CSS Min-Height Hack

Okay, let’s just say we’re not huge fans of hacking code, any code.  We love conforming to web standards and we do all we can to stick within the guidelines presented to us by the almighty w3c.  That being said, there will be times when you come up against something that requires a quick fix for an issue that has no real solution; well web ,compliant solution that is.  Below is a great work arond for the min-height styles issue, if you have no idea what we’re talking about, bookmark this cause sooner or late you’ll come across a scenario where this would come in handy.

.example {
     min-height: 280px;
     height: auto !important;
     height: 280px;
}

The above code works in IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, and Chrome. We haven’t found anything it hasn’t worked on yet, if you find an issue in a browser, please let us know and we’ll update this post.

Google’s Matt Cutts SEO Video Presentation

Okay, so if you’ve ever heard of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, then you know all about Google.  Let’s face it, even if you have no idea what SEO is, there is no way you’ve been able to escape the long-reaching arms of Google.  If you have some spare time, an hour or so, give this video by Matt Cutts a watch.  He’s a Google genius and has lots of good advice and food for thought to offer…

NetWorx – Free Bandwidth Monitoring and Usage Reporting

With all of our crazy uploading and downloading each month, it was only a matter of time before we received a stiff warning from our ISP about our bandwidth usage.  Apparently there is a 250 gig cap on the amount of bandwidth we can use on a monthly basis.  Who knew?!?!  We need to read the fine print more thoroughly from time to time.  After trying a few different bandwidth monitors, we settled on this baby; its free and quite compact.  Check out the desciption below…

NetWorx is a simple and free, yet powerful tool that helps you objectively evaluate your bandwidth situation. You can use it to collect bandwidth usage data and measure the speed of your Internet or any other network connection. NetWorx can help you identify possible sources of network problems, ensure that you do not exceed the bandwidth limits specified by your ISP, or track down suspicious network activity characteristic of Trojan horses and hacker attacks.

The program allows you to monitor all your network connections or a specific network connection (such as Ethernet or PPP) only. The software also features a system of highly customizable visual and sound alerts. You can set it up to alert you when the network connection is down or when some suspicious activity, such as unusually heavy data flow, occurs. It can also automatically disconnect all dialup connections and shut down the system.

The incoming and outgoing traffic is represented on a line chart and logged to a file, so that you can always view statistics about your daily, weekly and monthly bandwidth usage and dialup duration. The reports can be exported to a variety of formats, such as HTML, MS Word and Excel, for further analysis.

http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

Appointy Plugin (Appointment Scheduler)

We have quite a few clients that use booking tools for their business.  There are a lot of differnt options out there these days, and of course, we swing the WordPress way and look for excellent plugins that will fill our client’s needs.  Check out the description of Appointy below, we’ve played around with it a bit and we really like its flexibility and ease of use.

Accept appointments from your clients 24x7x365 on your blog. Unlike other calendar tools, this plugin allows your customers to book appointments with you directly from your blog. This service is brought to you by Appointy.com and it’s free! It has a very powerful and simple Ajax interface which allows one click booking. With just one click your clients can see your availability in the entire month. Try and find yourself.

Features:

  1. Sends SMS alert to client prior to appointment.
  2. 2 Way Sync with Google calendar.
  3. Supports multiple service booking.
  4. Works at service level i.e. your staff can perform any service at any time on any weekday.
  5. Powerful marketing tool to promote your services socially.
  6. ICal support to sync outlook or any other iCal supporting application.
  7. Allows you to accept pre-payments from your clients.
  8. Can be customized easily to fit any business needs.
  9. Can be used for service booking, resource booking, group booking and event booking.

Check out their Facebook Fan page and see what others are syaing about them.

TDO Mini Forms Plugin

This Worpdress plugin is awesome!  Essentially, you can now give your visitors the ability to post and edit posts right from the front end of the site. After the submission, the posts can be held for moderation, then published when approved by the site admin.   This comes in handy if you want someone to submit their own company to a business directory, but it can be used for so much more. 

Additional info below…

This plugin allows you to add highly customisable forms that work with your WordPress Theme to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (also configurable) to submit and edit posts and pages. New posts are kept in “draft” until an admin can publish them (also configurable). Likewise edits can be kept be automatically kept as revisions until an admin approves them. It can optionally use Akismet to check if submissions and contributions are spam. TDO Mini Forms can be used to create “outside-the-box” uses for WordPress, from Contact Managers, Ad Managers, Collaborate Image Sites, Submit Links, etc.

The plugin provides an extensive moderation view so administrators and editors can see posts and edits awaiting approval and publish or delete them. Administrators can also ban specific users and IPs from using the form. Administrators can also “Trust” specific users. This means that when they use the form, their posts are automatically published. This does not give them any other rights or permissions using the WordPress software, it only affects usage of the form. This applies to user and IP bans as well. There is even an option to automatically trust users after so many approved submissions and edits.

Administrators can configure the forms using drag and drop “widgets”. They are based on the same model as WordPress’ built-in Theme widgets and it is possible to write your own.

Registered users have access to a “Your Submissions” page which lists their current submissions and edits awaiting approval and links to their approved submissions.

Features:

  • Submission and Editing of Posts and Pages
  • Integration with the GeoMashup plugin
  • Integration with Subcribe-to-Comments 2.1 plugin
  • Integration with Akismet and reCaptcha to prevent Spam
  • Highly customisable: Create your forms using a Widget interface and then hack it to make it work how you like!
  • Create as many forms as you like.
  • Import and Export form configurations
  • Put a form in your sidebar using a widget for your Theme or put the form in a page or post.
  • Submit posts with alternative permalinks (great for link sites)
  • Simple Question and/or Image Captcha.
  • Add Custom Fields to your Forms.
  • QuickTags support for Forms.
  • Upload Files and can be attached to posts. Uses WordPress’ core to create thumbnails if applicable.
  • Submitters can be notified if post approved or rejected.
  • Allow users to select category and tags.
  • Ban users and IPs.
  • Control what roles can access the form.
  • Can automatically create a page with form for you.
  • Can automatically modified author template tag with info about submitter.
  • Can, optionally, automatically allow submissions to be published.
  • Throttle number of submissions by user and/or IP
  • Optionally queue publishing of posts
  • Numerous widgets for your theme, including a list of the top submitters
  • And many more…