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.
Techniques
Short How-To articles, similar to Case Studies but on a smaller scale.
About Post Formats in 12 Slides
Excellent introduction to Post Formats by Samuel Wood (Otto). Slides from his presentation to WordPress Memphis Meetup two years ago.
iPhone Video: Land, Front Up, Back Down.
Do you ever take videos with your iPhone and email them to friends? If so, are any of those friends on Windows?
Shorten Your WordPress Slugs (Permalinks)
When you post WordPress pages and blog articles, you don’t have to use the slug that WordPress automatically generates from the post title. In fact, there are some pretty good reasons NOT to use the default. This article explains the why and the how.
How to delete (strip) attachments in Horde Webmail
If you use Webmail, it’s easy to accumulate lots of storage on your mailserver, especially if you’re a pack rat and tend not to delete messages. This is particularly true when messages include fat attachments (e.g., videos; high-resolution images). When your email account accumulates lots of storage, this can put your hosting account over its […]
WordPress More Tag
Typically (and by default), a WordPress blog displays up to 10 blog posts on the main blog page and on any other page that is a compilation of blog posts (e.g., category archives, tag archives, and date archives). If your blog posts are on the longish side, this can pose a bit of a problem. […]
WordPress Categories and Tags
There are some significant differences – both from a structural and usability perspective – between categories and tags. This article attempts to explain those differences.