Custom Super Bug WordPress Theme
About two weeks ago I got an email through my website asking if I could customize my free arcade game WordPress theme – Atari Command. The individual was looking for me to use graphics from the classic game Super Bug in the header, just doing a simple swap with anything that was Missile Command related.
Short, easy, and well defined I just cranked this design project out really quick last week in a break from class work. (more…)
New Website Design – Auto Repair Facts.com
Been picking at this website since May of 2008. In April a friend of mine who has been a mechanic for many years was looking to start up a website that talked about repairing cars. I could tell by the way he spoke and knowing his passion that he was looking for a creative outlet.
I knew that there were plenty of websites out there talking about car repair, the key would be finding a niche mission. Oh, and the little thing that I know very little about cars, so the website was highly reliant on him being consistent about writing content. Here we are September of 2008 and this Auto Repair Facts.com website has taken off. (more…)
New Website Design – Image Builders Institute
I’ve been busy you might say on many different projects. Here is one that I started about three weeks ago, a new contract / freelance website design for a client here in Indianapolis called Image Builders Institute.com. Image Builders is an Incentive and Impression management service in the Indianapolis area and their website looks static, but is built off of WordPress. (more…)
New Arcade WordPress Theme – RGVAC
Been waiting for this to drop, furiously tapping my leg. But tonight Brian updated his RGVAC arcade game website with a brand new theme that I designed. I was really happy with the way the layout turned out, it uses pieces of artwork from some of his favorite games. (more…)
Edit your WordPress theme – Headers
Some of you out there really want to start your own arcade game blog, but are clueless about web design and therefore don’t understand how to customize the look of your own WordPress website. There are plenty of tutorials out on the internet on how to make your own WordPress theme, sifting through the good ones might be a challenge. Regardless of that fact, I don’t feel the need to rewrite them because customizing your theme is a time investment no matter what you do. You need to learn HTML, CSS and understand the purpose of each html file in the theme.
However, just about any themes out there typically can look like a completely unique website by just adding your own header graphic. I am going to show you how to edit the header in your newly downloaded WordPress theme to add your own custom designed banner graphic. (more…)
Atari Command Free WordPress Theme
In late April 2008, I did a Donkey Kong themed WordPress layout with the intentions of making it into a free downloadable theme. However, as time passed, I realized that I didn’t want to give that theme away for free, so I attempted to make a more generic arcade game theme, on based on the games of Atari. (more…)
New WordPress install? First thing to do, setup permalinking!
I had to learn the hard way – my permalinking troubles continue. On any given day, some of my closest friends will visit a website I have worked on and find one broken image or link, and start to give me a hard time. They don’t understand how hard it is to keep a website fresh and at the same time keep old things working correctly while making strides to make things better. It irks me, but I usually brush it off because people can be naive about things they don’t understand.
But, Rotheblog has had some major issues for….over a month??? I don’t even know how long and I deserve a hard time for the broken image problems I have had on the site as of late.
When I changed my permalink structure, that broke all my relatively linked images, which was a ton of images. I have periodically been going through and changing the links to absolute when I can, but I knew there was something like 1200 images that were broken. When I was making the original jump to WordPress, I had to have relative paths because I was inside of a “blog” directory. That is what kills me, I always always use absolute paths on all of my images.
So, today, I took a risk. I knew I could export my sql database file and do a find and replace, but my concern was what Dreamweaver might do to my file and my site. Although Dreamweaver has a great find and replace toolset, I know it can also screw up text based files like XML by adding / changing characters where there is supposed to be space.
Well, I consulted with a friend, and he said that he had never had any issue with Dreamweaver and .sql files, so I gave it a shot. 1085 changes in all, each change an image that was probably broken on the website. So, now, if you see a broken image, it “should” be the minority, and it is probably something I am not aware of and linked improperly to being with. *Hint Hint* so please let me know!
So, the lesson to all of the new WordPress users out there, setup your permalinking first! On a new WordPress install, change your permalink structure to match the SEO goals for your site. I am not obtuse enough to think all of my problems are solved, I have thought that twice now. But hopefully this is one more step to a better Rotheblog.com.
