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Converting Points to Pixels

I’ve started working on a new website design, and just realised my photoshop layout – all the text was scaled in points not pixels. This client I am working for is quite particular on having the design look just right so I completed some research and came across the following formulas and they worked!!

Saves me from guessing sizes and comparing with the original photoshop design!

Converting Points to Pixels

Pixels = Points x 96/72

Converting Pixels to Points

Points = Pixels x 72/96

Too easy!

HTML Character Codes

E.g. when you want to add a © symbol to your footer – you should add this the right way! Use the HTML ampersand character code <code>&copy</code>.

This website page lists a lot of HTML character codes! A cool little reference to know about.

Here is the link:
http://rabbit.eng.miami.edu/info/htmlchars.html

Javascript – changing image script

I wanted an easy way to change to change an image on a page by simply clicking a link. Although JQuery is a very powerful tool, it seems funny to have all that unnecessary code for something so simple.

I came up with this.

// Here is the image you want to change
<img id=”imageID” alt=”" />

// The link that changes the image – just one line of Javascript. Pretty Easy.

<href="javascript:onclick=document.getElementById('imageID').src='newimage.jpg'">Link Text</a>

301 Redirection with .htaccess

Today I was asked by a SEO company to implement a 301 redirection via a .htaccess file.
This is something I have never done, and to be honest not sure how this affects SEO but here is how I implemented it.

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all requests coming in to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Please REPLACE domain.com and www.newdomain.com with your actual domain name.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

JQuery Lightbox Plugin

Pretty Photo is a great looking and functioning light box plug in that you can use with JQuery.

Not only do you get the plugin for this – but it also comes with 5 different skins that you can choose to use with your website.

Check it out here:
http://www.no-margin-for-errors.com/projects/prettyphoto-jquery-lightbox-clone/

DfontSplitter

I have been using Cufon to generate non html fonts onto my web pages. I noticed that a few of my mac fonts have .dfont as an extension, and I found this free little utility to convert dfont files to ttf.

Here is the link:
http://peter.upfold.org.uk/projects/dfontsplitter

Enjoy!

JQuery: Form Validation

This probably seems the most basic jQuery function that all web developers should know. But I am just starting to learn JQuery and understand what it can offer.

I found the JQuery form validation plug in – which improved the usability of form validation and there are no more ugly javascript pop ups!

Here is where you can find the download and documentation.
http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/

Starkers – Wordpress Theme

I found a wordpress theme called Starkers. This has been kindly developed by Elliot Jay Stocks.
It allows you to start designing your wordpress from scratch. Starkers removes all styling from the defualt wordpress these, so you no longer need to sift through the CSS and try to figure out what you need and don’t need.

You can download this from
http://elliotjaystocks.com/starkers/

Bing & Yahoo come together

I found this interesting read this morning.

And Then There Were Two: Microsoft & Yahoo Partner, RIP Yahoo Search

So what does this mean for SEO?
We need to start optimising out sites for Bing!

Microsoft Bing has published a white paper “Bing: New Features Relevant to Webmasters” to help web masters and publishers. It covers key features on how bing affects your past and future seo.