What new features does WordPress 3.8 give us?
Dec19

What new features does WordPress 3.8 give us?

13SHARESFacebookTwitter Crowned as the “most beautiful WordPress yet”, what exactly does this new version give us aside from a new fancy user interface? From first glance, and from not even reading the full list of feature updates, I can already see that they’ve made this version of WordPress very tablet friendly. You only to have to login to WordPress via tablet or minimise your browser to see that it will respond (responsive design) to whatever resolution you’re working in. See this as an example: As you can see, the text is replaced by those larger icons – so that it fits quite comfortably when you’re browsing the WordPress 3.8 admin control centre. You’ll also notice that from a design perspective, things have become much darker on the menu side of things. The default colours have changed from white to black. I personally love this change, as it gives the WordPress 3.8 admin area that sleek feel and the white text behind a black ground makes it easy on the eyes. On that note, you can change the colour schemes in the admin control centre with a colour picker that WordPress have incorporated into the latest build: You’ll notice that most of this review has been focused on the design aspects of WordPress 3.8. This is because the 3.8 is all about updating the user interface to give it that sleek and sexy look. To addon to this sentiment, WordPress have also released a new theme called “Twenty Fourteen”. It’s a magazine based theme and it looks quite sleek, although I’ve found that it would require a lot of tweaking to make it look like the image WordPress has given us:   There’s not too much that I can delve into when it comes to features, as this 3.8 update seems to have been all about design. As always, the WordPress team have delivered a fantastic result and I feel they’ve added enough features, that another feature update would be somewhat...

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New Nexus 4 Review
Oct27

New Nexus 4 Review

5SHARESFacebookTwitter I thought I’d do a review of the Nexus 4 considering it’s a purchase I recently made. It’s not actually the phone that I intended to get, but hey, here we are and now I have a Nexus 4. I originally intended to purchase a HTC One, but that didn’t go exactly as planned. Let’s just say, I got scammed on GumTree and that’s that. Back to the Nexus 4. It’s a phone that is manufactured by LG and was a phone sold by Google. Google still have a product page up for this phone, but if you attempt to purchase from the Google Play store, you’ll find that all the Nexus 4 smartphones are sold out. This is a shame considering Google lowered the price of their 8GB model to just £159 (a steal) and their 16GB model to £199. I, unfortunately, had to purchase the phone through eBay and bought an 8GB model for £185. It’s still a cheap price, considering the fact that this phone is brilliant and you won’t get another phone like this for a comparable price. Specification 4.7″ diagonal (Display) 1280 x 768 pixel resolution (320 ppi) WXGA IPS Corning® Gorilla® Glass 2 Weight: 139g 2100 mAH battery (15.30 hours talk time; 16.2 days stand-by time) Camera Front: 1.3 MP Back (Main): 8MP (with flash) Wireless charging Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) 2GB of RAM; Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 (Quad core, 1500 MHz) Variants: 8GB or 16GB (storage) Design With a 4.7 inch display and rounded edges to give the phone a modern look – this phone is certainly something to marvel – especially taking into account the price of the phone. Perhaps it just me being biased, as I haven’t purchased a phone in the past 2 years, but this phone is simply beautiful in my eyes. The smartphone has a rich feeling of cold glass encompassing the back with edges that are rubbery, which helps with gripping onto the smartphone.   Pictures I’ve taken with the Nexus 4 These are pictures that I’ve taken to hopefully give an idea to those reading this article a feel of what the camera is like on a Nexus 4. In my honest opinion, I think it’s pretty damn good for an 8MP camera. Obviously, if you compare it to say a DLSR or a dedicated digital camera then those cameras are always going to win. However, if you are aiming for that type of quality, then I suggest purchasing a HTC One.   Take Aways It’s seriously a great phone that will likely last me another 2 years before I have to upgrade. The price of the phone is...

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On Page Search Engine Optimisation
Sep04

On Page Search Engine Optimisation

9SHARESFacebookTwitter On Page Search Engine Optimisation Having done a bit of on page optimisation for websites – it’s always great to have a visual way in how you should be optimising a page with explanations as to why. Here’s a great infographic by BackLinko that explains which areas of the site you should be looking at for optimisation purposes. I’ll be honest and quite frank about Vlexo.net, as I haven’t really done optimisation on this site; however, I do plan to do a full days work of optimisation on this site to get it ranking better in the search results. Source: Infographic by...

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Lesson 3 of Google Analytics – Notes
Sep01

Lesson 3 of Google Analytics – Notes

9SHARESFacebookTwitter Lesson 3 – Setting up Google Analytics This video details how to create a Google Analytics account, placing the Analytics tracking code, website setups that require certain customisation and how to verify an installation. Getting Started With Google Analytics Sign up Add the tracking code Link to AdWords (To report costs and click data) Create a New Account Google.com/Analytics – Sign Up You can create a new Google Analytics account in your Google AdWords account under the “Reporting” tab. Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) Uses JavaScript to gather first-party cookies to gather anonymous information about your visitors. As you setup your Google Analytics account you’ll be provided with a tracking code. The tracking code needs to be setup on all pages of your site in order to track use throughout the entire website. The data will be collated and then used throughout your Google Analytics account. Finding your tracking code Go to “Analytics Settings”. (Now “Admin” Settings) Click on edit for the appropriate profile. Click “Check Status” in the top right hand corner. Your tracking code and instructions for how to add to your site will be displayed. Asynchronous tracking code The asynchronous tracking code allows your site to render the tracking code as fast as possible. Google recommends that this should be used for faster page loading time. Using Google Analytics with AdWords and Other Google Products If you are using Google AdWords you can see how your paid keywords perform in terms of ROI,  conversion rates and revenue. Ad performance Checking Reports for Data Once you’ve installed the tracking code it can take up to 24 hours for data to show up in your reports. Best way to verify data is by checking your reports. Check your pages’ source code for the tracking code – to ensure that it has been installed. Search for ga.js in the source code to search for the tracking code. Understanding the tracking code <script type=”text/javascript”> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-27159470–2‘]); _gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]); (function() { var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true; ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); </script> Unique Google Analytics Account Number Property Index – in this case, the 2 represents the the 2nd most account/property that I’ve added to my Google Analytics account Detects secure (https) vs non-secure pages (http)   Custom Website Setups The basic tracking code works with most site setups There are certain situations where small changes will need to be made with the tracking code Examples: Track multiple domains in one profile (Main site as well as...

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Lesson 2 of Google Analytics – Notes
Aug25

Lesson 2 of Google Analytics – Notes

9SHARESFacebookTwitter Notes – Interface navigation You can toggle to different accounts using the drop-down menu located on the top-right hand corner of the Google Analytics page. Dashboard The dashboard feature operates similar to the way you can create new specific dashboards like in BrightEdge. You can add widgets such as views, visits, unique visits, visits by browser, and the many other options that are available. You can set them to be private or shared among those logged into the same account. Active Date Range You can change the active date range on the top right hand corner of every report. (Using the calendar or timeline to set your active date range) You can see your site’s traffic trends in the Timeline. You can compare different dates by ticking the “Compare to Past” box and then by choosing the dates you want to compare. You’ll then see two date sliders – overlaying each other to visually see how you performed before to now. When you change the active date range then this will affect every other piece of data in Google Analytics until you change the date to the current date or when you close the browser. (Default is the current date) You can also compare other (2 at a time) metrics such as visits, pageviews, PageVisit, Avg. Time on Site, Bounce Rate and % of new visits. (Find the “Compare 2 metrics” option) Curriculum Links / Navigating  Some reports contain additional links for reports (in some cases these re reports not shown in the main navigation) Provides a quick way to find information. — This may be out of date. I tried finding these Curriculum Links or anything similar to what the video is showing and I cannot find it. [Look into this] You can always see where you’re in a report by looking at the breadcrumb navigation to see where you are. Report Views 5 ways to view data in Google Analytics: Grid View Pie Chart View Bar Graph View Comparison Bar Graph View Summary Report View Report structure Visitors Visitor information such as loyalty, language and location. Traffic sources Natural and paid sources of traffic; includes AdWords reports. (As sub-reports) Content Pages viewed Goals Conversion rates and goal paths Ecommerce (If enabled) Commerce tracking, visitor loyalty, revenue sources, and product-specific information. You won’t see this option if you don’t have the ecommerce functions enabled. Exporting Report Data You can export data using 4 different formats: PDF, Excel, HTML, CSV and Tab-Separated. Email reports: You can schedule reports to be sent daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. Additionally, you can choose which formats (One of the 4 above) to...

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