Category: WordPress

Find Out Where That Short Link Goes

Short links are for those of us who don’t like much typing or thumbing. Great invention, huh?

I mean, who really wants to take the time to type in a link like this — http://wildeherb.com/2014/08/21/blooming-anise-hyssop-attracts-bees-and-butterflies/ — with all the hyphens no less?

Short link services are plentiful on the Net and it’s no wonder. If you’re into Twitter, a link like the above one will use more than half a tweet with those 77 characters!

A more sensible link — http://bit.ly/29fpAhq — of only 14 characters will take you to that Blooming Anise Hyssop post.

Popular URL shortening services are available at bitly.com, TinyURL.com or Goo.gl, just to name the most popular ones. There are tons of other services out there with extra features like tracking how many clicks your links are getting.

My issue with using short links is, “How do you know where that little link will take you?”

Is it safe? Can it be trusted?

Find out before you go there by using an un-shortening or link expansion service like Untiny.

I just checked and my bit.ly link above was properly extracted to the original long, hairy link.

Untiny.me, an even greater invention!

Updated Method to Create WordPress Child Themes

Twenty Ten Child Theme Mods

Once upon a time all that a WordPress Child Theme needed was to use an @import rule to bring in all the styles from the parent theme stylesheet. Evidently, that method still works as I’ve been using a couple of “old” child themes on live sites, until now.

Even so, it would be better to use updated and preferred methods for creating WP child themes. When The Codex says something is no longer best practice, we should pay attention.

Using @import to bring in other files costs us time. Nobody appreciates a slow site so any way that we can speed things up for our visitors is a good thing.

The correct method of enqueuing the parent theme stylesheet is to add a wp_enqueue_scripts action and use wp_enqueue_style() in your child theme’s functions.php.

A child theme requires one file, style.css, declarations in which will override those of the parent theme, but now we need a second file, called functions.php, to enqueue the new stylesheet. Continue reading Updated Method to Create WordPress Child Themes

Improve Your Skills with a $5 eBook from Packt

That’s right! Visit Packt’s $5 eBook Bonanza until January 3rd, 2014 to pick up some new skills. You’ll be able to get any eBook or Video from Packt for just $5. This includes their entire range of WordPress eBooks as well.

$5-ebooks
Packt Publishing offers more than 1,700 books and videos on a wide range of topics that you might be interested in. Here’s their shopping categories and the number of titles in each category: Continue reading Improve Your Skills with a $5 eBook from Packt