After the design, Tim coded each site. The main corporate site, leavittpartners.com, is built using WordPress and features three Custom Post Types: the slideshow on the homepage, the homepage content and the Team page.

The main Team page is broken up into staff levels but each worker is entered into the system the same way. A checkbox is used to differentiate their level. Also, another checkbox is used to flag if the worker is part of one of the several different sub-teams in the Leavitt Partners corporation. The individual team page highlights the workers accomplishments and also calls in their author RSS feed from the blog as well as any news highlights.

The blog is a straight forward WordPress install that functions like a typical blog. The newsroom, powered by NewsCactus, is a custom theme built around the NewsCactus framework.

We are very pleased with the result and hope these three sites will help Leavitt Partners continue to grow.

Leavitt Partners Homepage

Leavitt Partners Team Page

Leavitt Partners Team Single Page

Leavitt Partners Newsroom

Leavitt Partners Blog

Keeping your site secure or safe from hackers is not always easy but is something you need to be aware of. One thing I encourage you to do just in case your site is compromised is to always have a back up of your files and database. As a start, one plugin that can help with this is named BackWPup ( www.backwpup.com ). You can set this plugin to backup your files and database daily, weekly, monthly, or if you feel even hourly. But you can have it email it to you, save it to another server via FTP, or even save it to your DropBox account.

There are a few steps that you can take from the beginning when you first setup your WordPress site. The first thing to do is do not use the default table alias. WordPress by default will suggest that it use “wp_”. If you are only going to use the database for your site and not add any other tables I would suggest you take it off all together, but to make it even more secure use a different alias.

If you already have a site up and running and just want to take what you have now and make it secure here are the list of plugins and what they do:

• Change the login URL
  By default WordPress uses your URL / wp-login. To make it more secure  you can change the URL to be used to login. Sometimes people want /manger, /login, or /admin. Whatever it is that you choose you can use one of these plugins to change it from the default
  - Ozh’ Simpler Login URL – Link
  - Peter’s Login Redirect – Link
  - Custom Login and Admin URL’s – Link
• Limit Login Attempts
  By default WordPress does not limit that amount of tries to log into the Admin. It will instead inform the user instantly that it is not correct and allow them to try again. So using one or even both of these plugins will help you limit this and track what is going on
  - Limit Login Attempts – Link
  - Login LockDown – Link
• Find Out What Security Holes Your Site Is Susceptible To
  Run tests on your site to see what security holes may appear in your site. It is a full time job to stay on top of what the latest security risks are out there. So to help know what your problems are run one, or both plugins to evaluate your sites holes and close them up as you can
  - Ultimate Security Checker – Link
  - Secure WordPress – Link

These are just a few ways you can secure your WordPress site just using plugins. There are other ways that I may expound on at a later time but it requires editing code, editing configuration settings on the server, and even updating the .htaccess on the server.

Bonus Thought:
Another thing that I would encourage all to do that does not make your site a little more secure is in your robots.txt file that you have available to the search engines is to have them ignore your wp-content directory. There is no reason they need to go through these files. To do that you can add the following to your robots.txt file:
Disallow: /wp-admin
Disallow: /wp-includes
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/cache
Disallow: /wp-content/themes
Disallow: /wp-login.php
Disallow: /*wp-login.php*
Allow: /wp-content/uploads

What plugins are you using to secure your WordPress site?

The site is built using a custom WordPress theme with 3 Custom Post Types. The client can easily update the About, Plans & Pricing and Home page. The Custom Post Types allow the client to update their FAQs easily, manage their Testimonials and Expertise sections.

A visitor can easily get their Trademark in the works on the Start Application page that collects the information needed to get quick access to a Trademark.

Chad, The Beginner’s Guide to Tricking Out Your WordPress Blog
I liked this post/entry about WP because it was built and geared for the beginner. Once you installed it now what. I find these type of articles interesting because sometimes they are just so simple that I don’t even think of them. And it helps me to explain or think of other things that I feel our clients may want or need.

Mike, Web Designer’s Who Can’t Code
Twitter exploded in a debate this week when Elliot Jay Stocks boldly tweeted:

“Honestly, I’m shocked that in 2010 I’m still coming across ‘web designers’ who can’t code their own designs. No excuse.”

The world is full of talented designers trained in a wide array of media, but just like other mediums, the web offers its own constraints and limitations. Knowing how to code definitely gives you an edge, even if you don’t code the site yourself. Image resolution, measurements, typography, and browser discrepancies all play a role in what is possible, and help determine the collective best practices of the web. So does a good architect need to know how to dry wall? Maybe not. What about a fundamental understanding of construction and engineering? Absolutely. How much does a good web designer need to know about their craft in order to build a successful website? What do you think?

Mac, Content Management for Sites that Matter
I liked this article because it gets right at the core of the cost/benefit trade-off that many people don’t think enough about when building their web site. Either there’s a significant value to the work you’re doing on your site, which justifies spending some money on it and getting it done right, or there isn’t a significant value to your site, so why bother? I don’t 100% agree with them about the WYSIWIG comments, but I’ve never tried to tell a client to assume it would look identical in TinyMCE and on the public site. We’ve generally had to train them to be very careful to keep it simple. Use bold if you want, make some lists, paragraphs, links, and stuff like that, but don’t try and do anything funky or you’ll end up disappointed. Another annoying thing about TinyMCE is that even when you tweak the HTML manually in their HTML view, it often wants to “automatically fix” some of the things you did. I was trying to leave a <br /> or two between a couple of separate lists if I remember right, and it kept either taking it completely out, or turning into a paragraph, constantly leaving too much or too little whitespace, even though the HTML I manually entered would display exactly how I intended.

10 WordPress Dashboard Hacks

Mike, How Wireframing Makes Your Website Designs Better
The value of wireframing comes down to a simple idea: Wireframing forces you to think about your user interface design decisions in terms of user needs first, instead of in terms of what looks good.” While wireframing requires a little extra effort in the initial planning stages, it pays huge returns in the long run. We redesign less frequently, hit deadlines sooner, and best of all, greatly mitigate scope creep. So take your foot off the pedal, assess your client’s business objectives and user needs, and translate concepts into a tangible wireframe. You’ll be glad you did.

Luke, For Better Productivity, Communicate Less
I agree with Joel Spolsky in one of Lifehackers latest posts when he says that adding more people to a project will only slow it down. I think this is especially true in web development. Once deep into a big project a web developer knows where things are and how they are related. If you throw five of them at the same project at some point they would end up stepping on each others toes. There is a chance that if things are planned out right each developer could tackle a specific task and then they could put all their pieces together to make the final piece. To do that though a lot of planning and meeting together would have to happen. This will probably lead to more disagreements and toe stepping. For those reasons I think getting the few people needed on the project and keep them there is the best way to accomplish a web dev project.

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.

Easton Baseball

Easton Softball