Just thought before I wrote some new content for this site to go live in the next few days, i’d come here and just quickly update everyone with anything I can think of really.
I mentioned a couple of my own projects last time, no names to be released as yet, but they are coming on well just need to find the time to get them finished and up and running. I have started on a few other little projects too since the last update, one includes some changes to this site. These will be online as soon as I can complete them.
More tutorials, articles coming soon. Some updates to come about my EyeTV Hybrid, some new stuff about my iMac and well any other gadget that is new ish… I may even get some stuff in about AppleScript.
Talking of AppleScript, hopefully in the next week or so I will have a script done for one of my little ‘fun’ projects. More information on this will come when its all complete and working.
e107 Guides etc, still in the works. Will try and get something out soon, can’t guarantee anything.
Work… What can I say, it’s going great. Its miles better than working at home in a tiny office, now I get to work on some amazing projects in a cool office with some great guys, random music, and chit chat.
Expect some posts in the next few days. Gonna get this blog back to ‘active’ status.
Most of the bloggers I know are been spammed, there are quite a few different ways to stop spam from occurring on your site.
One would be the use of a Captcha plugin to display an image with some text the commenter has to input into a verification field. While this is effective, it can annoy visitors and you will ultimately loose comments on your blog
Another way, is to use the Askimet plugin that is packaged within Wordpress. Once you have it installed and running it will catch spam comments, as well as a script can. Personally the script hasn’t failed me once, it has never held back a legit comment and has never missed a spam comment.
Now this is a great way to keep spam ‘Unapproved’. But I go one further and ban the spammers IP’s from the blog. I have banned 4 IP’s so far and I haven’t had a spam comment in 5 days, before I was getting one every few hours. To ban the IP’s from viewing my blog I use the WP-Ban plugin. Askimet provides the IP’s, then if an IP spams more than twice it I add it to the banlist.
Well its becoming apparent with my new job that I just don’t get enough time to come on here and post as much. I will try my hardest to come up with some kind of plan to make sure the blog is updated as much as possible, but till then expect a post a week.
I have started working on a few new personal projects these past 2 weeks, all of them i’m really happy with so far. Just need to find the time to complete them. Work is continuing on the e107 guides, making slow progress towards the first releasable version. Sorry to everyone who expect it in the next week or two. There is just too much to write about just the e107 basics.
As soon as I have information for you on my new projects/e107 guide then i’ll post it here. Traffic continues to increase, and additions to this site are coming (slowly). One of the bigger updates is going to include a page with aggregated “Interesting Blog’s” but displaying more content than the current aggregator on the homepage.
Just to answer the most asked question via my contact form recently, work is great thanks. Really enjoying it so far, just wish email newsletters were easier to develop.
Decided to continue with my ‘My Picks’ posts, as my other posts I have been writing still need some finishing touches before I actually post them up. Some of my picks are just funny videos, some are great articles.
Firstly, James McDonald of EatFruitPlease has yet again created some great posts. I just have to this one post, which is his ‘Remember Quality Coding Is Worth The Same As Quality Design‘. James talks about something that is kind of releated to something that was said to me at work last week. A developer should always have a keen eye for design, what do I mean by this? Well a developer should be able to code the particular design without leaving any of the details out. So things like keeping awkward to code gradients in and making sure the code fits the original design as close as it can.
Secondly, Once again another post by James. This one titled ‘Creating A Reputation Online‘ has tips for freelancers that need a reputation online to keep work and income flowing.
Thirdly, Bryan Le of Sentences.org wrote an article about ‘The Design Brief‘. In this article Bryan gives you tips on how to create the perfect design brief for you and the client, as well as giving you a sample design brief to help you get on your way.
Finally, I made a blog post detailing some of e107’s features in my ‘Use a Content Management System?‘ post. With reasons you should try it if you use a CMS.
I should be posting some of these posts soon, some tutorials, reviews and articles are on there way.
Do you use a CMS? Is it Wordpress, Drupal, Mambo/Joomla? Have you looked around at what other systems are around?
Have you tried e107? No? Maybe you should try it out.
As I keep reminding readers of my blog my CMS of choice is e107, has been for years. The main reason for this is the way it works and how simple it is to understand and use. I have used several content management systems in my time on the web and well some I have liked and some I have used once and never used again.
The two systems I use now are e107 and Wordpress. Wordpress is more suitable for blogs than e107, its a great system and I love using it. Just like Wordpress is great for blogs, e107 is great for alot of other things. Sites that require more interaction with the user, with features like forums, profiles, chatboxes etc… These are just a tiny selection of the features that are included within e107.
With the ever growing plugin database adding to e107 functionality as well as the core been developed continuously e107 may just be the right CMS for one of your sites.
Some Core e107 Features…
News System
Submit News System – Allows users to submit news to your site.
Custom Menu/Pages System – Includes a menu activation area to set menu’s to a certain area within your sites theme.
Flood Protection System, allow auto banning of IP’s flooding your site.
Downloads System
Uploads System
Banner AdSystem, rotating adverts.
Core Plugins, Forum, Chatbox, Event Calender, Stats, Google Sitemap, Links Page, RSS and many more…
So why not go and try e107 for yourself, download it here or view a demo here.