Beast-Blog.com
Mike Cherim's Professional and Personal Web Log

More and more people are using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS), and for good reason. It’s well supported, produces good mark-up, and it’s flexible. But when using it as a CMS it suddenly becomes very important to optimize the support of WordPress “Pages.” Unlike post, archive, and category links, a web site’s “Pages” have the utmost importance. This article will teach you how to produce a dynamic WordPress “Pages” navigation menu that looks good and behaves as a main navigation menu should.

Continue reading “Building a Dynamic WordPress Nav Menu” »

I have written about page titles in WordPress before, but when I made my new theme I found another alternative. I feel this method provides slightly better results across a wider range of installations.

In the header.php file you need to look for the title element. It looks like this: <title></title>, but this is the element only, shown without its content. What you’ll probably see is this code (on one line):

Continue reading “Enhancing the WordPress Title Element” »

We needed a bigger, badder, and better back-end for Accessites.org. We like to write lots of articles and needed a more powerful and flexible web publishing application than the homegrown content management system (CMS) we were using before. We decided to go with WordPress dressed up with a variation of my lastest accessible theme — though it was made even more accessible, which is a given considering what it’s serving. Hope you like it; we do.

Continue reading “Accessites.org Reboot” »

On this page, any page with a sidebar, you’ll notice a little “Blog Author” box (see right). Big deal, right? Well, what’s cool is how I got it there. It’s a feature I added to my latest WordPress theme. I think it’s neat. Since it can be implemented on any theme it is worth noting with an explanation of how other WordPress users can use the feature. I’ve logged into quite a few blog admin areas to know it’s under-utilized but this short tutorial may change that.

Continue reading “Posting Author Info in WordPress” »

Writing for the web is said to be different from writing for print; and writing for the web is said to be no different from writing for print. Yes, two contradictory points of view between which, I suspect, lies the real answer. It’s not that I’m undecided or trying to be democratic by taking the middle ground, but rather it’s what I’ve deduced. I’ve written for both media so I do have some experience, but of more importance is that I’ve read from both media. You see, the mystery can be solved I think by examining not the writing, but the reading.

Continue reading “How to Write Content for the Web” »

It’s more than a Rebootification Project. It’s a lot more accessible, more usable, friendlier, better than before, and quite simply more. Yes. I’m extremely pleased to announce the launch of my Beast-Blog Theme v.2.0 and its dedicated support blog, now sporting the new design. Finally a new version of my long-popular version one of the same name. This has been long overdue and was screaming for a technical upgrade.

Continue reading “Beast-Blog v2: Accessible WordPress Theme” »

Web accessibility can be a scary thing to get into, and being that starting any project can be the hardest part — the motivation comes before momentum — it was determined a solid place and plan to start, all while throwing out the rule book so to speak, is something some developers really need. Trying to master accessibility will prevent some from even attempting it, but it’s really an unnecessary obstacle as mastery isn’t needed to begin. We’re attempting to illuminate the easy path.

Continue reading “Practical, Entry-Level Web Accessibility” »

In your head, right now, is a brain cell for each and every product and service in the entire world. Just one measly brain cell for each, but in a business’s marketing struggle, it’s a vitally important one. It’s the brain cell marketers want to capture, to trap, to win and own, to totally dominate. It’s a signature of their marketing success — or your marketing success if you’re in business for yourself and have your own product or service to purvey. To win over a consumer’s brain cell is to win in that market, or at least victory is imminent. This is next to the ultimate goal; the ultimate goal will be identified later in this article.

Continue reading “The Art of Brain Cell Domination” »

Over at Accessites we’ve been at it since January 1st of 2006: checking in (234) and grading sites (64), issuing awards (54) — also rejecting some (158) — and giving recognition to developers who are helping us prove accessible sites need not be plain Jane and boring, and publishing some related articles (31). Speaking of articles, I wrote one just for this one-year milestone. This post here on my blog is simply to host any comments or questions our readers/visitors/submitters/supporters may have.

Continue reading “Accessites.org Turns One” »