WHS Blog » Building Websites

Show off your Inner Geek with a WordPress Plugin

Preeti — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:19:51 +0000

A couple months ago we launched a WordPress plugin that would allow you to displaying server statistics on your website. It’s awesome, it’s dorky, and it’s what makes geeks, super geeks. Of course, our road to plugin land had some bumps but now it’s ready to rock and roll. This past week, we launched a new version of the plugin and fixed all the bugs. The plugin also works great with Windows, Mac, or Linux platforms, no worries there.

What is this great WordPress plugin you ask? It shows statistics of what your hosting server is doing. You can find out if your host is really as great as it should be. This WordPress plugin is light and versatile and can be fitted to a sidebar on the homepage only or just on one page you choose. The Server Info Plugin, or as I call it Great Geek Plugin, is also user friendly because it fits in nicely with well built themes and is not bulky. Features can be adjusted in your WordPress control panel, under Settings.

Oh, we should mention that after you upload the plugin, you will have to activate BOTH plugin types on the control panel of WordPress. It is weird, but do that and everything will work fine.

Here is some of the information you can find out about your server:
System Vital Information:
Kernel Version
Distribution name
Uptime

Hardware Information:
Processors
CPU speed
BUS speed

Memory usage:
Physical Memory
Free
Used
Total

You can pick and choose what fields you want to show to visitors and where you want to place it on your blog or website. Check out the Server Info Plugin out and if you have comments or questions, post a comment here.

More info on System Information Plugin and you can download it there.

WordPress Page info and also where you can download the plugin: here

Good CSS for better looking sites!

David — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:12:57 +0000

It is happy times for web designers at the moment; the technique is easy and things are constantly evolving making it very interesting. With the help of CSS you will get quick results as well as being able to create beautiful websites that have every possibility of getting positive remarks by its visitors. The basic idea with CSS is very simple; separate the appearance from the content. This way you will get a very flexible website that is easy to adapt to new platforms.

When you are designing websites is it important that you constantly check that they look good on various platforms. Setting up an easy and good environment when creating your design, is truly of the essence. The basics can be:

Local web server – Mamp (Apache, MySql and PHP5) is easy and good for Mac if you never have staged a server before. The name for Windows is Wampserver. IIS is a good alternative if you wish to run a Dotnet environment. Most web servers today are very easy to stage – Mamp is for example installed and up and running in just a few clicks.
Both Mac and PC environment –It is extremely important to check your design in both a Mac and PC web-browser. If you do not have two separate computers you can, via Parallels Desktop, install Windows XP or Vista on your Mac.
A set of web-browsers; Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Opera – all of these will get you far. A tip is to check out Browsershots.org that renders your design in a diverse set of browsers and platforms. If you want to run Google Chrome on your Mac you will have to wait or install Crossover Chromium, which is a translated version of Chrome for Mac OSX. Remember though that it is only in a test version and you should not entirely rely on its stability.

Cheap Web Design & Development: India, the Ukraine, Rumania

Brian — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:02:05 +0000

If you have come to this site in search of web hosting, you are on your way to a proper presence on the web. But, in order to get a website set up there are two vital components left: web design and site development. Now, the most common problem isn’t to identify them, the problem for most of us is affording them. The hardship of getting a hold of a web designer and developer does not make things easier. If you know a friend or friend of a friend who can create and design your website, good for you! But if you lack sufficient networking skills and still require a cheaper alternative to expensive and blown up web agencies, listen up! I will give a personal recommendation of a web service through which you can get a professional website done for only a couple of hundred dollars.

I recently found myself having a, according to me, great idea for a website but not nearly enough fundings to hire a local web agency. Of course I requested proposals from a dozen of them and to little suprise got back figures that could buy entire countries. So I started looking for an alternative and cheaper web design and web development. After Googling till my fingers were bleeding, I found it. The cure to the thousands of lost souls who register hosting account only to realize they can’t afford to make their website dream come true.

The source for Cheap Web Design & Programming

A place where thousands of freelancing web designer and developers offer their services. An internaional dashboard for any skills that is connected to the web. Web design, programming, writing, distributing. You name it! The web service I am talking about is called Elance.com. Like myself, you will be able to create projects and invite providers that offer what you need. Within hours you will have proposals in your inbox, not exceeding more than couple of hundreds of dollars. I am currently using Elance to hire a team of Wordpress designers and developers in India, with excellent customer-ratings, that has agreed to mark-up my web design and implement it to the Wordpress CMS, for a mere $280 dollars. Any local agency would probably charge you $2000-$3000 for it.

The reason why these freelancers charge so little is the same reason multi-corporations outsource their factories. The cheapest online freelancing web designers and programmer can be found in India, the Ukraine and Rumania. And perhaps there is a moral dilemma here whether or not to use their services? But that is for another blog post. For know, visit Elance.com and you’ll find cheap web design and site development, finally being able to realize your website ambitions.

First interviews posted!

Preeti — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:09:07 +0000

We are really happy at WHS that so many awesome people want to take part in the interview project. Currently we have four very interesting men that we interviewed. Thank you all for taking the time to talk to us.

Chris Spooner- He is a web designer and the blogger behind blog.spoongraphics.co.uk. He writes everything and anything related to web designing. And just recently he started his own website, Chris Spooner. Love the clouds dude.

Chris Coyier- He is the blogger behind CSS-Tricks, which is, as you guessed, about CSS. Frustrated with something in your CSS code or want to add something nifty? Check out his site then.

Barrie North- There is a lot we can say about Barrie. He is part of Joomlashack, Compass Design, and most recently, SimplWeb. If you have any questions relating to Joomla, you will have to check out his sites.

David Walsh – Programmer and all in one man, he knows PHP, MySQL, Mootools, Java. Want to learn to program? Stop by his blog and start geeking out.

Web Designer Guide & New Interviewees

Preeti — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:06:59 +0000

One of our teammates is undertaking a massive project. She is creating a comprehensive guide of freelance web designers and small web design companies located all over the US and the world. What’s the purpose of this guide you ask? In Eva’s words: “This guide will aide visitors in finding a web designer in their local area. Say you want to start a website and sell hats and you are based in Tennessee but you have no idea how to make a website. Well, you can look at our list of designers, find one in Tennessee and connect. Instead of searching on Google everywhere, this list already has great designers since WHS has contact with every company listed. We also geographically separated them since many people want to work with someone in their area.”

Well put Eva. If you are a freelancer or own a small company, definitely get in touch with us. You can drop a comment below. =)

And number two on the list: interviews. We started interviewing some very famous CSS blog owners, Chris Coyier, David Walsh, and a few others. An internationally famous illustrator has also agreed and two PHP developers. We are very excited to hear what they say.

With that, happy Friday and a great weekend.

Think you’re cool to be interviewed? Read on…

Preeti — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:51:48 +0000

We’re working on a major expansion of the site which will take place sometime in the near future. Okay, that was really specific. We cannot disclose a whole lot (clandestine operations you know ) but we are hoping to interview lots of people in the web world. This just would not be hosting providers but also web designers, programmers, and website geeks.

If you know someone we should interview, post here. And maybe add why you think they are cool to be interviewed.

On that note, happy Friday to all. Be safe and find your designated driver when partying. =)

-P