Redswish

Carefully crafted banter

WordPress Security Update (2.5.1)


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For those of you with the swanky new WP, actually unlike me at this very moment in time – you need to update now! Although it’s not been publicly announced (not that it’s the end of the world) it won’t hurt to get ahead and get the holes patched up now. Followers of the WordPress developers site – WordPress Trac (which honestly goes over my head most of the time) may already be aware of this, but those of you who just want to get upgraded and sorted quickly – you simply need to download and replace the following files below: wp-includes/pluggable.php wp-admin/includes/media.php wp-admin/media.php Or you could just wait till WordPress spreads the word and get it sorted then. I’m not moaning, everything needs upgrading. And I love wp and wish I could hug it… it could never annoy me!

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Creating a WordPress Theme – Part 2: Design


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We’re Back! OK folks, here’s part 2 of the 3-part series on creating your own WordPress theme. To view the first part – Layout, click here. This tutorial isn’t as long, I’m basically going to create a simple design in Photoshop that I can incorporate into the dimensions I’ve already specified for my theme. As I stated in part 1, I’d normally design my site first then build the HTML and CSS around the design, but for the purpose of these tutorials I created the code first. Photoshop – The Design Of course this design is purely for example purposes, it’s not copyrighted and as it’s designed to be very simple, I’m sure you’ll wish to build your own designs. Therefore this is NOT A PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL – I’m assuming that you can already create your own designs and are capable with Photoshop/Fireworks or whatever image editing software you choose to use.

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Amazon’s Facelift 2


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In relation to my previous article a week ago regarding Amazon’s new look which was baffling me at the time – it now seems it’s back up and running, possibly for good. So before I forget what the ancient Amazon looked like – here’s a tiny screenshot: And the brand spanking new Amazon looks like so: The difference is quite frankly… uncanny. Of course feel free to go to the Amazon site itself to wonder in this new, funky design. After all – let’s face it, it’s about time. Amazon’s front has been stale for so long now, and with the advent of absolutely stunning websites with clever AJAX shopping carts and lightbox and beautiful code appearing on the scene – it was a move Amazon, being probably the biggest shop on the internet, should have made a long time ago. I know there’s some powerful stuff going on in the code behind that website but surely they clean it…

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Creating a Reflection Effect


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Web 2.0! Web 2.0! Web 2.0! Glossy! Glossy! Glossy! Agh! Yes there have been literally thousands of ‘Web 2.0′ glossy roll-overs, buttons, highlights, reflections and artificial 3D tutorials spawned over the past few years. So what? Here’s another! The reflection effect is widely used on the web today and is especially popular with logo design. I’ve made a consistent use of it on my Sans Design website (www.sansdesign.co.uk) and it still never gets old for me! It’s also surprisingly easy once you get to know it, plus it can be completely adapted for your own tastes. I’ve started by creating a 400px x 300px canvas in Photoshop, of course this is completely irrelevant – use whatever size you wish. I’ve started by creating some text as part of a completely made-up logo, as so:

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Creating a WordPress Theme – Part 1: Layout


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NOTE FROM AUTHOR I wrote these articles over 2 years ago. Although I’ll leave them on the site for reference I would recommend trying somewhere else for tutorials on WordPress theme development. WordPress has changed massively over the years and is now far more accessible and sturdy then when I wrote these articles, thus I doubt wasting your time following this series will be of much benefit. Thanks for all the kind commenters so far. Nathan Waffling Intro As Usual Welcome one and all to the first part of a 3 part series I’m tirelessly venturing to create on how to create your own WordPress Theme. 2 questions come to mind regarding this tutorial. Firstly – why WordPress? Well the simplest reason is that I’m quite handy at WP – I use in on the majority of my websites whether a client’s looking a blogging system or just the ability to edit their own sites. It’s also one of the…

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Amazon’s Facelift


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Is it just me or did Amazon.co.uk get a facelift last week to look like it’s big brother Amazon.com? But then it seems to have returned to it’s old former self? I may seem like a complete spoon here but I could swear I was on my favourite shopping website Amazon just before I went away last week and it had been completely redesigned. Now, as I’ve gone to check to write a blog article on the matter – it seems that it looks exactly like it did previously – the same design that it’s sported since like… the dawn of time! However it seems that Amazon.com now looks all nice and new. Well I say new, I mean they’ve moved the menu over and made it look just a little prettier. I don’t use Amazon.com because I live in the UK – so has it always looked like that? And if so, why haven’t they transferred the wondrous modern…

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Barcelona


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Hey all, sorry the site has been slow over the past couple of weeks but I’ve been away in Barcelona on a little get away. Now of course I could have updated the blog from over there on the Spanish coast thanks to the power of the internet but I was generally too busy… errr…. sightseeing and err…. sampling the drinks over there! But fear not – this week I will be putting up a hefty 3-part tutorial on how to create your own WordPress theme. Of course when the choice is to either sit down and concentrate on crafting a carefully constructed tutorial or relax and play piano or my Xbox – there lies a predicament. But I owe a due to my readers – so expect the tuts (yes it is that big) up by the end of the week. I find time I might even write about something else… if you’re lucky!

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How Do You Judge a Website?


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Many people will disagree with me I’m sure, but I’ve always thought that web design is an art. Seriously, apart from the aesthetic design side – I also feel that the technical coding and functionality of websites, and the process of combining and integrating this into the design is an artistic process in itself. Oh how the traditionalists scream! I do however see art in a lot of things – music, interior design, architecture, fashion etc. Whether you agree or not – the fact is that people do disagree on what makes a good website. So how do you judge a website? There’s a lot to take in – the design, functionality, content, usability, accessibility, marketing and traffic, what services the site provides and how it caters for it’s target audience. Although these factors all feature in my assumptions and perceptions of websites, I also often make simple snap judgements.

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