HeadsetOptions Web Design, SEO, WordPress, Etcetra

During a recent site redesign, the client required the site dynamically generate a unique promotional banner (in the sidebar) on certain high profile writers “about the author” page.

Before WordPress version 2.5.x, we had to rely on conditional tags such as is_page() or is_category() and numerous lines of code to accomplish it. For most parts it worked well, especially when you had only one or two conditions to satisfy, but when the number of such exceptions increased, the code became bulky and was prone to err.

With WordPress version 2.5.x, you can simplify the task by applying the conditions over an array of pages (categories, tags…), here’s an example:

Our conditional tag was required to automatically generate a banner when the author page of specific authors was queried.

Why pay for a Magazine WordPress Theme when you can get one for free? Introducing The Box, the all-inclusive magazine style WordPress theme that has all the cool features of a premium theme straight out of “the box”. Best of all, it is absolutely Free!
Ola Hedin of Blyerts.com pointed out an IE 6 issue that was fixed on 05/06/2008 at 9:48 PM EST. Thanks Ola
The theme includes among other functions advance edit options, featured-regular post option, second level, conditional and dropdown menus, tabbed JavaScript interface, widget ready sidebars and is pre-styled for Google Adsense and coded to be search engine friendly (optimized).
Demo and Download
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In continuing our efforts of slicing and dicing a Magazine style WordPress theme, we come to a very interesting juncture with Java interfaces. This probable is the most ubiquitous feature of most all magazine themes. If you think about it, it makes sense that magazine style themes use this non-obtrusive code to help manage content.

These sidebar tabbed interface gives you the most bang for you buck in terms of digital real-estate. Granted that it will not necessarily minimize bandwidth usage by loading the page any faster, but nonetheless provides an alternative to having the entire content load on each and every page (even where …

A YUI grid based design that actually works across all browsers and validates now skins ManadrinMusing. The total design time was less than 12 hours and most were hand coded from scratch (except the YUI grid part that was corrected for validation). Check it out!

I am back from my “much needed” vacation. I managed to survive with less than 2 hours of Internet access per day and making just one theme (which will be released tonight) in the last three weeks. I think I also managed to piss off two of my big clients and numerous others by my lack of response but that I am sure its forgivable considering I was out town!

There is a consensus within our team that since we do not have the luxury of time to blog each day, we will revamp this site to make it more business-centric and less bloggy, not sure how the new site will look but I …

This ‘how to’ tutorial was written for beginners/users designing a Sandbox based theme/CSS redesign using minimal CSS hacks and imagery. The objective of this exercise was to do “as little work as possible” while ensuring the result appears “significantly different” from the starting template. This is not the end-all strategy to design a Sandbox theme/skin, but merely a guide to get started. Enjoy.

Tools needed: Notepad, FTP (SmartFTP or similar) and PhotoShop or similar (any image editor should do).

In less than a couple of weeks, the Sandbox theme competition will decide a winner, but if you are anything like I am, you would probably wait to the very last day to create and submit your entry. So I feel it’s the perfect time to have a “how to” demonstrating the endless possibilities of CSS redesigning for those procrastinators waiting for a sign to get started. And no, this demo theme will not be submitted to the competition but will be released freely for Sandbox users sometime soon. Here’s a quick reminder of the rules.

Just to briefly touch on the Sandbox theme, as described by its creator(s), “The real feature of the Sandbox is its markup. The use of class-generating functions in key elements (the body, post div, and comment li elements) creates the most extensible WordPress theme available”. So all you need is some basic understanding of CSS and you should be ready to roll.

Have you found yourself wanting to display a piece of code in your blog post or a comment form that left you stripping off elements or re-pasting it over and over only to find that the code is actually being executed? I run in this issue a lot while replying to support questions, so I conveniently remove the < and > of all php script to allow the codes to show, this however cause more harm than help to the novice user and the experience is never that pleasant. Help is finally here!

A combination of using the “code” tag and converted the base code by using this cool converter called Postable makes for a delightful masterpiece that users can share, copy and paste without any hassles and guesswork. Here’s how you go about it.

Our current featured project is MOJO PAGES.

All of you know YELLOW PAGES and many of you might be familiar with MOJO PAGES too!

Whether you´re searching for a good restaurant, car mechanic, dentist or other local businesses the video, pictures and written reviews from members of MojoPages can help guide you to the best. Now you can see what you are getting into without having to make endless calls!! Check it out guys, its coooooool!

If you want to register your local business, its time to do it NOW!

We congratulate John Carder, Rodney Rumford and the whole team on this new venture! Good Job!!!! 

As sleep is optional over the weekend, we decided to play around with our site a little!

So how does our current version look? Does the new design suggest a new mood, does it seem more interesting to you or are you tied to that initial impression?

We are still adding some new features. We designed a three column version of “Ism�? to optimize presentation of our varied content, streamlined navigation for easy accessibility to the most sought after posts and services, added a few advertisements and a new FAQs page for your convenience.

Soon we will be rolling out a Support FAQ section to address all your WP themes and plugins queries.

In the meanwhile, we encourage you to leave your valuable comments …