Foundation Web Design & Development
Web Design & Development
Well well! It’s been a very busy July and August… So much so that I forgot to send out my Cool Things for Cool People July edition. Eek! Anyway, hopefully you’ll find some more cool things in this edition. There’s a lot I can’t wait to share with you! Take a look:
Continue reading “Cool Things for Cool People: August 2024”
Dear fellow WordPress developers, it’s time to give up Classic WordPress.
I know, I know. But Gutenberg has been the core editor since December 2018. And I agree with you! When Gutenberg first came out I wanted nothing to do with it either. It was not ready for prime time, there were a lot of things wrong or downright broken with it, and it hardly fit into any sort of regular WordPress build. But the fact of the matter is that Gutenberg has been out for nearly six years now, and it’s really shined up to something great.
Continue reading “Dear WordPress devs, it’s time to give up classic”
It’s no secret my favorite slider plugin is Smart Slider 3. With a robust interface, lots of great options, ease-of-use, and accessibility as well as SEO features, Smart Slider 3 is hands down the best slide plugin for WordPress out there.
I’ve run into certain areas where I’ve wanted to use Smart Slider 3 with pngs, and make the slider as a whole fully transparent so it’s like each slide is floating and sliding on the website. It seems simple enough — just drop out the background on the slider you’re building, but it seems all slides have a solid background on them (usually white) no matter what.
The solution?
Continue reading “Making a background transparent in Smart Slider 3”
It’s really heating up here in New England. We’ve had some 100+ degree days, and even just a few days ago had a really scary tornado warning. Eek. Hopefully nothing more like that for anyone. Anyway, I’ve got a round up of some new great goodies for you to check out including fundraisers, time wasters, and time savers. Let’s go!
Continue reading “Cool Things for Cool People: June 2024”
I’ve dealt with this headache so you don’t have to. Signing up for an agency account is great, because it gives you some new tools to take the confusion out for your customers when it comes time to help them with their Google Business profile. However, an agency account comes with some caveats. That is, the agency cannot own profiles on its own (it can never be an owner), so having a backup Gmail or Google account to be an owner is key. Ideally, the client becomes the owner, but that doesn’t always work out.
Continue reading “Gaining Access to a Service Area Business Google Business Profile with an Agency Account”
It’s spring here in New England and one gorgeous day, and it’s time for another Cool Things post. I hope you find this post particularly neat and interesting. Don’t forget you can submit your own cool thing using the cool things form!
Continue reading “Cool Things for Cool People: May 2024”
By now, you likely have an idea about contrast ratios in web design and when a contrast ratio is too low, it might be difficult for people to read. A contrast ratio is a mathematical way of figuring out whether or not something is readable based on a few different factors, like text size and text color, as well as background color. Generally speaking, WCAG AAA contrast ratio for text is minimum of 7:1. You can use an online contrast checker if you’re unsure; WebAim has a good one! But what happens when the contrast is too high? Does such a thing exist? The short answer is: yes.
Continue reading “In website design, is there such a thing as too much contrast?”
I’m so excited to announce the launch of a new website for client Sweet Sips Colostrum Spoons! Sweet Sips Colostrum Spoons helps birthing parents breastfeed their newborns with the help of colostrum spoons, ensuring that the baby gets enough nutrition during the crucial early moments of life. I just love the way this site came out, and I know you will too!
Continue reading “New Site Project: Sweet Sips Colostrum Spoons”
Welcome to another installment of Cool Things for Cool People, hoping to make your inbox (and your day) a little more interesting. Don’t forget you can submit your own cool thing using the cool things form!
Continue reading “Cool Things for Cool People: April 2024”
There are many ways to make your WordPress site faster, but seldom is the topic about your database. When your WordPress site starts to slog, it can be a frustrating experience for not only you, but your visitors as well. If a website is too slow, did you know it can actually lose potential customers? Really! According to Google, the probability of bounce increases 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds. Keeping your site quick isn’t just a vanity project; it has real consequences that can help grow your business.
For the uninitiated, every WordPress install has two parts: the PHP, CSS, and JS files that make up the functionality of WordPress, and the MySQL database that houses all of the information that propagates into the WordPress installation. A WordPress installation cannot function if it’s missing its database, and you’ve likely seen the dreaded “error establishing database connection” error before that tears down your entire site. So, let’s talk databases, identifying if they’re slow, and what you can do to fix them.
Continue reading “Identifying and cutting WordPress database bloat”