Archive for Work

Make Your Themes Stand On Their Own

January 10, 2006 at 9:41 am · Filed under Technology, Work

I’ve been slowly working on a new site that will feature blogs that cover different topics, from all kinds of different categories. The new site is not using the MU (multiple user) version of WordPress, and all of the different blogs are being installed, manually. Each of the different topics will have it’s own theme, which I’ll be customizing for the site, though. I’ve done quite a bit of work on themes and templates, in the past.

I recently had a chance to do some work on themes for a different site (a blog network), where all of the themes had been created or customized by somebody else. They wanted me to add some features to the themes that would help their site with “cross-pollination” for increased revenue, across their network. I realized, shortly after starting work on the themes, that there was absolutley no way that I could change things in them, without breaking “something”.

Their themes (most of them) had been customized to work on the domains that they were used on, and would not work correctly on any other domain. I’ve always used a live server to verify the changes that were made to the themes, so I uploaded all of them to a brand new WordPress installation, that would be used, just for the purpose of this job. I verified that I had all of the files that were dependent on each other, and any custom files that they had in the root directory that were created for their sites.

Four or five of the themes seemed to work, but the other 15 or 20 just wouldn’t fly.

A sugguestion for “anybody” that makes themes for “any” blog or CMS: DO NOT make them dependent on the domain that you’re building it for! Make them portable. Build them so you could take the theme directory, drop it into another domain, and it would just “work”. Include all of the files that are needed for everything in the theme or template within the theme directory. Do not hard code any HTML of PHP unless there is absolutely no other way.

If you do start hard coding any part of a template, document your changes and keep the records within the theme directory, so that the next person working on it will know what was done. It will also help “you”, in the future, if you need to change things back to the way they were.

Because of the way that the themes that I was asked to work on were built, I’m not going to be able to do it (unless I was given access to the live domain, itself…and I’m sure that won’t happen). The work and time that I would have to put into them would cost a whole lot more than what I would have to put into them. Regretably, I’ll have to pass it back to the original author, and also pass on the money that I could have made by doing this.

I would have loved to have pointed to specific domains and blog networks in this post, but I think that keeping “some” things private are more important.

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Long Night, Tonight…

November 26, 2005 at 11:47 pm · Filed under Work

It looks like I’m in for a long night, tonight (Internet Explorer only, and you have to install some ActiveX to see the cameras). Just use the username “webfeed” and the password “webfeed”, when logging on. If you take a look anytime before 2:00am CST, you should see a lot of activity. There’s a big wedding reception and a lot of people drinking from the open bar. Many of these people will be spending the night in the hotel.

Saturdays are notoriously the “worst” night for people patrying and keeping other guests awake. Tonight looks like a real PITA. I’m sure that I won’t be “live-blogging” anything because I’ll be too busy babysitting the drunk people and trying to keep the others happy.

These are the nights when people try to go skinny dipping in the pool, after it closes (11:00pm). The lights get turned off, and when I see the water moving, I turn them all on, hoping that they run for their rooms before I get there. I don’t need to see any of that.

I suppose it’s too late to call in sick…

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Hotel “Slow Season”

November 14, 2005 at 8:28 am · Filed under Work

The accomodations industry (up North, anyway) usually slows down in the Winter season. This season had hit us, full blast. There’s been a dramatic decrease in the amount of people staying with us, compared to previous years. I’ve talked to some of the other hotels in town, and they’re seeing the same thing.

I’m not exactly sure what factors are playing into this, but I’m sure that the fuel prices have something to do with it. In this two floor hotel, with over 100 rooms, there was nobody upstairs, last night, and 45 of the rooms downstairs were empty. Man, was it quiet!

In an effort to cut some costs on the other end, I’ve started turning off all of the lights that I possibly can, at night. I also “double-check” all of the guest rooms to make sure that the heaters aren’t running. Until it gets “really” cold, there’s no reason for them to remain on. I’m still looking for other places to trim some of the costs.

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Four Web Sites To Build, Maybe

October 3, 2005 at 10:07 am · Filed under Work

I’m going to be talking to a couple owners of quite a few different hotels, later today or tomorrow. I’ve already built one web site for one of their properties, and they are asking me about doing four other ones, now. Nothing is “set in stone” yet, so wish me luck.

The one that I built about a year ago is doing pretty well for them. We have an onling reservation system that is connected to the site, and it has “more than” paid off for them. The amount of SEO that the site gets is part of a maintenence package that I offer in my Web Site Services. I don’t have the details on the maintenence packages on my site, yet, but I have the information on paper. Because I do more “local” business, it hasn’t been as important to me to get the info on the site.

With a higher level maintenence package, I would be able to devote more time to the SEO for the sites, though. Building the site, and getting it “live” is only part of the battle. Getting the word out and getting traffic is the majority of making a successful web site.

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