Blog
A month off Twitter
I’ve decided to take January off social media, particularly Twitter. Over the last year I’ve found myself getting increasingly caught up in politics on social media and getting more and more frustrated. The people I follow almost always have the same politics as me – or at least are willing to discuss and be civil […]
Hosting (with affiliate links!)
First up: sorry. Affiliate links. I know people don’t like them, but in this case they’re for a company I was recommending to people anyway, and you get a big discount using these links. Still, sorry for affiliate linking: the affiliate link is fairly obvious below and if you really don’t like them you can […]
Securing your WordPress site: an infographic
I’ve been sent this awesome infographic all about keeping your WordPress site secure by Steven at WP Shrug, a new company who specialise in WordPress support and maintenance. If you run a WordPress site and want someone else to make sure it’s always being maintained as well as it should be, they’re well worth getting […]
Testing responsive sites using Chrome
Testing a new site before launch is one of the most important stages. The last thing we want is for a site to be launched and then changed a lot over the first few weeks: it means we can’t see immediate impacts of our changes, and it leads to a great deal of disruption for […]
What does Brexit mean for small web agencies?
Friday morning was a shock. I’ve been pro-European for a long time. From a personal standpoint, Europe represents access to a huge diversity of culture right on our doorstep, but with the protections that a single regulatory body brings – cheap mobile roaming, affordable currency, free healthcare, and so on. While I might not have […]
Big imports: some learnings
I’m currently working on (and close to finishing) a pretty big site. It’s a rebuild of a site built in a proprietary, Django-based CMS, with the intention to have the new site look almost exactly like the old one, except with the addition of a store. I’ve had to learn a lot on this project. […]
Your statistics-based marketing campaign is wrong
You may well be aware of the marketing omnishambles clothing retailer Lyst have created with their recent “we’re selling dogs online – HA HA no we’re not puppy farms are bad” campaign. It’s cynical, manipulative marketing at its worst, but it’s one more example of something which has been bugging me more and more recently: […]
A brief thing about dogs
UPDATE, 10 May: This really blew up. Lyst have revealed the “true” purpose behind this foolish and cynical stunt. I still think it’s wrong, and the stats they are using to “prove” their “success” are fundamentally flawed. Read more here. Original post: I’m really busy today and things have been going a bit wrong. Power […]
How I work: an update
Some time ago (about three years now) I wrote a post about how I work. Well, I think it’s time for an update. The above is an updated picture of my messy workspace. Let’s go left to right: First up is an A4 day to a page diary. I use Google Calendar for long term […]
Please treat your developer like an idiot: a Twitter ramble
The best way to get what you want on a website is to treat your developer like an idiot. No, honestly. Let me explain, possibly with gifs. — maltpress (@maltpress) March 22, 2016 We all have ideas of how things on sites "should" be built. Ask a developer for a contact form and they'll build […]