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An Automated Way to Take Screenshots of any Website – Free
When I was building WPVote I wanted to have screenshots of the webpages that were submitted. Clearly I didn’t want to take the screenshots myself so I spent some time searching for an automated method to do the work for me. There are a few websites that do this but they cost money, or watermark the images, or limit the amount of requests, so I wanted to find something better.
And ...
Building WPVote Part 7: Almost Done
Building WPVote has been a really interesting process for me. I have learnt stacks of new things, and through developing WPVote have added a pile of improvements to my WordPress theme Elemental. In preparation for the sites release on Monday here is a summary of what I’ve done so far…
New Theme, Accumulo, and New Free Plugin
In my plans for 2010 I said I wanted to release 3 premium themes, and earlier this week Darren Hoyt and I released the first of the bunch.
Accumulo – WordPress themeAccumulo is an RSS aggregation theme designed to imitate sites such as Popurls.com and Alltop.com, and in particular Darrens own WPTopics.
The unique selling point of Accumulo is the tabbed homepage on which you can place any ...
Building WPVote Part 6 : Planning for Lift Off
Now that the WPVote site is almost complete I need to prepare it for release.
Since I have developed online all I really need to do is redirect the DNS from the current site to my own servers. However there are a couple of things I should take care of.
The sites old content needs to be copied over to my installed version Set up a new development area ...Building WPVote Part 5 : Programming
I’m nearly finished with the design of my new WordPress voting site, WPVote, so now need to look more closely at the programming.
I enjoy dissecting WordPress themes, and since I also like code simplicity and minimalism (and am working with a child theme) I decided to strip out as much of the original WPVote theme as possible.
First I had to go through the theme files and work out which were ...
Building WPVote : Part 4b, The Logo Revisited
Last time I wrote about WPVote I got a lot of feedback on the design of the logo. I was actually quite happy with how it was looking but the comments got me thinking and I soon realised it wasn’t as hot as I first thought…
So I spent some time coming up with new variations and thought it would be interesting to get some feedback on them as well.
I designed the variations based on the feedback I had received. ...
Building WPVote Part 4 : Design
Once I had finished researching similar voting sites I was ready to start designing and building the WPVote theme.
To decide basic page structure I went with Balsamiq mockups and knocked out some quick reference designs. I had a firm idea in mind for how the theme would function so it wasn’t that hard to make the images, and Balsamiq is REALLY easy to use so I had my reference images built quickly.
As I mentioned in part 3 ...
Back and Forward: Plans for 2010
Of my ‘goals’ in 2009 I only officially finished half. This year I plan to do better.
I mentioned that I wanted to release 4 themes, of which I actually released 2 Mimbo Pro 2 and theme framework. Of the others, Regulus Pro is on hold and the Prologue style theme is banished into obscurity – however some of the code will be showing up on WPVote.
This year I plan to:
Get married Blog more – particularly WordPress hints, ...Building WPVote Part 3 : Research
After receiving the WPVote domain and theme from Jean I moved on to stage 3. Researching ‘competitors‘ websites.
I must admit I tend not to do too much research when building a website, but this time I did decide to do some look into similar sites for inspiration.
WPVote is essentially a Digg clone, so I knew what to make, but at the same time I wanted to make it something ...
Building WPVote Part 2 : Planning
In part 1 of Building WPVote I mentioned how I have recently purchased WPVote from Jean-Baptiste Jeung.
The first thing I did before I even spoke to Jean was trying to think of simple things I could do that would add greatest value with least effort. This was a project I wanted to monetize from the start, and I didn’t want to spend months and months developing it.
I intend for the ...
WordPress MU 2.8: Beginner’s Guide review
WordPress MU 2.8: Beginner’s Guide surprised me positively. To be honest, I did hesitate before accepting a review copy from the publishers as I fully expected it to be “just” a beginner’s guide to WordPress mu (the multi user version of WordPress) – essentially the same as a beginner’s guide to WordPress, only with a couple extra characters in the name.
I was wrong.
Yes, it covers WordPress mu, but ...
Building WPVote Part 1: The Beginning
About a month ago Jean-Baptiste Jung (author of the WordPress Cookbook) put his website wpvote.com up for sale.
I saw a lot of potential in it but wasn’t sure I had the time to offer so had a long hard think before doing anything. A couple of weeks ago I had a chat with him and after a bit of back and forth we came to an agreement… so I am ...
Get Your Google Wave Invites Here
I got a Google Wave invite a few weeks ago and was quite excited to use it. To be honest though the initial excitement wore off quite quickly, but now Google have given me a bunch of invites, and they keep giving me more, currently I have 25 to give out.
So – the first 25 people to comment on this post will get a Google Wave ...
Bruno
If I can tell you one thing about Bruno it’s this.
Don’t watch Bruno on an iPod Touch on the train on the way to work.There’s too much to describe in Bruno, it’s a whirlwind of cringe inducing moments with a fair amount of male nudity. If you’ve seen Borat then you know what to expect… only you need to amp up the ’shock’ moments.
Sasha Baron-Cohen is clearly going out of his way to cause controversy. He knew ...
WordPress Developer Cookbook
If I am totally honest there aren’t many computer books that I actually find useful, they’re generally for beginners or full of information you can get online for the low-cost of a Google search or two.
That’s why I like developers cookbooks. Cookbooks are full of simple, easy to digest, recipes that help make your life that bit easier.
Thankfully the WordPress 2.7 Cookbook is no exception. It starts off covering the ...
Optimising Social Media Activity
Being rather introverted I’m quite quiet on social networking sites, however recently I have made some changes that mean I am easily able to take part without leaving my comfort zone.
There are actually a few reasons I don’t take part. The big one is that the social sites often need you to visit their site to join in. The best way to get me to take part is to make participation ...
Public Enemies
I always think of Michael Mann as making understated action movies. There’s action and there’s violence, but it never gets in the way of the story.
Public Enemies is his latest offering with Johnny Depp playing the famous mobster John Dillinger. This role is quite unlike Depps normal quirky/ arty/ exaggerated characters. Like the action his performance is understated and realistic – and the change of character works really well for him.
Art Direction
I have recently published my first ‘Art Directed’ posts on Binary Moon – namely my reviews for the movies Coraline and Up.
Ever since I saw Jason Santa Marias art directed site the idea has brewed in my head that I would do something similar, so when I redesigned I kept that wish in the back of my mind so that new designs could be slotted in easily.
What is ‘Art Direction’?To be perfectly honest I have ...
Coraline
Coraline is a stop motion animated movie directed by the same Director as The Nightmare Before Christmas, which meant I instantly assumed that the Director was Tim Burton, and after watching the movie my opinion hadn’t changed. Coraline is a very atmospheric, dark film, and it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if Tim Burton had directed it – but it turns out he hasn’t.
The Director of Coraline is a man called Henry Selick, and the story ...
UP
Pixar have a habit of creating stories and worlds that transcend the age gap. Despite the fact they are animations the stories tap into your emotions, and in many ways are more real than anything filmed with live actors.
Being digitally animated means that you can ignore who the (voice) actors in Pixars films are, and concentrate on the performance and story. It is often easier to project your emotions on to something that isn’t real – your own imagination ...
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Rocket Boards is a super fast 3D rocket boarding action. My first "commercial" (shareware) product. Didn't do amazingly well but was a good learning experience
Bubble Bomb is a polished update of a game originally built by Warren Marshal (who works at Epic games - developers of Unreal and Gears of War)
My own update of Bubble Bomb, Bubble Blitz was almost a total rewrite adding loads of new features and a shiny new look.
Seths Puzzle Boxes is a puzzle game with a surprisingly enjoyable story line, unfortunately it's quite short so won't take long to complete, but while it lasts is great fun.