No matter how loudly and often we tell our clients who maintain their own Web sites (via WordPress and other CMS-driven platforms) that using underlining for emphasis on the Web is a very bad idea, many of them do it anyway. This article explains, first of all, why this practice is a bad idea, and then it offers a simple CSS solution for removing underlines that shouldn’t appear on Web pages.
Articles Archive
Lessons Web Developers Won’t Learn in School
When I was interviewed recently for a blog article about “lessons Web developers won’t learn in school”, I knew without blinking what I’d say. If you’re a client of a Web developer, you might find what I had to say ostensibly arrogant. If you’re a fellow Web developer, you might be emboldened to let your cynical side run free. I hope neither is the case.
Yet Another Facebook Survey
If you’re not already “surveyed-out”, we’d appreciate your taking this short survey about Facebook. Yep, ANOTHER Facebook Survey: just what you need, right? I’m not going to go on and on about how THIS survey is better than any other you’ve ever taken. But I will tell you that you’ll be entering a drawing for a $25 Amazon Gift Card simply by submitting the survey (and including your email address, which is otherwise optional). And if that’s not enough incentive, has it occurred to you that by taking this Facebook survey, you might just be contributing to making the Web a better place? Yeah, I didn’t think so. So there’s still the chance of winning the gift card.
Don’t use the admin username in WordPress
This screenshot should confirm that using the admin username in your WordPress installation is a bad idea.
One suggestion for writing blog articles that don’t suck
If you write, edit, or publish blog articles, you probably don’t wake up in the morning hoping your blog articles suck. But let’s face it: so many blog articles DO suck. In this short article, I’ll share my extremely simple and fundamental rule for writing blog articles that don’t suck. (If it weren’t for all the evidence to the contrary, this advice would be so obvious as to be unnecessary.)
Update MySQL table using subquery, Excel data
If you’re a developer like me who builds custom database-driven Web sites and Web applications, you don’t necessarily create a user-maintainable content management system (CMS) for absolutely everything you build. In this article, I’m going to show you a simple and practical low-tech solution for adding content from your clients for database-driven content for which you did not build a CMS. The only tools you need for this solution are Microsoft Excel and SQL (in my case, the MySQL flavor).
Biting the bullet
Last night, while working on an online order form for a client, I faced the challenge of coding a validation routine for 30 free-form text fields that can only accept values that are measurements in inches and fractions of an inch. If this sounds geeky, I suppose it is. But this story is more about attitude than technology. Finding myself at a familiar crossroads (whether to stay in my comfort zone or step out — that is, whether to venture into the world of regular expressions), I bit the bullet and stepped out. I liked the taste. I don’t think you have to be a developer to find resonance in the moral of this story. At least I hope not.
Custom extensible PHP shortcode function for non-WordPress Web sites
In this article, I’ll share a custom PHP shortcode function I use for my non-WordPress Web sites to improve their maintainability. This function mimics the WordPress shortcode feature.
Before you gripe and whine
If you are a business person prone to griping and whining about the social media learning curve, let me try to cure you. Meet my (91 year-old) mother-in-law.
Disambiguating Call To Action
I’ve been working with a number of clients recently on Web-site CTAs (Calls To Action).
In an effort to reduce ambiguity and confusion and to suggest a common vocabulary for planning and talking about CTA implementations, here are my working definitions of the components that comprise a Call To Action.