Absolute Marketing Group» Web Development

Manually Install php on WampServer

Becky Resler, Web Programmer — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:14:19 +0000

In my last blog post, I said that I like having a development environment on my computer (running Windows 7). I use WampServer to do this. I especially like that WampServer allows you to have multiple versions of php (and MySQL and Apache) installed. You can switch between versions in ... read more

Making SQL Server 2008 and php Play Nice

Becky Resler, Web Programmer — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:32:41 +0000

I like having a local development environment when I’m working on new or existing projects. This means that if I blow something up, it’s just on my local machine and not on either the staging server or (God forbid) the live server. It’s an added level of sanity for ... read more

The Benefits of Professional Web Design & Development

Luke Petterson, Interactive Director — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:09:27 +0000

Businesses and organizations face many tough decisions on a daily basis. One of the most important decisions is choosing who will design and develop your website. Common web design/developer choices include:

A person within the company who dabbles in web design and believes they can build the web site. A ... read more

51 Essential WordPress Plugins (and bonus functions!)

Cas Johnson, Lead Web Developer — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:57:10 +0000

After working with WordPress for several years and combing through countless “top 10″ WordPress plugin blog posts for plugins that A. Work well and B. Are updated regularly and don’t break with core upgrades (often), I’ve come up with my own cache of WordPress plugins I go back to on ... read more

Should we do this?

Cas Johnson, Lead Web Developer — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:50:26 +0000

Several months ago, Luke posted an article titled, “Is This Possible?” talking about the limitless capabilities of the Internet. I’d like to take this idea one step further. The real question isn’t “Can we do this?” but “Should we do this?

When it comes to website design and function, there are ... read more

Create an Explore block to display general info about your posts in WordPress

Cas Johnson, Lead Web Developer — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:50:01 +0000

So, how do you get your readers to explore the rest of your blog posts? Maybe you can offer them some more information about the post they’re on, as well as some convenient links to the post(s) immediately following or preceding the post they’re looking at. The magic code, which ... read more

Your Web Site: The Importance of Content Before Design

Luke Petterson, Interactive Director — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:48:39 +0000

You’ve decided to have your web site professionally designed and developed. Good decision! Now what?

You might already be thinking about the look of your web site or thinking about some cool bells-and-whistles that would be fun to have on your web site. Stop now.

First things first – you need to ... read more

The things you learn, and the things you remember

Cas Johnson, Lead Web Developer — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:20:56 +0000

WordPress is a beast that I love to hate to love. When it works, it works very well, which is 99% of the time. But when it doesn’t, well, then I can usually plan on spending at least 4-6 hours researching why it’s not, and then (most of the time) ... read more

Five Tips on writing for SEO

Jason Jacobson, Writer — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:10:25 +0000

If you are planning to go it alone with Search Engine Optimization, here are a few basics to help climb the search ranks.

1- Avoid pronouns. It, they, these, those, our, he, she and their should be avoided when possible. These words are vague and get overlooked by search engines.

2- Use ... read more

WordPress EventCalendar Patch

Cas Johnson, Lead Web Developer — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:02:49 +0000

I ran across a problem with the WordPress 2.5 plugin EventCalendar where the calendar worked fine, but when you click on a date in the calendar to view the Event post, it would return a Not Found error page. The fix for this is an unofficial patch. Basically two files ... read more