Archive of: 2014

• Decisions, decisions...

  12 December 2014 by Clive Walker

  I’ve been doing a lot more thinking about my freelance business over the course of the year. As we approach 2015, it seems like a good time to make a decision…. or, at least, write a blog post!

  4 Comments

• Displaying blog category descriptions with Perch

  04 October 2014 by Clive Walker

  I described how to create and display category descriptions with the Perch blog add-on earlier this year. Now, that article is no longer accurate because Perch have created a Categories app as part of the core functionality.

  So, here's an update which describes how to display blog category descriptions using the latest version of Perch (2.6.6 as I write this). In hindsight, this is relatively simple but it took me longer than expected to figure it out … so hopefully this post will help you as well.

  3 Comments

• Taking a few more steps with Sass and learning new things

  23 September 2014 by Clive Walker

  It’s taken me a while to get onboard with CSS pre-processors like LESS and Sass. I wrote about LESS or Sass or neither two years ago (!) and I’ve not, until recently, moved on from that position. Yet, I have been changing the way that I work and part of that is being better organised.

• Why I don't like homepage sliders

  29 August 2014 by Clive Walker

  There’s a common web design pattern that I see a lot these days. It’s a big and bold image slider with five or six images on the home page of a site. Sometimes, they have a text message over each image. Sometimes they scroll the images automatically. I’m sure you’ve seen them and I’ve coded a few of these myself (and will probably do a few more). However, are they really helping get your message across and converting website visitors? Or are they just “eye candy”?

  2 Comments

• Five reasons you should track your time

  25 June 2014 by Clive Walker

  If you’re running your own business, time is a very important commodity. But do you know just how valuable your time is – or how wisely you’re using it? Emily Coltman FCA, Chief Accountant to FreeAgent – who provide the UK’s market-leading online accounting system specifically designed for small businesses and freelancers – explains some of the key insights you can gain by tracking your time correctly.

• Changing the way I build websites

  16 June 2014 by Clive Walker

  I’m changing the way I build websites and moving towards a different front end workflow. Nothing too revolutionary for most of you I’m sure but it feels like a change for me. Here’s what I’m doing.

• How I've improved my freelancer workflow and productivity

  27 April 2014 by Clive Walker

  I’ve done some business workflow ‘spring cleaning’ here recently. I’ve improved my invoicing, business process and task management and, as a result, I’m feeling more productive and better organised. Here’s what I’ve done.

• Category descriptions with the Perch blog app

  05 March 2014 by Clive Walker

  The other day, I wanted to add a short category description to the blog post categories on CVW Web Design and display it above the blog posts for each category. For example, the description above the posts on this page that starts “Articles about Horsham and the coworking days…"

  I'm using Perch to run the site and this is how I did it.

• WordPress Tip: Remove Items from the Admin Menu

  14 February 2014 by Clive Walker

  Yesterday I was working on a WordPress site and a question came up about removing (or hiding) top level items from the Admin Menu (for all users). This is what I've used in other projects.

  2 Comments