Fresh

Because we have a team of developers here at eROI and a plethora of projects to build and maintain, it is more than likely that the code written by one individual will need to be edited by another developer at some point in time.  When an edit to a site comes in, the original author of the code will inevitably, at one point or another, be on vacation, be sick, or no longer work here (yes, it happens, sadly).  This is why it is so imperative for our team (and any development team) to follow certain guidelines to keep our code clean and legible, so that anyone can jump onto a project, easily see what the code is doing, and start making edits quickly.  Here are five ways to keep your code readable and maintainable:

1. Indent Your Code
   This is number one on the list for a reason.  No other thing you can do can help or hinder the readability of your code than the indentation style (or lack thereof).  Nested child elements should be indented one level more than parent elements in order to show a visual hierarchy.  Opening and closing tags in HTML should be on the same indentation level in most cases; items inside the opening/closing tags need to be indented one additional level.

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Recently one of our designers came by and and asked me about how much actual control we could have over the aesthetics of scrollbars. I told him what I often respond with: “If you can design it, we can build it.”

Although this statement is fundamentally true, stylizing scrollbars creates a unique set of obstacles. Since scrollbars are handled by the browser window itself and not the website, controlling their appearance and functionality becomes more work than simply using CSS to skin the elements. Fortunately, there are plenty of options out there but finding the right one for your project isn’t always easy.

Styling scrollbars with CSS

One way to start stylizing the scrollbar attributes is to use CSS. A quick cross-browser test will show you that this isn’t a viable route. Ironically (to us developers) Internet Explorer is the only browser to fully support the scrollbar attributes allowing for an easy, quick way to customize your scrollbars’ look and feel. This may have been acceptable when IE had a 90% browser market share but those days are over and let’s face it — the designers pushing for these changes all use Macs.

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Who has a phone with a mobile browser? Um…EVERYONE! Yeah, nowadays, people don’t just have cell phones, they have a mini computer in the palm of their hand able to find anything online within seconds.

On the top of everyone’s priority list, in the web world, is how to go mobile. One option is to build a whole new version of your site so that it will look good on a mobile device, but not everyone has the time and/or budget for that. If your site is already in WordPress, then you have another option…plugins!

There are several handy plugins that will make your current site mobile friendly. I’ve been tasked to find a plugin for our blogs here at eROI. After doing my research, I’ve found a few that seem to top the list and do a great job out of the box.
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In honor of WordPress week, I’ve collected an assortment of sites that are tickling my fancy in some way or another and oh yeah, they all use WordPress. Hopefully you will find a couple that you haven’t had the pleasure of checking out before.

I Love Typography

This is a blog about all of the intricacies of typography ranging from the basics to super technical jargon-filled goodness. The design is a beautifully simple execution of what they preach.

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In yesterday’s post I hit upon two major developments happening with WordPress this year: the merge of WordPress MU into WordPress, and better support for custom post types.  But there’s more! Here are just a few more advancements in the WordPress world that I’m looking forward to this year.

New 2010 default theme

Kubrick: klassic, but old and krusty. At eROI we’ve discussed creating our own default/starter themes that contain all the basic essential functions for a blog or a non-blog website. Many theme developers just getting started in WordPress (or even those who’ve been at it a while) take the default theme and tweak it to fit their structure/design.  Oftentimes this leads to having extraneous code that isn’t really needed or even code that has been deprecated. Having new default themes with up-to-date functions, heavily commented HTML and CSS, more basic HTML structures and without functions we don’t use often will help new members of our team learn theme creation faster.

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I am a huge WordPress nerd. When Mary asked “If you have a half-hour to kill in between meetings, what do you do?” I promptly replied “Read blogs about WordPress.  Which are written using WordPress.” (it didn’t make the video though, audio problems. Thank goodness. Hah.)  The past few months I’ve been amassing a collection of my favorite blogs about WordPress, and the ones I love reading the most are those that discuss current features being developed, upcoming planned additions to the core and other kinds improvements to WordPress and the WP community. Reading the dev chat summaries from the official WordPress Development blog get me damn near giddy sometimes. I’ve even found myself diving deep into development discussions, where previously I might have skimmed a bit and then gone back to Facebook before my eyes rolled into the back of my head.  But there are just too many cool things happening in the WordPress community right now, I feel like I need to have more and more information.

I’d like to share a few of things I’m excited about right now in the world of WordPress. Some of these are coming up very soon (WordPress 3.0 is on schedule to be released in April) while some might be rolled out over the course of the year, or maybe even next year. But even the fact that discussions are taking place  is very exciting for a WordPress dork like me.

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We’ve decided to dedicate this pre-pre-Valentine’s Day week to something which we all love around these parts: WordPress!  Every day this week we’ll be bringing you a kickass post about the blogging platform/content management system we all know and love and share and obsess about.  So put on your Wordcamp T-shirt, pour yourself some coffee in your WordPress Footed Bistro Mug and enjoy.

Growing up, my mom always stressed the importance of having great undergarments upon which to build your wardrobe. Bras and panties had to match, and it was ideal if the set matched your full outfit. She said, “If you feel good in your underwear, you’ll look great in your entire outfit.”

The same principle applies to website planning. Now, I’m not suggesting that websites wear bras and panties, but each of the websites that we design and build have certain, ahem, undergarments. These undergarments are the building blocks of a good website wardrobe.

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Don’t drop the ball now that the ball has dropped! That’s right, it’s a new year, and time to make new resolutions and goals as well as re-commit ourselves to standards and quality in web design and development.  One of the most critical periods in the creation of a new (or redesigned) website is what we at eROI call the “Deploy” phase. This is when all the hard work the team has put into a project culminates to one defining moment when you flip the switch and the site “GOES LIVE” for the whole world to see.  But more important than the actual flip-switching is the pre-launch phase where we make sure the site is ready for prime time, so to speak.

One of the most important steps in the pre-launch phase is an in-depth QA process, including usability and cross-browser testing.  But let’s assume that step has already been completed and your site is bug free and looks snazzy in all the major browsers.  Heck, let’s even say you’ve got a kick-ass mobile version and that everything degrades gracefully with javascript disabled, or on a horrible, outdated browser (I don’t think I need to name names here).

Aside from making sure everything works and looks good, here is a list of items to check on and implement (if you haven’t already).  Many of these may seem rather trivial compared to larger issues like site functionality, but the little details are important and you want to put your best face forward when presenting a new website to the world.  The lack of a favicon may not drive people away from your site, but those small details will be noticed and appreciated by users as well as peers in the industry.  Other items on the list can be much more crucial to the usability and success of the site.

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Nobody WANTS to have their blog hacked.  But without a few basic precautions, you could be practically inviting them in without knowing it.

When you install WordPress, you will automatically have a user account named “admin.”  Everyone who knows WordPress knows this.  And that includes the bad folks who want to get admin access to your site.  Because they know that your site probably has an administrator-level account with the username “admin,” half the work is done.  Then they just need to figure out your password.  One of the most common attacks on WordPress sites is called “brute force” password guessing. A script will keep trying different password combinations until it finds the correct one.  They usually aren’t successful, but sometimes they hit the jackpot – and you don’t want your site to be the lucky winner.**

To defend against this type of attack, there are three fairly basic things you can do:

1. Have a good password
2. Get rid of the “admin” account
3. Ban anyone with too many failed login attempt

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