Rather than try to convince me that anyone could answer my mobile phone, the operator agreed it would be foolish to give out such details. He gave me his extension number, and a phone number where I could verify he was from the tax office.

Being the cynical sort, or paranoid (I’ll let you decide), I googled the ATO’s website to confirm the number. It was legitimate. I called back and reconnected to the operator immediately. The entire process took less than 30 seconds.

It got me thinking: Googling ‘<number> site:ato.gov.au’ in hope the ATO had slipped up and the non-public number was on their website was an inefficient step.

A more efficient way to confirm the number would be for the operator to give out an ATO URL: ato.gov.au/<number> being the logical choice. At the URL, there could be a short message informing the visitor that the number is an ATO phone number. Robots.txt would be used to exclude search engines from indexing that URL.

It’s a simple fix that costs the ATO very little and protects them and their tax payers.

I was running this idea past fellow giant Josh, and he put forward a problem with my solution. Rather than spoil the fun, I’ll let Josh put forward his side of the story at a later date.

1. Top Ten Lists

Create spurious top ten lists for an immediate spike in traffic. 24 hours later, you can go into Google Analytics and get a warm fuzzy feeling as your visitor numbers increase. It’s best to ignore bounce rate, and average time on site.

While your first time visitor numbers have increased, it’s unlikely that many of them will convert to regular visitors or subscribe to your RSS feed; but that was never the goal. The goal was to increase your visitor numbers: always handy for boardroom presentations.

There are many reasons I respected my grandfather. After all, he was my grandfather. I could have chosen to write that he became a full-time carer of my grandmother in his 80s, how active he was in his church community, or any number of things.

But it’s his decision to get a computer and onto the internet about three years ago, aged 94 that prompts this piece. Not that this was his greatest achievement, but because we write about the internet here.

To put this into perspective, he was 25 when Alan Turing described the Turing Machine and 65 when the Apple II launched. He was already 80 years old when Microsoft released Windows 3.1.

It would be re-writing of history to say that granddad was the most competent computer user in the world. A few months ago he left this message on my answering machine:

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. <click>

I called back a few minutes later and he was slightly upset because he’d lost an email he’d written to my sister. For people my age, this wouldn’t be a big deal – we know how and where to look for a stray email. If the message is completely lost, using computers and sending emails is our second nature so it takes only a few moments to recompose ourselves and the email.

Another time, he’d managed to block my aunt and uncle’s email address in Outlook and needed help unblocking it.

Aged 94, Granddad gave it a try. Years later and weeks before he passed away, he was still trying to learn more about the software on his computer. I could not be prouder of having a man like that as my granddad. He learnt from us and we learnt from him.

If you’re not willing to try something because you think you’re too old, try anyway and you might surprise yourself. If you don’t want to try, that’s fine too.

Dedicated to Ron Feltscheer, Jan 1^st 1912 – Nov 22^nd 2009.

I firmly believe that it’s only in a podcast such an interview is possible

Neighbours, in Australia to this day, twenty [odd] years down the track, for me, poses the odd problem. The old guard of casting agents in Australia still don’t take you seriously…

Post Neighbours [a] small role in [My Husband, My Killer] had people [saying] ‘Crikey, Craig, who knew? We think the boy may be able to act.’

–Craig McLachlan

On traditional media, it’s possible the guest would have been more guarded. I don’t know if that’s the case for McLachlan but certainly other guests have worried that they’ve caused ‘trouble’ following a podcast interview.

As the interview went past its allotted time, Josh looked over the running sheet and started bumping other segments. 33 minutes later, all other segments had been bumped and it was time to finish the show. Having worked around the edges of mainstream media previously, I know this couldn’t happen; while a schedule isn’t set in concrete, it’s beginning to dry.

The key to this flexibility is a niche audience. While, by definition, the audience is small, it’s loyal and it’s interested. Without the boundaries of broadcast media, niche can take on a new meaning. Leo Laporte’s TWiT Network claims 2.6 million downloads a month — small compared to network television, but nothing to be sneezed at.

Advertising to a Niche

Advertising on traditional broadcast media, such as TV, is advertising with a scatter gun. Anyone could be watching: from a 34 year-old man to a 62 year-old grandmother. One will be more interested in the next generation iPhone than the other. Ratings will indicate which programme the 34 year-old is more likely to be watching but there will be a few grandmothers watching too and the network will charge for their eyes. How the television is being watched needs to be considered too: Are they watching while eating dinner? Reading with the sound down? Or have they left the room to make a coffee?

On a single subject podcast, every member of the audience is interested in the subject – so interested they’ve actively sought out a podcast. Using Boxcutters as an example, the audience may or may not be interested in the next generation iPhone, but they’d be interested in box sets of the Wire, the West Wing, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under.

If you need assistance setting up a podcast for your business, event, or group, Josh and Peter at Soupgiant can help.

Boxcutters is presented by Josh Kinal, John Richards, and, Brett Cropley.

For the uninitiated, these functions allow you to add JavaScript and CSS files to the header (or footer, in later versions of WP) without running of the risk of another plugin adding the same file, that is, you avoid the following:

<script type="text/javascript" source="http://…/a-plugin/jQuery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" source="http://…/a-plugin/plugin.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" source="http://…/my-theme/jQuery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" source="http://…/my-theme/theme.js"></script>

If you develop themes or plugins for Wordpress and are unaware of these functions, you should refer to the codex to get the low down on at least wp_enqueue_script, and wp_enqueue_style – these register and queue the files, the wp_register_* functions register the file ready to be queued for output.

The Rant

Despite the value these functions can add to themes and plugins, they are under-utilised in development. The functions have wider adoption in plug-in development, but it’s still well below 100%. In theme development adoption is virtually non-existent (at least in the themes I’ve used).

This failure to code properly is evenly spread across both free and paid themes. I’m happy to look the other way for free themes. After all, the motivation behind the theme may have been to learn Wordpress development.

In commercial themes, particularly those above the US$30-$35 price point, it’s downright frustrating that these products haven’t been developed properly.

When someone purchases a theme, they shouldn’t have to debug the product to find out why a JavaScript framework is being included twice. The reason for the purchase is that they either don’t want to, or know how to, develop.

Avoiding costly mistakes

Evaluating a commercial theme on behalf of a client triggered this rant. At $195, it’s quite expensive in the world of Wordpress. As I was viewing the source code of the online demo, I discovered the faux pas. We’ll advise against using that theme as a starting point. In fact, within short time we’d found a theme $195 cheaper that would do the job.

Looking at the source code of a demo site is usually enough to tell you how the theme is inserting its scripts:

• Both <link> and <script> tags will use single quotes around attributes (‘), rather than double quotes (“),
• CSS <link> tags will have an ID attribute ending in –css, eg: id=’shadowbox-css-css’, and,
• JavaScript and CSS files include the version number as a query string eg jQuery.js?ver=1.3.2 (although a hook can be used to remove this)

Making sure that the wp_register_script, wp_register_style, wp_enqueue_script, and, wp_enqueue_style are included properly will save time, bandwidth and also avoid some detrimental conflicts.

I could have used an existing frame work, such as the increasingly popular jQuery; I decided to use my own, which contains only the very basics, rather than have a larger file containing rarely used functions

–source (emphasis added for this post)

Within a couple of months of writing that, I was a convert to jQuery. There was no single reason for my conversion, from memory some of the reasons where:

• the selector engine,
• plugin availability,
• documentation – both official and unofficial tutorials, and,
• lazyness

It’s the last one that probably had the biggest influence, I’m too lazy to reinvent the wheel, and without using a framework that’s what I was going to be doing. Frequently. Examples in blogs I read, weather it be group blogs, such as A List Apart, or one person shows, such as CSS-Tricks were all beginning to use jQuery. If I were to stick to my guns and not use a framework, I’d be doing a lot of rewriting.

As for the functions that are rarely used? It’s really only the Ajax group of functions that I’ve never used, for the simple reason that I don’t like Ajax. In many of the situations it’s used, it is often fanciness without necessary function. Then again, ask me about Ajax in a couple of months’ time.

Deciding to start Soupgiant was a little more drawn out but resulted from a similarly simple conversation – actually two simple conversations.

The first conversation was a few years ago when we both found ourselves out of work at the same time – the company we were both working at was going into a hiatus for a short period due to circumstances it’s not my place to go into here.

The second conversation was a couple of months ago in Josh’s lounge room. It was, in part, a wistful ‘how ‘bout/what if’ conversation. We spoke about the types of clients we’d like to go after, the type of work we’d like to do, and, the type of standards (high) we’d like to keep.

In the cold light of dawn, it stuck in both our minds, followed by the realisation that this was exactly what we should do. Within the week we were going over plans in a less wistful, much more serious manner. Talking about potential types of clients, we were struck that these sites were big, complicated sites.

Something very important had changed since the first conversation a number of years ago: at that time we’d worked on large sites for a single company, since then we’d both worked on exactly the kind of big sites we were talking about.

A short time later, we combined the word ‘soup’ with ‘giant’ and an agency was born.

When it comes to rating products online, it turns out we’re way too nice. The average out of 5 stars for things like dog food, printer paper or boots is 4.3 and … all that kindness is actually kind of a problem.
–Source

Which presents a problem: I’m about to give a positive review to Soupgiant’s host, QuadraHosting, due to their customer service, despite some major technical problems in recent months. This leads to one question: Am I being too nice?

In July, all sites on our hosting account – fortunately none of them belonging to clients – experienced an outage due to a data centre power failure.

Since then, it appears both Quadrahosting and Equinix have been working to ensure such a problem doesn’t happen again.

Another outage on Sunday Oct 12, 2009, between 8:20am and mid-afternoon, and my thoughts were that a change of webhosts was not only necessary, but probably urgent. As the outage was long enough to trigger an SLA credit, I wrote to QuadraHosting and requested a 10% credit to our account, which they subsequently denied:

“Section 4a states that we do not cover loss of external power due to ‘[an] inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment’.

“If this was related to our internal power set up, then we could credit you, though it was the main power source that was [affected].

“We apologise for this.”

I responded that I disagreed with their assessment “as it was an upgrade by the data centre” but that I accepted their decision. Rather than leave it at that, I detailed my real concerns which was rather more than the $2.99 I was hoping to get back. My concerns are:

“…that since the external / power company outage a couple of months ago, I’ve found that my server is going down more frequently. I don’t know if the timing is a coincidence, but the result is I no longer am able to recommend you to my clients.”

(Pro tip: at no point did I call them thieves, or worse, reality TV contestants)

Rather than leave respond with a cursory, “thank you for your comments,” Brendan, who was handling my case, responded:

“We appreciate you taking the time to provide us with some feedback. The upgrade was related to the power of the Data Centre. Please note that we do purchase power from them and this is considered as a third party source.

“The upgrades to the systems in recent weeks were planned and announced to all our customers.

“With this in mind, we have decided to give you credit to cover one week of your hosting plan.

“Hopefully you will see major improvements in our systems once this power issue has been completed.

“I believe there will be a similar incident in two weeks which we be very similar to the power outage we have recently experienced.

“It seems there are major power upgrades at the data centre related to expansion. We will announce this to our customers when we have more information.”

The end result, after some fine customer service, an explanation of how they obtain their power, and a little bribery, is that I’ve decided to stick with QuadraHosting while they and their data centre fix the power issues. If the problems continue after the upgrades, then I’ll reconsider my options.

Having dealt with a number of hosts and the kind of customer service that involves a student reading a script, I do think good customer service at a host is worth sticking around for. While their servers at the moment are a little up and down, the customer service outweighs that disadvantage.

All in all, I give QuadraHosting a 4.3 star rating for their customer service.

<?php if ( is_singular() ) wp_enqueue_script( 'comment-reply' ); ?>

This code checks if the visitor is browsing either a page or a post and adds the JavaScript required for threaded comments if they are.

I prefer a slight variation

<?php
if ( is_singular() AND comments_open() AND (get_option('thread_comments') == 1))
  wp_enqueue_script( 'comment-reply' );
?>

My variation checks if the visitor is browsing either a page or a post, if comments are open for the entry, and finally, if threaded comments are enabled. If all of these conditions are met, the JavaScript required for threaded comments is added.

If you run your wp_enqueue_script calls in functions.php, as I do, this is the code to use:

<?php
function theme_queue_js(){
  if (!is_admin()){
    if ( is_singular() AND comments_open() AND (get_option('thread_comments') == 1))
      wp_enqueue_script( 'comment-reply' );
  }
}
add_action('get_header', 'theme_queue_js');
?>

The call is added to the get_header action as is_singular and comments_open are unknown during the init action.

Updated Aug 15: Fixed two typos in the final code sample

Props to Digging Into Wordpress for the …the right way… terminology:)

All statistics below relate to the period from opening night – December 10, ’08 – until mid March ‘09; during this period there were 25,377 visitors leaving 96,867 page impressions.

Of the site statistics I have access to; SWTM provides an example of a site with a cross-section of visitors, from multiple age groups and backgrounds. This is all conjecture on my behalf; Google Analytics is yet to report sex, age group, and economic circumstances (but they’re probably working on it).

Nationality/Origin

It’s not surprising that most of the visitors to the SWTM website were Australian, 86.81%; the UK, the runner up with 6.29%, followed by the USA at 2.12%. Broadband propagation and technology use varies between nations; this should be kept in mind when viewing the statistic below.

Screen Resolution

I’m ignoring screen height in this section, it may occasionally be a factor, while width is almost always a factor. The most common screen width for visitors to SWTM was 1280px (42.97%), followed closely by 1024px (33.11%). 800px wide can safely be ignored at 1.91%.

Connection Speed

Google ‘google analytics connection speed’ and the indications are that GA calculates the connection speed based on IP address, rather than running a speed test. I’m not sure this is the best method of calculating a user’s bandwidth, but I’m not an expert on these matters. The connection speed of 68.43% of visitors to SWTM are listed as unknown, I think this is too high for these results to provide anything other than a general indication.

Browsers

We’ve all paid the price of admission for one thing, browser stats; as web developers, we’re all hoping dearly that IE6 had less than one, five, ten percent, or, whatever your arbitrary threshold of market share is; unless that threshold is 25%, the actual stats are unlikely to make you happy:

They are the raw stats, I’ve not interpreted them in any way. I can’t imagine developing the Shane Warne the Musical site – I didn’t – and telling the producer that almost 1/4 of their visitors will be unable to get beyond the first page.

Elsewhere on this blog, commenters suggest demonstrating how much it cost to support IE6. It appears, and this is an interpretation, it’s worth just under 25% of the total development fee (or an additional 1/3 on top of the standards development). I hate saying this for two reasons a) the risk I’ll be branded an IE6 apologist, and, b) I hate developing for IE6 as much as the next person.

The high price tag for IE6 development does not rule out demonstrating the cost of development to your clients, if anything, it underlines the financial benefits of upgrading. Should you choose to go down this path, the difference between the worth and the cost of fully supporting IE6 may be a suitable starting point.

The Sydney season of Shane Warne the Musical opens at the Enmore Theatre on May 15, tickets from Ticketek. Disclosure: I’ve spent a lot of time around the inbreed mess that is the Melbourne comedy scene; the producers (Token Events) are clients of mine, and many of the staff are friends too.