1. Biking Boss

2. The Bifter

3. Imitation is a form of flattery

4. The Wired Mind

5. Nike Better World

6. Tweet for Life

7. Content Choreogrophy

 8. Dropr

9. Yo, Look What I’ve Found

10. Typography for the Lonely

1. British Heart Foundation

2. Vodaphone

3. Target

4. B&Q

5. Pure Grips

When building a website it is important to understand how a stylesheet should be written in order to keep the website loading quickly. This article outlines the basics of grouping CSS selectors with the same properties; to reduce the file size of the stylesheet.

When many page elements all share the same properties, a typical stylesheet might look like this:

p {
font-size: 14px;
letter-spacing: 1px;
margin: 0 10px 10px;
}

div {
font-size: 14px;
letter-spacing: 1px;
margin: 0 10px 10px;
}

.paragraph {
font-size: 14px;
letter-spacing: 1px;
margin: 0 10px 10px;
}

This will load all three elements in the way that they are supposed to, but by grouping the selectors, we can save some characters in the stylesheet, reducing the file size and speeding up the loading time of the page. With the selectors grouped, the CSS looks like this:

p, div, .paragraph {
font-size: 14px;
letter-spacing: 1px;
margin: 0 10px 10px;
}

Each selector is separated by a comma, followed by an opening bracket, then the CSS properties, ending with a closing bracket. By grouping CSS selectors you will also save yourself valuable development time as you will have less code to write!

In this article, I have put together a list of wordpress plugins that every web developer should use.

WP CSS

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-css/

Plugin that combines  your stylesheets into 1 stylesheet and compresses using gzip compression – drastically reducing the number of HTTP Requests and therefore speeding up the loading time of your website.

A great feature that makes this my CSS optimisation plugin of choice, is that you can write your stylesheet in the same easy-to-follow structure you would normally and the plugin will remove the whitespace for you.

During previous attempts to reduce the page loading time, I would create a minimized version of the stylesheet and work directly in that when I had to make changes during development; which was time consuming and fiddly as it was more difficult to find the right section of the file that needed amending.

This plugin allows you to compress the stylesheet, and still be able to make amendments quickly and easily, saving valuable time.

WP JS

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-js/

Same as the WP CSS plugin, but for javascript files.

WP Super Cache

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/

A fantastic WordPress plugin to cache your website or blog. Significantly increases the loading time of your website as the browser has less information to grab from the server the next time the page is loaded.

This WordPress plugin has a really simple interface for those who are new to how caching works – by simply allowing you to turn caching on or off, but also has some advanced features for those feeling adventurous.

* A really handy option in the advanced settings is to clear the cache every time you publish a post or make an amendment to a page.

Google XML Sitemaps

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Plugin that automatically generates an XML sitemap from all of the posts, pages, categories and tags on your WordPress blog or website. A nice and simple interface and a great simple plugin that will integrate seamlessly with updating your day-to-day blog posts and page amendments.

Advanced Custom Fields

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/

One of the finest plugins I have ever used – this WordPress plugin replaces the existing custom fields panel in the “edit post” page with a really nice interface for adding extra content to be displayed, including WYSIWYG editors and image/file upload options.

A great feature of this plugin is that it is much simpler to add the values from custom fields into the website template files than with the default method.

All in one SEO Pack

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Does exactly what it says on the tin. With this plugin activated, you can define how to structure title tags and add META keywords and descriptions for each page and post.

META tag management is made easy by adding fields to the edit post page, so that you can define the tag values per post. There is also an option to use the post tags as META keywords!

Contact Form 7

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

A simple contact form plugin with a handy generator to add form elements to a form. Also allows you to create multiple forms that you can predefine to go to different email addresses individually. Great if you just need 1 contact form to go on a small website or many enquiry forms on a larger site.

There are countless other WordPress Plugins that other web developers I know use, but the ones covered in this article are a few that I have had a great deal of experience with and have continued to use for the long-term as they are flexible enough to use for any site; whether it’s a personal blog or company intranet.

Do you use any of these plugins? It would be great to hear how these are used. Any others that you use that would recommend to others? Leave a comment!

Google has of course created some of the world’s most popular and widely used software and has broken new boundaries with technology and has shaped the way we use the Internet.  I am a fond user of Google Maps and Google Mail and look forward to new apps that Google bring out in the future.

With Google StreetView, Google offered to remove any images at the request of the general public and also blocked out faces so that no-one could be recognised.  To me, this shows that Google have acknowledged people’s privacy with this software by allowing it to be indirectly moderated by the general public.  However, with Google StreetView now covering a reported 97% of the United Kingdom, certain individuals are concerned about what Google will produce in the future.

In my opinion, the letter that has been received by Google is likely to have been taken very seriously, and has been received as a gentle reminder that people’s privacy has to be adhered to when designing applications.  I have an overwhelming level of admiration and respect for Google and have full confidence that their future services will continue to inspire us small-time developers.

The latest I had heard about Bebo in the news over the last few months, it was mentioned after Facebook had decided not to put a ‘Panic Button’ on it’s site; with Bebo being mentioned as a website that choose to use the button.  When watching the news story, I couldn’t help but think that this would discourage people from using Facebook and start using services such as Bebo as it provided better security and support.  However, this did not deter people from Facebook, probably because Facebook has it’s own security guidelines in place, and for those of us who have used this in the past, blocking people from seeing their profile prevents malicious users from viewing any information about them and proves to be very effective against online bullying.

In comparison to Facebook, Bebo markets itself as a social networking website where you are able to pool all of the information you get from other social networking sites; allowing you to check your emails, Facebook notifications and Twitter updates from the same place. On paper, it looks like a very useful service indeed, but at the same time seems to jump on the back of other social networking websites, rather than providing a unique service that no other social network provides.

It has been reported by the Guardian that a lack of funding and severe job cuts have meant that Bebo did not have the people-power to maintain and market it and therefore can not compete with other websites such as Facebook.  It is not the first time that a social networking site has attempted to compete with the big-guns with a shoestring budget and work force.  Friends Reunited, and Myspace in one respect have all suffered a similar feat and have proven that in order to create and maintain a successful and profitable social networking website, it requires a heavy amount of financial investment and a high turnover of software engineers working around the clock.

Who knows what the future holds for Bebo, a lack of investment and little interest from potential buyers doesn’t make the future look all that bright, but as it does attract around 12 million visitors a year, it would be stupid for an entrepreneur to miss out on the potential advertising revenue that could be generated from that many people each year.  I don’t know anyone who hasn’t heard of Bebo, but not many have said that they are on it.  Hopefully an investor will come along soon that has a clear idea on how Bebo could improve it’s service and have the financial backing to keep Bebo afloat.

For us Web Designers, Internet Explorer 6 has long been a burden on productivity; having to take the long way around in CSS to make sure Internet Explorer 6 users can still have the same experience has other users. I am sure that most Web Designers will be quite pleased to see the back of it, as it will save them the extra time and money needed doing those cross-browser compatibility checks.

For me, part of me thinks that IE6 should have been made illegal a long time ago, however I know that in a small way I am going to miss it. I am not sure if I’m alone when I say this, but when I have built a website, making sure that I have taken the necessary steps for it to still work in IE6, it is the most satisfying feeling when you see the website in IE8 and Firefox and then try IE6 and it looks exactly the same!

Internet Explorer for me is not always considered a burden, but an exciting challenge, that when it pays off I want to tell everyone about. Again, I don’t know if I’m the only one who sees it in this light but that’s my little contribution on the subject