I have been busy tonight upgrading WordPress and the plugins I use on this site. The theme has been altered, too. If you notice anything majorly wrong with the site or would just like to provide some feedback on the changes then please leave a comment below – thanks!
Archive for the ‘Web Development’ Category
Blended Beats November 18th, 2009
Mike
Having been very impressed with WordPress since installing it on this domain, I decided to make use of it to promote my Internet radio show, Blended Beats. If you have an interest in electronic music (or just funky looking WordPress blogs!) then please visit www.blendedbeats.co.uk and let me know what you think.
Bubbles Bathrooms and Tiles May 6th, 2009
Mike
I've been working on a web site for a friend who has opened a shop selling bathrooms and tiling services. There's still more functionality to add but it is definitely now in a live state. Please feel free to visit the site and comment back here. Site address: www.bubblescoventry.co.uk
Free Stuff! April 7th, 2009
Mike
Free stuff is great (when it's worth having) and recently I think I have found two resources that are.
Firstly, I am often looking for chunks of CSS to get me started, help me write good navigation menus and so forth. Invariably, I find such a resource, use it and then promptly forget about it. Well, no longer! Behold, Free CSS! This is a great resource to get you started when you have an idea in your mind of the desired end result but inspiration to CSS it is lacking. The terms of use for each item varies, so be sure to check the author's web site(s).
The second nomination for great free resource goes to Icons Etc. This is a repository of icons that, at the time of writing, are free for both personal and commercial use. The icon sets might not be to everyone's tastes or suitable for all projects but I think they are pretty nice and, best of all, completely free!
Enjoy!
Floated Images Disappearing in IE6 April 1st, 2009
Mike
Having made quite good progress developing a site, I added a right float to an image only to have it disappear completely in IE6 (running on a Windows 98 SE Virtual Machine, if you’re interested 
). After a bit of Googling, I discovered that the simple solution was to ensure that all images had their position set to relative in the CSS file. I.e. all that was required was:
IMG {
position: relative;
}
Credit where credit is due, I found the solution on this blog.
Apache Mod Rewrite March 31st, 2009
Mike
Another task in my quest to develop a half decent web site was getting my head around Apache Mod Rewrite again.
For anyone that’s bemused at this point, a rewrite engine is a piece of software that can modify a web address’ appearance (or rewrite it). To end users it means that they can type in a user friendly address such as www.example.com/page/ and behind the scenes something like www.example.com/index.php?name=page is passed to the web server. Advantages include obfuscation of the technology driving your web site (to an extent), more user friendly URLs (easier to remember, guess and nicer to look at) and better SEO.
This is the trusty Mod Rewrite syntax reference I always refer to.
CSS Positioning and The Box Model March 31st, 2009
Mike
I’ve had to write a web site recently for a friend. I’ll post up a link when it’s done and I want to expose it to the wider world. However, as a result, I’ve been reminding myself of a few key concepts. First was properly getting my head around CSS positioning and the box model, mainly in order to deal with the oddities that older versions of IE always throw up. I don’t think you can beat this article at BrainJar.com. Highly recommended.
