Posts by David Innes, RealBasics.com
Principles for blogging or any other social media posts
The post is about using Instagram stories but it applies to social media posting in general, and blogging in particular. It’s the full text of an excellent article about posting strategy, from Reddit user Remarkable_Celery709. It was posted in the u/smallbusiness subreddit on Reddit. I almost never quote other people’s complete work, but I’m posting…
Read MoreWhy it’s a bad idea to use text in background images
This is an awesome meme (the text at the bottom is intentionally cut off.) It nicely illustrates why including text on background images is a bad idea. Because background images get cropped as the screen changes sizes. On particularly small screens, the background image may also shrink too far to be readable. (This readability issue…
Read MoreDo I need to setup SMTP to get WordPress to send email?
Why do contact forms and password-recovery email messages work fine with some websites and not with others? A lot of it has to do with the way the web server is configured and/or the security settings for the client’s domain email. Most web servers can send simple email messages. Others, especially depending on what email…
Read MoreShould you give a developer access to your hosting account?
When you hire a WordPress professional to work on your site it’s pretty common for them to ask for It makes sense that they’d need to log into your website as an administrator. If they couldn’t they couldn’t add or remove plugins, make changes to the theme (colors, fonts, menus, widgets, footers), or run fairly…
Read MoreNote to self: fixing “weird” Unicode characters like ‘Â’ and ‘’’ in a WordPress SQL database
This post is based in part on a more detailed post from Jeff Starr at Digging Into WordPress. I’m posting it here so I can easily find the recipe I most often need. Definitely visit Jeff’s post for a full explanation. 99.999% of WordPress users are unlikely to need to import from an older archived…
Read MoreWhat’s the difference between a Post and a Page?
In the r/WordPress subreddit user named only_sort_by_new asked a great question about how to use pages and posts (lightly edited) Help deciding on if something is a Post/Page and how to organize a sauce review site with Categories/Tags? Currently working on my first site which is suggesting and reviewing sauces. I love trying any type…
Read MoreKids Company – redesigned and rebuilt
Kid’s Company provides after-school care, early learning, and summer camps in Seattle and King County. When we were approached to help redesign their WordPress website site we first did an assessment to see what they already had. There had been some interesting structural decisions. It was mostly the kind of changes you see when a…
Read MoreDance Fremont – rebuilt for flexibility
Dance Fremont is a non-profit community dance school in north Seattle, for youth and adults, providing in-depth ballet and modern dance training since 1996. They’ve been a maintenance client and after several years of moving and rebuilding their studio they asked if I could help refurbish their website as well. The staff and volunteers built…
Read MoreWhy every website needs a 50,000 mile checkup
Hey, if WordPress is so great why do so many web developers offer maintenance plans? Is WordPress really that insecure? Fragile? Hackable? No! A well-built WordPress site on a good hosting plan is surprisingly secure. So… why should you still get a good WordPress maintenance plan? Here’s how I explain things to my clients: WordPress…
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