Born to Blog

When I was a writer and editor for Test&Measurement World, an engineering trade magazine, the most enjoyable part of the job was writing my monthly editorial. They were meant to be pithy, thought-provoking, controversial, inspiring, and sometimes humorous. In other words, exactly what blog postings are supposed to be. I didn’t realize it then—because blogs had not yet been invented—but I was born to blog.

Perhaps that’s one reason that my ham radio blog is the #1 ham radio blog on Google. That is to say, when you type “ham radio blog” or “amateur radio blog” into Google, I come up #1. (btw, I’m also #1 on Bing.)

I sometimes can’t believe it, but I also get paid to blog. I blog under my own byline on oscilloscopes for EDN at scopes.edn.com, as well as on commercial building for Commercial Building Products. I’m also “ghost-blogging” for another electronics company.

And, if that’s not enough, I also do WordPress development work. Along with a graphics designer, I’ve developed custom themes, custom widgets, and custom plugins. I’ve even developed a plugin–Membership Database–that’s available via WordPress.Org.

As you can see, I love to blog, and I believe that I can help you be a better blogger. Whether it’s help developing your blog content, coaching on what and how to write blog posts, or custom WordPress development work, I can help you. Email me at dan@danromanchik.com or phone me at 734-930-6564.

What I learned today: dashboard widgets, logout redirect

Today, I got a call from the designer of the West Washtenaw Business Association website. We’re just about to release the WordPress-based version of this website. She had two requests:

1. Get rid of the “Quick Press” widget in the dashboard.
2. Redirect users to the home page when they logout.

Well, as usual, Google is your friend when trying to figure out how to do these things. I found functions to accomplish both of these things.

To remove the dashboard widgets, you use the remove_meta_box() function:

// Remove some dashboard widgets
function remove_dashboard_widgets() {
remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_quick_press', 'dashboard', 'side' );
remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_incoming_links', 'dashboard', 'normal' );
}
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets' );

To redirect a user to the home page after he or she logs out, you use the wp_logout filter:

//function redirects people to home page after logout, added 10/26/12
function go_home(){
wp_redirect( home_url() );
exit();
}
add_action('wp_logout','go_home');

The developers of WordPress have really made it simple to do just about anything that you want to do with it. The hardest part of doing these kinds of things is finding the documentation for these functions and filters!

Opening a Second Database in WordPress

I am in the process of creating a WP site that is part of a family of WP sites. Each site has its own database, but I need to include information about posts on the secondary sites on the main site. To do this, I have to open the database of secondary site in question and grab some information about the posts on that site.

My first attempts at doing this were less than successful. So, I Googled around, and found a site with the following bit of code at batovasan.com:

$newdb = new wpdb($DB_USER, $DB_PASSWORD, $DB_NAME, $DB_HOST);
$newdb->show_errors();

I put these two lines in functions.php, and it works like a charm, after substituting the right values for the wpdb function parameters, of course. Remember that you have to declare $newdb to be a global variable in the function that you’re going to use it.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me that I could also do this by accessing the RSS feed of the second site. I’m guessing that this is a little more efficient, though.

Going Mobile is Easy

One of the good things about friends is that they push you. My friend, Scott,  recently pushed me into thinking about how WordPress sites looked on a mobile device, such as an iPhone or an iPod. So, a couple of days ago, we connected via Skype, and together we explored some of the options for making our WordPress sites look good on mobile devices.

The result was that we both installed the WordPress Mobile Pack plugin, and I must say that, as a first shot, I’m quite pleased with the results. What the plugin does is to detect what kind of browser the user is accessing your site with, and then display your site with its regular theme if the user is using a desktop PC or a mobile theme if they’re accessing it with a mobile device. It comes with some very basic mobile WP themes that you can use and modify.

So, if you have a smart phone or an iPod, take a look at the site. I’d be interested in what you think about how it looks and what changes I might make to make it even more readable.

A WordPress Update Gotcha

I manage about a dozen WordPress sites and really love the ease with which you can update it. Basically, all you have to do is click a few links, and your WordPress installation automatically upgrades itself.  I’ve performed dozens of updates, and despite the admonition to back up your site, they’ve all gone without a hitch.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, I upgraded to 3.2.1 on a FFE Specifier, a website for buyers and sellers of “furniture, fixtures, and equipment.” After the update, instead of the familiar dashboard, I found myself staring at an Error 500 screen. Bad news.

As is often the case, it was Google to the rescue. I typed in “error 500 after upgrading to wordpress 3.2.1 arras” (Arras is the theme on ffespecifer.com), and voila. One of the first listings was Issues upgrading to WordPress 3.2 with the Arras Theme. This blog post explained that there was a bug in the Arras theme, and that all I had to do was to upgrade the theme. I did this, and now all is well.

The point of all this is to warn you to upgrade your theme, plugins, and widgets before upgrading your WP software. This should help you avoid that dreaded Error 500 screen and that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.

The Joy of Writing

In addition to developing websites for a living, I write articles about electronics and software technology, mostly electronics test and measurement. I used to actually be employed by Test&Measurement World, an electronics trade magazine covering that industry.

Writing is hard work, but it’s a lot of fun, too. For the past year or two, I neglected that part of my business in favor of working on websites. Since the beginning of the year, however, I’ve been getting more requests to write, and I’m having a blast doing it.

Recently, I got a chance to write a slightly different kind of piece for Test&Measurement World—a personal profile of Henry Huang, TMW’s 2011 Test Engineer of the Year. That’s Henry at right.

He’s not only a great test engineer, but a great guy, too. To make a long story short, he’s not only managed to have a successful professional career, he’s the father of two children and a community volunteer.

At the risk of tooting my own horn (pun intended), I think my story about him turned out pretty well. It was certainly a lot of fun to write.

Don’t Forget About Maintenance

Many small businesses think that once their website is up and running they can pretty much forget about it. Of course, nothing is further from the truth. As your business changes and as you get more sophisticated about how to work the Web, you’re inevitably going to want to make changes.

That’s why it’s so important to choose the right company to maintain your website. So many folks I know contact with their web hosting company to do it, and usually that’s the wrong choice. The reason for this is that website maintenance isn’t really their business. They’re in the business of web hosting, and the two businesses are often quite different.

I just talked to a prospective client this morning who was in exactly this predicament. They’re paying their web hosting company a substantial monthly fee for maintenance, but when asked to actually do something, they’re very unresponsive. The last change, for example, took nearly three weeks to complete. “It’s as though they never really expected us to actually ask them to do anything,” the client said.

Not only do you need a company that’s responsive when asked to make changes, but you should try to find one that can advise you on possibilities, one that will take the time to try to understand your business and come up with ways to make your website more useful to you and your customers. For example, instead of simply implementing a newsletter sign up form, find a company that can also integrate that form with MailChimp or ConstantContact.

One of the problems with finding a maintenance company is that so few Web developers and Web hosting companies are interested in that kind of work. They’re interested in collecting a big check, and then they’re on to the next client.

I, on the other hand, love doing maintenance work. So, if your website needs some updating or some new features, get in touch. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that works for both of us.

It’s Magic

Magicians are known for making things disappear. Well, web developers can be magicians, too. Let me explain.

One of the websites I’m currently working on uses WordPress as a content-management system, and the theme I’m using is a cusomization of the Thesis theme. (I’m not particularly enthralled with Thesis, but the client is, and what the client wants, the client gets.)

The client did not want to allow comments on pages, but also did not like the text, “Comments on this entry are not allowed” that appeared on those pages. So, the question was  how to make that text disappear? Unfortunately, you can’t just change a setting to make this happen.

At first, I thought I might actually have to change the code. The solution turned out to be a lot simpler, though.

In looking at the HTML source, I noted that that particular text was in a <div> with the class “comments_closed”.  So, all I had to do was to add the following line to custom.css:

.comments_closed {visibility: hidden;}

and, POOF!, the text disappeared.

Textures and the Pursuit of Happiness

That’s the tagline of a website that I’ve just discovered called Lost & Taken. This is a great site to find free textures to use on your websites. Here’s what their about page says:

Lost and Taken was created over two and a half years ago with one intention: to helps designers by giving away the best free textures available. To this day, Lost and Taken textures have been viewed tens of millions of times and have helped thousands of designers accomplish their jobs a little easier and with more beautiful results.

I just download a couple of zip files with more than 100 Mbytes of scans of old book covers. Very cool. See an example at right.

Beta Version of Membership Directory Plugin Now Available

I’ve developed a WordPress plugin that implements a simple membership database. It allows you to add, delete, and edit member information as well as print out a membership directory on a WordPress page or in a post using a shortcode. Click on the Member Database Plugin link above to get more info and to download the plugin.

Tags: member directory, plugin