Graph-IQ

Auto refreshing pages on WordPress

massimo — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:32:09 +0000

Tweet Blender is a great plug-in for WordPress that allows to show relevant tweets that can be searched by user name, #hastags or keywords. Apart from the widgets that can add twitter feeds to the sidebar there is an interesting archive page. Last year during an event we wanted to show our website while the party developed and we encourage people to tweet about the party itself. Main downside of the archive page is that is a standard, static page and in order to see updates you need to reload it (e.g. refresh it).

In order to make this page auto refreshing you can add a little script to the header so that when the archive page is displayed it gets reloaded every so often (in this specific case 30 seconds). This piece of code must be added in the section as follows:

The myth around cheap WordPress based websites

massimo — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:33:44 +0000

WordPress is free and simple. That means that if you are tech savvy, have a webserver with both PHP and MySQL enabled and understand how to set the whole thing up you can have an online presence within minutes. I know how to do it as I have done it many times.

WordPress offers even a vast array of free plug-ins that provide you with literally thousands of different functions as well as themes that allow you to “dress” your website literally as you like. If you are willing to invest a few tens of pounds (or dollars/euro), you can buy a premium theme from a place like ThemeForest and enjoy a highly customizable theme. These are usually great solutions for simple personal websites or blogs; problems start when people believe in the myth of free (or very cheap) WordPress based website.

What I describe above is true if you know and understand where all these little pieces of software fit and how they interact with each other. The experience that our colleagues had with some of the premium themes is that, being very complete and full of gadgets, they tend to be complex and therefore difficult to adapt to your real needs.

Designing a theme from scratch takes skills and time; these both cost money. If what you need is a simple graphic implementation without additional functions or special data it might take a few hours (or tens of) and cost a few hundreds or thousands of pounds (or dollar/euro).

What happened to us a few times is people who think to be tech savvy, plan to save hundreds or thousands in web design and start putting together their own site; they even invest $35 or so in a premium theme then get stuck. The myth of cheap websites vanishes and the sad reality emerges; the website is nowhere near as professional and good as it should be and these clients cannot make the necessary changes to achieve an expected behaviour. So they contact a designer or agency of choice for help and would expect them to fix their mistakes for next to nothing. Here comes trouble. The designer or ageny has two choices: spend time trying to learn how the whole theme works (often it will take several hours just to find your way) and customise it to their customers’ needs or start from scratch and redesign the whole thing with a purpose-made theme that will not be as versatile but down to the point and working well.

I would like to clarify that most of the themes found on respectable websites like ThemeForest are very well designed are work very well; if you find one that is very close to your expected design and you have the necessary expertise to make the changes just go ahead and enjoy the low cost website.

Unless you can manage the whole process of installing and managing the whole WordPress installation and you are both tech savvy and design capable do not try to build your own website or you might waste time and probably need to go back to the designer for help anyway.

The new EU cookie law

massimo — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 11:33:12 +0000

It’s likely that your computer accepts cookies when visiting websites.

Website designers can use cookies to trace and store important information about your log-in details or last time you logged in on a particular site.

The EU has recently passed a law where every website should notify the visitors whether they are using cookies.

Good news for the million of people that use WordPress for their websites: there is a very nice, neat and simple plugin that allows your website to be in line with the law. The name of the plugin is EU Cookie Law and it can be found by clicking on this link.

Subpage highlight in WordPress

massimo — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:30:54 +0000

When you have a set of pages that are subpages of a main page (e.g. the case of this website for a complementary health clinic) you may want an automated system that creates a highlight among its subpages. We used this to create a practitioners’ highlight page that, every time it gets loaded, shows a different practitioner’s profile. By changing just one parameter it’d be possible to do multiple highlights and show 3 or more profiles at once.

As we previously showed there is a simple way of defining a new template that, based on the standard page template, shows content of one, single and random subpage instead of the page content. We use the WP_Query() function that accepts hundreds of combination of different parameter and allows to select any combination of posts, pages and categories in any order you can possibly think about. Here is a sample of the code to be added immediately after the page loop code:

 'rand',  // random selection
              'order' => 'ASC',
              'post_type' => 'page',  / pages instead of posts
              'post_status' => 'publish',
              'post_parent' => '479', // main page id
              'posts_per_page' => '1' ); // number of pages
$subpages = new WP_Query($args);

if($subpages->have_posts()) : 
   while($subpages->have_posts()) : $subpages->the_post(); ?>

Subpages directory in WordPress

massimo — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:30:33 +0000

When you have a set of pages that are subpages of a main page (e.g. the case of this website for a complementary health clinic) you may want an automated system that creates a list (or directory) of subpages and avoid double editing when you add or modify a subpage. We used this to create a practitioners’ page that list all practioners in the clinic.

There is a simple way of defining a new template that, based on the standard page template, adds the list of subpages under the page content. We use the WP_Query() function that accepts hundreds of combination of different parameter and allows to select any combination of posts, pages and categories in any order you can possibly think about. Here is a sample of the code to be added immediately after the page loop code:


    'title',
          'order' => 'ASC',
          'post_type' => 'page',
          'post_status' => 'publish',
          'post_parent' => '479',  // id of main page
          'posts_per_page' => '-1' ); // all posts 

   $subpages = new WP_Query($args);
   if($subpages->have_posts()) :
      while($subpages->have_posts()) : $subpages->the_post(); ?>
      
        
        
        
        
        post_title,0,70); ?>
        "; the_excerpt(); echo "
";
        echo twentyeleven_continue_reading_link() . ""; ?>

The myth around selected Twitter followers

massimo — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:31:03 +0000

I find it kind of amusing when I meet self-defined “experts” in social media who declare to have a (usually small) selected numbers of followers on Twitter. This post is about explaining why this is merely a myth and should not be taken seriously.

Let’s start from a practical example and first look at the most popular social network: Facebook. When I accept a friendship on Facebook I agree to exchange some of the information I put on my profile with that person. Each friendship is a mutual, one-to-one, relationship and both parties must agree to the connection; e.g. I cannot be your friend unless you accept my request.

When looking at Twitter we should remember how different it is; here is how it works: Twitter is a micro blogging platform; when somebody decides to follow me on Twitter it is an indication, at least in theory, that this person is interested in reading my tweets in a similar fashion to somebody subscribing to a blog or a news letter. I can subsequently decide to follow this person back or not but this is irrelevant for the sake of this post.

So if Tweeting is a way of publishing information vaguely similar to a newspaper, we should ask ourselves for a moment how editors “select” their readership; they decide on the quality of the content and style of publishing that suits their audience. Could you imagine how Lionel Barber, editor of Financial Times, could otherwise choose his readers? Could you picture in your mind a newsagent asking questions to his customers before selling a copy of a news paper? Of course not!

There are ways of dissuading spammers or other time-wasters from following you on Twitter but in general the best way of “selecting” your followers is to have a consistent style of Tweets that encourage a certain audience to follow you and, possibly, take action on what you tweet about.

So next time you hear somebody who says or writes about having a “small and selected” number of followers, ask again “how can you achieve that?” It all makes little sense and this myth is usually a way of masking the reality; those people define themselves as expert but they cannot demonstrate their skills with an adequate number of followers. Good news is that, being twitter public and open, there is an easy way of checking how “selected” those followers are; simply check how many reactions such as comments, re-tweets and mentions, this person receives every time he/she tweets.

This article is not about discouraging people from building a high quality list of followers on Twitter or any other publishing media; it is about understanding how social media works. Once you understand how it all works, then you will know that often people use the phrase “selected followers” inappropriately and as an excuse for not having a larger number of followers. My opinion is simple: you can work toward building a niche list on social media but ultimately, the only way to achieve real results, including quality, is to have many followers.

Here comes the responsive website

massimo — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:11:46 +0000

This post introduces the concept of responsive websites and why you should ask for a responsive design when you next decide to update or redesign your company’s website.

Once upon a time, during the prehistoric web-age, websites were optimised for one particular screen resolution; starting from the basic 800 x 600 in the mid 1990s, we saw a rapid evolution of the optimization toward 1024 x 768 or wider. The resolution of computer screens was increasing slowly and most designers obviously wanted to deliver websites that the majority of users could see properly, often adopting a conservative approach.

In recent years screen technology improved to the point where it’s not unusual to have computers, even laptops, with screens that are 1600 or more pixels wide. The interesting phenomenon, that somehow started a countertrend, is the advent of a large number of smart-phones and other tablet computers that create a new technical problem all together at least for web designers.

These mobile devices all have high quality screens that can truly browse websites and run powerful graphic applications. Unfortunately they are all slightly different from each other and come with a range of different resolutions (e.g. 320 x 480 for a Samsung Galaxy Ace, 640 x 960 for iPhone 4 and 1024 x 768 for an iPad). Further complication is caused by the fact that these mobile devices can be used in both landscape and portrait view depending on the relevance and format of the content being viewed as well as the viewer’s preferences.

So here comes the concept of responsive websites; which is a web design that no longer suggests or prescribes a specific resolution.On the contrary, it is a design that adapts its content to the device used to visualise it; for example, menus change shape and form, wide content get aligned, and pictures are resized, all in the name of better user experience.

The technologies behind web design, nominally HTML and CSS, have introduced many new instructions that can easily handle a variety of devices and offer different behaviours depending on the resolution and orientation used.

Although the diffusion of smart phones and mobile devices capable of web browsing is still not massive, we are aware that the trend is positive and therefore we are recommending to all our clients to include the responsiveness as a standard feature. Social media is encouraging more and more people to exchange information while on the move and therefore more and more users are browsing websites from mobile devices. Responsiveness is therefore key to being seeing anywhere, anytime.

My brand new Mike shoes

andrea — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:45:24 +0000

Today all children can afford to buy shiny brand new Nike shoes but when I was child, in my little provincial town in Italy, have a pair of Nike meant status, very high status.

One day I remember a schoolmate came at school with one of those, in silence I admired and envied him until I realised that the name in the logo was not Nike but Mike!

At the time I was not accustomed with the concept of counterfeit, but something strange, something really wrong was for sure going on.

Of course with time I understood that many kind of imitation and fake products were available on the market, this particular one was not even an imitation because the name was actually different. Even the swirl was a bit different but, at first glance, I can tell you, was difficult to see the difference. At second observation you see the M instead of the N and after you see that the curve of the swirl was different.

How can it be? How could a child see that the swirl was different?

Because the Nike logo is studied in all his application and used consistently in each products, packaging, advertisement, brochure they do. So, even when a child see it can recognise it.

We know how a proper well designed logo is important for a company, or we should now. But it is as well important to use the logo correctly.

The designer is suppose to give the client a manual, or at least instructions of how to use it, and the client is suppose to follow the guidelines. This is because ask a designer to design a logo cost money while buy a logo on a stock image website is cheap.

What surprise me is companies who spend a lot of money for a proper designed logo and don’t use it properly. They change the colours with similar one but different. They stretches it changing the proportions. They put it inside small white box on a black background. A client of mine did all of this after I gave him an entire illustrated manual explaining what not to do with the logo. He also asked me to not show it in my portfolio, so I had to remove the logo from my website, the only place where it was showed in the best perfect way.

I understand that because my job my eye is particularly picky, but when I was child all my layers of educations and experience were to be build yet. Although I was able, with many friend of mine, to recognise the fake Nike

This is my advice for your company: don’t create a fake of yourself!

The unfit personal trainer

massimo — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:42:51 +0000

We live in a highly competitive world where most businesses are trying their best to be the best and succeed. I find it amusing if not grotesque to see many business owners not able to give the appropriate first impression. In fact, time after time I come across people who simply do not look the part they are trying to play.

I would use the example of a personal trainer simply because it offers a very visual and comprehensive representation of the concept I am describing. When I think about a personal trainer, I have an image in my mind of a fit person, somebody who can obviously teach me useful exercises and can also be a role-model. She must be able to inspire me to be more like her: fit, agile, well co-ordinated and so on. Considering that on the first encounter with a person it takes about 7 seconds to decide whether or not we like that person (in business this might determine whether we will do business with them or not), would you trust a someone who looks unfit and perhaps overweight when she introduces herself as a personal trainer? I guess not.

Whether I meet somebody in person at a networking event or I get invited to connect on LinkedIn, I usually perform a short sanity check; is this person good at what she does? Given the above statistic of the 7 seconds, what happens when I see their LinkedIn profile or website if these are not congruent with the reality? Well, I personally get disappointed and find it hard to build on trust.

I keep meeting business owners who may be good at what they do but have absolutely no idea of how to convince me of their skills, abilities or professionalism. A few days ago, someone unknown to me, requested a connection on Linkedin. Not totally contrary to connecting with people I don’t know but, at the same time, careful about doing it too freely, I have performed my usual sanity check and, after finding out that she is a “graphic designer” I decided to visit her website. The unquestionably poor quality of design, content and PR on this website made it very hard for me to trust this professional new “contact”. The same happens when I meet PR agents who do not blog, tweet or remain active doing PR for their own business. The question arises naturally: if you cannot do it for your business how can you do it for mine?

Take a look at your image and what others might see and think when they first visit your website or LinkedIn profile; you never have a second chance to give a good first impression.

Content Management Systems: the case against DIY

massimo — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:11:14 +0000

I see a large number of freelance developers and small agencies selling website designs based on bespoke, homemade, Content Management Systems (CMS). In this post I am going to explain why buying one of these websites is, in principle, a bad investment and can have expensive repercussions on your business in the medium to long term.

This post is dedicated to owners of small companies investing considerable amounts of money on their website. A CMS is essentially a piece of software (a set of computer programs) which runs on your web server (where you are hosting your website) and, allows you to edit your website’s content in a user-friendly way (similarly to when you are using an on-line mail systems like Hotmail, Google mail or Yahoo mail). The CMS takes care of the whole formatting of data, pictures and everything else according to a well defined design that is usually defined by a graphic/web designer. In short it gives you full control of your website’s content while the designer can take care of the design and its visual aspect.

In recent years the super fast diffusion of social media has been influencing the way websites should be designed and used. Until a few years ago it was OK to have the so called web brochure, a website that would be designed with a set content and remain untouched for several months or even years. The new standard is to have a website based on a CMS that allows and encourages the creation of fresh content and keeps your website up-to-date with the latest news. In the long term this way of working offers several advantages:

saves money because you don’t need to involve the design agency for any amendment or addition to the content (e.g. to add news, to add a new product/service page, to remove a product/service that you no longer offer, etc.)
keeps the website constantly up-to-date and makes it search engine friendly
it shows to recurring visitors that your company is active and things are moving forward

Good news is that search engines like Google love fresh content and will always prioritise a website that has continuously new and fresh content, compared to a static or very slow changing site. The best way of implementing this is to have a website with an incorporated business blog where you can write posts (that’s how articles are called in the blogo-sphere) and release the latest news, ideas, case studies or testimonials about your products, services or staff. In short, my suggestion would be:

you should really have a website based on a CMS, with a blog, and keep it up-to-date by adding new content at least monthly

Unless you are highly computer literate, it’s likely that the web designer or agency you are using will help you or make the decisions for you about the CMS to use. Despite the old saying “there is no such thing as a free meal” we live in a world where, thanks to the voluntary work of hundreds of developers, there are several free open source CMS systems which are suitable for most projects; names like Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, Roundcube, Zen Cart, Concrete5 and CMS made simple, are just some of the available ones. The main advantages of using an open source CSM are:

you can fully focus on developing your website assuming the support of a well functioning frame work is in place
you are aware that existing bugs (malfunctions) will be usually addressed and solved within weeks or months when a new version will be released
you can rely on a broad variety of plug-ins, widgets and other accessories that perform specific functions, often exactly as you need them

As it happens in many software development activities, many CMS start as simple projects with limited functionalities and evolve over time into large and comprehensive packages; in many cases they are the co-operative result of tens or hundreds of people around the world.

On the contrary, a homemade CMS, a package internally developed by the developer/agency, will struggle to keep up with the evolution that software has nowadays, such as new standards for security, CSS, HTML, scripting, etc… So while your company is still employing the developer/agency that developed the original CMS, you may enjoy a very personal service and fast response upon any request but if, for any reason, you decide to employ somebody else or your supplier is no longer available (e.g. moves on, runs out of business, etc…) you will find yourself with a product without any future which may have to be changed and re-implemented using another CMS system.

I believe that a website must be based be based on a CMS; free open source CMS systems are excellent for any website between one and several thousands of pages, allowing your website to grow with your business. Using a homemade website will be difficult to sustain unless you can bet that you’ll be using your developer/agency for the years to come.