An open-source “lite” version of sIFR using a more object-oriented approach. sIFR Lite is a bit easier to read, and more intuitive to use.

If you’ve visited the Urban Mainframe website a few times, as opposed to reading the articles in an RSS reader, you may have noticed that the layout of the front-page recently changed. I have opted for a more compact format for the page and have reworked my Loop so that I can adjust the page a little more easily.
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A couple of months ago I wrote about how I’d modified my WordPress 404 page to be a little bit more useful and informative to any reader unlucky enough to encounter it. Amazingly that article was deprecated almost as soon as I’d published it as I had continued to refine and supplement the code I’d described there. Furthermore, I had added some more functionality to the page for better “possible match” suggestions. So in this article I’m revisiting the custom 404-page to describe the changes I’ve made since the previous installment.
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Viewport is a free, GPL licensed WordPress theme that’s a real attention grabber. The theme features a nicely animated graphical home-page and post pages that are crisp and clean. There’s a lot of white-space and no extraneous features.

Best of all posting about it gives me an excuse to add a gratuitous image of a scantily clad Adriana Lima to my blog. Cool!

Just discovered a gorgeous new WordPress theme, Equilibrium, created by Tudinh Duong. If I hadn’t already invested so much time and effort in the theme deployed here then I’d be more than happy to use Equilibrium on the Urban Mainframe.

I only hope that Duong creates more WordPress themes in the future - since he clearly has a great talent.

As a programmer/web-designer I dip into a diverse range of programming languages and frameworks. I often find that I get locked into a specific coding grammar/syntax and that it is then difficult to switch to a new one. This is when I find the following cheat sheets invaluable (and indeed comforting).

• Subversion (SVN) - 293 KB PDF
• Regular Expressions (RegEx) - 648 KB PDF
• mod_rewrite - 563 KB PDF
• PHP - 556 KB PDF
• CSS - 316 KB PDF
• HTML - 563 KB PDF
• Ruby On Rails - 753 KB PDF
• HTML Character Entities - 959 KB PDF
• JavaScript - 453 KB PDF
• MySQL - 348 KB PDF
• RGB Hexadecimal Colour Chart - 199 KB PDF
• OS X / Linux / Unix
• Photoshop CS3
• WordPress Reference Guide
• WordPress Help Sheet
• jQuery
• XSS (Cross Site Scripting) Prevention Cheat Sheet

NOTICE: This article is deprecated. While the article is still valid it no longer accurately describes the current 404-handler used on this website. Please also read the later article, A Better 404 - Redux, which contains updated information.

After reading Ian Lloyd’s The Perfect 404, I’ve revamped my “Not Found” error page to be a little bit more useful because, as Lloyd writes, “a user-friendly website will give you a helping hand.” Previously my 404 page simply stated that an error had occured and offered links to the home-page and archives. I knew I could do better than that! Continue Reading…

Daily recipes to cook with WordPress.

One of the great things about WordPress is that it doesn’t limit how content is displayed, but provides a ‘framework’ of ways to do so. Even better, it’s possible to change the display according to the content. This tutorial describes how to make posts be displayed within ‘the loop’ according to their content - or contextual differences.

It’s that time of year when the trees turn golden, the sun stays close to the horizon and the early morning mist rolls down off the hills. That’s right folks, autumn is here again (fall for our American friends). The days are getting shorter and the nights longer and you’re likely to spend more time indoors than out.

In short, it’s the perfect time to “reboot” your weblog with a new design or feature set. Why not take inspiration from nature’s glorious autumnal colours and refresh your website. To help you along the way, I’ve put together this little list of website design “thingies” that you might want to integrate into an autumn reboot.
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