A while ago, as in years, I made a quick html site for a mate of a mate. Turns out it was the most updated site I’ve ever made. The site is for some DJ’s in Glasgow who have gigs every month and wanted to post up the event details and posters. As much as I didn’t mind doing this, if I was away for the weekend then the new event didn’t get posted for like 5 days. So the solution a CMS (Content Management System).
I’ve only really used two content management systems, Joomla and WordPress. The main difference being the modules/widgets. I find Joomla much easier to add side bars, content bottoms, content tops and rotating headers. Though WordPress is easier to show someone how to update their news page if that is the main purpose of the site. So for this DJ site I chose WordPress.
I basically looked for a shell template with roughly the layout I was looking for and added in bits of my code from the HTML site they currently had. With a bit of plugin searching and some swearing the site began to look something similar to what they had before, but with a bit of a lift obviously. The tricky bit was the Events page. This was the WordPress Post page but I needed it to have forthcoming events, not blog post on it. Now that took a hell of a lot more swearing and Googling to figure that out but I got there in the end.
So from HTML to WordPress in like 40 hours, check out the result – www.depth-charge.co.uk
Where to get good icons
I use icons on sites i design mainly for social icons or contact buttons. The icon style depends on the design and feel of the site so having a wide variety to choose from is important, which is why i usually get them from icon sites. You could design your own but im more a code person and don’t really enjoy designing icons so getting them from an icon site suits me more. Here is a list of the sites i use to get good icons -
Iconspedia is my prefered choice, it has an easy and accurate search on the site and always has really good icons. You can download them in 4 different sizes which is always helpful.
ie6countdown
So 10 years ago good old Microsoft released a browser that would dominate/plague the Internet for the next 10 years. Its name … IE6, released 2001, now 10 years later in 2011 it is time to say good bye. That’s why the website ie6countdown.com has been build. Its sole purpose… to rid developers of the nightmare that is coding for all browsers and then ie6. So go check it out!
It shows how many people are still using IE6, and what countries they are in. Surprisingly China is the worst user of IE6 with South Korea behind it. Here in the UK 2.9% of people still use it, shame on you! Though i think a lot of that is due to govenment organisations not being able to update their systems, and the odd granny who just like playing Solitaire on their PC.
So spread the word about the site and educate your friends! – ie6countdown.com