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Relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme: Part 6

WordPress

Having recently relaunched my website to use a new WordPress theme – the excellent Avada Theme – I thought I’d add a guide to doing this on my blog, to help out anyone else planning this.

Part 6 – After Relaunch

  • Turn off Maintenance mode.
  • Announce the site is up and running, again on the various platforms available – Twitter, email, Newsletter, Facebook etc.
  • Arrange more testing across the main browsers and platforms, to ensure the site is working properly. At this point you could also hire a freelance website tester, such as myself, to gain an independent view on your website and to uncover any issues that you may not have seen so far.
  • If using an Agile/Iterative approach, this is also a good time to set timeframes for work on the next cycles.
  • Establish procedures for blogging, creating content etc if the new theme has different approach to the old theme.
  • Track any issues reported with the site – could either use an Issue Tracking System or something simpler, such as a Google doc, an Excel xls or a Word doc.

The End – I hope this 6 Part Guide will be of use  - even if it helps with just one small part of the relaunch process.

*** If you would like help relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme, please Contact Me, or check out my WordPress consultancy services.

*** There is now a downloadable version of this content.

By |February 14th, 2013|Uncategorized, WordPress Development, WordPress Themes|0 Comments
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Relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme: Part 5

WordPress

Having recently relaunched my website to use a new WordPress theme – the excellent Avada Theme – I thought I’d add a guide to doing this on my blog, to help out anyone else planning this.

Part 5 – Going Live

  • Backup / Export your existing content – pages, posts, db, WordPress files etc.
  • Announce that your website is down for maintenance and will be relaunched soon.
  • Could use Twitter, Newsletter, email, Facebook post etc.
  • Turn on Maintenance Mode.
  • Make the required changes to your site. If you’ve used a test system for developing the changes, it could just be a matter of copying and pasting page content from test system to your live site. Or you could be copying and pasting content from Word or similar software.
  • Test as you go along, using a couple of different browsers (can login to WP if use correct URL)
  • Address any issues found in this testing, where possible.
  • Keep track of any additional changes required or ideas for changes and new content which occur whilst making your changes.
  • At this point, if using an agile/iterative approach, you may need to review your planning for the different phases and cycles, depending on how well this first phase goes.

Part 6 - After Relaunch – has now been Published.

*** If you would like help relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme, please Contact Me, or check out my WordPress consultancy services.

*** There is now a downloadable version of this content.

By |February 13th, 2013|Uncategorized, WordPress Development, WordPress Themes|0 Comments
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Relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme: Part 4

WordPress

Having recently relaunched my website to use a new WordPress theme – the excellent Avada Theme – I thought I’d add a guide to doing this on my blog, to help out anyone else planning this.

Part 4 – Prep For Going Live

  • Consider any SEO implications. If you use a totally new site layout, page names etc you may lose your current SEO status/search page rankings.
  • My idea to get around this potential issue was to 1) keep the same layout and structure 2) copy the newly developed content over pages that already exist, thus keeping same page name and age etc.
  • Its worth checking Google Webmaster Tools to see what tools there are to alert it to your site change and to also keep your SEO ratings.
  • I’d also highly recommend creating a checklist of what you need to do and tick it off as you go along – this helped my relaunch process immensely.

Part 5 - Going Live – now Published.

*** If you would like help relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme, please Contact Me, or check out my WordPress consultancy services.

*** There is now a downloadable version of this content.

By |February 12th, 2013|Uncategorized, WordPress Development, WordPress Themes|0 Comments
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Relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme: Part 3

WordPress

Having recently relaunched my website to use a new WordPress theme – the excellent Avada Theme – I thought I’d add a guide to doing this on my blog, to help out anyone else planning this.

Part 3 – Theme Tryout

  • To fully ensure the theme you’ve selected will work in the way you want it to, I’d recommend trying out the theme. This may require purchasing the theme at this point, or you may be able to get a demo version, or something like a 30 day trial version.
  • To tryout the theme, you can setup a WordPress test system. I’d recommend the excellent Instant WordPress for this, which allows you to setup a WordPress test system on a Windows machine
  • Read the theme documentation fully to understand the capabilities and technicalities.
  • When you have established its definitely the theme you want to use, begin creating your content in the test system. You could create a brand new install at this stage.
  • Finalise your site architecture as much as possible. I recommend drawing it out in pencil, as there may be many changes as you progress.
  • The test/tryout system could be a basis for your new site, perhaps using copy and paste of the content to transfer it. This is a manual method, but gives you control over the process.
  • Make regular backups / exports during development, in case you make any large errors.

Part 4 - Prep For Going Live – Now Published.

*** If you would like help relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme, please Contact Me, or check out my WordPress consultancy services.

*** There is now a downloadable version of this content.

By |February 11th, 2013|Uncategorized, WordPress Development, WordPress Themes|0 Comments
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Mac OSX Mountain Lion – wifi problem (again!!!)

Updated my iMac to Mountain Lion on Sunday and this old wifi issue seems to have come back – but even worse!

This time, my wifi connection was dropping every time I finished a browser ‘session’ and then moved onto do something else – in another application. When returning to the browser, it had then lost wifi connection. Looks like Apple forgot to do their Regression Testing!

The issue is being discussed on Apple Support forum:  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4141882?tstart=0

Initially, applying the fix below did work, but then I found my wifi connection was dropping again. Nice one Apple!

Fix / Temporary Fix :-

- System Prefs / Network / then Turn WiFi off

- Press Advanced button, it will probably show your usual WiFi network in Preferred Networks list
- Delete your usual WiFi network in this list (make sure you have your connection details/password first!!!)
- Press OK and will then need your System password to ok the change
- You then need to setup your WiFi connection again – I did this via Preferred Networks and ‘Choose a Network’ button, selecting my WiFi connection. You’ll probably then need to enter your WiFi password again.

 

 

By |July 31st, 2012|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 6

Have now worked through Chapter 6 of the book, entitled ‘Tool Support for Testing’. This is another very comprehensive chapter, which took around 9 hours of studying, over a few days.

It covers the main topic of testing tools, describing in-depth the range of different types of tools, what they’re used for and the benefits and potential disadvanatages of using them. It covers the actual description/theory of each tool, rather than specific tools/software that may be in use. It finally concludes with a process to introduce testing tools into an organistion.

The topics covered are:

  • What is a test tool?
  • Test tools
  • Introducing a tool into an organisation

In order to understand just how many test tools there are, I’ve created two lists from the information in this Chapter, to help my learning/revision. The first list below covers all the test tools discussed in the Chapter, arranged by their ‘ISTQB Syllabus Classification. The list after that is these tools but arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’.

List of Tools by ISTQB Syllabus Classification

Classification: Management of Testing and Testing:

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools

Classification: Static Testing: 

  • Review Tools
  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools

Classification: Test Specification:

  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools

Classification: Test Execution and Logging:

  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools
  • Test Harness/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Test Comparators
  • Coverage Measurement Tools
  • Security Tools

Classification: Performance and Monitoring:

  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Performance Testing/Load Testing Tools
  • Performance Testing/Stress Testing Tools
  • Monitoring Tools

Classification: Data Quality 

  • Data Quality Assessment Tools

Classification: Usability 

  • Usability Tools

Classification: Other Tools 

  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools, Debugging Tools

List of Tools arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’ 

Users: Business Analyst 

  • Requirements Management Tools

Users: Testers

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools

Users: Developers 

  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools
  • Test Harnesses/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Coverage Management Tools
  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Debugging Tools

Users: Testers and Developers 

  • Test Comparators

Users: Various 

  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools
  • Review Tool
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools
  • Monitoring Tools
  • Data Quality Assessment Tools
  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools

Users: Specialists 

  • Security Tools
  • Performance Testing Tools
  • Usability Tools

 

By |May 25th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 3

Have now worked through Chapter 3 of the book, entitled ‘Static Testing’. This took about 3 hours to work through. This chapter deals with the static techniques area of software testing – where software is tested without executing it. This can lead to finding errors and defects before code is written/executed and can lead to making corrections earlier in the life cycle and thus easier and cheaper to fix.
Two static testing techniques are covered – the first of these is the Review and the second is Static Analysis.

The topics covered are:

  • Background to static techniques
  • Reviews and the test process
  • Static analysis by tools
By |May 15th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Java Training Update

So far, I’ve added to my previous knowledge of Java programming through a Webucator course on Java 2 5.0 Fundamentals.

Currently working through the book “SCJP 6 Study Guide” with the aim of getting official certification from Oracle as a Java 6 Programmer. The official title being “Oracle Certified Professional, Java SE 6 Programmer” – bit of a mouthful but will look good on my CV.

By |November 21st, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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IBM WebSphere Trial

Can download a free trial version of IBM Websphere MQ from this URL

http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/search.jsp?pn=WebSphere+MQ

By |October 17th, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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LJC – London Java Community

Found the LJC the other day via Google so have signed up – bit of networking is always good.

http://www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/

By |October 13th, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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