To often I see themes that have the template css and javascripts as HTML includes in the header file. In fact, even twentyeleven does it this way (not that I like a single thing about twentyeleven, but it’s what a lot of people use as a starting point).

Not only is this bad practice as WordPress has hooks that are there to be used, but these hooks work well, and there’s no reason not to use them. In fact, by using these, we can safely minify code, and avoid nasty conflicts (and we all know how annoying they can be!)

Ok, here is the code that you need:

functions.php – stylesheet hook

This is all you need to do, the function can be named to whatever you want, but this name needs to be reflected in the add_action call

UPDATE: I’ve now included a full set of media query style sheets too, so all you have to do is create the empty files and style away. 

FUNCTIONS.PHP – JAVASCRIPT HOOK

This very similar to the scripts, you’ll notice the subtle change to the enqueue function.

So… go forth, and include your scripts and styles the correct way! Banish old habits, and embrace this wonderful functionality!

The post How to include stylesheets and javascript files in wordpress, the correct way! (now including Media Queries) appeared first on PushON Ltd.

The Dark Knight Rises is out today, a film that a few of us in the PushON office have been eagerly anticipating. Along with the launch of the film, I expect to see some incredibly interesting statistics over the next few days about the number of tweets, facebook shares and +1′s related to The Dark Knight Rises.

With some of the most tweeted about events being media related events, such as Euro 2012 achieving 15.358 tweets per second, and the airing of “Laputa: Castle in the Sky” on TV in with approximately 25,088 tweets per second, I am expecting The Dark Knight Rises to have some tough competition however I still expect it to perform well and possibly be one of the most tweeted about events ever. Time shall tell!

Follow the action here: #TDKR

Anyway, to celebrate the release of the film, here’s a Wallpaper pack for you all to enjoy!

Download The Dark Knight Rises Wallpaper Pack

The post What will The Dark Knight Rises fever do on the social networks appeared first on PushON Ltd.

So without further adieu, I present to you the PushON Konami Easter Egg – go ahead (if you haven’t done already) and enter the Konami Code
to find our little suprise on the site:

Of course, if you’re a long time PushON fan, you may have had the pleasure already. If you haven’t had the pleasure of our Creative Directors sense of humor, I highly recommend trying the cheat out for yourself!

Spread the word!

Add the Konami Code to your own site!

    if (window.addEventListener) {
        // create the keys and konami variables
        var keys = [],
            konami = "38,38,40,40,37,39,37,39,66,65";

        // bind the keydown event to the Konami function
        window.addEventListener("keydown", function(e){
            // push the keycode to the 'keys' array
            keys.push(e.keyCode);

            // and check to see if the user has entered the Konami code
            if (keys.toString().indexOf(konami) >= 0) {
                // do something such as:
                // alert('c-c-c-c-combo breaker!');

                // and finally clean up the keys array
                keys = [];
            };
        }, true);
    };

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As we arrived into Wales and started taking in the amazing views, we started passing through some of the more remote towns and villages. Everything seemed perfect, and I was feeling content, looking forward to arriving at our cottage. Battle was one of the last villages that we left before hitting the country roads with the sat nav guiding us. This is when I started realising that my plans might be some what tarnished by the lack of signal; my phone kept losing network and my hair started falling out. “This is not good” I thought, “maybe the cottage will have wifi, yeah, surely they will have wifi… it is the 21st century after all…”

How wrong I was.

We arrived at our cottage and setup, I checked my phone and there wasn’t even a hint of reception. It was a complete dead zone (later I was to find that this is the case for all of Wales’ Internet). I unpacked my things and started hopefully searching for a wifi connection, but nothing there either. My week had plummeted into the mid 90′s.

One view of the situation would be; I should have taken this opportunity to feel liberated from the technological burdens of modern life but, quite frankly, I love the modern world. I welcome new technology with open arms and I will be the first to admit that I am a gadget fiend. However, these gadgets fall flat on their face without an internet connection.

In this day and age I fully expect somewhere like Wales to offer decent connectivity, after all it’s driving distance from two of the biggest cities in Europe (London, and Manchester) – the business opportunities that must be missed on a daily basis must be astronomical. Wales Internet has to improve, it’s suffocating the country.

Google is trying to encourage more Welsh businesses to get online as figures show around 40% of small firms have no website.

BBC

It’s not surprising that 40% of businesses in Wales don’t have a website if the connectivity is so bad. Maybe Google should concentrate on supporting ISPs rather than having one-on-one health checks with Welsh businesses.

wales internet access to improve

Ending on a plus note, it’s good to see that the problem has been recognised (be it by a company that is on the other side of the world), and something is happening. Let’s hope connectivity improves in Wales so that the United Kingdom can continue to grow as a leader in the digital age.

The post Wales internet stumps business growth appeared first on PushON Ltd.

This 30min video looks to raise awareness for the crimes of Joseph Kony and the LRA. It does this by focusing the story on a man that has gone to Africa and rescued a child from the horrors of the LRA. He has returned to America and set out on a mission to get the Government to do something about it. According to the video, 2012 is the year that this will happen… however, there’s a dark and twisted flip side to this coin.

The LRA has been around for a long time; it isn’t something new. Not only have they been around for a long time, but the U.N. have tried to stop him before. In 2006, there was a covert operation to capture or kill Kony. This resulted in all of the Guatemalan Spec Ops being killed, their weapons stolen and the LRA becoming more of a threat with their new, stolen M-16’s and grenade launchers.

In 2010, the U.S Congress took action towards stopping Kony and the LRA, moving 100 U.S. military advisors into the area to help combat the LRA. They were ordered not to engage unless in self-defence, but instead were there to train, assist and provide intelligence.

So, the LRA has been around for a long time and we’ve not been doing a huge amount to stop them… so why now is there a massive movement to take Kony down?

Food for thought

On 3rd February 2012, UK and Uganda made signed a deal for oil production, and interestingly enough, Uganda struck oil recently, so it has now become a hot spot for the world’s most profitable energy source.

But wait a minute, we can’t just barge in there and take their oil. That’s wrong… and bad. We need to be world police and stop the bad guys, not be the bad guys. To do this, people have to think that the reason behind military action is justified. What better way to do this than jump on the back of a legitimate good cause that’s already got some momentum, like the Invisible Children.

You can see the conversation between the military leaders, the government and oil companies now: “The covert operation didn’t work in 2010, that Kony is a tough cookie… but we’ve now got oil refineries and pipelines in Uganda and central Africa, we could do with protecting these properly otherwise Kony will have his mitts on them… hmm, what can we do? Wait a minute, what about those Invisible Children people… everybody loves them, let’s show our support for them and watch the madness unfold”

Four days later they have 40 million views, and a website where you can show your support. Win.The government has finally caught up and everybody is loving it.

I’m not necessarily saying that they are behind this video, but it’s very convenient that they allow this to be on YouTube. Imagine a similar video about China. I suspect that would get removed rather quickly!

If it is a completely legitimate affair, then it’s also very convenient, and oozes propaganda. It was only a matter of time before governments were of the opinion that if they can’t beat social media, they might as well join in.

The post Are we seeing Social Media being used as a form of Propaganda? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Sat in a cinema, at a casino was a first for me. In fact, sitting in a casino is a first for me… and not to mention, sitting in a cinema, in a casino, watching an eye tracking presentation is a first for me.

So the guy stands there and put a video on with an orange dot flying around all over the screen. He wasn’t talking much and the cinema was fairly empty… a fairly dull situation really. But alas, what I am looking at is the eyes movements around a website. What amazes me is how fast we look from item to item… I was always under the impression that my eyes waded from item to item, rather than flying around at a Mach level that even astronauts would struggle to achieve. The other thing that fascinated me is how little we actually read.

When you’re browsing the website, more re to the point, when I’m browsing a website, I tend to scan read everything while saying “yeah, i read that”… but it would seem I am not alone! We scan over web content at such a great rate, milliseconds become very important. You don’t want to waste any of the visitors time, and make sure you get all your USPs to the users eye as quickly and as clearly as possible.

A good example, and probably one of the better things I took from the presentation was that if one has a strong, bold navigation system, and then a call to action underneath the navigation, chances are the users will not see your call to action, despite it being right in front of them. It’s almost like we have an inability to take in lots of key items all at once and we automatically filter out thing we consider to be “junk”. As Roy said on the IT crowd once, we have automatic filters!

To summarise, I already knew that the hierachy of elements on the page will greatly influence your CTR and what your visitors will target, however it was great to actually see it with your own eyes. I definitely recommend taking a look at Eye Tracking sometime, however I do not consider it to be a defintive answer to what users are drawn to on your site as test/research situations can vary from reality.

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