Stylehack

[editor's note: I teach the XHTML Intermediate class at LVS, called "Build Your Website II", as well as the Flash courses. You'll also run into me in other coding or programming classes from time to time as I fill in for instructors who are out.]

12+ NEW Classes, over 100 Classes in All!

With 12 new classes being offered this session, LVS has over 100 classes on its roster. From Instructor-led to Self-study, LVS covers a wide range of subjects. And don’t forget the FREE Windows XP and Vista classes!

To check out the courses you would like to take, a complete list is given at LVS Course Schedule.

Intructor-led Classes in a Virtual Setting

If you’ve never participated in a virtual classroom setting, you’ll find LVS the perfect choice for initiation into the online learning environment. Administrators and instructors alike understand what it’s like to be a first-time enrollee and work with you to overcome any concerns you may have.

Each instructor-led course has its own virtual classroom accessible to enrolled students with a forum-type message board used to post assignments, ask questions, and interact with the instructor as well as the other students who signed up for that class. Instructors maintain a friendly, fun, and energetic setting in which to learn.

Instructor-led classes begin August 30th so head on over to LVS Online Classes to enroll now.

Build a Website

LVS offers a 3-part website coding series that takes you from “I don’t know anything about X/HTML & CSS” to “WOW - I can create a valid website” in no time at all and you’ll have a great time doing it, too.

If web site coding is something you’ve always wanted to learn, now is the time. Get started by registering for the introductory-level course Build Your Web Site I today!

Don’t need an intro class but you’d like to strengthen and/or build on the skills you have?  Head on over and check out the Level II and Level III courses. I happen to know the Level II instructor will be happy to check out samples of your work; if you meet the criteria she’ll accept you as a student without your having to take the intro class! How do I know this? I’m the instructor. “-)

If you recently upgraded to WordPress 2.6 and suddenly your pretty permalinks don’t work properly, or at all… and if your “more” or “page” features aren’t working (usually a related problem), there is a temporary fix you can put in place:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/189058

Basically, look at #2 there. I’d try it in two versions:

1. First, without “/index.php” added to the beginning of /whatever-your-existing-structure-is/ AND with “category” and “tag” in the two custom fields;
   
   
2. If that doesn’t work, add the “/index.php” to the beginning of /whatever-your-existing-structure-is/ AND leave “category” and “tag” in the two custom fields.

My experience is that adding the “/index.php” doesn’t hurt even on an Apache server, and in some cases solves a world of hurt.

Notice I said “temporary fix”? Quoted directly from the support post above:

The upcoming release of WordPress 2.6.1 will correct this issue.

When you don’t want to have long articles displayed in full on multi-post pages, like the index page, Wordpress has a nifty little “tool” you can invoke by inserting a special tag into your post content:

Inserting the <!–more–> tag into the post content in the above image resulted in this display on the index page:

HOWEVER. (There’s always a “however”, isn’t there?!) To my mind there is a problem with the default implementation of this tag… by default when you click on the link to read the rest of the post the content above the tag is hidden!

In this article, we’ll make our second modification by modifying the default footer content.

IMPORTANT:   For the purpose of this series of tutorials, I’ll be using the WP 2.5.1 DEFAULT template for all examples. Yes, I know 2.6 is now out, but for purposes of continuity we’ll stay with the same version throughout this series. Don’t worry, it all works the same way in version 2.6!

Modifying Your Blog Footer

This is a another really easy modification. Again, it requires a little pre-planning, some common sense and a bit of imagination. For purposes of this walk-thru we’ll reorganize the footer content, add a bit of PHP scripting to automate the copyright date and add an image to reflect the site’s header for a little bit of interest.

The Pre-planning Stage

Load your blog in a browser and look at it carefully. In fact, it is sometimes helpful to save the index page WITH IMAGES as a plain old HTML page on your local computer so you can conduct a quick and easy check of things “under the hood”. In this stage we’ll compare the default generated footer content to the script to get an idea of how/what/where to change things.

The footer generated by the WP default theme looks like this:

I never thought I would say this, but DO NOT UPGRADE TO OPERA 9.5.x of any version or flavor.

Opera PTB and Dev Team, I have one thing to say to you:  It is dangerous to buy into your own legend and think you know better than your users what they want. When you buy into your own legend you may find that it is simply a figment of your imagination — i.e., that you are a legend in your own mind and nowhere else.

If I wanted a dumbed down browser for the masses, there are two that pop to mind (Firefox for the wanna-be-geeks, and IE for the typical apathetic mass user). Why did you have to ruin Opera for the rest of us????

I have been a faithful user of Opera since its inception, yes I even paid for each new version. But 9.5.x is beyond the pale. For the same reason I feel almost violent when I think about Firefox and its development team (notice the all lower case letters), I am now feeling ill thinking of how badly Opera has mangled a beautiful, clean product.