Sometimes as a developer I write code that appears on multiple web sites. I just write a few lines that check what domain name the current site is using and execute the relevant code appropriately. Confusing? Think about when you sign up for an account at WordPress.com. You have a blog at yourusername.wordpress.com. Everyone’s different blogs are all pointing to the same code, but different database records are pulled based on the domain name being used.

The inconvenience here as a developer is when you need to test what you’ve written with a particular domain. You can update the DNS to point to your server, but if there’s a problem then the whole world is going to be looking at the broken site. You need to see it, though, so you can fix it.

There’s a file on Windows computer that for all practical purposes lets you create your own personal DNS settings that only affect your machine. It’s called the hosts file. On a default XP or Vista installation, it’s located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

Interesting bit of trivia, this file is where the value for localhost is set.

For my purposes, though, I can use this file to point a domain name to a test server and verify exactly how a site is going to work before I change any DNS values.

If a client really understands the purpose and power of a blog, they probably won’t be content to just bury the blog on some back corner of their site. They’re going to want the latest headlines to show up on the home page. I can roll up my sleeves and write an old fashioned SQL query to pull from the WordPress tables. In my test cases, everything works beautifully.

What I didn’t realize is that none of my test cases had apostrophes in the title. Once my client would add a post with an apostrophe, though, the headline on the home page showed a broken special character symbol. On the WordPress pages everything looked fine.

The problem has to do with character encoding. Simple enough. I made changes in my HTML tags to use UTF8 encoding – just like WordPress uses. That should do the trick, right? Nope. What I finally learned is that the query I was pulling out of MySQL wasn’t UTF8 encoded. So the information I was getting already had broken characters before the encoding that I set in HTML was applied.

It’s a little confusing. (Heck I’m not sure I entirely understand.) But here’s the important part: If you’re getting broken apostrophes when you pull information out of a WordPress table, include this line right after you call mysql_connect().

mysql_query(“SET NAMES ‘utf8′”);

That’s what did the trick for me.

This is possible (and even easy) with a little PHP.

Here’s what the line in your header tag is going to look like:

<link type=”text/css” rel=”stylesheet” href=”style.css.php” />

Now if you treat style.css.php as a typical CSS file, it’s not quite going to work. You need a little extra bit of code at the top, to make sure the web browser treats this as css.

<? header(“Content-type: text/css”); ?>

With that in place, your in business. You can use variables just like you would in any other css document.

<? $blue = ‘#003366;’ ?>
body { background-color: <?= $blue ?>; }
h1 { color: <?= $blue ?>; }

You can also pass variables. Remember the line of code you had back in your HTML file? What if it looked like this?

<link type=”text/css” rel=”stylesheet” href=”style.css.php?theme=green” />

Now you can do some cool tricks in your CSS file:

<?
if($theme == ‘blue’) { $maincolor = ‘#003366; }
if($theme == ‘green’) { $maincolor = ‘#339966′; }
?>
body { background-color: <?= $maincolor ?>; }
h1 { color: <?= $maincolor ?>; }

photo credit: urban_data

I haven’t written anything in a while. The time constraints of being a new dad and starting on a new business venture are insane, so I think I’ve avoided starting because I don’t have time to do the long posts that I’ve historically done on this blog. Here I’m taking a stab at a quick tip. Maybe this is the future of this blog.

I have a project that is taking a lot of mental energy right now. I can see the finish line, but everytime I’m distracted by something it takes me 20 minutes to mentally get back to where I was. So yesteday I moved every email that didn’t have to do with this project into a separate folder. Now my inbox only has the 10 or so emails related to this project.

Any new email that comes in automatically gets shoved into a separate folder. I’ll deal with all those when I get through with this project, but I MUST be able to focus on it without distractions for the time being.

photo credit: Extra Ketchup

Until just recently, I had gotten into the bad habit of using my inbox as the storage location for customer change requests. Until I completed all the items mentioned in an email from a client, I just left it in my inbox. (It’s especially tempting when the email has an attachment that’s relevant to the change.)

Every time management guru I’ve ever heard of agrees this is bad. I ended up spending a ton of time rereading all of those emails throughout the day, even when I’m not ready to sit down and work on them.

A far better approach is to use a change request log. It makes it very easy to keep a lot of information organized. I also love being able to look at a complete list in one place of all the things that need to be done to get a site finished.

Tracking Client Change Requests

This is the first post I’ve made in over two months. A crazy amount has happened in that time. I’ve become a new dad. This is picture of my new daughter, Libby Joss Mabbitt. She’s the one in the picture with lots of hair.

This is a good time to revisit a post I wrote last August: Fork in the Road. I talked about how one of my biggest clients was in need of more and more work from me as the months went on. It was reaching a cusp where they needed to bring on an internal person to handle what was starting to approach 40 hours worth of work each week.

I brought up the idea in the post that the position could be filled by me or someone else, but the freelance opportunity with this client was disappearing. I started talking about this phenomenon in very general terms, but I never explained how things were working out with me. Cody left a comment on the post and said he assumed I didn’t take the job.

For the most part, Cody is right. I have accepted a position with this new company. Then why am I qualifying this? Well, I’m taking a part-time position with this company that is 32 hours each week. I am still going to be working on independent projects like Patron, but during most regular business hours I’ll be working as a traditional employee.

How does this change affect this blog?

I am not going to be closing down Best Practices, although I probably won’t be posting weekly. Between a new job and my new role as dad, I doubt that I will be able to devote as much time to the blog as I have in the past. If the last two months are any indication, then that’s certainly true!

I don’t really know if I’ll be posting every two weeks, every month, or just on occasions when I feel compelled to talk about something. Probably the latter. So if you don’t use RSS feeds, this is a great time to start. There’s certainly no need to keep checking the site every Wednesday morning because there often won’t be a post. If you can just add this site to your feed aggregator, though, then you can just kick back and wait for new posts to come to you.

photo credit: Extra Ketchup

My emphasis has shifted to more of a product-based business model since July of 2006, but there is still some very good points in this post. The idea of growing large customers is really based on the model of being a service-oriented web developer.

The advantage is that you get to develop relationships with your customers who are going to come to you with new projects they need done. You spend less time selling yourself to new customers and more time developing.

Growing Little Customers Into Big Customers

photo credit: Extra Ketchup

This blog has been up and running for over 2 years. There’s a lot of topics that I’ve covered in that time that could probably stand to be revisited. Since my time seems to be slipping through my fingers as we try to get the house ready to bring a baby home this December, this seems like a perfect time.

The next several weeks are going to be spent looking back at some of the early posts from Best Practices. As needed, I’ll be commenting on parts of the post that don’t necessarily hold up anymore. The ideas in this 2006 post on pricing are still a pretty accurate reflection of the approach I take when giving a customer a quote.

Pricing Your Web Design Service

Today is Blog Action Day. Each year an important topic is selected, and bloggers around the world who wish to participate post about that topic. This year’s subject is poverty. I thought about trying to do a post that ties into poverty, but I think it makes more sense to do a post on this blog that talks about using your skills to help any organization that is trying to make positive changes.

It seems like most successful freelancers I know end up doing at least a little bit of pro bono work from time to time. Usually for some noble cause that resonates with them. It’s seldom because they have so much extra time. So why do they do it?

• It’s the right thing to do. I imagine I’m not the only person who sleeps better at night if I feel like the world is a slightly better place because I’m on it.
• It raises your visibility. You can land projects with much more recognizable clients than you can at your regular billing rates. As a result, your portfolio gets stronger.
• It builds contacts. The decision makers at any organization that is worthy of pro bono consideration do not exist in a vacuum. They tend to know a lot of people and will recommend you if you’ve done a good job for them.

So you believe in the value, but there are thousands (probably tens of thousands) of worthy organizations to donate your services to. How do you figure out which one to work with?

• Need. Who actually needs your service right now? If the soup kitchen down the street already has a stable of freelance writers, they might not need another one.
• Personal connection. Does the mission of the organization resonate with you? If you hate cats and dogs, then doing something for your local animal shelter won’t be quite as satisfying. (Don’t worry. There are other freelancers out there who love cats and dogs, and they will take care of the animal shelters of the world.)
• Advancing business goals. You can do something good and grow your business at the same time. I would suggest working with an organization that brings you closer to your potential customers.

I recently got involved with the Indianapolis International Film Festival. I will be donating a considerable amount of my time over the next several months revamping their website. Right now the site is the responsibility of people who don’t have a ton of experience with this type of work, and they really have other things they need to be spending their time on for the festival. I’d call that a big need.

The objectives of the festival resonate with me: bringing some of the culture of the rest of the world into Indianapolis. I’m also a big movie buff. I get excited about being involved with this organization so that’s a match.

The film festival also advances my business goals. With Patron, I want to be in front of the people who care about promoting culture and entertainment in Indianapolis. The people involved with the film festival run in the same circles as my target market.

So take a second to brag in the comments below. What worthy organization do you donate your time to? Here’s a chance to give them a little free exposure.