When it comes to site performance, there is only one caching plugin that needs to even be talked about and that is W3 Total Cache. This plugin is so complete that it is shocking. It is packed with features and accounts for every type of WordPress user. It is very easy to configure and it actually works! I run a Lacrosse news website where I recently installed W3 Total Cache. According to the Google Analytics Site Speed metric, from September 17 to October 16, the average load time was 3.47 seconds. From October 17, the day I installed W3 Total Cache, to November 16, the average load time was 2.36 seconds. That is a difference of 1.21 seconds! The plugin also shows your Page Speed Report on your Admin Dashboard so you can see how well your site is performing. Every time I visit the site I am pleased with the results.

Every once in awhile, a WordPress install will be compromised and hacked. This can cause huge headaches and hassle if you are unprepared and don’t have a backup of your site. The remedy for the problem is to backup your database and files regularly. For database backups, I use WordPress Database Backup. It is very easy to use and you can customize what database tables will get backed up. Usually you want to backup all of them. I also love it because I have automated the process so I don’t have to worry about it. The plugin can be configured to send backups on a schedule that you choose. You can have it send Once Hourly, Twice Daily, Once Daily or Once Weekly. I have my lacrosse send it Once Daily. To continue the automation, I have setup a filter in Gmail to automatically archive the message so I don’t see it come in but I know it’s there! To backup files, I have to do it manually through FTP but most hosting services will offer a solution in some form or another.

Everyone who owns a site wants to have visitors and be found on Google. I’ve found that the WordPress SEO plugin is top notch when it comes to SEO. I love how it adds an admin box below your post or page that is stacked with options. It even provides a snippet of what your page will look like when people see it in on Google Search Results. You can also set a Focus Keyword, SEO Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords. The Focus Keyword is cool because the plugin will tell you if you are using that keyword in your Article Heading, Page Title, Page URL, Content or Meta Description. Using this plugin will make you actually think about your SEO rather then just inserting words.

Along the same lines as SEO, I highly recommend having a sitemap for your site. For this, I use Google XML Sitemaps. I like how the plugin tells me the last time a sitemap was generated. It also tells me if Google, Bing and Ask.com were successfully notified. It’s a great little plugin that will help your site get noticed.

You’re probably saying to yourself, “What about a social plugin?” To that question, I would simply reply that I prefer to use the tools provided by the developer. I think that Twitters Tweet button and the Facebook Like button are perfect. If those two don’t tickle your fancy, then I would probably use AddThis or ShareThis.

What plugins do you use?

It’s not everyday we get to work for a high-profile client such as Pan Am, but Keathley Ad, who did the design, came to us and wanted to test our Magento skills and we were up to the challenge.

The theme called for a custom category landing page, something we had never done on previous sites, however, Magento makes it simple by using static blocks and the WYSIWYG to get the desired results. We also added a custom sidebar manager to help with their internal ads to keep customers headed in the right direction. The category and product pages were nicely designed to fit within the bounds of Magento, giving them a clean look and feel. Throw in some custom attributes and attribute sets and you’ve got a fully functional online store.

One last thing that made this project fun is knowing this site will be viewed by thousands of people daily. That is something we hope all of our clients achieve, but we knew Pan Am would easily eclipse that mark daily. In fact, during the first two weeks, the server that was originally purchased by the client was unable to handle the amount of traffic and failed to load balance properly. When we took over hosting their site we decided to go with 2048 MB of dedicated memory to their server. We tweaked the MySQL settings to handle more connections and it uses 1024 MB of RAM itself. Then we tweaked the server to best suit Magento. We upped the PHP settings to have 512 MB of RAM. With the changes, the site went from loading in 14 seconds to a quick 3 seconds.

Saxton Horne came up with the design and user interface, opting to go with a one page site that scrolled vertically. A sticky left navigation helps users get to where they need to go. The Work section displays the latest spaces that have been transformed. It utilizes a hover state and jQuery toggler to open and close the section of content, allowing for a compact portfolio that gives the user only what they want to see.

The Product section utilizes more jQuery to shuffle through some of the products Inside Out uses when they develop a new space. A simple About Us infographic and a simple Staff section, followed by a blog complete the overall user experience.

A footer with a Google Map and social media links round out the site. In just a few moments, a user knows everything they need to with excessive clicking or page views.

Luke started Dr. Stoker down the right path by giving him a clean, business design. I finished off the job with a custom WordPress theme that allows Dr. Stoker and staff to easily enter in new content and keep the site fresh, just like their patients breath!

Dr. Stokers practice is off and running with great success.

Check out the site and let us know what you think!

Smashing Magazine – HTML5/CSS3 Cheatsheet – http://bit.ly/aj0yfA

Ben Ludman – URL shorteners and CakePHP – Snook.ca http://bit.ly/btTmSP

And this site – HTML5 Doctor – I couldn’t track down the tweet that I found it from, but it is a great resource for HTML5.

I looked for some tweets about Magento, but just couldn’t find any that were appealing.

The need for this site stemmed from feedback from 3M sales reps. The reps didn’t want to continue to carry around heavy laptops to just show a couple of videos, so 3M provided iPads to accomplish this feat. Rare Method was involved in the execution and design and we provided a solution to their problem.

We knew the site would have a fixed height and width since this was only going to be on the iPad and not used anywhere else. We coded up the site and embedded the videos using the HTML5 <video> tag. There were advantages to this but also disadvantages. If the rep was in a spot with shady WiFi or typical AT&T coverage, then the videos would load slowly.

We also built other pages the reps could use in their sales pitch as well as a contact form that the client could fill out if they were interested.

1. Custom Font Replacement: We had been using sIFR, but shortly after we built this site, cufón came around and we fell in love. Any custom fonts you see are now generated by cufón.

2. Dynamic Sidebar: The old sidebar was hard coded. I took that out and made each section it’s own widget which allows to move them around easily if needed and also add third-party widgets should we choose to do so.

3. RSS: I created a FeedBurner RSS so be sure to update – http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheCodeDojo

4. The Clan: Under The Clan section in the sidebar, you can now click on one of the names and it takes you to a new page with that persons bio and all the posts they have written.

5. Facebook Fan Page: We started a Facebook Fan Page – you can become a fan here: http://www.facebook.com/CodeGreene

6. Custom Share Icons: Mike built us custom share icons to fit our ninja theme. Thanks Mike!

7. Contact Page: Rather than sending you, the user, to codegreene.com to fill out a contact form, you can now send us your requests by going here: http://dojo.codegreene.com/ninjas-for-hire – so drop us a line.

A few subtle changes will be coming in the future – let us know what you think!

My favorite conversations with clients are the ones where we discuss browsers and the difference between them. I chuckle every time I hear, “I am using IE6.” I frequently applaud the client who uses Firefox because they have taken the time to educate themselves and while I don’t want to get into the reasons we use the browsers we do, just noticing what browser you use is half the battle. You’ve probably read the post by a Google employee about browsers. If not you can read it here. His post got me thinking about comparing clients to cars.

For those of us in the web industry, we frequently laugh at people who just don’t know how to use the web, but how many people are laughing at us because we don’t know how to do something? You might argue “But we (society) spends so much time online, how can someone not know how to use it?” I would argue the following.

How much time do we spend in our cars? Obviously this number depends on your commute, area, etc., but we spend a substantial amount of time in, caring for, washing, and feeding them that we should probably know more about how they work. How many mechanics laugh at us because we can’t change our own oil or replace our brakes? How many AAA repair men does society employ because society doesn’t know how to change a flat tire?

How much time do we spend in our house, but don’t know how to lay carpet or do any sort of plumbing? How many of us know what kind of carpet we have? What is the brandname of your couch? What kind of pipes do you have? These questions are simple for those who are educated and experts in that industry. Compare that to browsers or websites. How many plumbers laugh at you and I because we have weak pipes? How many painters cringe when they see the paint we have? We might say, “But it works just fine!” True, however, IE7 “works just fine” but how many of us cringe when we hear our clients are using it?

How many times has a client come to you saying their site is broken, only to find out it is a user error? It’s natural to sit back and just laugh, but how many of us have made a user error when we “pushed” instead of “pulled” on the door at a restaurant?

When it comes down to it, we are no different from our clients. We may know more about the web, browsers, computers, etc., but they may know more about neurology, public relations, and even cars. We make the same mistakes, just in a different aspect of life, so please, just be a little more patient with your clients.

Luke, Stop Using Stock Photography Clichés

I liked this article because I could really relate to the author. I am super sick of stupid stock photography. This type of stock photography has become meaningless to the user. Especially if the user has seen the same photo in other places before. As users, we are so used to seeing two business people shaking hands that we overlook it immediately, without giving it a second thought. Useless.

Mike, A Form of Madness

Form design is awesomeness, but coding them? Not always the case. Luckily, there’s good news for form coders the world over with HTML5 on the brink of greater support. This article comes from an up-and-coming book all about HTML5. The author introduces some cool new tags and attributes that we can start using right now, including: placeholder text, autofocus fields, spinboxes, sliders, date pickers, and more! Exciting stuff.

Tim, On Web Advertising

This is something I have been very curious about lately, so to find this was a refreshing way to start out the week. It was nice to get Chris’s perspective about online advertising and I know he knows about it because all his work uses it.

What have you been reading recently?

On the homepage, we built a gallery of images with thumbnails. When a thumbnail is clicked, the large image appears. We also built a quick overview section to show off the latest apps. In this section, the user can easily find out information about the new apps without leaving the homepage. A custom sidebar with custom widgets can be found throughout the site.

The apps page is a fully custom page built dynamically with custom fields and normal WordPress posts. The client can enter in the thumbnail, content, video url, features and a url for the link to iTunes. The news page functions like a typically WordPress blog, giving Swakker the chance to update their followers. The gear page is built using pages and children pages to help Swakker build their brand by selling clothes online through PayPal.

Last but not least, the gallery page is built to show off what users have made using Swakker apps. A nice place to get a daily dose of creative inspiration.

Check them out on the web or in iTunes.