The folks at SitePoint.com have put together a sale which benefits both the buyer and the Australian fire relief effort. The devastation down under is extreme and here’s a way to lend a hand while scoring some awesome web design resources.

I have several of SitePoint’s books on CSS, HTML and Javascript and they are excellent. The PDF format books are normally US$29.95 each and well worth the price.

For this sale, SitePoint is offering any five of their PDF format books for a total of US$29.95, essentially an 80% discount. What’s more, they are donating the proceeds from the sale to the Australian fire relief effort. In short, you pay $29.95 and get 5 books and the fire relief fund gets the whole $29.95.

If you have any interest in web development technology, I highly recommend jumping on this deal.

John The Geek

One of my newsletter readers asked about getting a widget created for a particular purpose he has in mind. He wants to know what resources he would need to get a widget written.

The short answer is that widgets are written in PHP or some other web-friendly programming language. I’ve seen Javascript widgets, too, although the typical WordPress widget is written in PHP. There are tutorials available on the web (see below), but if you want the widget to do much more than display “Hello, world”, you either need to learn to program or hire a programmer to write your widget for you. There are numerous resources for finding contract programmers online. Some of those are listed below, as well.

By the way, I located these tutorials using a fantastic search tool called “How-To Seeker”. I find this tool saves me a ton of time when I’m looking for how-to info on the web. I never realized how much stuff is out there on virtually any subject you can think of and How-To Seeker makes it a snap to find what you’re looking for quickly. Highly recommended.

Here are several tutorials on writing widgets:

How to Create WordPress Widgets – This tutorial covers creating a Widget, creating a plugin widget, adding sidebars to a theme, and upgrading a non-widget plugin. Plugins are pieces of addon code that extend the functionality of WordPress, either behind-the-scenes or …

Create A WordPress 2.5 Widget – Create a plugin widget in WordPress 2.5. Covers settings up and using sidebars in your template, activating your widget, and displaying your widget. This tutorial is best suited for people familiar with both PHP and WordPress themes and …

simple wordpress sidebar widget step-by-step development – Sidebar – is an area that take place on the left or on the right from main area. Usually on sidebar placed blog common or quick access elements. This elements called widgets. Common examples: authors, tags, categories, etc. In the world of WordPress widget is a plugin subtype. That is activation/deactivation of widgets realized thru the control panel of plug-ins…

Here is a comprehensive list of sites on which to find contract programmers:

Freelance Job Sites Directory – Contract and part-time projects listed daily. ScriptLance Outsource your projects to freelance programmers and designers at cheap prices. Freelancers will compete for your business. Get programming done for your site in php, mysql, xml, …

John The Geek

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