More people are surfing the Web via mobile device than ever before. It’s just so convenient to have that mobile access to anything you need. Sadly, most websites have not yet considered their mobile visitors, who probably move on to the next site before trying to make sense of a jumbled mess. Those of you who surf the Mobile Web know exactly what I’m talking about here: sites that “get it” are a joy to visit, but those that don’t are a total pain. What’s to get? Well, for one, if you do nothing else for your mobile visitors, take five minutes and implement a basic stylesheet to make your site readable via mobile device. This tutorial will show you how to retain visitors and reduce bounce rate with a super-easy 5-minute mobile makeover.

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After announcing my intention to redesign Perishable Press, I received some great feedback addressing everything from site architecture and navigation to appearance and usability. As the conversations continue, I want to spend some time thinking about usability, navigation, columns and sidebars. The current minimalist design features a single column layout with no sidebars. Content is located prominently front and center, with all navigational links appearing in either the oversized “footer” area or at the end of each individual post. As several people have pointed out, such navigational strategy (or lack thereof) discourages visitors from digging deeper into the site. Apparently, the pile of links at the bottom of each page — the menu, as I like to call it — requires far too much effort to decipher. I mean, really, just because it all makes perfect sense to me, doesn’t mean that everyone else will “get it” too.

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Lately I have noticed several sites that display those unsightly dotted outlines on high-profile link elements. Typically, these link outlines plague various header elements such as banner images, navigational links, and other key features. This behavior frequently haunts highly graphical site designs and is often associated with various image replacement methods that position the original anchor text offscreen, generally far beyond the left edge of the browser window. When visible, such presentations display a ghastly, four-sided dotted border that wraps the linked element and then continues to stretch to the left-hand side of the browser window. Here are a few examples of live websites demonstrating this distracting behavior ¹ (btw, no offense meant to any of these sites — they are all great — they just happen to provide good examples!):

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In the current version of my custom contact-form WordPress plugin, Contact Coldform, there is no built-in method of sending emails to multiple addresses. The thought of adding such functionality had not occurred to me until recently, when a Coldform user asked about enabling it. After a bit of investigation, it turns out that integrating multiple-recipient functionality into Contact Coldform is as easy as it is practical. I will definitely be adding this feature to the next release of the Coldform, however, here is the modification procedure for those who just can’t wait.

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How to streamline and maximize the effectiveness of your WordPress URLs by using htaccess to remove extraneous post-date information: years, months, and days..

Recently, there has been much discussion about whether or not to remove the post-date information from WordPress permalinks ¹. Way back during the WordPress 1.2/1.5 days, URL post-date inclusion had become very popular, in part due to reports of potential conflicts with post-name-only permalinks. Throw in the inevitable “monkey-see, monkey-do” mentality typical of many bloggers, and suddenly an entire wave of WordPressers had adopted the following permalink structure:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

The benefits of using this format are primarily organizational in nature. Post-date information that is “built-in” to every URL provides immediate, “at-a-glance” knowledge of post “freshness”. Looking ahead ten, twenty or even a hundred years into the future of the blogosphere, there will be trillions of posts and articles, each with their own unique URL. Archived copies of content may or may not include creation date: dynamically archived pages require deliberate database queries, while those archived statically may no longer have access to post-date data. Including post dates in permalinks provides permanent, facilitative record of content origination. Needless to say, most adopters of dated permalinks probably jump on board because the WordPress Admin makes it super-easy to follow the crowd.

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Welcome to the homepage for Contact Coldform, a free contact-form plugin for WordPress. Contact Coldform is designed with a sharp focus on clean code, solid performance, and ease of use. No frills, no gimmicks, only pure contact-form satisfaction. If you are looking for a solid, well-designed, user-friendly, fully customizable contact form, look no further: Coldform is perfect for any WordPress blogger. The comprehensive Options panel makes Coldform easy for beginners to take full control, while the consistent, logical PHP/(X)HTML code makes Coldform ideal for advanced users desiring customized functionality. The best of both worlds: a “clean-slate” contact form that provides everything you want and nothing you don’t! :)

Coldform Features:

• Compatible with WordPress versions 1.5 - 2.8 and beyond.
• Plug-n-play: add Coldform to any WordPress page or post.
• Simple installation — upload, activate, and customize.
• Complete WordPress Administrative Options panel for full control.
• Ultra-clean code output: standards-compliant, valid (X)HTML.
• Customizable anti-spam challenge question to protect against spam.
• Secure form processing and protection against malicious attacks.
• Same-page error messages to help users complete required fields.
• No obtrusive markup or code added to your <head>.
• Includes option to enable users to send carbon copies to themselves.
• Coldform message includes IP, host, agent, and much more.
• Customizable form-field captions, error messages, and success message.
• Customizable drop-in CSS skins for easy styling.
• Customizable CSS attributes.
• Customizable everything!

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