Productive Afternoon
February 22, 2007 – 6:51 pm
For those of you who actually visit the site to read the occassional post I put up (as opposed to the feedreader users!) you may have noticed I've had a productive afternoon fixing up and changing this site slightly. I don't know how it started but I wanted to clean up the way the site looked a little. Then I spotted the validation errors in my HTML Validator firefox extension. I hate having validation errors on my site if I can help it (yes I know there's still one there! it's a javascript and I don't know how to fix it!!). As far as I'm concerned, the more valid and less bloated your code, the better a search engine spider can move around your site.
I've also upgraded to WordPress 2.1 finally, plus added the excellent Admin Dropdown Menus plugin (which I'm so used to now I add it onto every WP site I use!). Anyone who goes into their WP Admin often should really take this plugin for a test run. I've tidied up my links a little and moved the bulk of them into their own page, just keeping the most read ones on the front end.
I'm now just after something to put in the blue area of the header. I was thinking a skyline but I can't find anything appropriate. You see, this is why I don't design 
10 Responses to “Productive Afternoon”
You need to escape the forward slash in the closing tag </a> within the script. Changing it from </a> to <\/a> instead. Ordinarily you’d have to encode the characters in the link too, but they’re not being picked up as erroneous due to being written in by the script.
The other issue is that you can’t serve your document with a proper XML based mime type (application/xhtml+xml) whilst you have that script snippet there, even though you have an XHTML doctype, due to document writes being invalid within XML. It would just cause a parsing error and your page wouldn’t load.
By David on Feb 22, 2007
Hey, 3-columns!
By Will on Feb 23, 2007
Will - I've always had 3 columns! This was a template I threw up a month or so ago when my other one decided to have a mind of its own. I just found it a bit too red.
By Sarah on Feb 23, 2007
D'oh! I meant to say it was a 3-column layout like mine i.e. main content leftmost and two sidebars next to each other.
I used to prefer the more traditional style i.e. the layout you had previously, but I've grown to like this kind of layout quite a lot.
By Will on Feb 23, 2007
Ahhh gotcha
Yeah I just realised it's similar to yours - but it was just a free WP template! 
I'm sure I'll change it again in a few months
By Sarah on Feb 23, 2007
Mine was a freebie too!
By Will on Feb 25, 2007
I've been having fun with wordpress on my own site recently, and im about to upgrade my site to wp 2.1.
With you saying you will use the admin drop down on all your sites do you make wp sites for clients? or just for yourself?
i know you make your own cms systems but i wondered for small sites do you ever use wp?
ive not been around for a while either but im back now too
By slee on Mar 1, 2007
Yes I use WP for some clients who have a news section. It's so easy to use the template system. In fact we're using WP to power a whole network of sites at work too. With WP it really is a case of why reinvent the wheel!
http://www.rexjudd.co.uk is an example of the latest WP site of ours.
By Sarah on Mar 2, 2007
do you let the clients know they will be using wordpress?
ive had a nightmare upgrading my site in fact ive not managed to do it yet.
By slee on Mar 2, 2007
Yes always. I explain the whole blogging revolution, how the news they post is often indexed into blog searches within the hour and the exposure it can bring.
I'm away on business right now but if you've still got probs when I'm back let me know and I'll give you a hand with the upgrade
By Sarah on Mar 2, 2007