It’s not always easy finding the best web hosting provider for your websites, so I thought I would recommend the web host company I use. I set up my first website in 1996, and since then I have used several website hosting companies. Initially, I evaluated them based only on features and price. However, a couple of years ago my old web host had a system crash, and incredibly had no recent backups. I had my own local backups, fortunately, but I did lose some email. I immediately started searching around for a new web host, and settled on Lunarpages because they had everything I needed at a reasonable price. I thought I should write a little Lunarpages review to help you evaluate the many options for web hosting. Continue reading “Web hosting” →
Read your readers’ minds
The Search box on your blog is a valuable source of information to you as a blogger. If you keep track of what your readers are searching for and what results they get, you’ll know what your visitors want to read. Then you can make sure they find it on your blog, and turn casual searchers into regular readers. In this article, I describe a few ways you can keep track of this essential information. I also introduce a WordPress plugin that does it automatically. Continue reading “Read your readers’ minds” →
Search Meter: a WordPress plugin
I have released Search Meter, a new WordPress plugin that should help you keep your blog focused on what your visitors want to read. It does this by keeping track of what your visitors are searching for, and more importantly whether they are finding it. Continue reading “Search Meter: a WordPress plugin” →
The C++ Programming Language
Bjarne Stroustrup’s definitive C++ book, The C++ Programming Language, is the only book you really need to give you a deep understanding of C++. It has a reputation of being a dense read — even difficult — but this just reflects the huge amount of information it contains. I have always considered this the best programming text I have ever read, so I thought I should try to spread the word. Continue reading “The C++ Programming Language” →
WordPress pingback and trackback bug
There is a bug in the way WordPress 1.5.1 handles draft posts and Advanced Editing mode. One effect of this is that pingbacks and trackbacks are sometimes sent with the wrong URL. This problem has been around for a while, but it looked a bit complicated so I figured that somebody would fix it one day. But as I was trying to write a useful new plugin, the bug hit me. So I have investigated the bug and found out what it’s all about. I have also written a plugin that fixes the problem. Continue reading “WordPress pingback and trackback bug” →
WordPress rewrite rules
This is an investigation into some problems with the way WordPress generates .htaccess
rules to make its fancy permalinks work. For a new site I am building, I wanted the permalinks to not have the date in the URL. Accordingly, I set the permalink structure to the following.
/%category%/%postname%/
Once I did this, I couldn’t access any single posts. Continue reading “WordPress rewrite rules” →
Less: a WordPress plugin
Less is more.
Less is a WordPress plugin that makes reading posts more intuitive for your many readers. With Less, when readers click a (more…) link on your post “teaser”, they see the full article on the screen, not just the part after the (more…).
Nofollow considered harmless
Google introduced the rel="nofollow"
attribute earlier this year; most blogging platforms now support it. Its initial promise of ridding the web of blog comment spam has not happened, and there has been a lot of conspiracy theory about the “real” reasons Google would do this. But it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about. This issue came up in the IO Error blog — I started to write a comment on it, but the logorrhoea set in, as it often does. Continue reading “Nofollow considered harmless” →
Safe Title: a WordPress plugin
Here’s an amusing hack to fix a niggling problem in the WordPress default theme. I came up with this soon after I started using WordPress, but I recently noticed that this small annoyance had generated a discussion on Mathibus.com. My fully automatic solution is now ready for a waiting world. Continue reading “Safe Title: a WordPress plugin” →
Microsoft versus Free Software
Last month I wrote that Microsoft doesn’t understand the GPL. But there’s more where that came from. Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative website also includes a page on Basic Principles of Software Source Code Licensing, which attempts to debunk other open source licensing practices in favour of their own. Continue reading “Microsoft versus Free Software” →