretty wacky and different ways, the worst being a background image and then fixed height sections laid on top (if the content wraps or the text is resized…bam..broken layout).
Because of this I am going to demonstrate the method I use – content strips. Hopefully this will be useful to CSS beginners who want to code this type of layout.
Search boxes: integral parts of many websites but often neglected in terms of markup and style. When considering both accessibility and semantics, marking up a a search box can be a little awkward depending on the look you are trying to achieve.
In this post I will suggest some methods of marking up your search boxes, and show a neat way of styling it using css and a few images.
Last week I noticed something very odd on Blue Anvil when resizing the browser window; after some casual browsing I discovered it was not just my site with the problem and that it was quite widespread on many ‘web 2.0′ style sites.
The problem occurs when resizing the browser window; cutting off background images and potentially making text illegible. Worse still, the bug also seems to affect mobile browsers with a zoom function, such as opera mobile.
After some dabbling I found a solution, which I shall explain in this post.
This week Ive been trying out a lot of image replacement techniques in main headings, and their are quite a few available. If you have a graphical header logo on a website, with the sites name, often you wont want to have another heading as plain text. Yet, you should want to have the heading readable by screen-readers, and you also want the SEO benefits of the heading.
Ive rounded up my favorite methods, and this entry will show you how to use them, and when to use them.
Many people make the mistake of using tags for appearance only in their websites, but with semantics you get the benefit of describing your data as well. This makes it more accessible and of a higher quality, and of course fulfills the main objective; separating content from presentation.
This article is aimed at semantic mark-up beginners, including clients who want to learn more about code so they can ensure their sites are semantically correct. It also shows the mark-up available and it’s usage.
I have just uploaded 1.1.7 of MiniCard here and to the WordPress theme directory. This updates includes:
Hope you like it, and don’t forget you can show your support by purchasing the premium pack from here.
It’s been about two weeks now since I made the transition from a shared reseller hosting account to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) account – impressions so far, excellent performance but fiddly to configure.
The reason I wanted to change from shared hosting was the fact the server was always being hacked (even though ALL my scripts were secure), there was frequent downtime, support blamed me for problems every time, and it was slow as hell.
Those used to a shared hosting environment would probably not know where to start when faced with configuring a VPS. Luckily, a lot of it was pre-configured when I received my account – certainly some of the major security holes were patched. I was not satisfied with those however. As a victim of hacking in the past (previous host swears it was not there fault, something I don’t believe) I took extra care to secure it as a much I could – configuring brute force detection, the firewall, installing mod security (excellent rules for that here: http://www.atomicorp.com/wiki/index.php/Atomic_ModSecurity_Rules) and going though multiple guides (like this one: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=468168) with a fine-tooth comb.
The result? My pages are loading at least 6 times faster, I have had no down time (or at least have not noticed any), and I feel in control and happy. No longer am I at the mercy of shared hosts 
If your interested, I chose ServInt as my provider as they offered a great deal, as well as being a managed service (so I’m not on my own if I screw things up). I was tempted by the bells and whistles of Media Temple, but felt the ServInt service was better value.
Download Monitor has received some more love and has been updated. Here’s the change log from the new version:
If you have edited capabilities for download monitor user permissions, you’ll have to again sorry! This is because I named them too long. Also, you should check your forced downloads still work because there was a logic error meaning they may not have been forced after-all…
Enjoy.
Today I completed the update for the Wordpress Download Monitor Plugin – many tweaks, fixes, and features added. There were no changes to the database structure so people upgrading should be fine. Here is the list from the change log:
And yes, those category link bugs are fixed at long last, and you can edit category names finally. Phew!
