These wordpress themes will mainly be built as a Framework to allow other designers and developers the ability to creative nice, affordable websites for clients with a large amount of customisation via the Theme Options page, and of course all themes are HTML and CSS 2/3 Valid!

Stay Tuned for the Lauch of the WordPress Web Design Site, I’ll be giving away discount codes!

I’ve used quite a fair few plugins for Contact forms, used on a large variety of applications. Until now I’d have said CForms II was the best, It was amazing, but sadly seems to have vanished.

After a look around I was pleased to find some really >REALLY< shiny website known as Gravity Forms, these guys have made what I would say, the best WordPress Plugin for Contact Forms, no questions asked, from Computer Illiterate clients to professionals, this plugin caters to all!

We currently have a Developer License which was $199, now that’s unlimited use so it’s a rather minimal fee per site, obviously the more websites you use it on the cheaper each installation equates to. Say you deploy this plugin over 1000 websites, that’s sub 20cents (13/14p) each, now that’s a bargain, and you’re still free to install it on more domains.

I really recommend anyone serious about including a easy to use fully featured Contact Form Plugin for clients to use Gravity Forms.

Visit Gravity Forms

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The cure to this problem is simple, you’re webspace is full.

Simply add more space to your account or upgrade your hosting account or delete unused crap via FTP and bob’s your uncle you will be able to update WordPress or install those new plugins with ease!

The one main reoccuring delight is their crude ecommerce “package”.

I tweeted late last year at the pure delight borderline copyright infringement on their ecommerce video, to be honest it took me until the second viewing to notice.

The latest and greatest appears to be the the “NEW AND IMPROVED” version of their ecommerce shit storm.

So let’s just go through a few things from this Video, which is meant to “Promote” this “Amazing” “Product”.

Infact, theres nothing else I need to say really, the awesome templates that they supply as standard are just breath taking, I’m not going to quit my job as a web designer and practise saying “Would you like fries with that Sir”, the ecommerce crisis has been solved!

To get this awesome ecommerce platform please make haste to:

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/ecommerce/

Unfortuantly there seems to be alot of dead links to their “Theme” “Design” gallery, so you’ll have to watch that awesome video explaining why you no longer need web designers or hosting.

So heres how we’re going to do this, what you’ll need is:

• A WordPress Install
• FTP Details (If plugins do not auto install)
• A Contact Form Plugin (Contact Form 7 I’ll be using)
• WP Hide Post Plugin
• 5 minutes of time

So we’re all ready? You will be kicking yourselves at how simple this will be.

First we install the plugins so:
Plugins > Add New > Search > Contact Form 7
Plugins > Add New > Search > WP Hide Post

And then install them.

Once you are done, click the new *Contact* button newly added to the bottom left of your wordpress nav.

After you have finished doing your shiny contact form copy the code.

It should look something like this:

[contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"]

Then goto:
Posts > Add New

Name it something like “SIDEBAR CONTACT FORM”
Paste  your code in, on the WP Hide Post tick/cross all boxes to complete *hide* the post, and then click Publish as normal.

Hover over the post in the posts are to find its ID, ie
wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=12

So your post is #12 for this.

We need to then go here:

Appearance > Editor:  Then Click on: Sidebar (sidebar.php)

This will load up your sidebar.php file.

You then need to insert this code wherever you wish to have it show (ie at the top then right after the first <div id/class>

<p>Contact Us</p>
<!-- p= your post ID for the Contact form -->
<?php query_posts('p=12'); if(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<br />

Save, and that’s it, you’re done.

You client can alter and amend this sidebar form as per usual, and leaves you with no nasty coding at all!

This way is tonnes better than people who use the same code but link to page, since the contact page may have other written content such as telephone numbers etc which you won’t want!

Enjoi!

Today I was asked about this again, so I dug out my old email from google, feel free to post comments.

Heres the email:
(Feel free to contact me for a forward of the original)

> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:15:05 +0000
> From: adwords-support@google.com
> To: adam@minutedesigns.com
> Subject: Re: [#232902566] Adwords, Pagerank and Content
>
> Hello Adam,
>
> Thank you for your email. I understand that you want to know whether
> valid HTML and CSS help in better organic search and AdWords ad rankings.
> Please note that clean HTML codes and CSS help improve rankings because
> they make it easier for our crawlers to find information. Sites’ positions
> in our search results are determined based on a number of factors designed
> to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search results. These factors
> are explained in more detail at
> http://www.google.com/technology/index.html.
>
> In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing
> the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. To learn more
> about inclusion and ranking in the Google index, please visit our online
> Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters. Here, you’ll find
> answers to users’ most frequently asked questions.
>
> To know more about how you can improve your site’s ranking, please visit
> http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34432&hl=en_US
>
> If you have additional questions about your site, we encourage you to
> check out Google’s webmaster tools. Our webmaster tools can provide you
> with comprehensive information about your site, including which search
> queries trigger your website listing in our search results, potential
> indexing problems, and errors our crawlers may have encountered trying to
> access your pages. Get started with Google’s webmaster tools at
> https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools?hl=en_US.
>
> We welcome you to post any webmaster-related feedback or questions in our
> Webmaster Help Google Group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help. Here you’ll find
> helpful conversations with both Googlers and experienced non-Googlers.
>
> If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at
> https://adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently
> asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at
> http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that
> cover the scope of AdWords.
>
> We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising
> available.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rupam
> The Google AdWords Team
>
>
> —————-
> Want more info on AdWords? Check out the official AdWords Blog, “Inside
> AdWords,” at http://adwords.blogspot.com to get the latest news,
> information and tips.
>
> Original Message Follows:
> ————————
> From: adam@minutedesigns.com
> Subject: Adwords, Pagerank and Content
> Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:14:43 -0800
>
> Hi there I was wondering if you could help me.
>
> I’ve read that Clean and Valid HTML and CSS in my website would make my
> website rank better within google? Is this true or not? And also would
> it help my Adwords too?
>
> Thanks Alot
> Adam King
>
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> AdsUserLocale:
> AdwordsReferral: 1
> CategorySubcategory:
> HelpCenter: V2
> Language: en
> Name: Adam King
> login_email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> profile_Name: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> website: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>

1, CrossSlide, Flash Type Image Animation, essential.
http://www.gruppo4.com/~tobia/cross-slide.shtml

2, Autocomplete, Perfect for Lengthy Forms.
http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-autocomplete/

3, Post Slider for WordPress.
http://www.prodeveloper.org/j-post-slider-wordpress-plugin-jquery-post-animation-show.html

4, Corner, for Rounded etc corners.
http://methvin.com/jquery/jq-corner.html

5, Lavalamp, for sexy hovers.
http://www.gmarwaha.com/blog/2007/08/23/lavalamp-for-jquery-lovers/

6, QuickSearch.
http://rikrikrik.com/jquery/quicksearch/

7, Coda Popup Bubbles.
http://jqueryfordesigners.com/coda-popup-bubbles/

8, jQzoom, Image Zoom – Pro for eCommerce Solutions and Products.
http://www.mind-projects.it/projects/jqzoom/

9, IconDock, Like the Mac OS bar / RocketDock bar.
http://icon.cat/software/iconDock/

10, Image Fade Revisted, handy image fade for some navigations.
http://jqueryfordesigners.com/image-fade-revisited/

And finally as a bonus, a completely different subject but a WordPress Plugin that Prompts Users to Upgrade to a Newer browser if they’re in IE6
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/shockingly-big-ie6-warning/

@Minute44 suggested I try out @font-face that everyone’s been going nuts about recently, and after a few more recent reads I realised that Firefox, Safari and Chrome now supported this CSS 3 property.  Now after I got going I was feeling abit blue with the whole Microsoft Fail, however I quickly came across a fantastic TTF to EOT, which Microsoft IE will use avaliable here for free (online app).  Now if like me you have mostly OTF fonts and need them converting to TTF then this page is for you (another online app, also free).  If you’re on a Mac then FontForge is your poison!

And then just upload your fonts to the same folder as your CSS File and use something like this:

/* — Funky Fontage — */

/* For the Fail Browsers.. IE */

@font-face {
font-family: “Quicksand Book”;
src: url(QuicksandBook.eot);
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: “Quicksand Book”;
src: url(QuicksandBold.eot);
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
}

/* Now for the Pro Browsers *cough*firefox*cough* */

@font-face {
font-family: Quicksand Book;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src: url(QuicksandBook.otf) format(‘opentype’);
}

@font-face {
font-family: Quicksand Book;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
src: url(QuicksandBold.otf) format(‘opentype’);
}

/* — End the Custom Fonts — */

You’ll find a custom font running sexy on IE 7, IE 8, FireFox, Safari and Chrome at the Underwater Camera – Waterproof Camera website.

You can expect to see the next project I undertake to include some nice use of custom fonts for a superb web viewing experience whilst maintaining accessibility, compatability and SEO Friendly Source.

It’s fast becoming a trend to have a funny, whitty pun in regards to 404 Error Pages, and theres all sort of gallery type sites now that exclusively show 404 Error Pages, Perhaps a good way to incle in some extra traffic?

I’ve included some of my top 5 custom 404 error pages that I’ve come across:

http://www.designbombs.com/404
(I liked this site anyway, but the 404 is imba)

http://fryewiles.com/templateserrors/404.html

http://agens.no/404
(I really like the graphic work)

http://anidea.com/404
(This could be made to be fantastic)

I’m pretty sure you can find some bettle ones on google so let me know if you find any more cool examples!