ErisDS

Thanks for taking the time to read it, hope it's useful! Re Mountain dew: You gonna meet me at 6am at Gatwick when I get back to collect it off of me? 3 long, fabulous weeks in Florida I'm literally bouncing off the walls I'm so excited. Must go pack, leave at 6 am tomorrow!

An introduction to Symfony for folks who are wondering what it is and what it can do for them: Symfony: What is it good for?

I'm sorry but I don't know where you got that idea from!! Sure many corporates have upgraded, but not in the public sector. Pretty much the entirety of the NHS runs Windows 2000 meaning they can only have IE6, and it's the same across much of the public sector. People often quote the W3C browser stats but these are not a true reflection as they measure usage of the w3c sites, and because of the target audience these people are more likely to have upgraded or switched browser. The Browser News site is quite good, although lacks rigour as there is little detail about when or how the statistics are collected. They say "About 32% use IE6, with its percentage decreasing slowly as users switch to IE 7-8 and other browsers." That slowly decreasing percentage is stuck because of Win2k and a lack of general understanding amongst the computer illiterate MS using general populous who don't even know to click on the little yellow automatic updates shield or say yes to updates. How many people here have attempted to resolve some extended family members computer problem only to discover they have a 5 year old XP machine that has never had a single update? How many people do each of you know who refer to the little blue 'e' as "The Internet". And even if 85% of your target audience is using IE7 do you really want to exclude 15% of your potential market (assuming none of them use alternate browsers)? That's an awful lot of lost revenue for you/your clients. I strongly support the graceful degradation of IE6 sites, and once W2k becomes obsolete (read my afore mentioned blog post) perhaps the time might even come to start placing upgrade messages on sites for IE6 (perhaps, I really don't like this strategy it is very unprofessional). However for the time being the the target market of most websites will include a large percentage of IE6 users and not even considering to support IE6 is bordering on negligence.

Thanks for the plug Scott! Saves me a job!!! The answer to the question is a simple "Yes". You should still ensure your websites at least WORK in IE6. That is they should have basic functionality. It is up to you how far you go with the level of experience you offer to your IE6 viewers, if you have some fancy functionality which you choose to make degrade gracefully because IE6 is not your target market of course that is fine. But the average business site will still have IE6 making up a large proportion of it's target market and so it may be necessary to take extra special care to make sure there is no degradation. This is a project-by-project decision that needs to be carefully considered.

What is more important... A good google ranking, or actual visitors? Posting useful stuff and gaining a good reputation around internet forums might not get you backlinks, but it does bring people to your site, which surely is what you're after in the first place?? If the people you are attracting are not your target market then you are building relationships in the wrong places. Using forums just to build backlinks is silly. Using forums to network and build relationships with like minded people who might link to you on their own sites (Naturally through blog posting I mean, not link exchanging) is what forums are for, as well as the sense of community, helping and getting help, and generally having somewhere to go & hang out!

legend

Lol Notbanksy, I just saw that you had made a reply to this thread and new there would be a wise-crack anti-ms joke and a linux-plug in here, so though I'd come and read. I was very tempted to put: Q: Why is Vista running very slow? A: Because it's Vista Disabling startup programs is another thing that Tune-up will help with. If you run the system optimiser or 1-click maintenance you'll find it will make these kinds of suggestions for you and then carry out the work with a simple click or two. I think it's strange that this is mainly manifesting as a browsing issue though, am I correct in my understanding that is only the internet that is going slowly? Have you tried running ping and tracert tests to check if it's actually your internet connection? I know you said it was working, but these things can "break" as well. I'm not sure how you get to the command prompt in Vista (in XP it's Start > Run then type "cmd" and press "ok"), but once you've got the prompt open type "ping google.ie" (without the quotes) and see what the round trip times are. I get 48ms for google.co.uk, but my connection is being used quite heavily... you should get 30-50ms. If it's slow, then type "tracert google.ie" and send your results to your ISP

Welcome aboard

Defragging your hard drive wouldn't hurt apache. I recommend trying this tool http://www.tuneup-software.co.uk/products/tuneup-utilities/ It guides you through doing a lot of PC maintenance. It has a 30-day free trial and I think you'll find it well worth the small fee if you want to continue using it. I have had it for several years now.

Happy Birthday Bro! 34 birthday bumps has got to hurt < non-incestuous birthday hug Hope your having a great day and already completely off your face!! I don't expect we'll hear from you (at least not coherently) for at least 3 days!! Sis

Check this out: http://themesphere.com/twitter-wordpress-comments.html

Hehehe, this is a big topic after the recent release of the results of the "A List Apart Web Design Survey 2008". There is an interesting article on it here: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/04/09/...-do-not-matter/ Just for interest, I'm a web developer but my job title is "Interactive Developer" (I was given it btw...)

There are definitely similarities... but it's not even the same blue is it? To take the extremely cynical view, I can imagine that if the designer of the original site saw yours they might feel a little peeved at your choice of background image + colour scheme. However your site is definitely a case of "I was inspired by" as opposed to "I copied". You aren't using the pink, which is one big difference. If you wanted to make absolutely sure they are entirely different then I would tweak one of either the background image or the use of horizontal rules. Just my 2c

parkerdeano, I do suggest that you go to 123-reg.co.uk, sign up for an account and purchase the domain yourself. At around £6 this isn't going to be a major set back and at least you'll have secured that as an asset. I wouldn't recommend building the site for yourself as there are many issues that you can run into with e-commerce. However there are many, many reliable companies out there and this forum is a good way to find them. I'd definitely file a claim against the company and try to get your money back as it seems that they aren't going to fulfill their end of the bargain.

If you want their name to just be a link to their URL or twitter page, then in the user's profile just set their website to be whichever one you want it to be. You'll need to use a theme (or create/edit one) which pulls through the authors name and authors link in the way that you want. As for easy contact form, you add it exactly how it says: You literally type "[easy-contact]" wherever you want it to appear. It's called a shortcode and they're used a lot in wordpress for these sorts of plugins.

Here's a screenshot of what I've got: You can see how you would add a byline field to the custom fields system. I added the "Additional Post Settings" box with a subtitle field. I can provide the code for doing this if you want it.

For forms use the Easy Contact form plugin. There is also contact form 7 plugin which does multiple forms but I prefer Easy Contact. I'm not sure how you would add someone's twitter name, you'd need to setup a custom profile field I think? Perhaps if you describe exactly how you want this to appear I can help. As for a "By Line" do you mean a subtitle under each title, like I have on my blog ? This can be done using the "custom fields" under a post, I have set up a special box for inputting it separate to the "custom fields" box and created a the_subtitle() function to go with it, but that isn't necessary. If you just create a custom field called "byline" you can then use the following code to access it: get_post_meta($post_id, "byline", true)

123-reg without a doubt. Easy to use control panel which gives you complete control over your domains. Easy to transfer to them, easy to transfer from them. Regular reminders for renewals and very good prices. They do charge you if you want to hide your whois info though, not sure if that's standard?

These issues need a watchful eye from moderators. I think Dizi's is quite a special case, she has been such a prominent member of our community and her design has been featured in Smashing Mag. We are all familiar with it and the level of skill which Dizi has that there was no question regarding who was the guilty party. In other cases it is unlikely to be as black and white as this and we should proceed with caution. However I absolutely believe in the use of this forum as a public space to vent frustrations, rally support and garner advice. What I think should be moderated heavily is people who are just "jumping on the bandwagon" or making accusations WITHOUT any form of proof.

There's a different forum?????? Lol, Ben I hope everything goes really smoothly. I have noticed WDF taking longer to load recently and wasn't sure if it was just my sucky net connection or the site. I guess this place has gotten pretty big and needs better accomodation!

I cannot believe that this person hasn't done anything yet Not only leaving your content and design online under their domain, but coming here and making threatening posts. Dizi I seriously hope that you have already contacted their host because this is ridiculous. We all know they are aware of the situation and their wrong doing. They have no excuse, not that ignorance is one, but seriously you should be owed damages every day this continues + a royalty on any paid work they've done whilst using your identity as their own. There have been lots of examples of plagiarism highlighted here (and in my tweets) over the last 24 hours, so far this person is the only one who has been contacted but hasn't ceased immediately. I would be so frustrated if I were you. WDF needs to find a crack team of web-savvy intellectual property lawyer types to help us all out in this situation. I'm surprised we haven't had any visit us here yet.

The moderators have just received the following message via the "Report this post tool" from someone who is presumably connected with Blue Strawberry Designs Firstly, let me address the issue of personal details (name, address, email) being published here. This is freely available information (you can find it here) and we have not done anything illegal or against the forum rules to republish that information here. I assume that emails from forum members came to you via this information, or perhaps from the address you published on your website http://bluestrawberrydesigns.com/contact.html I totally understand where you are coming from regarding it being a learning experience, as we have all used other peoples code to learn how to write html and css. However, it is not at all clear from your website that this is the case as it is presented as if it is your own portfolio site. Finally, it is not just "some of the content" which requires changing, but rather the entire design which is infringing the copyright of Dizi's website. I think you'll find that the strong reactions which you have exprienced from our forum member are due to the fact that not only have you stolen someone else's work, but you are also claiming to be a professional webdesigner capable of creating original works.

That made me knai.

How long until WDF 3.0 ???

I wrote a blog post about this yesterday: http://erisds.co.uk/internet/down-with-ie6...it-to-microsoft </shameless plug> I do hope that after Win 2k is finished with, MS will start to push for the end of IE6... but I really think the web design and development community needs to turn up the pressure and direct it at MS instead of directing it at users who just don't know any better.