The next article is (hopefully) going to be about using .htaccess and PHP to make more attractive URLs. I was trucking along pretty well but some more security features need to be added before it will be ready for prime time.

Work-wise, I have primarily been poking around all things WordPress – mainly trying to get various plugins to play nicely together, fixing CSS, making e-mail templates… not hardcore stuff, but I’ve still been learning from it.

The most recent project we finished at Skytemple was for the CT Breast Health Initiative. The website launched today! I helped configure the newsletter functionality and also created the e-mail template for it. I also did some miscellaneous work on functionality and CSS modifications.

I just bought a new domain and will hopefully be doing something cool with it soon. Stay tuned!

Get basic tracking/SEO stuff situated.

Add the site to Google Webmaster Central. Get a tracking code from Google Analytics, and then remember to actually put the tracking code in the site. If you’re using WordPress there’s a Google Analytics plugin that makes it easy, although performance-wise you’re probably best off simply sticking it in the page footer.

Decide whether to www or not to www early on. You don’t want people accessing both www and non-www versions of your site – it can damage your page rank. Some people like www and some do not, but to me it’s a personal preference. I leave it in just out of habit.

Also, don’t forget to generate a sitemap when you’re ready for launch. Submit the sitemap to various search engines.

Configure Gmail.

Of course, if you aren’t using Gmail then this probably won’t be very useful. There are already some really good tutorials on how to make your domain work with Gmail, so I’m not going to write it out here. I did discover that not everybody has access to their DNS records, so you may need to contact support for your hosting to get everything squared away.

If you’re using WordPress, do a little prep work.

Get a WordPress API key for Akismet instead of ignoring the warning for weeks, unless you don’t plan on allowing comments. In that case, delete Akismet altogether, along with any other unused plugins (*ahem* Hello Dolly). Don’t just deactivate, delete. Check on your permalink settings before making the sitemap, so you don’t need to go back and forth. Install Google XML Sitemaps and generate the sitemap in the admin panel.

Do your social networking junk.

Make a Twitter account. Make a Facebook account (you probably already have one of these and are level 350 in Mafia Wars) and decide whether you want a page or group. Go claim your site on Technorati if it’s a blog, and plant a few networking seeds while you’re at it. Add your social networking buttons, either via plugins like Sociable which makes share buttons, and/or Social Links Sidebar, which pretty much does what it says. I went the hard-coding route to cut down on plugin overhead, but for most people this will not be a concern or issue.

So, there you have it. Next post will (hopefully) be more interesting!

All I really wanted to do seemed easy enough:
Redirect example.com/blog/?p=$variable to example.com/?p=$variable.

I just couldn’t figure out how to do it with .htaccess, and trial-and-error wasn’t a good idea since screwing up would throw the dreaded 500 Internal Server Error. I didn’t have much time so I finally threw in the .htaccess towel and decided to go with what I know – PHP.

Using $_GET can be dangerous if you don’t sanitize input, so strip_tags() helps ensure that the user wasn’t inputting malicious data. Your mileage may vary, and you may need more elaborate validation… have fun figuring that out.

Anyway, this code is ugly and really should be cleaned up, but it isn’t a bad place to start! My example only has one argument, but there’s no reason you couldn’t do this with more.

$postid = $_GET['p'];

$postid = strip_tags($postid);

header('Location: http://example.com/?p='.$postid);

If anybody knows what the “proper” way to do this via .htaccess is, please let me know!

I encounter all sorts of strange problems and spend a lot of time digging around to fix them. My own reason for documenting them is simple – I’m really forgetful. Writing things down is a good way to remember stuff, and posting them online offers the possibility of helping other people having the same issues. My shortcoming will hopefully be your gain!