http://thisismyurl.com/downloads/wordpress-plugins/

Not to worry, the content is all OK but the site design … not so much.

As a result, the new and improved thisismyurl.com is really just the default TwentyEleven theme from WordPress while I try to decide what to do with the old theme, if you see anything funky on the site please let me know via Twitter!

/**
* Summary returns the current follower count of a specific Twitter account, or FALSE if not found
* @param String $twitter_username the username you wish to get a Twitter count for
* @param Number $transient_cache the time in seconds to cache the transient (default is one hour)
* @return String an unformatted number of followers from twitter
*
* @author Christopher Ross (@thisismyurl)
* @version 1.0.0
*/
function thisismyurl_twitter_count( $twitter_username = 'thisismyurl', $transient_cache = 3600 ) {

$current_twitter_count = get_transient( 'thisismyurl_twitter_count' );

if ( empty( $current_twitter_count ) ) {

$xml = file_get_contents ( 'http://twitter.com/users/show/' . $twitter_username );

if ( $xml ) {
$twitter_profile = new SimpleXMLElement ( $xml );
$current_twitter_count = $twitter_profile->followers_count;

if ( !empty( $current_twitter_count ) )
set_transient( 'thisismyurl_twitter_count' , $current_twitter_count, $transient_cache );
} else {
return FALSE;
}

}

return $current_twitter_count;

}

To display your current Twitter count in your WordPress theme, include the code:

if ( function_exists( 'thisismyurl_twitter_count' ) )
echo thisismyurl_twitter_count( 'thisismyurl', 3600 );

If the count can not be returned, the function will return FALSE which allows error checking such as:

if ( function_exists( 'thisismyurl_twitter_count' ) ) {

$twitter_count = thisismyurl_twitter_count( 'thisismyurl', 3600 );

if ( $twitter_count )
echo 'Twitter Count:' . $twitter_count;
}

What do you think? Is there a way to improve this function?

The same, not surprisingly holds true for writing on a blog.

First off, be honest. The Internet is a huge place but it’s easily searchable. If you don’t take the time to be honest, people will figure it out pretty quickly. The same goes for social media, but it’s particularly true with writing your blog. Follow some simple advice, it’s easier to tell the truth than to try to cover it up later.

Whenever possible, be assertive but not aggressive and learn the difference.

Be accurate. This isn’t the same as being honest, it’s important to realize that bloggers aren’t journalists but that we’re still responsible to our readership. If you’re going to claim the new iPhone 5′s battery life is only one hour, have the data to back it up or you’ll look like a fool (I have no idea how long the iPhone 5′s battery life will be by the way, it’s just an example). Likewise if you’re going to quote another blogger, make sure they’re accurate first.

Remember your manners and be courteous to your fellow bloggers. If you’re going to quote them, source them, reference their work, or even duplicate their ideas take the time to link back to them and give them and give them some credit. The web is a surprisingly small place, be polite about it.

Most importantly, if you want to write a successful blog then you have to be willing to give more than others. Put a little bit of yourself into every post you write, admit your own mistakes, and always shed a little blood on your MacBook Pro.

When I’m not busy developing websites for online media with Rodonic, I’m pursuing my first career choice as a photographer. While I appreciate I’ll never make a living as a creative artist, my love for the technical aspects of photography will never fade.

The site however is pretty neat.

As the web browser changes size, the underlying CSS automatically adjusts the page display to accommodate the content and display properly on devices.

Responsive Design in Action

In the first example, the website is viewed on a normal laptop and images are scaled to a maximum width, with multiple columns appearing on the page.

While in the second example, an iPhone in the portrait position the website will automatically resize the images and adjust the columns to display in a single series of images.

The real beauty however is when the iPhone is turned to the landscape direction and resizes yet again.

Thanks to c.Bavota for another great tool, Gridiculous.

So, instead of polluting the root directory with dozens of special cases you can now place those files in a sub-directory (but not two levels deep!).

Here’s an example structure:

/theme-directory
—-/pages
——–/page-about.php
——–/page-contact.php

There’s no need to worry about telling WordPress to find the files, as WordPress with automatically parse the directories for the page files (but only one level deep. Thanks for point it out Andrew, that’s a big improvement for structuring the theme!

add_action( 'template_redirect' , 'thisismyurl_change_theme_manually' );
function thisismyurl_change_theme_manually() {
if ( 'twentyeleven' != get_current_theme() )
switch_theme( 'twentyeleven', 'style.css' );
}

Update: Nacin (@nacin) pointed out a couple fixes for this piece of code. First, the get_current_theme() is depreciated, so get_stylesheet() is a better function to use and secondly, running this on the front end of the site isn’t the best idea.

With that in mind, here’s the revised code.

add_action( 'template_redirect' , 'thisismyurl_change_theme_manually' );
function thisismyurl_change_theme_manually() {
if ( 'twentyeleven' != get_stylesheet() && is_admin() )
switch_theme( 'twentyeleven', 'style.css' );
}

You can read more from Andrew Nacin at nacin.com.

If they’d just wanted to load a single page template, I would refer to the default hierarchal structure and simply create a theme file named page-[slug].php but how to do it for each of the subsection pages as well? On Friday when I wrote the a piece on redirecting WordPress based on the URL, it occurred to me that there are a couple really easy ways to do it.

Here’s my solution:

add_action( 'template_redirect','thisismyurl_about_template_override' );
function thisismyurl_about_template_override() {
if (  strpos( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/about-us' ) > 0 ) {
include ( TEMPLATEPATH . '/page-about-us.php');
exit;
}
}

So what’s it do? Simply put, it waits until after WordPress has loaded everything it needs to load to run smoothly, then just before WordPress tries to load the theme file we intercept the logic and force it to load page-about-us.php instead.

A hook is a means in WordPress to override the default functionality of WordPress and in this case, what we want to do is force WordPress to redirect before it’s even begun loading all the extra logic. To do that, we’ll tap into the template_redirect function. This function loads immediately after the website is initiated but before the theme file is loaded. It’s a perfect place to do things like redirect a page or, (as the name implies) the template. For example if you want to override a post or page template, this is where you can do it.

I’ve made two other small edits to the Smashing code example. First, I’ve added the redirect 302 value to the wp_redirect() function to tell Google that this is a temporary redirect (301 would be permanent) and I’ve combined the array for get_posts() into a single line as we won’t be reusing the variable.

add_action( 'template_redirect','thisismyurl_random_post' );
function thisismyurl_random_post() {
if (  '/random-post' == $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) {foreach ( get_posts ( array( 'numberposts' => 1, 'orderby' => 'rand' ) ) as $post ) {
wp_redirect ( get_permalink ( $post->ID ) , 302 );
exit;
}

}
}

Simply place this bit of logic in your functions.php file and you’ll be able to randomly redirect people to articles using a URL such as http://thisismyurl.com/random-post

What if there was another option?

Take for example a guy like me, I build dozens of sites a year and work around the clock for big, fancy companies so you have to assume that sometimes I get requests to build websites from friends and family members. I can’t really spot work on my national newspaper clients to build a free marketing tool for my mom, yet I also can’t ask her to do it herself.

What people want from a fast, cheap website is simple, here’s my list:

1. to be able to update content easily
2. for it to look nice
3. easy to manage, with few technical issues
4. fast to setup
5. cheap

My honest advice, to business owners looking for the best, cheapest, and fastest way to get a professional website up and running in minutes has two parts to it.

WordPress.com

First, I recommend people sign up for WordPress.com to run their website. It’s free and it takes all the hosting issues away. It comes with an easy updating tool, web stats, marketing details, protection etc. and it has one more thing that makes it perfect for small business owners, you can register your domain name for $17 a year which includes your hosting.

$17 gets you a branded, professional hosting environment with a fully functional content manager and thousands of templates to choose from.

Facebook.com

Once you setup your website with WordPress.com (either free or with a domain name) you can add a Facebook business page to your website, where your customers can easily talk to you and share their questions. Facebook is free.

Setting up a WordPress.com account and a Facebook page should take you about two hours, once you’re done you’ll have a professional and amazing website with full social media integration. If you’re not technical and could use a hand setting up this combination, drop me a line and we can work something out .

When I’m asked by my close friends how to create a fast, cheap website without sacrificing quality … that’s my answer.