So yeah I know I’ve been away for what seems like an age. Partly due to work commitments and partly (mostly) due to the fact that we’re expecting our first child in under a month and there are so many things to do !!!

Anyway, you’re here to see how easy it is to add a favicon to your website, so keep reading.

So first things first, you need to create your icon image. I’m going to assume you are using photoshop as it’s most designers tool of choice. The image you need to create is 16 x 16 and bare in mind that some images when reduced to this size just become impossible to see clearly. I tend to stick to as few colours as possible.

On great resource for ready made icon files is ICON FINDER. You’ll find a link to it in my sidebar under resources should you want to go and have a look.

So, back to the job in hand. Once you’ve created your file, you’ll need to save it in ICO format. Photoshop doesn’t save in this format out of the box but there are plugins that will add this functionality. I use this one >>Click Here<<

One you have your file there are a couple of things left to do.

Firstly, upload the file to your root directory (the same directory your main index file resides).

Secondly, if you’re using Wordpress you can drop the file directly in to your theme folder right along side all of the other theme files.

Lastly you need to add a small line of code to your HEADER to link the file to your website.

And that’s it, that’s all you need to do. You should end up with something along the lines of the icon you can see for my site up there.

Hope you found this useful, let me know.

I’m off to do some more thinking about our baby’s arrival !!!!

Obviously this is something that is likely to be addressed in future releases of Wordpress, but as of 2.8 there is still no obvious way to do this. It has a built in function when you a defining the pages to add an order to them, but all it tends to do is display them in that order in the admin panel while leaving the actual page order on your site in the same condition as it was before.

There is a simple way around this.

Step 1. Go in to your admin panel and change the order of the pages there by editing each page individually and assigning an order in the menu on the right under “Attributes”.

What you should find is that this re-orders the list of pages you see in the page admin section but doesn’t change the order on your site.

Step 2. Add the following code where you want your page list to appear, if you are using the page widget then disable that and use this instead. To use the page list as navigation for instance, you could use the following example.

That’s it, when you next view your site you should see the pages appear in the order in the admin panel. You can obviously style the menu then to your hearts content.

This is bound to be fixed in a future release but until then, I hope you find this useful. Let me know if you do.

So… I’m going to start with our good friend Boba Fett. Don’t get too hung up on the actual image, all you need is something with a fairly high contrast and preferable a few colours in it.

Choose FILTER >> BLUR >> MOTION BLUR and choose the following settings.

You’re nearly there. Told you it wasn’t a long tutorial !!

The only thing left for a more dramatic appearance is to play around with the levels.

Go to IMAGE >> ADJUSTMENTS >> LEVELS and use the following settings.

That’s it !!!

You can use it however you see fit, whether it’s the basis for a background image for a website, or a custom wallpaper etc. The steps are easy, the possibilities endless.

Finished Image…

Hope you found this useful.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

Google XML Sitemap Generator

This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Every time you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.

All-In-One SEO Pack

Optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization)

Code Highlighter

This plugin using Geshi to highlight source code in your posts for an improved viewing experience.

Twitter Widget Pro

A widget that properly handles twitter feeds, including @username and link parsing. It supports displaying profiles images, and even lets you control whether to display the time and date of a tweet or how long ago it happened (about 5 hours ago, etc).

iLast FM

The plugin iLast.Fm provides a complete integration between your blog and your Last.fm account. You can show on your blog what music you are listening to, your top albums, top artists, loved tracks, and much more. Can show the CD covers or information, or both.

Blog Reordering

Reorder your blog posts in multiple ways including custom ordering instead of typical date wise post display. You can also mark any post as sticky that will be always placed at top.

Category Reordering

The Category Order plugin allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via drag and drop.

These are just a few of the ones I use but are my favourites I guess. Let me know what you think of them, or if you use any that I should know about etc.

Enjoy…

247 Media Studios

Ultrashock

Spoono

The Liquid Fridge

The Hospital

So many things influence me now, from product packaging, films, TV, business card and logo design, all sorts of things…. but these were some of the first sites I ever set eyes on that made me instantly want to join in the fun.

There are countless other sites that had the same effect and I’ll be sharing some more with you one day I’m sure, just thought these would be a nice way to kick off my blog here.

Feel free to leave your own links or make comments.

Enjoy…