by Ian | Jan 20, 2014 | Blog
This weekend I released the lastest version of Feature me. This version of Feature Me contains a number of bug fixes and some drastic enhancements. Changes to Feature Me Name Change The Feature Me name changed to Feature Me – CTA Widget. While I will still refer to the plugin as “Feature Me”, I changed the name for a couple of different reasons. “Feature Me” in itself doesn’t really tell people what the plugin does. The new name tells users that it is a CTA widget. The name changed so people could find it easier in the WordPress plugins repository. The new name has better SEO benefits when people are searching for plugins on Google. Bug Fixes Fixed an issue where default radio buttons weren’t selected when widget is created. Fixed an issue where the widget title in the admin menu displayed incorrect title. The correct title will now display on the widget title admin Fixes an issue where the message “Select a Featured Page or Post to display” would display when leaving the custom body field empty. Enhancements I got some great feedback from a user who was trying out Feature Me and I decided to add some of these features into version 1.1.0 of the plugin. These new enhancement options make the plugin much more powerful and turn it into the Call to Action (CTA) widget that I had intended it to be from the beginning. Now it’s much easier for users to use and customize without having to know HTML, CSS, or jQuery. Option to hide Title text Option to hide Body text Option to hide...
by Ian | Apr 7, 2012 | Daily Mobile
It is an undeniable fact that the web is becoming increasingly mobile. With smart phones having 50% of the cellphone market-share it is no wonder. So what does this mean for your business or organizations website? You might be thinking, “I just finally launched a website, now I have to think about mobile too?!” Yes. Yes you do. And it’s actually a really smart thing to do. Think about it, the first place people go to find out more about you (your company or your organization) is your website. And when they come to your site, chances are that they will be coming from a phone or a tablet. Ok. So I need to have a mobile version of my website, now what? There are a couple routes you can take: mobile website or native app. Mobile Website/App A mobile website/app is a specially designed site or application that gets the content of your website to your audience. Users can interact with you wherever they go, and they don’t have to worry about downloading an extra application to get the content that they need. However, the mobile web is still in its infancy, and there are many things that users cannot do when browsing online. And for that, you might think about creating a native app. Native App A native app is an application that your users will need to download from an app store or marketplace in order to interact with your brand. A native application has the ability to access some of the features of the users device (camera, location, push notifications, etc) to deliver an even...
by Ian | Apr 5, 2012 | Daily Mobile
Target.com on a smart phone is a really nice example of consistency between desktop and mobile. And they really started pushing the power of hat mobile could do when theyore leased their new website sometime late last year. The entire website functions more like a catalog than a typical retail website. And the app does a great job of that as well. It is easy (relatively easy. I have never had success with the target search feature) to browse for products and check prices-which is everything at I would want from a retail website. As a frequent target shopper and a user, I appreciate the ability to do a price check on my phone before I even leave the house. And to have the option of ordering onine is an added benefit. Design-wise, I love that as I scroll donwn the page, each item takes up the bulk of the screen. I am not distracted by unnecessary ads or banners…just what I want. As an added bonus, the website also has smartphone detection and displays a notification that there is also an app available for an even better experience. This is something that I’ve noticed that, from a marketing perspective, makes a huge amount of sense—and a lot of companies are doing it (see web app, or a native app?)....
by Ian | Apr 4, 2012 | Daily Mobile
I’ve been a fan of incase since my days working at Apple Retail. They make incredibly durable, attractive looking products that I would sell over and over again to the wonderful people who needed iPhone, iPad, or MacBook protection. And it’s nice to see that they have taken the same level of quality to their web presence. incase is being featured as the first Daily Mobile website because their mobile websites are by far one of the best instances I’ve seen of desktop to mobile design. Not only does incase take into account the mobile user-experience, but they also take extra care to make their sites function as if they were native apps. iPhone/Smartphone The great thing about the iPhone version of this site is that it truly feels native to my phone. The designers and developers made sure to make navigating the website as easy and as intuitive as possible. Key category icons at the bottom of the page allow users to easily navigate through the website: browsing, purchasing, and evensearching for products. But it’s not just the icons that make this mobile site great, its the fact that I can actually interact with what I see on screen. I can swipe left and right to reveal some of the homepage features. And a special treat for iOS users, when visiting the site, users are notified that they can add this page to the home screen on their device, effectively “saving” the website as an app. This allows the user to browse the “app” without the distracting Safari chrome. iPad/Tablet The iPad version functions in a similar way....
by Ian | Apr 2, 2012 | Blog
It’s a common problem. You migrate your website from wordpress.com to a Bluehost hosted (or other host) WordPress site, but the export file from your old site is larger than what WordPress allows to be imported. Or you want to upload a large image or PDF. You get an error message telling you it’s not allowed and you punch your computer monitor. If you’ve been scouring the internet for a solution to this problem, look no further. You’ve landed in the right spot. I had the exact same problem and after talking to technical support and doing endless searches, I finally got my problem solved. Requirements: You must be an admin on the Bluehost account. WordPress admin rights to upload file. Ability to follow instructions in this tutorial. The Problem: Your WordPress.com XML file is greater than the default upload filesize. For example, my file was 12.1MB and my default upload size was 10MB. Nuts. The Solution(s): There are a few things you can do to try to get around this. Depending on how close your file is to the default upload size (ie. 10.2MB) you can try compressing the XML making it smaller than the maximum size. The other solution is to change the default settings in your php.ini file. I recommend this option as it is the least time intensive…I attempted several times to compress my XML file to be within the upload size which ended up being a huge waste of time. Changing php.ini default values: If you landed on this page, chances are you’ve got Bluehost as a hosting provider. If you don’t, that’s...
by Ian | Nov 17, 2011 | Blog
No matter how hard you try, there’s always going to be that one guy who never get’s...
