New GeoTheme Custom Modification
I have developed a new mod for GeoTheme, it will be very useful to site owners who have a lot of countries, cities and regions (or States). This new mod will filter your City Select (and neighbourhood if selected) drop downbox depending on the Country / Region selected. The dropdowns are rendered dynamically using ajax - and provides a nice user experience
Works with any of the following combinations:
1. MultiCountry and MultiCities Switched on
2. MultiCountry and MultiCities and MultiHoods Switched on
3. MultiCountry and MultiRegion and MultiCities Switched on
4. MultiCountry and MultiRegion and MultiCities and MultiHoods Switched on
5. MultiRegion and MultiCities Switched on
6. MultiRegion and MultiCities and MultiHoods Switched on
7. MultiCities and MultiHoods Switched on
8. MultiCities only
Buy it on Theme Tailors: Ajax location select for Add Listing/Event page
Humane Chain Website
I have been working on and off the Humane Chain Website for the last year. The site is built using Umbraco CMS and originally their blog (http://www.humanechain.org.au/ourblog/) was built in Blogger. I was brought in to convert their blog over to WordPress and to install the blog withing a sub domain of their main site. This is the first time I used the Roots Theme, the client wanted a blog in a very similar style to their main site – but still wanted it to look like a blog. It was quite different to starting with an existing styled theme and making customisations.
I have also be making various additios nd modifications to their main site: http://www.humanechain.org.au/; including some new pages and adding the Blog feed to the home page.
WordPress Security Plugin Recomendations
The past weekend (July 21st 2012) – I attended WordCamp Sydney 2012 at Sydney University. As a work at home Freelancer it was a great opportunity to mingle with some other WordPress Developers. There were so many great presentations far too many to discuss but you can see them all on SlideShare.
I just wanted to share some of the Security Information that Vladimir Lasky presented. (see: on Slideshare)
He started off by scaring us all about password security and we should never have the same password for different website. (We know this but it is hard to do).
So – as far as wordpress is concerned – never use the default ‘admin’ username – change it when you install WordPress or if you already have installed WordPress, create a new user who is an administrator and delete the old one. Oh and change the display name to be something other than the username you login with. Or you can use this plugin: Admin renamer extended
If you do rename the Admin user – make sure you do not plublish Posts or Pages as an Administrator or people will be able to see this username in the author link address see: http://esdev.net/wordpress-security-tip-dont-post-from-your-admin-account/#.UA_LfMVafIQ
Next do not use the deafult table name prefix – ‘wp_’ – this is easy to do when installing WordPress but trickier to do afterwards. But there is a plugin that can help , try: WordPress Table Prefix Rename Plugin
He recommended having HTTPS – but if you do not have that or do not want the extra cost then you can install a plugin called: Semisecure Login Reimagined this encrypts your login info via javascript.
To stop brute force attacks you can install either: Login Security Solution Plugin or Limit Login Attempts, the former slows down the site for every additional login attempt and also forces secure passwords. The latter as the name suggests limits the number of times a user can try to login.
My favourite plugin that Vlad recommend is WordPress File Monitor Plus – This plugin monitors your WordPress installation for added/deleted/changed files. When a change is detected an email alert can be sent to a specified address. I have worked on a website that has been hacked before and if this plugin had been installed I would not have had to spend hours trying to find out what the hackers had changed. This is the first plugin I installed after Vlads talk.
MunckinBunz – WordPress and wp e-commerce
This is a website I have been working on and off on for the last 6 months. Originally designed and created by Natasha from BlueBird designs (a fantastic designer) – I was contacted for some customisation help on the template files with the WP e-commerce theme and adding in some addition features, such as the Facebook box, reviews, seo advice and a layout change on the homepage.
Visit http://munchkinbunz.com.au
http://munchkinbunz.com.au/
WildSwimming – New GeoTheme Child Theme
WildSwimming.co.uk is one of the many new GeoTheme websites I have been started working on recently. This is the first to be released. I worked in collaboration with Daniel Start from WildSwimming and Sarah Jones from www.scribbleandscratch.co.uk. It was a long distance collaboration!
Their child theme is a completely new look for GeoTheme – less emphasis on the map than most themes. It need some tricky new customisations for the Explore by Regions to work.
Converting Blogger to WordPress
I am working on for a client who wants their Blogger website added to a sub-directory on their current Umbraco Website, we descided to convert the Blogger site to a WordPress site.
WordPress has a tool which converts a Blogger site to WordPress however I could not get the Blogger Site to authorise my account. It seemed it did not like the .org of the domain (!) – so instead I created a WordPress.com free blog and imported the Blogger site to that free WordPress site. Then I ran the export posts Tool and save the xml file on my computer. Then it was a simple task of uploading the XML file into the new WordPress site.
It an extra few steps than anticipated but it worked, maybe this will help someone else out!
Willow Hair Salon Website Launched
Back in december 2011 I developed and launched the new website for Willow Hair Salon (Manly and Seaforth). The site was built using .NET and Umbraco CMS as it was an unusual design and I find Umbraco templates are more flexible than WordPress. Although I miss all the plugins and features yyou get with a WordPress install.
New Umbraco website
One of the recent projects I have been working on was a adding a .NET (aspx) website to Umbraco CMS with a company called Cornerstone Technologies. The website is beautifully designed site for Brasserie Bread, they bake the most amazing bread – and I was already a frequent customer of their Garlic Bread from the Farmers Market in Manly.
Brasserie Bread also had an established WordPress blog called In the Dough, which they wanted to revamp and bring under the same domain as the main website. Although there is a blogging package for Umbraco, it was decided to stick with a WordPress solution and have this hosted on the same server as the Umbraco website. I worked on creating the new WordPress theme as per designs from Cornerstone Technologies and also creating a new Blog for Brasserie Bread’s new Melbourne Shop.
Have a look at the Brasserie Bread Website and try their bread if you live in Sydney or Melbourne.
Babies and Toddlers Directory Website launched
So after 2 years of taking about, playing around, starting in Joomla then moving over to WordPress – I have finally released Babies and Toddlers. Its a community website for Mums – somewhere they can find out about whats in their local area, playgroups, playgrounds etc…. In a similar way to Yelp – people can add a listing, review and give a rating to a place or activity.
Now all I have to do is get people to come to the site and fill it with content .
Take a look – Babies and Toddlers
Importing wordpress posts
I often have to move WordPress sites for clients – which entails exporting and importing large WordPress WXR files (XML). Sometimes the import fails due to the size of the file I know I can play around with memory limit setting. But today I came across a really useful app for splitting up the file http://www.rangerpretzel.com/content/view/20/19/
Very easy to use.
