Full Archive
102 posts so far on ISVfocus.com
- Announcing WPtrace.com: Just another WordPress internals blog
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Having spent the previous decade working on business development, I’ve drifted too far from hands-on software development.
To fix this I’m getting back into working with code by exploring WordPress internals on my new blog WPtrace.com.
Please come over and take a look around.
- WordPress consolidation: There can be only one
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I’ve imported the posts and comments from my retired blogs: Andrew-Biss.com, ISVsurvival.com, PaaSTalk.com, SellToCamera.com and StoryComplete.com. This avoids maintaining multiple WordPress installations.
- Andrew-Biss.com retired: My personal blog
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Andrew-Biss.com was my personal blog where I posted on technical and business issues outside current projects for ISVfocus.com. I never posted very often so it’s better to call it a day and retire my personal blog.
Update June 2012 — For ease of maintenance I’ve imported the posts from the retired blog. You can find them in category Andrew-Biss.
- ISV positioning: Standing out from the crowd
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Helped an international financial services ISV who dropped everything to respond to an urgent request for proposal (RFP).
The ISV had received a very detailed, and unexpected, RFP from a large French financial institution based in Paris.
Deadline for answering: just four days.
- WordPress custom columns: I can see clearly now
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Searching through your WordPress media library for items without “alt” text, caption or description can be time consuming and is error prone, especially if you’ve more than a few images to check. A quick scan could easily reveal what information is missing; if only these three columns were available. Well, as you’ll see, it’s easy to add them with two minor additions to your WordPress theme’s
functions.phpfile. - Web design: Responsive elegance
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Implemented responsive web design to automatically respond to different screen resolutions and device orientation, without having to know details of every possible display, notebook, netbook, smartphone, tablet or other access device.
This new WordPress theme builds on the minimalist approach of the iA³ template from Information Architects. I’ve enhanced the HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript code so I can easily run all ISVfocus.com blogs and websites from a shared source.
- StoryComplete.com retired: A blog for ISVs on marketing by storytelling
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StoryComplete.com was a blog about helping ISVs sidelined by innovation and new players entering the game to acquire the new strategy and marketing skills they need to get back onto the field, re-enter the game and win.
Writing StoryComplete.com helped me understand my success in diverse roles in the international software industry is due to my ability to help people facing complex business challenges to discover what they need to say, and then finding the best way to say it.
This blog was an opportunity to deepen my WordPress knowledge, in particular on how the different types of object embedding work.
Update June 2012 — For ease of maintenance I’ve imported the posts from the retired blog. You can find them in category StoryComplete.com.
- Gmail attachments: Big game hunting
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This was becoming an issue as I keep a local backup of my Gmail account using IMAP Backup. And while you can find attachments in Gmail using search modifiers
has:attachmentandfilename:zip, you can’t search or sort on attachment size.The solution: the IMAPsize freeware Windows IMAP utility found via this blog post from Amit Agarwal. IMAPsize’s speciality is searching your Gmail account for folders (Gmail labels) and messages based on attachment size.
I quickly found and deleted my large attachments using IMAPsize. Backup problem solved. Recommended.
- WordPress 3.0: Ahead of the game
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One of my hosting accounts limits PHP memory, so for these blogs I need to deactivate all plugins before running the automatic update. My other hosting service has enough PHP RAM to not have to do this, which is nice.
All my blogs have now been running WordPress 3.0 in production for a few days and so far I’ve not met any problems with the core product.
One minor issue has been with the CSS minification in the W3 Total Cache plugin. I’m using the latest development version of W3TC but it has an issue with CSS so I’ve disabled minification until I’ve time to look into this further.
- Office tours: The 37signals story continues
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Carrying on from the previous episode, the latest video from 37signals shows the build-out of the new office. From 3:3:30 onwards we get a first look at the theatre. The raised seating base looks a good distance from the front of the room. Maybe an odd perspective effect from the camera? We’ll see.