A holiday people enjoying, but do not forget who are we celebrating for. Don’t caught up with your gift demand, alcohol need or a wild night. Invite Him to join with your dinner, is that simple.
Birthday Boy
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Monthly Archives: December 2011
Must have WordPress plugins
WordPress installation always ended with its plugins installation too. Some have a lot, some have a few, depend on the need of the site. But some are just essential plugins that help build up a better website as a web owner. I personally don’t use too much plugins, so…
Akismet
Or any other plugin that can block spam comment. Akismet is so far I tried the best. Other plugins doesn’t work well. Just get yourself an API code from registering yourself to WordPress.com.
Back WP Up
I changed from WP DB Backup to WP Instant Backup to the most current Back WP Up. WP DB Backup doesn’t work well with large database. WP Instant Backup doesn’t have schedule backup and doesn’t work well with the latest WordPress 3.3 version. All come down to Back WP Up.
WP Optimize
Almost all my WordPress site has this plugin. Optimize the database once I post an entries. What it does is… Optimize your database. Delete the spam comment, and as a bonus, you can change your username.
Contact Form 7
There is a dilemma in between Fast secure contact form form and contact form 7. I personally prefer contact form 7 more. It is just too easy to customise to my needs.
WP Super Cache
Let’s just be honest, WordPress, is a bbit of memory hog script. There has been numerous problem with memory, resources overusage, and all that, happen in share hosting the most. So cache is super duper important. Although W3 Total Cache too is highly recommended, but in user friendliness, WP Super Cache still win my heart.
Yoast WordPress SEO
Only if you are looking to optimise your WordPress with search engine. This is one important plugin for business website. I just fully utilise it few weeks ago for a client’s site. It works like charm. It does help the ranking.
The reason I don’t use much plugins is that I too afraid of over using the resource (though I’m running in a VPS). Keeping thing simple and low is always a good choice, unless there is no choice. Plugins like related post, commenting system and etc are just a memory hog for me, not to mention slowing down my site with all those JQuery plugins. I prefer to make those built-in so I can personally compress those JQuery plugins.
Best practice to responsive layout?
I don’t have any idea yet, but I have my set of how to. Especially this talks about screen resolution. Getting from the statistic and all that, may not be that much accurate nowadays, because those general statistic is not YOUR statistic. So I tend to skip that part, and look into the existing statistic.
Most of my sites are 1280×800 resolution above. A very very common screen resolution today. A 14″ – 15″ laptop 16:10 ratio should be this resolution. Well, to be honest, who look at the height (800)? So we can skim the rest ratio for the same size laptop.
That being said, 1280 is the most commonly used resolution. 1024 used to be the common one, but it is still the common one, for netbook. So I can’t really skip this resolution. The rest, well, responsive is here to save the World 
I divided it into 3 groups, mobile, tablet and desktop.
So all there need is both fixed and fluid layout to work around all those sizes.
So my questions comes along too. With the statistic that keep telling me that mobile users will be keep raising the bar, and laptop/netbook are going to replace desktop computer. Am I the one who question the weight of the sidebar information? A website with sidebar information and some 3 columns footer for example. So when it shrink into mobile size, what is to do with the 3 columns and some sidebar information? Are we still keep pushing information toward users even in small screen? Hmm…
Personalised WordPress framework
I’m sure if you are a WordPress theme developer, or work a lot around WordPress, you’ll have your own set of framework, a personalised framework, and only you understand it. Well, I do, in fact I have a few. Just so I can consistantly work around what needed and what not. The year end is near, have to spear time out for checking and paying term life insurance again. Also the time I check with my framework, lots of work, without pay 
I always tried to make the framework work easier for me. This is my way:
Theme Options
Something just static, like adding Google Analytics code. It has become a numb in website. Even a web newbie knows that too, I don’t know why. So creating a theme options helps remove the time to copy-paste the code. You can find some tutorial around the net.
Shorten the name
Make sure it is easy to implement what you have on your theme options. Shorten the name, create another my_functions.php files and place all the reusable options there instead. So you can easily add when needed in any project.
Have as much as possible
Yes, built what needed and what don’t needed first. I have ALL WordPress core hooks ready in my functions.php. You can get a lot of custom functions from Digging into WordPress blog. I have a copy too
Keep backward compatibility ready
Though it is always recommended to upgrade WordPress when new version is out, but not everyone is comfortable with it. Some even still have 2.8 with them (how we missed the old layout). I always have 3 version of WordPress ready and make sure all developed themes work well with all 3 version, and yes, from time to time, I will forgot about browser compatibility.
Time to check with the upgrades 
Need to stop hanging
First, it is end of the year, tasks are a little slower. So both of us are focusing really deep into our own projects, even though I did fail my previous one, but never mind, I have plenty of time for that.
Recently, I hang a lot at the new YouTube and the almighty 9gag.
Yes, I am that idiot to go there, but hey, it’s a way for me to support the creativity of the people around the globe. I learn the word “ordinateurs portables” and “Me Gusta” and all kind of language. Then I get to see how funny an incident was before I knew it. It’s just a good entertainment channel.
As of YouTube, I think it has succeed in attracting people to watch more than the previous layout. Back then, it doesn’t support a quick subscribed channel, now it is much easier to change channel. Not only that, once I connected my Facebook and Google Plus, those who shared in the social sites are shown on my YouTube home page. It’s like, why wasting time checking updates from social sites.
…
Ok, back to brain storming.