How many techy logo’s can you identify and know what they are? Click the pic to enlarge
I managed 18
Posts in the "The Web" category
New Icons
I am very pleased with this, but just a short note to credit the brand new icons that are on the homepage. I think they look brilliant, and sadly, this time, I pinched them from elsewhere.
But, I would like to add a credit to www.profimagazin.cz and thank them for licensing under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
How to use WordPress RSS Feeds – URL hacks
WordPress is a pretty amazing platform from which to run your website. In today’s world, especially if your website content is popular, it is not just common but expected to have RSS feeds available from that site. These allow you to distribute your information over various platforms, some automated, some not, and for readers to easily get hold of your news items quickly.
Yet, despite this some websites still do not provide this service. If you have your site built on WordPress, or even just the news section, RSS feeds are just so so easy to create with a little URL-hacking. Here’s what you can do…
Main site feed – http://yoursite.com/feed
How easy it that!!
Eg – http://robparker.org.uk/feed
Comments feed from all news items – http://yoursite.com/comments/feed
Eg – http://robparker.org.uk/comments/feed
Comments feed for individual posts – http://yoursite.com/(post-url)/feed
I’ve put in post-url because you can have different choices of how you have your post URL, such as ?p=345 or /year/month/day/custom-url
Eg – http://robparker.org.uk/2009/02/16/its-sunny-in-february/feed
Feed for categories – http://yoursite.com/category/(category-slug)/feed
You can find the category-slug by going to http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/categories.php
Eg – http://robparker.org.uk/category/general/feed
Feed for tags – http://yoursite.com/tag/(tag-slug)/feed
You can find the tag-slug by going to http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/edit-tags.php
Eg – http://robparker.org.uk/tag/bbc/feed
Feed for authors – http://yoursite.com/author/(author-slug)/feed
Eg – http://robparker.org.uk/author/admin/feed
Combination feeds for categories, tags and authors
You can add multiple tags together to get custom feeds, and you can also add categories together and authors together. You basically start with the same structure as above, and then you can put a + and then the category, tag or author slug after it – no spaces though!
http://yoursite.com/tag/(tag-slug1)+(tag-slug2)/feed
http://yoursite.com/author/(author-slug1)+(author-slug2)/feed
Although I’m not sure, it looks like the number of addition tags/categories/authors you use is limitless!
Eg – http://robparker.org.uk/tag/amazon+books+orwell/feed/
And for all of the above, removing the /feed will give you a page of the results too. Another brilliant set of tricks from WordPress! Enjoy!
Bing Search – the Decision Engine?
What a strange phrase to use – a decision engine. Personally, I find search most often not for decisions but for information, yet perhaps, to inform a decision, somehow!
Anyway, today we get to hear the first about Bing. Its going to be Microsoft’s new search engine, replacing what was MSN Search, then Windows Live Search, then just Live Search. Some would suggest they are, as always, trying to topple the mightly Google, yet others suggest this is way beyond their aspirations, and they are aiming lower, at Yahoo say.
Now, I haven’t actually read a great deal on this, but there’s a million and one links and stuff to click-through to via twitter posts. Interestingly, I’ve actually not used a search engine at all to research this, only on links from Twitter – literally the people’s search engine. But the essence of the project seems to be to bring every source of information together, and to display it as the result of a bing search.
Whether this be your weather or searching for a new camera, it appears to be able to find appropriate sites, route out the appropriate content and then select this and use it on its own pages, formatted together neatly. That is a massive ask.
The product / holiday selection features seem to be particularly notable in the promotional video, with bing acting like a combination of all the various price comparison websites for pretty much everything in one search result page. If achievable, this would be very impressive, time-saving and useful, but it is achievable? Microsoft obviously think so, but it would be a miracle if they have.
As yet its not yet available to use online, but I look forward to giving it a try. Oh, and not sure if it is taking on the other upcoming new-kid-on-the-block site Wolfram Alpha, but by the looks of the video bing can answer specific questions – or is it just showing that this is basic search and they are above that??
More? Have a look at…
Online Forms – Links for 2009-04-14
I was recently looking at the increasing availability of various online form submission systems. Here’s one I came across recently which certainly has a more professional and corporate appearance about it (not least as its a mainly paid service)
But there are new alternatives, such as Forms now available as an easy to integrate part of Google Docs. There’s lots more out there, but these are just a few. Of course, you cannot forget simply using the features that come with WordPress.
A find – an introduction to getting a website
Happened to stumble across this site today, and its actually quite a good read. Although I am actually past the stage this particular post really talks about, its really well written, clear, simple and straight-forward advice.
Although, the focus is really on blogging, with WordPress the line between blogs and websites is pretty much non-existent (you’re on an example of that right now) so much of what works for one is for the other. Sadly, at the moment, this is only hosted on WordPress.com, but perhaps sometime in the future I will move to a proper WordPress install, plug-ins and all!
Anyway, here’s the link
Easter 2009 – Part 1
So, continuing with the special event logos, today I have a new Easter Chick for you!
I hope you like it, its a little hand-drawn one that I created from an image I saw online. Its pretty nice I think 
Anyway, its here ’til Sunday when there will be a new logo and Easter Part 2….
Mother's Day Special
There’s a little change for today, the Rob Parker logo that appears at the top of every page of this website has been replaced by a special Mother’s Day image. I’ve credited the very useful source image I used from Flickr below.
I hope you like it, how well do you think it works?
Over time, I hope to develop a few of these for special occasions, so look out for them!
_______________________
View my photos at Flickr. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed of them.
Single daffodil, uploaded on 15th March, 2007 by nutmeg66
Taken at work today – brightening up the room (and making my eyes water with its perfume). I find daffodils tricky to photograph close up; they give me all sorts of DofF problems!
Handheld, natural light.
_______________________
This photo was not uploaded by me. But, I have selected it as good or funny or something and re-posting here is intended solely to admire the photograph.
Jack Penate is "ringing church bells"
So, listening to the radio and the new Jack Penate song, when I hear that he’s ‘ringing church bells’ - I never realised we had something in common!
If you watch the video below, its 2 minutes 10 seconds in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOvtKmIF-bI]
To watch the video on YouTube, click here, or to discover ringing church bells, click here.