Field Guide to Programmers

I love the simplicity of the wp-quotes plugin by Zombie Robot. It does what it's supposed to do and it does it well. Until it doesn't of course.

There was a wee bit of a problem with the latest WordPress update to version 2.6.2: it broke the admin interface for wp-quotes.

This happened because I used the InstantUpgrade plugin. InstantUpgrade is excellent, but overwrites files in the wp-admin directory with impunity. Of course, it might be a good idea if the author of wp-quotes hadn't put the edit-quotes.php file in the wp-admin directory. But let's not quibble, shall we?

So here's the fix for wp-quotes admin interface after upgrading to WordPress 2.6.2:

• Visit Zombie Robot and download wp-quotes 1.3 again.
• Unzip the archive
• Upload the file edit-quotes.php to your /wp-admin directory
• Enjoy wp-quotes again until the next upgrade.

Pretty simple, I know. Just thought I'd note it for posterity since I couldn't find the answer anywhere else and just tried it for the heck of it.

So, for some reason, my Drupal site for the scal project (Simple Javascript Calendar based on Prototype) decided to start showing "Access Denied" to every non-registered visitor. This happened around midnight two days ago and the only reason I knew about it was that a forum poster was kind enough to drop me a line -- thanks, Rafael!
There was no obvious reason for the problem. All of the permissions looked good. Everything was set as it had been for months. However, when I de-authorized anonymous users from access to content and then reauthorized them again everything started working fine.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Perhaps too simple. However, this is exactly what I did:

• Unchecked the box for "access content" under Admin:User Management:Access Control:Node
• Clicked "Save Permissions"
• Rechecked the box for "access content" under Admin:User Management:Access Control:Node
• Clicked "Save Permissions"

Everything works! No more "access denied!"

I read quite a few Drupal threads about this "access denied" problem but no one seemed to go about doing the same thing. It seems very odd for Drupal to suddenly forget about permissions, but truth is stranger than fiction. Guess I'd better think about the Drupal 6.0 upgrade!

Hope this helps!

Once you set up Wordpress, you may find it daunting to decide just which plugins you should add. After all, there are many articles listing dozens of plugins that are must have's. In fact, I just saw one that had over 100!

While I enjoy wading through these articles, it's a bit much for the casual user. So, I thought I'd focus on 5 special plugins I put on every blog I create.

The first two plugins focus on driving more discussion on your site, the next two help you manage your content, and the last two give your site a little search engine boost. Wait a minute, that's six plugins! Well, number 4 is actually both a site management and a search engine helper, so consider it a bonus!

5 Wordpress Plugins You Need for Your Corporate Blog

1. Subscribe to Comments - Once someone posts a comment, you should make it easy for them to keep track of the conversation. This is where Subscribe to Comments comes in. Subscribe to Comments puts a small checkbox under your comment box. Visitors leaving comments can check the box to receive an email notice each time someone else posts a follow-up. This convenience helps turns commenters into active participants in the discussion by keeping them up to date on the conversation and providing a quick link back to share additional thoughts.

2. Comment Luv - The URL field in the comment block gives a visitor an opportunity to get a link back to their own website. This provides an automatic incentive to leave a comment worthy of a click, but you can encourage more comments by adding the Comment Luv plugin. Comment Luv reads the URL left by the commenter, pulls back the first entry in the RSS feed from that site, and inserts a link to the post (with title) at the end of the comment.

3. In Series - If you write multipart articles, you know just how much fun it is to go back and make sure all of the back posts have the links to the latest articles. The In Series plugin allows you to define a series and assign articles to the series much as you would a category. In addition, the plugin places a nice table of contents at the bottom of each post for quick access.

4. Redirection - This plugin allows you to set up special URLs on your site to redirect visitors to certain posts or articles. For example, you could set up www.somesite.com/turtleracing to point to your latest article about Turtle Racing. In addition, the plugin will also set up redirects automatically when you change categories or permalinks for a post. This is absolutely a lifesaver and a must have, even if you never set up that Turtle racing page you will be glad you have Redirection installed.

5. All in One SEO Pack - This nifty plugin automatically adjusts your Wordpress to take advantage of many SEO best practices (copy, titles, noindex tags, etc). Note: the author is no longer actively developing this plugin but I've found it to be extremely stable.

I hope this helps. If you have a few special plugins that you like, please drop a note in the comments and subscribe to comment updates.

In my last post, I urged marketers to take a look at those often ignored browser stats. I backed up the call to action with information about conversion rates and average order sizes based on browser, screen resolution, and operation systems. My conclusions might inspire developers and designers to charge forward into the wide open field of high intensity design where horsepower is unlimited, but I wouldn't start drawing up your grand plans just yet.

When you look at your data, you might just find that CRT is far from dead and 800x600 still defines a majority of your audience.

Designers: Time to Go Back to School

In the US, CRTs still rule the schools. There are several solid reasons why this might remain the case for some time to come:

• Durability - It's pretty hard to scratch the glass on CRT.
• Security - after all who steals a CRT?
• Financial - While LCD prices have come down, many older computers need video card upgrades to tap into them. In addition, there's another good argument: "if it ain't broke, why fix it?"

On the educational sites I've worked with, it is not uncommon to see 80% of the visitors coming in at 800×600. This might bum out the designers, but they have to be sensitive to that data. If the visitors are captive to the lower resolution, they're not going to take kindly to a fancy design that causes endless scrolling.

Marketers: This is Your Father's Internet

Going back to my last article, I mentioned early adopters and how they are likely to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Looking at demographic studies, the top end of that group generally falls into the under-50 crowd with some reports inching up toward age 55.

Even though marketers have good reason to salivate over the potential of the most well-off group of retirees in the history of the country, the fact of the matter is that new computers are pretty far down the list for the majority of that group. They might have a 50" television set in the living room, but there's a dusty old CRT in the den.

And it's probably going to stay that way for quite awhile.

So what do you do with this data?

You dig deeper and you test.

Based on my experience, I'd focus on developing a design that places less emphasis on fast scanning and links between areas of the site. You are likely to find that this segment will spend more time reading your copy and less time looking for the "scent of information". This means they'll also get quite frustrated when you make then dig to get what they want.

Of course, I might be completely wrong about your audience. That's why I recommend you dig into the data and test.

In the world of consumer E-Commerce, should marketers really care what browser or screen resolution customers are using? Isn't the web about being open to all comers regardless of operating system?

I realize it's hard not to go glassy-eyed when designers and web developers start spouting phrases like "aspect ratio" and "backwards compatibility," but listen up, marketing folks! Browser and screen resolutions matter because there's money to be made.

"What's that Browser Capabilities menu?"

Every web analytics package has that seldom viewed report called "browser capabilities" (or something similar). In that section, you will find such thrilling choices as:

• Browsers
• Operating Systems
• Screen Resolutions
• ... More things you don't want to know.

But drop on in there and ask yourself these questions:

1. Who converts better? Mac or PC users? Vista, XP, or OSX?
2. What is the average order size of visitors who use 800x600 vs. 1280x1024?
3. Do Firefox users buy more than IE6 users? What about IE7?

That's Nice. Why Do I Care?

When I looked at recent stats for one site, I was surprised to find out that Mac users were the most valuable customers. In fact, the lift on PC users was over 80%. When I dug a little deeper, I found that XP users, while a very large percentage of the visitor pool, lagged well behind Vista.

What kind of conclusions might we draw from this information?

Affluence is one obvious answer. Vista might mean the visitor has a new computer. It may also mean they're just early adopters, which again may signal affluence. Apple users tend to have higher incomes as well (at least according to some surveys).

As you may expect, I also found that the higher the screen resolution, the better the buyer. Even more interesting was the insight that widescreen aspect ratios (16:9) had the best rates of all. At the moment, most widescreen monitors are attached to shiny new laptops as opposed to desktops (though this is changing).

Can we infer that laptop users buy more? And if so, why?

The browser question drove similar results... IE7 beat out IE6 by a wide margin (even though visitors were even). Firefox beat them both.

So what do you do with this data?

You dig deeper and you test. These aren't small scale tests either.

In the case of Vista vs. XP, we're talking about more than 60% of all visitors to the site. You may find that IE6 has a lower conversion because something is actually broken on the site. If you try out different resolutions, you might find that your site is easier to navigate at higher resolutions.

Geek out aside, I'm talking about large audiences with a clear differences in response. These are segments worth investigating. You may be leaving enormous amounts of money on the table, or perhaps it is just walking out the door.

Rally with your designers and developers, test and QA. Champion their ideas, and you just might find that next campaign hidden amid the most boring data in your analytics package.

Oh, and lest you think I'm biased on the side of big, shiny Macs, stayed turned for the next installment on browsers and screen resolutions - Why Bigger Isn't Always Better, Long Live the CRT.