Category Archives: Webmastering

What’s the deal with wp_enqueue_style (and why does WP documentation suck?)

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Martin Mapes

I’m implementing a child theme for the WordPress template twentyfourteen. I followed the simple directions at WordPress’ Child Themes page. Yet my styles were not showing up. Not only were they not overriding the parent styles, Firebug showed that they … Continue reading →

Posted in CSS, Webmastering, WordPress | Leave a comment

WordPress ate My HTML Too

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Martin Mapes

The WordPress team admits that a common complaint is “WordPress ate my html.” Their latest “fix” to this issue is to relabel the HTML tab as “Text.” I’m all for truth in labeling, but it seems like a lazy fix. … Continue reading →

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Make a proper favicon for your web site

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Martin Mapes

Sunday is my website cleanup day. My error logs looked clean, so I decided to finally make a proper favicon for my primary web site. I remember being surprised to learn that the .ico format allows you to store multiple sizes … Continue reading →

Posted in Images, Webmastering | Leave a comment

Converting to UTF-8

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Martin Mapes

Shamed and inspired by Joel Spolsky’s decade-old article on character encoding, and warned by another blog post (which I can’t find) that described a three-day ordeal fighting the issue, I cleared some time and sat down to make sure all … Continue reading →

Posted in Web programming, Webmastering | Leave a comment

When PNG color doesn’t match hex color in IE, smush.it!

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Martin Mapes

I built a site for my cousin’s business. We used PNGs for some of the background images and it looked gorgeous (at least to me). Then one day she asked me why her site had those weird rectangles. I had … Continue reading →

Posted in CSS, Images, Webmastering | 1 Comment

Redirect to a mobile site, unobtrusively

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Martin Mapes

I just made a kick-ass mobile web site (if I do say so myself) for a client. The question arose whether to provide a link to it from the main site (which another developer controlled), or to detect mobile devices … Continue reading →

Posted in Mobile, Web programming, Webmastering | 18 Comments

Read it in the Sunday log files

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Martin Mapes

Today’s lesson: It pays to be in the habit of checking your log files. I make it a habit to check log files once a week. I set an alarm for every Sunday morning to remind me to check my … Continue reading →

Posted in Debugging, Webmastering | 1 Comment