Sitemaps

Posted by David | Filed under Web Design Tips

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Sitemaps are an incredibly useful tool for website owners, they are an XML document that spiders can look at to more efficiently crawl through a website in a more intelligent manner.  They also allow for added information about the pages including when they were last updated, how often the page gets changed and how important it is compared to other URLs.

Sitemaps are complementary to Robots.txt while one excludes a search engine from certain areas of your site, the other includes areas.  You can include your site map in your Robots.txt by adding the following code to it.

Sitemap: http://www.mysite.com/mysitemap.xml/

Before creating your own site map you may want to find out whether the software package you are using is capable of doing so for you automatically, this can save you some effort!

For WordPress there are available SiteMap plugins, however supposedly there will be an integrated sitemap in WordPress 2.7

There are also online Sitemap generators including this one here. 

Once you have created your sitemap you must submit it to search engines, each one has their own way of doing it.

Google via Webmaster Tools, Yahoo via Site Explorer, and Ask! via copying the below into your browser and amending the URL as required.

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml

Sitemaps have a maximum limit of 50,000 URLs (but you should probably not go this high!) and or 10MB in size.

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Read more | Comments (0) | Saturday, 9th Aug 2008

My Current Top 5 WordPress Themes

Posted by David | Filed under Web Design Tips

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There are some really impressive WordPress themes available out there, personally I am a fan of simplicity and professional looking design which show off their Web 2.0 looks! Here are my Top 5 WordPress themes that I’ve found/been created as of August 2008.

When I judge a theme I look at is practicalities as well, an amazing theme may not be very versatile or may depend a lot on fancy Paint Shop Pro work or have specific pictures integral to the design

Number 5 – D’Sanctuary

At Number 5 is a theme at TopWPThemes.com called D’Sanctuary, I really love its simple design, it makes finding things clear and easy and is useful when you don’t necessarily want to use WordPress just for blogging.

In fact I love this one so much I’ve actually used it on one of my recent clients sites DTV-8, here I’ve used the blogging system as a news article system, which takes advantage of the WordPress archive and catergory abilities

As with all my Top 5 templates the side bar is fully widigtized!

Official Site: TopWPThemes.com (Demo)

Number 4 – CoolBlue

At Number 4 another TopWPTheme.com theme this time in blue! This one doesn’t seem to have a fancy name its just simply CoolBlue.

Again this is widigitised. I really like the curved edges on this, I have to admit I am really weak with the new curvey Web2.0 styles which you will notice as you go down the list further!

It may not be to everyones taste but I also like the way the dates are done on those funky boxes, and I do like the horizontal navigation bar at the top as well.

Official Site: TopWPThemes.com (Demo)

Number 3 – Shades of Grey

I don’t like dark coloured background at all on the internet, but this one I spotted and quite liked, its nice and simple and has the potential for a greal deal of user tailoring and improvements, the horizontal navigation bar is particular good in my opinion, and the theme has options for fixed width etc.

Official Website: Arcsin (Demo)

Number 2 – TechJunkie

You may now have noticed a curvey pattern! At Number two is Theme Labs conversion of a StyleShout theme. Simplistic and yet beautiful, the only issue I have with this theme is the sort of green coloured background, it can be such a pain ensuring all the images are on a colourless background otherwise they tend to look a bit naff, but if you blog with relatively few images then it may be worth considering!

Its fully widgitised.

Official Site: Theme Lab (Demo)

Number 1 – VectorLover

Its a bit similar to TechJunkie but I like them both, infact I like this one better! Gone is the green background! This template is so great I’ve even used it here on my own blog! What’s great about it is not only does it look good, but it integrates so well with WordPress, everything has been thought of its fully widgitized but I also like the small bar it shows about Permalinks the Date and Comments.

Official Site: Theme Lab (Demo)

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Read more | Comments (1) | Saturday, 9th Aug 2008

vBulletin vs phpBB

Posted by David | Filed under Web Software

Before I get started on this, I must stress that when it comes to things like this it is completely a matter of personal opinion, there will be people out there who love and loathe phpBB and there will be people out there who think vBulletin is the best.

I have used both in the past both as a user and administrator.

Definition: “Mod” this is the process of editing the PHP code of your website, to add features, it is often a very risky process and can result in your site no longer functioning if done badly.

Users

For the average user there perhaps isn’t much difference in vBulletin and phpBB, since both can be styled differently with various themes and templates so in theory you could have an identical looking board for the user, even the fancy WYSIWYG in vBulletin can be modded into phpBB. The main thing here is that vBulletin comes cram packed with tonnes of useful features so you are less likely to need to “mod” your forum to your specific needs. On the other hand phpBB has all the basics, and if the basics are all you want why pay?

phpBB is also still being improved as is vBulletin so features that once a user had to “mod” in phpBB now come as standard such as Attachments to posts.

In the default theme, for users of both forums vBulletin definitely wins for its aesthetically please look making the software seem easier to use the phpBB.

Administrator

For the administrator life can be as difficult as you chose the make it! If you want a basic forum phpBB can supply that basic forum and it won’t be a hassle to run, but if you want lots of extra features added to improve your website then it may take you many hours and days to “mod” those features in. There may also be conflicts between “mods”, but this could also happen in vBulletin if you were to mod it.

The administration is significantly easier in vBulletin mainly due to the use of AJAX which means that you do not have to refresh the page to edit stuff, and you then don’t forget what you were doing. Moderation is also done in this way which is much nicer for yourself and any moderators you have.

Support wise you are likely to get just as good community support from either vBulletin or phpBB, though you can pay for phone in support with vBulletin which you cannot with phpBB.

 

Key Similarties

  • Both have an Administartive, Moderator and User Control Panel.
  • Both are created in PHP and require a MYSQL database.
  • Both allow for multiple attachments
  • Both have a private message system, both also allowing for customizable private message folders.
  • Both have COPPA registration and CAPTCHA on registration
  • Both have custom profile fields, and allow users to add and modify details about themselves.
  • Both allow for email notification.
  • Both have permission systems.
  • Both have adequate security and anti-spam measures.
  • Both have unread thread tracking.
  • Both allow users to create polls.
  • Both have support for private forums.
  • Both have user ranks and avatars.

 

Key Differences

vBulletin (3.7.2) phpBB(3)
£100 for license Free (GPL)
Subscription required to upgrades Upgrades Free
Allow for Paid Subscription with multiple credit card handlers out of the box Requires modding for this to occur.
User Reputation System Requires modding for this to occur.
Easily Editable FAQ Less easily editable FAQ
(Multiple) Calendar Requires modding for this to occur.
WYSIWYG Editor Requires modding for this to occur.

There are defiantly more similarities and differences but I feel that I’ve covered the main ones here, they can be quite difficult to work out as often both have different names for the same thing!

If I had to chose just one I would chose vBulletin, despite the price tag I think overall it wins and is a worthy investment. Neither are likely to stop being updated/improved though as both have a strong following, it will be interesting to see who is producing the better software in a couple years time!

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Read more | Comments (0) | Friday, 8th Aug 2008