by James McGrath
Last week WordPress released ‘Thelonius’ or WordPress 3.0, the latest version of their popular CMS.
There are a number of new features and upgrades in this version of WordPress that make this blogging platform even more powerful and usable that previous versions.
Here are the highlights:
- WordPress and WordPress MU have merged, allowing the management of multiple sites (called Multisite) from one WordPress installation.
- New default theme “Twenty Ten” takes full advantage of the current features of WordPress.
- New custom menu management feature, allows creation of custom menus combining posts, pages, categories, tags, and links for use in theme menus or widgets.
- Custom header and background APIs.
- Contextual help text accessed under the Help tab of every screen in the WordPress administration.
- Ability to set the admin username and password during installation.
- Bulk updating of themes with an automatic maintenance mode during the process.
- Support for shortlinks.
- Improved Custom post types and custom taxonomies including hierarchical (category-style) support. (Try the Custom Post Type UI or GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools plugins to see the possibilities.)
- A lighter admin color scheme to increase accessibility and put the focus more squarely on your content.
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by Jen Pennington and James McGrath
We’ve been quietly experimenting on some really amazing new sites including our own. Our work over the last six months is more focused on creating great custom designs using WordPress blog technology to allow our customers access to their content. It’s not just for blogs. That’s right, we’re teaching our clients how to make updates and we proudly admit it. (more…)
by Jen Pennington
Making Changes
How changes to copy and layout are communicated between client and agency has a dramatic impact on the success of the outcome. As with hunting and gathering, changes should be delivered “in bulk” rather than “drips.” We recommend assigning one person in your organization to be the point person and have all communications within your company sent to this person for consolidation. From there, all thoughts, ideas, changes, suggestions, and recommendations can be forwarded to the Project Manager at Rhizome at one time. This facilitates clear communication and ensures all requests for changes are received and responded to in a timely manner.
Technical Support
While we are always supportive of our clients, Rhizome does not officially provide tech support. We are happy, when time and expertise permits, to talk clients through problems, but for large, time-intensive issues, we recommend hiring professional help or researching issues via the Internet.
by Jen Pennington
The devil is in the details. Not enough can be said about the importance of proofing work that is designed, written, or programmed for clients. Once a client signs off on a project and the job is sent to print or goes live on the Web, errors found after the fact are the sole responsibility of the client. This is why we provide proofs and require sign-offs for all our work. In most cases we can fix errors that are caught after the fact, but additional costs might be involved. Therefore, please:
* Proof thoroughly
* Ask yourself if you are missing any part numbers, dates, credits, or copyright notices
* Check all phone numbers and addresses each time you receive a new proof!
* Have someone who knows nothing about the project proof for you-a pair of fresh eyes always finds something
* Double check to see if names are spelled correctly
by Jen Pennington
The difference between Web maintenance and a complex update relates to the amount of time the programmer has to spend working on the site. Site maintenance generally takes between 1 and 3 hours. A change that involves database programming, administration tools, form, etc., is considered a complex update. In all cases, the client is informed if it turns out that a “maintenance” request is actually an “update,” an estimate is provided.
