There are many factors that can affect the load time of your web site's pages such as HTTP requests, scripts and the very server your site resides on among other things. One of the most overlooked aspects of page load time is image optimization. This is especially true if your page contains many images or even a few large ones. While there are various desktop image editors that can help with image... continue reading
What is a dummy post pack? Let me put it this way. You're running one or more instances of WordPress locally and just came across a new theme you want to try out. You install it in one of your dev blogs then check out what it looks like. It looks fine but something is missing - content. Enter the dummy post pack. The dummy post pack is simply an XML file that can be imported into your WordPress dev... continue reading
A question I see pop up from time to time in the WordPress Support Forum is how do I stop people from viewing my plugins folder? There are several ways to go about this - all of them easy. The first method involves placing an empty index.HTML file in EACH folder you want to protect. If you prefer you can include a brief message in that file rather than using a blank one. Two important things to remember... continue reading
Back in March I described how to embed a flash object in your blog that is XHTML valid via two different methods. (see Embedding XHTML-Valid Flash) Thanks to a recent comment on that post there is yet another simple way to achieve this. Validifier is an online tool that easily generates standards-compliant flash embed code. Simply paste your embed code in the form box and click "Validify It!" and let... continue reading
While researching new blog tools/toys/enhancers I came across an interesting service called Zemanta. What is Zemanta? I'm glad you asked. It's a small application installed as a Firefox extension that adds a sidebar to the write post window of your favourite blog software. As you write your post this nifty tool will automatically scan your text and suggest links to similar articles. It continues to... continue reading
