I've been improving my old Custom Page Title Attributes plugin, and have effectively added to the flexibility this can give by adding an additional text field to allow you to easily change the anchor text (menu label) of the page in the wp_list_pages() output. Okay, that sounded quite technical…!

Basically (I say that word far too much!), by default WordPress offers you two text fields for a static Page (note the capital P for a WordPress Page) – Title and Post. Ignore Post, we know what that does. The Title field supplies content for the page title (wp_title()), page header (the_title()), the anchor text in the menu (menu label) and the title attribute of the page link in the menu (these last two are generated by wp_list_pages()). That's the same content 4 times, and not always appropriate!

Let's look at WordPress for a CMS point of view. We have the front page. We want a nice long 75 character page title to help with our SEO. We've got the All in One SEO pack or the SEO Title tag plugins for that job – great! Okay, we want a slightly shorter but just as meaty header. However we only have about 100 pixels for the menu label and let's face it 'Home' is usually the best choice. However, we don't want 'Home' as the header. So up until now, to combat this, I've removed the_title() from theme files and used the title field for the menu label and hardcoded the title into the content area (ie. put the title into a h2 within the content field).

That's fine for me, and anyone who knows what a h2 is, but let's face it, most clients don't and it's really not a good idea to try and explain them! So to get around this I figured that I could just use the same idea for replacing the anchor text as I already had for the title attribute, a couple of hours (and fun and games with pattern matching) later, I managed to get the new plugin working.

So, without further ado or rambling from me, feel free to go grab my latest plugin – Page Menu Editor and let me know what you think

It's still pretty busy here workwise. As one thing starts to come to an end and the stress eases off, 2 or 3 more jobs come along to just escalate it to another high! Next week is going to be a bit of a nightmare for work as clients have left things too late and seem to expect me to just work 24 hours plus invent a few more hours into the day to get everything they need done in time.

So this week was welcomed as we were going away on Wednesday for a few days break plus a visit to a county show that's only on once a year (so not something you could reschedule!). Despite all the bad weather we've suffered in recent weeks, also resulting in the cancellation of another country show we were due to go to 2 weeks ago, on the day of the show the sun was shining and the weather quite warm! Actually it's been the first time in years where I've been to the show and it's not rained! Of course we took our cameras along, just in case there was anything good to snap.

After a bit of wondering around I spotted that the falconry show had started in one of the arenas so made a beeline for that! I managed to get a few good shots of a gorgeous and cute barn owl, one of which was whilst it was in flight. They also brought a Falcon out, which decided that it didn't want to fly, and an Eagle. All my photos from the day can be seen in my Flickr Set.

We've now got 2.5 weeks of solid work and then we're off to Dublin for a short break, which should keep us going then until Christmas

My Mum's laptop has been slowing down on her recently and she's clearly getting fed up with it. Admittedly it was the bottom of the range and bought 2.5 years ago. It's running XP Home with 256MB RAM so I'm not surprised. Anyway, I finally went and checked on the Crucial website to see how much it would cost to perhaps buy a 1GB RAM stick for her. The laptop can run 2GB max but I figured, get 1GB for now and another later on. I put in the details of her laptop and it came back with the exact type of RAM I needed and 2GB for £28. It's a no brainer really, £28 for 2GB of RAM? It was only 18 months ago I paid about £65 for 1GB for my old laptop (which then died the following week much to my annoyance! It wasn't the RAM by the way ). So I put the 2GB into my basket. Whilst I was there I checked on the new desktop we purchased last month to run as our server. I got a very good deal on a Dell Optiplex at just over £300. It's currently got 2GB of RAM in it but can take another 2GB. After a quick look I found 2*1GB sticks for £28 for that computer. Another bargain! So another add to basket.

Crucial is a fantastic site. The main site is for the US but in the top right you can switch to the UK site. They do free shipping for 3-5 days after purchase, which is fine by me (although I ordered this yesterday and it arrived in the post today!). And if you're not 100% certain on your equipment you can go to the site using your laptop/desktop and just use the system scanner. It will tell you what you already have and what RAM is suitable for you. It also does graphic cards and sells a few other peripherals but RAM is what it started with and its main focus. It's a fantastic site, so easy to use and you won't leave there with the wrong kind of memory for your machine.

My only other experience of buying RAM wasn't so great. I had an old Packard Bell that had about 64MB of RAM so I called up Maplins, a local electronics shop (they're a chain shop, not a one man band). I told them exactly what I had and was sold 256MB RAM for the laptop. I went over to pick it up, got home, pulled the cover off the laptop and took a stick out the box. Hmm the stick was twice the size of the slot! They'd given me desktop RAM not laptop RAM. So another half hour round trip, and this time I took my laptop with me so that they could fit it in the shop. I wasn't impressed!

Anyway, if you've got a spare slot or not running to your full capacity (or you don't know what the full capacity of your machine is) then go over to Crucial, run the system scanner and see what it comes back with. The memory is so cheap now it's worth maxing out your machine.

* No I don't work for Crucial, there's no even affiliate links in this post. I was just very impressed with the prices we got yesterday, and the speed and efficiency of them.

Last month (doesn't time fly!) I wrote about improving my jQuery, whereby I wanted to just improve the code I'd been using on this project I've been working on for 3 months now. I'm all for more efficient code, and of course as with most programming languages, the more you use it, the more you learn, and the more efficient and improved your code becomes.

With thanks to Sam Hampton-Smith and Marc Grabankski (who is the developer of the UI Datepicker, a fantastic jQuery popup calendar), I managed to get my questions answered, learning plenty in the process! I said I'd write up what I actually did so that it's maybe of use to others (as I couldn't find a complete answer online anywhere).
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(Yes it's another rant about a business!). It's a bit of a scam really in my opinion. It depends on whether you phone them, or if they phone you, and who you speak to. That's what it seems like. I've been a customer of Vodaphone's for the past 6 years, spending around £900 per contract (18 months in recent years). When I worked abroad I'd often spend a few hundred a month, once I topped £400 for the month. Okay, so it may not be much to a company like Vodaphone, but a 6 year old customer spending more than the average individual consumer is surely who Vodaphone should be wanting to please? Clearly not.

Note whilst this is my experience with Vodaphone, I believe it happens with all the main mobile phone operators, so this isn't a rant against Vodaphone just against them as a whole!

Last month I called Vodaphone about my contract renewal. I'd set my sights on a Nokia N95 telephone. I've had an N73 for the past 18 months and whilst it's a great phone, it's lacked wireless connectivity which would be useful to me. The N95 has that, plus an even better camera plus flash (the N73 has flash too) and numerous other handy features. On speaking to the upgrades team I asked about getting this phone. The guy I spoke to first tried putting me off it, saying how it broke a lot, I was told that about the N73 and had no problems there, so I shrugged them off. Then he told me it would cost as the phone wasn't cheap to buy. Although I doubt Vodaphone pay the high street prices that we'd have to pay as individuals. Okay, I appreciate a small fee, despite paying them over £900 for the last 18 months contract. He offered me a 24 month contract at £30 a month (I currently pay £35) and the phone would cost me £80. 24 months is a bit longer than I'd want to sign up for, 18 months is long enough really, so I said I'd go think about it. I then tried phoning again and got someone else, who offered me the same contract that I was on and the N95 for £160. I asked why new customers got it for free and existing customers had to pay – 'oh it's because the phone is quite expensive to buy'. But hang on, a lot of these new customers would pay the same as I pay, get the phone for free and probably leave once their contract was up and go get the next free phone elsewhere. That didn't make a difference, I couldn't get the N95 without paying over £100. Note, I was never offered a 24 month contract second time around.

Then she asked me why I wanted it, which I replied for the wireless feature, GPS and decent camera. She offered me the E65 for free, with no changes to my contract. As I'm really not very good at arguing my point (I'm a wuss!) and the camera wasn't so important (the E65 has a 2MP camera, no flash), I agreed, possibly because I figured there was no chance of getting the N95 and I was pretty tired and stressed with all the work I had on at the time.

Fast forward to last week, when Dave called about his upgrade. He's also with Vodaphone, been on the same contract as I have for the last 18 months and has been with them for 3 years. He got a little further from the upgrades to the promotions department trying to get the N95 but they told him no, despite him threatening to leave and go elsewhere where he could get the phone for free. So he was all intent on moving elsewhere, then today he got a call from the upgrade team. He told them he'd already tried upgrading but was told he couldn't get the phone he wanted so he was planning to leave. He told the person that he wanted the N95 and about 5 minutes he hung up saying he had the phone on its way, he's got the first 2 months line rental at half price, his monthly minutes have been increased by 20%, he's been given unlimited SMS messages, plus he has another feature which got taken away from me (kind of like unlimited landline calls, but not quite). He didn't even have to argue much for the phone and the rest was just given to him on a plate.

Clearly my 6 years of customer history and over £6000 in bills means nothing to them, yet someone who's been there just 3 years and paid out maybe £2000 in bills does. It's nice to know how the companies you're loyal to treat you in return. I had no change or improvements to my contract and the phone I got was a sideways move, not an improvement. I've lost features that the N73 had, and gained features. The N95 puts the features from both together.

So yes, it's a big scam. It depends on who you speak to, whether they call you or you call them, and how much of a good mood they're in no doubt. Being a long term, good paying customer means absolutely nothing to them I guess, and I'm sure the same goes on throughout the mobile phone industry. I think I may move my business elsewhere in 18 months, shame I can't do it now.