An adaptation of the grid based responsive web design techniques, simplified into four different layout states for design: widescreen, traditional, tablet and mobile. Continue reading →

There are now thousands of articles online about WordPress custom post types, however this guide aims to distill all the information into a handy reusable boilerplate file that you can use each time you need to implement a custom post type into a client project. In part one of this guide I will outline the key components to the code required for creating a custom post type (CPT) and show how to implement the code as either a standalone plugin or as part of your theme’s functions.php file. Continue reading →

Helvetica is a popular font among graphic designers, however it is not commonly installed on Windows/PC devices. An alternative approach is to use a hosted webfont which will result in a more consistent cross-browser appearance of text. See a comparison of Helvetica, Arial and two similar webfonts. Continue reading →

A case study demonstrating the difference between ‘organic’ search engine results via SEO and Google AdWords advertisements via CPC, and the comparitive effectiveness of traffic generated by the two types of listings in search results from a particular keyword phrase. Continue reading →

Web design is undoubted seeing a shift towards “device agnostic design” thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices and tablet computers, which essentially means the beginning of the end for designing a website solely for a fullsize desktop screen. We are now entering a new era of responsive web design, a term coined by Ethan Marcotte in this article in May 2010. The recent Boston Globe redesign has implemented these techniques to be the first high profile website to go ‘responsive’. I believe it’s time to get onboard with this trend and so my first project to get my feet … Continue reading →

Hub pages link together similar content, presenting a central page to your website visitors of related pages. Not only does this provide an opportunity to optimise a page for a specific keyword phrase, but by linking related pages back to your hub page, you add authority to the hub page in the search engines. Continue reading →

How to customise page title and meta description for optimising your store. Below is a short how-to guide for setting your own page titles and meta descriptions for the default homepage, a custom homepage and a product page in the Interspire Shopping Cart online store software. See more related articles on the SEO fundamentals page. Continue reading →

How to create your own image slider or fade slideshow with the jQuery cycle plugin using NextGen Gallery for image management. Continue reading →

Making the tracking code work with Interspire Shopping Cart 6 Chances are that you’ve landed here because you’ve got a store running Interspire Shopping Cart and you can’t figure out why the ecommerce tracking in Google Analytics is not receiving any data. Before you implement the fix below, you’ll need to ensure that you have: Set up your Google Analytics tracking code in your Interspire Shopping Cart software via Settings > Analytics Settings Enabled your Google Analytics profile for ecommerce – see below What about the Ecommerce tracking code? Yep, you’ve already done all that and the Ecommerce section of … Continue reading →

How to customize thumbnail links in NextGen I recently did a client project featuring a catalogue of product images using a custom WordPress theme with NextGen Gallery. The site showcases products (fabrics) each with a swatch thumbnail and the requirement was for the swatches to be organised two ways: 1. Standard gallery (thumbnail links to full size image) Each product page displays a gallery of all available colours, where each thumbnail links to the full size version. See this in action on this product page. This is the built-in function of NextGen Gallery at work, where the above gallery has … Continue reading →

Custom post type breaks after upgrade to 3.1 I routinely upgraded a client website to WordPress 3.1 today and upon clicking the menu title of my custom post type in the back end, I was met with the error “Invalid Post Type”. On the front end side the permalinks were not working either; it was a real mess. OK, stay calm, I backed up the database, so it will be fixable. 3.1 upgrade also causes broken permalinks The code snippet below also includes the flush_rewrite_rules function which I had recently added to my custom post types article as a result … Continue reading →

The new kid on the SEO block has blown away the competition, in my opinion. This WordPress SEO plugin is packed full of great features. This post covers some of the key features of this impressive SEO plugin for WordPress. Now there’s no excuse not to get your SEO into great shape. Continue reading →

I am excited to introduce Mike Tate, a link building consultant and online marketing strategist, to whom I have begun referring clients wishing to focus on improving search engine rankings for their business. Continue reading →

A short video demonstration of how to use the Wordpress 3 menu manager. The demo shows how to reorder your menu items using the drag and drop function, as well as adding new pages to the menu and assigning pages as submenu items in a drop down menu. Continue reading →

How to create a drop down menu using the new Wordpress 3 menu function, combined with the Superfish jQuery plugin. This guide shows you how to register a menu in your functions.php file, call the menu in your theme, manage your menu via the Wordpress back end and apply the jQuery drop down function. Continue reading →

Below is a short demo video on how to manage your website image galleries with the NextGen Gallery plugin. Update: an even easier way to add a gallery to a post! I have discovered the little toolbar button that automatically adds the shortcode. See the two screenshots below Continue reading →

This is an incredible interactive video for a song by The Arcade Fire, who have teamed up with Google to create an interactive experience that makes use of emereging HTML5 technology, as well as Google maps information and probably some other cutting edge stuff. You’ll need to install the Google Chrome web browser to really experience this in all its glory, but its well worth your time. Continue reading →

Watch a short video walk-through about how to create an email marketing campaign using the incredibly easy to use Astronaut Email Marketing system. It’s as easy as selecting your custom designed template, then adding your headings, text and images. You can easily preview your email campaign in a browser or send yourself a test email to review it before sending to you list. Continue reading →

Exactly how Google produces its results is a closely guarded secret, at least regarding what information factors in the ranking algorithms. Conversely, they have openly announced something they don’t pay any attention to: meta keywords. What does this mean to you? Well, if you spend time cramming keywords into your meta tags in the hope that you’ll climb the rankings, then waste no more time because it’s official. Hear it directly from the mouth of Senior Google engineer, Matt Cutts. “But I thought keywords mattered?”, you say. Yes, they do. But only within your page content. You see, Google search … Continue reading →

This book by The New Yorker writer Ken Auletta explores the effect of Google, and the internet in general, on many of the World’s old business models. Since it’s foundation in 1998, Google has become the household name for  internet search and along the way the company has developed a business utilizing its efficiency to provide advertising as targeted as the search results.  In 2008, while the world at large was in financial crisis, Google posted $21.8 billion in revenue – 97% of which was from advertising – more than the combined revenues of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. ‘Old … Continue reading →

How to create a portfolio page with a custom post type & page template WordPress 3 has a handy new feature for creating custom post types that can be managed via their own main menu item. A website such as this one is an ideal candidate, as the ‘Posts’ menu is used for blog posts and the ‘Pages’ menu is used for everything else, so now we can create a home for everything that appears on the ‘Portfolio’ page and manage this very easily in the back end. It is possible to define any custom post type that you want, … Continue reading →

SEO is a healthy mix of common sense, best practices and knowing how the system works. Ultimately, keywords are what stand between your website and your customers. Google and the other search engines simply take the keywords that your customers punch into the search box and try to return the most relevant results. Who is your target market? Think about the geographic and demographic elements to your business and what words are associated with those factors, eg: suburb or region names, etc. Continue reading →

Google has recently released the latest version of their Chrome browser, and have produced a YouTube video to demonstrate its superior browsing speed. I agree that Chrome is the fastest browser and I love that the address bar doubles as a Google search box, but I still prefer Firefox for it’s impressive range of add-ons and the intuitive bookmarks feature. If you’re not entirely sure what a browser actually is – check out the What is a Browser? post. Continue reading →

Yesterday I attended a talk about link building at the CeBIT expo in Sydney by Dan Petrovic from Dejan SEO. He discussed the concept of “link juice” – a jargon term for how much a link is worth to your SEO, and explained some of the many factors involved in the value of linking both to and from other websites, notably: The text that constitutes the link to your website matters (called ‘anchor text’). Click here offers no relevant information, however if the text Classical Music Online was instead used as the anchor text, this would be much more beneficial. … Continue reading →

With so much of your personal data online these days, it is essential that you protect your password. Ultimate protection. I would like to credit www.nidokidos.org for this wonderful innovation. Continue reading →

Click here to see what browser you are currently using. This is an article about choice. Google recently polled people in the streets of New York city asking “What is a browser?” The most common response was something similar to “It’s what you search the internet with.” Close, but not quite. Only 8% of answers were technically correct. Learn what a web browser is by watching this 1-minute video. A browser is a program that you use to view webpages – it is what you browse (aka surf) the internet with. This is in the same sense that Microsoft Word … Continue reading →

If you have a ‘Links’ page on your website, this guide will take you through the steps on adding links and organising them into categories. If you do not have a links page on your WordPress site, please contact us to request one. Adding Links Go to your website’s admin login page. Add wp-admin to end of your website address, eg: www.yoursite.com.au/wp-admin (bookmark it!) Login with your username and password In the Dashboard screen, you will see the main menu on the left hand side. Click Links in the main menu to access the Edit Links page. This will also … Continue reading →

The aim of this article is to outline the fundamental principles of search engine optimisation for your website. Below is a summary of the main points I will discuss: Meta data explained Identifying keyword phrases Keywords in domain names Copywriting & Headings Writing a blog Link Building Meta data explained In order to understand how to correctly optimize your page, you need to know a little bit about what is happening under the hood. Firstly, meta data is simply information about your page, rather than the information on your page. The meta data elements that you can control within your … Continue reading →

Meta data explained In order to understand how to correctly optimize your page, you need to know a little bit about what is happening under the hood. Firstly, meta data is simply information about your page, rather than the information on your page. The three meta data elements that you can control within your website system are as follows: Page title – what the page is called. It is often the same as the page heading but it doesn’t have to be. Page description – roughly 2 lines of text visible only to search engines Keywords – these are comma … Continue reading →

This article will guide you step-by-step through the process of adding a new page, editing your pages and deleting unwanted pages. Go to your website’s admin login page. Add wp-admin to end of your website address, eg: www.yoursite.com.au/wp-admin (bookmark it!) Login with your username and password In the Dashboard screen, you will see the main menu on the left hand side. Click the Pages link in the main menu to get to the Edit Pages page. This will also display the submenu items of the Pages menu Adding a New Page Click the “Add New” link in the left hand … Continue reading →

Astronaut Designs uses Google Analytics for website statistics on all our projects as it provides an unparalleled analysis of your website for great value (it’s free). Below is a short video tour of the interface, followed by a basic how-to guide on accessing and understanding your website stats. Beginner’s video tutorial How to log in Go to www.google.com/analytics and click the “Access Analytics” button to login. Login with your Google Account details. If you have not been given access to your analytics, please contact us. In the account overview page you will see you website listed in the table. Click … Continue reading →

Open Outlook. Click the Tools menu, and select Account Settings… On the E-mail tab, click New… When prompted to Choose E-mail Service, select Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP, and click Next. In the Auto Account Setup window, fill in all necessary fields to include the following information: Your Name: Enter your name as you would like it to appear in the “From” field of outgoing messages. (eg: Tim Holt) Email Address: Enter your full email address (eg: tim@astronautdesigns.com) Password: Enter your email password. Check the “Manually configure server settings” box and then click Next. For the “Choose Email Service” … Continue reading →

Open Outlook. Click the Tools menu, and select E-mail Accounts… Click Add a new e-mail account, and click Next. Choose POP3 as your server type by clicking the radio button, and click Next. You will see the window shown below. Fill in all necessary fields to include the following information: User Information Your Name: Enter your name as you would like it to appear in the From: field of outgoing messages. Email Address: Enter your full email address (eg: tim@astronautdesigns.com) Server Information Incoming mail server (POP3): pop.gmail.com Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com Login Information User Name: Enter your full email … Continue reading →

OK, this has nothing to do with web design or computers. It’s just one of those emails doing the rounds and I felt the urge to drop in here amongst everything. Click the link to the right to view the post… Continue reading →

Keyword Specific Landing Pages A good method for boosting your Google ranking is to create keyword specific “landing pages” on your site. The more pages you have, the more combinations of keywords you can use to target potential searchers. For example, a removalist company that operates in Sydney has many individual pages each with different keywords such as suburb names, moving materials, furniture names for moving, information pages, etc. So from a list of keywords such as: mosman, bondi junction, mona vale, piano, antiques, moving boxes, packaging for moving, tips for moving, you can create individual landing pages such as: … Continue reading →

How to add, edit and delete news or blog posts on your Wordpress-powered website. This article only applies to websites that have a news or blog page. For instructions on how to manage ‘Pages’, please see the “Pages: add, edit & delete” article. Continue reading →

A client using Google Apps for email reported to me last week that they had received about 300 spam messages into 3 of their users’ inboxes overnight. The ‘Remove Spam’ function in Gmail now incorporates an automated unsubscriber and while I was the process of flagging these messages as spam, I noticed that the unsubscribe notices were all relating to googlegroups.com domains. My high regard for Google’s spam filter had me expecting this problem to be resolved quickly upon reporting the spam, however today my client contacted me again with news of another wave of googlegroups.com spam. I seems that … Continue reading →

What is Typekit? Typekit is a newly launched subscription-based typography service hosting an array of font files on a globally distributed network of servers in multiple locations across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The idea is to allow web designers to choose from hundreds of fonts for designing webpages, rather than the limited number of browser fonts, or creating image files to replace text. How does it work? From their site: “Add a line of code to your pages and choose from hundreds of fonts. Simple, bulletproof, standards compliant, accessible, and totally legal.” By adding the Typekit code to … Continue reading →

As a freelancer, keeping track of time is essential to any work done at an hourly rate, and when you’re jumping between clients and jobs, it can be really difficult to remember how long you spent doing what for who. Thankfully there are a number of online time-tracking services and in this post I will outline my own use of Freshbooks for time tracking. The free Freshbooks account is limited to 3 clients but it allows you to create unlimited projects and tasks,  so I simply use the projects for my clients and tasks under projects  – for example “Frosty’s … Continue reading →

When it comes to broadband internet in Australian metropolitan areas, you’ve got three main options: 1. Standard ADSL2+ broadband (requires an active phone line rental) 2. Naked ADSL2+ (requires an existing phone line connection that is then cancelled) 3. Mobile broadband (runs on the 3G mobile phone networks). Now for some important points: * Wi-Fi in your house via a wireless router is not the same as mobile broadband. Think of it as the difference between a cordless home phone and a mobile phone. A common misconception. * DSL and ADSL and ADSL2+ commonly refer to the same thing. Just … Continue reading →

I’m a Google fan from way back. I’ve been using Gmail, Google Apps, Docs, Calendar, Analytics, Gears, etc for many years. I’m a believer in the future of computers and the internet lies in cloud computing. Last month Google previewed their latest creation – Google Wave. This one makes even the Google search engine seem insignificant. Google Wave is a multi-layered communication platform where friends, colleagues, or whoever can communicate by text – like instant messaging, but also drop in embedded pictures, maps, video right in the message window. So what? Then you can interact with the map you just … Continue reading →

Issue: when you try to uninstall IE8 from Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs>Add/Remove Windows components, it appears to be removed. However when you try to install IE7 you see the error message: “Setup cannot continue because a more recent version of Internet Explorer has been detected on this computer”. Solution: it turns out IE8 does not get completely uninstalled and to completely remove it you need to run the spuninst.exe found at this location: “C:\WINDOWS\ie8\spuninst\spuninst.exe“. Once complete it will ask to restart and after that you can install IE7 once again. Continue reading →

Download Ubuntu Server iso file, burn to disc and run install. Install GUI and Webmin: Reference article After installation, run sudo apt-get update Then install desktop: sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop Install Webmin – first install dependencies sudo aptitude install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl Download lastest Webmin package, eg wget http://garr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webadmin/webmin_1.441_all.deb Then install sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.441_all.deb Login to Webmin at https://server-ip:10000 Upgrade 8.04 to 8.10 : Reference article Backup! Install Update-manager core sudo aptitude install update-manager-core Edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades sudo vi /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and set Prompt=normal Launch the upgrade tool using the following command sudo do-release-upgrade Shell & VNC … Continue reading →