Recently, Bootstrap gained much popularity as the number one Front-end framework among web developers. It was developed by Twitter’s team and is a combination of Javascript, CSS, and HTML code meant to help web developers build UI (User Interface) components. It’s basically a free collection of tools used to develop responsive websites and web applications.

However, as with any framework, there are some clear pros and cons to using Bootstrap and in this article, we’ll cover some of them in order to help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.

Pros

#1 – Saves Time

Writing code can be extremely time-consuming, especially if you don’t document your own work and have to go reading through your code to figure out where to pick up. Not only does Bootstrap have great documentation on every component, but by using it you won’t even have to write code anymore. All you need to get started is some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, or Javascript and you can start developing. It’s also extremely simple to use, which means you won’t have to waste a couple of days just figuring things out.

#2 – Bootstrap Encourages Consistency

Twitter employees started developing Bootstrap thinking about a framework that’s going to be consistent above all else. By solving the consistency issues between the development front and the end users Bootstrap became the number one framework among web developers. The main problem it solved are various inconsistencies that exist between developers and designers on a project because Bootstrap’s final results always look the same on every platform and every browser. By recognizing the need to pair the designers and developers, Bootstrap became open-source framework in 2011.

#3 – Better Teamwork

One of the best things about Bootstrap is that the coders will be free to code without having to worry about how their work is going to look like in the end. Add detailed tutorial documents to that and you have a framework that’s extremely beginner friendly. If a new person joins your team, it’ll be extremely easy for them to learn how to use the framework. Anything you need to know about the framework – you can find it in the docs.

#4 – Bootstrap Offers an Excellent Grid System

A good grid is required if you’re looking to create page layouts and Bootstrap has probably the best responsive grid system. Bootstrap website content is always divided into 12 fluid, responsive columns. It makes working through columns a breeze which is very cool when you’re looking to hide platform specific content. Certain elements can only be made visible on a desktop (because you don’t need them on mobile devices) and vice-versa. Using the predefined classes will make using the grid much easier and faster to get a grasp on.

#5 – Responsiveness

If there’s one thing that’s certain today it’s that mobile devices will only continue to grow in popularity in the years to come. Most of the initial searches today are run through mobile devices, which goes to say how important it is to have a responsive website. This is why most companies like Webwingz Web Development recommend to always do everything you can towards responsiveness of your website. Well, Bootstrap is all about creating mobile-friendly websites. You literally don’t have to do anything to get to a required level of responsiveness, thanks to the already mentioned fluid grid.

You just need to decide how many squares each column occupies and whether your columns are going to stack vertically or horizontally to display as intended on mobile devices.

Cons

#1 – Every Bootstrap Website Looks Similar

Bootstrap was created by the Twitter team for the purpose of working faster on a standardized interface, which makes Bootstrap a purpose made-tool, one that’s not completely aligned with standard concepts of web development.
The main drawback of this is that everything built with Bootstrap will have very similar looks. You might be able to override and modify style sheets manually, but this kind of kills the purpose of initially using the framework. And even if you do it, there’s no changing the fact that all websites built through this framework will be extremely recognizable as Bootstrap.

#2 – Has a Learning Curve

While it’s easy to learn using Bootstrap, you still have to invest some time into it. You’ll need to know all the available Bootstrap CSS classes, but also just how Bootstrap components access these classes. You’ll also need some time to experiment with and get used to the grid system. Like we said, Bootstrap’s amazing documentation goes a long way to get you through the learning process, and once you’re used to it you won’t need much time adapting to the newer versions of the code.

#3 – Can be Heavy

While it’s easy to build a responsive website with Bootstrap, the end results can be quite a bit heavy for the users in terms of slower loading times, as well as battery drain issues. Also, the files generated by Bootstrap can be huge in size, which can slow things down for you quite heavily. You might be able to go on and delete things manually, but this again defeats the purpose of using the framework at all.

Bottom Line

Using Bootstrap framework for web development has clear ups and downs and it all depends on you whether you’ll use it or not. It’s worth to note that time is extremely pricey these days, so every minute you save by using a framework like Bootstrap can mean a lot. It can also make the whole coding experience more fun since you won’t have to worry about how your end result looks like – you’ll already know it from the get-go.

If you want to learn how to use Bootstrap you can check this interactive Bootstrap tutorial from BitDegree.org.

Online presence is a must-have for every single company, smaller or bigger. Online population is still growing and people use the Internet to find more information about businesses, their services or products.

To make a good business website that converts visitors to customers, it is important to know who the website is meant for. As a visual example, when it comes to new trends, you can use this collection for an inspiration -> best business WordPress templates.

In a point of view focused on marketing, there are three main groups of people that a business website is meant for:

1. People that somehow know about the company and want to find out more about it. They want to find out more information about you the business itself and its products or services. These visitors are thinking about purchasing business’ products or services and they need more information to make a buying decision.
2. People that have a certain need and are looking for a business that can help them satisfy it. These visitors are exploring their alternatives and the website should clearly let them know what are business’ advantages over its competitors.
3. Your existing customers. A business website can be used to maintain a relationship with current customers, provide them with information such as billing info and even upsell them.

Big businesses usually have bigger budgets for their websites and they have them professionally made. That being said, most of the websites of big business are not perfect. However, small WordPress business websites often make the same mistakes over and over again. Having a good and well-made website can certainly bring a competitive advantage to its owner.

Here are 5 common mistakes of small business websites that you should avoid to stand out amongst your competitors:

1. Not Keeping Marketing in Mind

The primary goal of your website should always be to attract new visitors and convert them to your customers. Small businesses often have websites that contain just the basic information about the company and lack any kind of focus on marketing.

You are a small local company that provides some kind of services? Great. So are 5, 10, 20 or even more other companies. Be sure to tell your visitors how you can benefit them and why they should choose you over your competitors.

But marketing is not only about that. You should also focus on things like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Call to Action (CTA). SEO will help you get more visitors from search engines, while well written CTA will make sure that your customers know what you want them to do.

2. Not Being Mobile Friendly

The majority of users accesses websites using mobile devices. Navigating a website that doesn’t have a mobile version and is not responsive on a mobile phone is a nightmare. It is such a nightmare that a lot of visitors of a website like this will just leave. The times of desktop-focused WordPress websites with fixed dimensions are over. They have been over for years.

In many of my themes, some folders or files require specific file permissions. I’ve noticed that a lot of users don’t know how to set these permissions and I receive a lot of questions about how to do it.

So, I’ve made this tutorial to help those who don’t know how to do it.

First, for all those who have no idea what permissions are about, here’s a short description:

File Permissions affect the capability of users or group of users to Read, Write or Execute files. They define who or what can read, write or execute the files or directories.

Different files need different file permissions to do the work they are programmed to do.

The permissions of a file or folder can be easily changed by using a FTP client. In this tutorial I’ll use a FTP client named “FileZilla”. It is free and easy to use, but you can use any client out there and it should basically be the same.

So, let’s begin:

1. If you don’t have a FTP client already, download “FileZilla” from here: FileZilla Project and install it.

2. Open “FileZilla” and set up your server’s details (you must’ve received the details from your hosting company) and hit “Quickconnect” like in the screenshot bellow:

3. After you connect to the server, in the right window navigate to the location of the file or folder you want to change the permissions for and right-click on it.

4. A pop-up menu that displays the current file permissions will be displayed. You can check the desired permissions boxes or fill in the permissions directly in the “Numeric Value” input. Hit “Ok” and you can see the status of the process of changes you’ve made in the status bar on top.

Done.

More on file permissions here: Filesystem Permissions

Automattic announced today the introduction of premium themes to their WordPress.com hosted blogging platform. With over 17 million blogs hosted, WordPress.com will definitely be a huge marketplace for theme developers worldwide.

WordPress.com introduced its very first premium themes: Headlines (WooThemes) and Shelf (The Theme Foundry). Users can purchase and activate the premium themes by going to Appearance > Themes in the WordPress.com dashboard and look for the “Premium” link next to “Recently Added”.

Drew Strojny mentioned on the The Theme Foundry blog that “a huge collaboration has been brewing for quite some time” with Automattic. Also, on WooThemes blog Mark Forrester said that “they were contacted by the theme wranglers at Automattic and asked if they would like to offer one of the first two premium themes on WordPress.com” and of course they agreed.

We’re looking forward to Automattics promise to expand the collection of themes on WordPress.com in a big way in 2011.

So, here we are at the second part of “Essential Plugins for every WordPress Install”. In this part I’ll cover a list of essential plugins for preventing and blocking blog commenting spam and for better SEO for your WordPress blog.

Also, don’t forget to check out the firs part of the series if you missed it: “Essential Plugins for every WordPress Install – Part I: Security & Database”

WordPress Anti Spam Plugins

Blog commenting spam is an enormous problem for all bloggers, but fortunately spam protection is available and all you need to do is to install a few anti spam plugins. Check out below for a list of some of the most important anti spam plugins a WordPress blog should have installed.

Akismet

Akismet will greatly reduce or even completely eliminate the comment and trackback spam you get on your blog. Akismet is a default plugin that comes with the WordPress installation package. All you need to do is to activate it and insert your Akismet API Key after you previously registered, for free, at Akismet.com.

Requires any WordPress version.

WP-reCAPTCHA

This is a great plugin that integrates reCAPTCHA anti-spam methods with WordPress including comment, registration, and email spam protection. reCAPTCHA has earned a very prestigious reputation among the various CAPTCHA systems available and is used by such sites as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon etc.

Requires WordPress 2.5+.

WordPress SEO Plugins

Even with great content on your blog it is unlikely you’ll have many readers without good SEO (search engine optimization). Luckily the WordPress community developed a number of plugins to help you with your SEO efforts.

All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is one of the most popular SEO plugins. It is easy to set up and some of its functionalities include: title optimization, dynamic generation of keywords and automatically generation of meta tags.

Requires WordPress 2.8+.

Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps generates an XML sitemap in .xml or .gz format, supported by most search engines. It also notifies the search engines every time you publish a new post and even pings a list of popular websites using the Ping-o-Matic service.

Requires WordPress 2.1+.

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator

Sitemap Generator creates a custom sitemap of your blog. Unlike an XML sitemap, this plugin creates a sitemap for the visitors of your blog and not for the search engines.

Requires WordPress 2.1+.

Robots Meta

The Robots Meta plugin is the most simple solution to add robots meta tags. This plugin makes it easy to add the appropriate meta robots tags to your pages, disable unused archives, nofollow unnecessary links and more.

Requires WordPress 2.8+.

This is the end of the second part of my “Essential Plugins for every WordPress Install” series. Hope these plugins will help you with your WordPress blog.

Next: Essential Plugins for every WordPress Install – Part III: Efficiency and Social. Stay close for the last part!

Securing a WordPress blog is something that many bloggers don’t pay enough attention to. Being the most popular blogging platform in the world, WordPress is getting more attention by hackers and spammers. If you think that you’re chances to get hacked are very low, you’d better think again. If you don’t take precautions in time, sooner or later you’re going to have problems.

Being free, easily usable and safe, plugins is the best way to secure your WordPress blog whether you’re an advance coder or a simple user. In the first part of the “Essential Plugins for every WordPress Install” series I will cover a list with essential plugins to secure your blog and optimize your databases.

Security & Hacking Prevention

Login LockDown

This plugin keeps account of the IP addresses and time-stamps of the failed log in attempts. Login Lockdown then disables the log in function if it detects a lot of attempts within a short period of time from the same IP range. This helps to prevent brute force password discovery.

Requires WordPress 2.5+.

WP Security Scan

WP Security Scan is a very good plugin that checks the WordPress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions.

Requires WordPress 2.5+.

AskApache Password Protect

This plugin adds multiple layers of security to your blog. It is nice that it doesn’t control WordPress or mess with your database. AskApache Password Protect is specifically designed and regularly updated specifically to stop automated and unskilled attackers attempts to exploit vulnerabilities on your blog resulting in a hacked site.

Requires WordPress 2.7+.

Database Backup and Optimization

Another very important thing to do to keep your blog secure is backing up your databases on a regular basis. Keeping backups of your blog ensures you that even in the worse case scenarios you can get up and run again in no time. Be sure to keep your backups in a safe place.

WP-DB-Backup

WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to back up your core WordPress database tables and save the files on your server, download to your computer or send them to your e-mail.

Reguires WordPress 2.0.3+.

WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a database cleanup and optimization tool. It allows you to remove post revisions, comments in the spam queue, unapproved comments within few clicks without the need of phpMyAdmin. Additionally you can rename any user name to another user name too.

Requires WordPress 2.7+.

Hope you make good use of these plugins and always remember to secure and backup your WordPress install.

Check out “Essential Plugins for every WordPress Install – Part II: Anti spam and SEO“.

You know that WordPress allows you to update your blog by simply sending an e-mail to a secret address. Well, how about adding a blog post by sms?

Updating your WordPress blog by sending a text message is very easy, you just have to tweak your blog’s settings a little. I will show you how to do it in just 3 easy steps.

So, let’s begin.

1. Create a new user.

Go to your WordPress admin panel and create a new user with administrator or author role. Assign to this user your mobile phones specific e-mail address i.e. 1234567890@messaging.sprintpcs.com. You can set this user to show up just like if you post the message with your original one.

2. Tweak settings.

Now that you have set up the new user go to Dashboard > Settings > Write and go down to “Post via e-mail” option. Set up your secret e-mail account and fill it in along with the servers settings, password and the category assigned to the post (I would suggest a new category named “Mobile”).

Note: be sure to check with your e-mail hosting provider for the correct incoming e-mail server settings.

3. Send test sms.

Send a test message to your secret e-mail address. If you successfully sent the sms you must tell WordPress to check the e-mail. Piece of cake. Just go to the address: http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-mail.php

Note: if you don’t have WordPress installed in the root folder, change the address according to your installation path i.e. http://www.yourdomain.com/wordpresspath/wp-mail.php

Now, go to your blog and hit refresh. If everything went well you should have a new blog post added by sms.

Note: If you don’t have an Internet connection or want to automate the WordPress e-mail check process add this code to your theme’s functions.php file:

add_action('shutdown', 'retrieve_post_via_mail');
function retrieve_post_via_mail() {
	flush(); // Display the page before the mail fetching begins
	if(get_transient('retrieve_post_via_mail')) {
		return; // The mail has been checked recently; don't check again
	} else { // The mail has not been checked in more than 15 minutes
		$mail = wp_remote_get(get_bloginfo('wpurl').'/wp-mail.php');
		if(!is_wp_error($mail)) { // If retrieve succeeded
			set_transient('retrieve_post_via_mail', 1, 60 * 15); // check again in 15 minutes.
		} else {
			set_transient('retrieve_post_via_mail', 1, 60 * 5); // check again in 5 minutes; we don't want to overload the server
		}
	}
}

That’s it. You now have the ability to post by sms to your WordPress blog.

Source: Add a Blog Post by Sms

CSS galleries have been around for some time but most of them tend to share the same content originally showcased on the larger and most known ones first. Still, css design galleries are a great source of inspiration and are often the first places to look for that little impulse when you lack creativity.

If you’re sick and tired of looking for your own ones, I’ve created a great list with some of the best CSS galleries around, frequently updated that showcase astonishing website designs. And of course why not submit your own artwork to these galleries.

1. CSS Mania

A 7 years old css gallery that showcase over 16,000 sites, CSS Mania is one of the best galleries around.

2. CSS Drive

This is a very nice css gallery that allows you to rate the designs and, most important, you can see the color palette of the designs.

3. Design Shack

Design Shack allows you to search by color, layout or category. They also showcase logo and interface designs.

4. CSS Elite

Another large css gallery that showcases beautiful designs that you can rate and comment.

5. Divine CSS

Divine CSS is a css and flash gallery that claim to showcase just the crème de-la crème designs.

6. Unmatched Style

Unmatched Style is not just another CSS design gallery. They want to foster constructive design criticism as well as provide inspiration.

7. CSS Perk

This design gallery is dedicated to bringing you the best designed websites from around the world. It features css and also flash designs.

8. CSS Based

Another nice gallery with a lot of good designs from all over the world.

9. CSS Dance

A gallery focused on providing its visitors with a wide range of beautiful CSS designs and standards-compliant websites.

10. CSS Clip

A Great collection of beautiful website designs and web design news.

11. CSS Creme

A gallery with over 7000 designs from 120 countries.

12. CSS Design Yorkshire

Beautiful css gallery with 5000+ designs from Yorkshire, England and the rest of the world.

13. CSS Style

A permanent growing css gallery / css showcase with a lot of good designs. They also have a blog and a news section.

14. Mabucplus

Great collection of website designs frequently updated.

15. The Pixery

CSS & Web Design gallery showcasing the best designs on the interwebs. Rate, comment and review showcased designs.

16. eduStyle

eduStyle is a web design gallery dedicated to higher education websites and powered by higher education web design professionals.

17. CSS Moon

Very nice CSS gallery site with the ability to rate whether the designs are cool or not.

18. CSS Collection

Many css libraries and collections. They’re fancier, interactive and well-done.

19. CSS Flavour

CSS Flavor is css Gallery and css showcase focused on providing its audience with a wide range database of well designed best css based & standard compliant websites from around the world.

20. CSS Arts

A web design inspiration portal presents only well designed websites made using css and xhtml.

21. CSS Mix

Good css gallery featuring many creative web site designs. Available also in Dutch.

22. The Best Designs

The Best Designs recognizes the best flash and css web sites from around the world. Websites are categorized by css or flash and also by elements of the design. TBD is usually updated every weekday, with the exception of holidays.

23. CSS Remix

A gallery that features a lot of great designs from all over the world.

24. Web Creme

Amazing collection of css designs updated a few times a week.

25. Best Web Gallery

Best Web Gallery is an inspirational gallery site where they collect a wide range of quality css and flash design websites.

26. CSS Nature

Amazing gallery of incredible web site designs to take your inspiration from.

27. CSS World

This css gallery contains a showcase of finely selected samples of innovative and creative uses of web standards.

28. RGB Garden | Pixel Inspiration

RGB Garden | pixel inspiration is a css and flash inspiration gallery that recognize the web design by giving an award.

29. CSS Leak

Css Leak is a css gallery that feature the best website designs around the world. The designs are ordered by web design trends and popularity.

Well, it looks you’ve made it to the end. Hope these css galleries stimulated your creativity and put your imagination at work.

If you have other web design galleries that you usually follow don’t hesitate to let everybody know about them by posting in the comments section.

404 error pages were overlooked in the past. As the web designers and web developers figured out that a good, creative and helpful 404 error page can increase the user experience, thousands of beautifully crafted 404 pages were born.

Here is a list of 15+ creative, funny and unusual 404 error pages that, I hope, will inspire you.

This is a nice one from Envato Marketplace – Graphicriver

Comic strips.

Funny Eskimo.

Hot one

Monkey 404.

Very creative one from Blizzard.

Another funny 404 error page.

Creative error page from a mobile related website.

Funny illustration.

404 UFO Abducted.

Hoo Ha – Ninja.

No broadcasting.

No 404 error page.

Dr. House.

Ketchup?

Ah Jeez.

What do you say? Do you know more? Share them with us!