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What you can expect here.

This is a blog and resource maintained by John Brunskill. I add helpful usability tutorials and tips for wordpress blog owners.
For the web enthusiast and designer I will be adding free layouts and 'tuts' using 'Blueprint.

Help with Google Maps Demo

Hi I am web designer from Australia.

I am trying to set up a demo for a client with google maps to demonstrate possibilities.
It is so the client will have custom icons on a map for jobs they have done.
The user should click and then details for the job will appear in the window.

So far the maps, icons and xml page work fine.
Though the code to introduce the xsl template structure does not.

Here: http://www.johnbrunskill.com/windowline/googlemap.html
From a tutorial called “Hacking Maps with the Google Maps API” By Hari Gottipati (August 10, 2005)
I constructed this demo so far and a colleague added some mods too.
There are 3 pages involved to make this work.

1. The map page with the php and API key.

2. An xml page with the meta for the points and extra data to be loaded when the user clicks.

3. An xsl template with markup that should be loading into the window when the user clicks. This is not working!

I want the code in the template to wrap around the xml data which is working fine.

Assistance from a developer would be greatly appreciated and please nominate your hourly rate to get this going for me.

This has been a show stopper to me getting the demo properly styled up for the client.
With thanks

John

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Hi I am web designer from Australia.
I am trying to set up a demo for a client with google maps to demonstrate possibilities.
It is so the client will have custom icons on a map for jobs they have done.
The user should click and then details for the job will appear in the window.
So far the [...]

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How often should I blog

Paul Boag from Boag World writes about when to blog and how often. This is very timely indeed especially for this author who’s blogging agenda often comes off the rails. Paul, who is a prolific and professional blogger sums up with the decision that regularity is just as important as quality even with the advent of RSS feeds that deliver content automatically to subscribers. Paul notes that his audience look forward to his content now and he doesn’t let them down.

Over 66% of blogs have not been updated in over 2 months and anywhere between 60% and 80% are abandoned within their first month. It is very easy for a blog to go from a good idea to an embarrassment.

The main problem is that blogging is a lot more work than people expect. Regularly coming up with quality content over the long term is a significant challenge and many individuals and organisations find it hard to keep up.- Paul Boag “Boag World”

Paul makes a suggestion as to how to vary your blogging to include different styles of postings. Paul posts show notes and links to resources to vary his own blogging. I have made some suggestions along these lines to clients and have a small list of suggestions here often forming opportunities for new categories.

1. Blog on a subject that you are passionate about.
2. Create an ongoing F.A.Q. on your site
3. Interview an admired colleague or potential client on skype (record it on skype) to transcribe it
4. Refer to and quote from a newspaper, book or magazine.
5. Add a picture or cartoon that you may find funny.
6. Invite a olleague to register on your blog and write an article.
7. Add a few brief survey questions to your site and ask colleagues and subscribers to give their answers by using the comment tools.
8. Find something funny in your day and blog it.
9. Add some new products to your inventory or services and create a press release style article about it.
10. Create a category called champions in which you post on the achievements, milestones and effectiveness of a leader in your industry.
11. Write an article on one of your customers and the implementation of one of your ideas in their organization.

I think this list has got some potential to grow into it’s own category on my blog or my new blog “wordpressblog.net” that is coming real soon.

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Paul Boag from Boag World writes about when to blog and how often. This is very timely indeed especially for this author who’s blogging agenda often comes off the rails. Paul, who is a prolific and professional blogger sums up with the decision that regularity is just as important as quality even with the advent [...]

More info about  admin

How Google ranks Websites

It was very timely that this week I received a newsletter with links to an article “How Google ranks Websites” It was just yesterday that I as discussing this subject with a valued client and friend. The article discusses the relevance of:

  • Link popularity
  • Quality not quantity
  • Relevance is important
  • Anchor text
  • Keyword variety

Stay alert for the last paragraph which might tell you why the forum and blog community is so lively with willing participants. Find a blog or forum in your area of expertise and join it to answer a question from a subscriber. Give advice by answering the question and leave a link back to your site. You have just achieved all the points above! The answer is get involved in your community by blogging on your own site and getting involved in other blogs by answering forum questions linking back to your site. Yes more work but this is how to really “bang the drum” for your blog and your passions.

Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well). Jim Pretin

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It was very timely that this week I received a newsletter with links to an article “How Google ranks Websites” It was just yesterday that I as discussing this subject with a valued client and friend. The article discusses the relevance of:

Link popularity
Quality not quantity
Relevance is important
Anchor text
Keyword variety

Stay alert for the last paragraph which [...]

More info about  admin

Blueprint html boilerplates set

After being so impressed with ‘Blueprint’, a CSS framework, I will be building a set of Blueprint html ‘boilerplates’ for the newbie or converted user to grab. This set will grow as I devise some common layout needs to get your website build off to a flying start. Thanks to those concerned for this excellent css platform.

Do not do anything without reading about Blueprint CSS. Don’t forget to get your Blueprint folder of files code from there.

I have not used any of the plugins in the available set and I am still coming to grips with the best conventions to use for semantic markup and standards coding. As I become more confident I will add some suggestions to this article.

Here are the layouts so far.

You can see each live page here or read on to download the folder of 5 of html and 1 style.css file.

  1. one.html (No sidebar with three columns in the footer)
  2. two.html (Right sidebar)
  3. three.html (Left sidebar)
  4. four.html (3 column)
  5. five.html (2 column tabloid style)

Blueprint html layouts (screenshots).

blueprint-one

blueprint-fourblueprint-twoblueprint-threeblueprint-five

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After being so impressed with ‘Blueprint’, a CSS framework, I will be building a set of Blueprint html ‘boilerplates’ for the newbie or converted user to grab. This set will grow as I devise some common layout needs to get your website build off to a flying start. Thanks to those concerned for this excellent [...]

More info about  admin