Different Approaches to Building a Theme-based Site

Mark Root-Wiley wrote a great article on the pros and cons of using premium themes, writing child themes and writing themes from scratch. It’s discussed in the context of WordPress themes, but most of it is applicable to other CMSs as well. I think it’s a good introduction to give clients when discussing which method […]

Differences between query_posts(), get_posts() and WP_Query

This WordPress Answers page explains the differences between the query_post() and get_posts() functions, and their relation to the WP_Query class. They both use WP_Query internally, but should be used in different contexts. Using them in the wrong context could lead to bugs that are hard to track down.

What Really Motivates Us

Dan Pink’s talk at RSA presents some really interesting ideas about what really motivates people to work. Contrary to popular opinion among management, mainstream studies reveal that people don’t really care about making more money, as long as they have enough to meet their basic needs. What really drives us is mastering our craft, having autonomy […]

Re-Abolish Slavery Ribbon

I just released a new WordPress plugin into the repository that raises awareness about modern-day slavery by adding a “Re-Abolish Slavery” ribbon to WordPress sites. It’s running on this site, so you can see a live example by looking in the upper-right hand corner. The ribbon links to the Not For Sale campaign, which is […]

Preventing Sites From Opening New Tabs/Windows

UPDATE: There’s now a Chrome extension called TheOne which does this, so you don’t need to create your own user script. I wrote earlier about why it’s wrong for websites to force links to open in a new tab or window, but it’ll probably be at least a few years before the majority of […]

My First Shot at Adaptive Images

One of the first problems you run into when trying to build an adaptive layout is that images, unlike blocks of text, have fixed widths. Ideally we want to use small images on small screens and full sized ones on larger screens. The browser can resize the image on the fly, but the two problems […]

Exotic Data Visualization Techniques

Check out A Tour Through the Visualization Zoo for a good introduction to the concept of data visualization and some interesting examples of the more exotic techniques being used to describe complicated data sets.

Ian Dunn

WordPress Developer

Different Approaches to Building a Theme-based Site

Differences between query_posts(), get_posts() and WP_Query

What Really Motivates Us

Re-Abolish Slavery Ribbon

Preventing Sites From Opening New Tabs/Windows

My First Shot at Adaptive Images

Exotic Data Visualization Techniques