This tip is more for WordPress theme and plugin developers. I’ve been working on a client project that required MySQL transactions, as I needed to perform multiple deletions on multiple tables, where the data was interdependent. Since I was writing a WordPress plugin, I wanted a way of doing a MySQL database transaction, using the WordPress database object $wpdb.

When you create a connection to a MySQL database, you end up with a connection handle. This is essentially a way of communicating with the database down the same pipe. When you render a page in WordPress (front end or admin area), the $wpdb database object has already been initialised and opened up a connection to the database. Therefore we can recycle this database connection for our own needs.

The $wpdb object saves the database handle as $wpdb->dbh (dbh = Database Handle). Therefore we just use $wpdb->dbh in place of our normal database handle that we’d otherwise use in PHP.

Code Example

<?php
global $wpdb;
 
// @ prefix used to suppress errors, but you should do your own
// error checking by checking return values from each mysql_query()
 
// Start Transaction
@mysql_query("BEGIN", $wpdb->dbh);
 
// Do some expensive/related queries here
$wpdb->query("DELETE FROM table WHERE form_id = '1' ");
$wpdb->query("DELETE FROM data WHERE form_id = '1' ");
 
if ($error) {
    // Error occured, don't save any changes
    @mysql_query("ROLLBACK", $wpdb->dbh);
} else {
   // All ok, save the changes
   @mysql_query("COMMIT", $wpdb->dbh);
}
 
?>

Based on this, you can do your usual PHP and WordPress magic to do what you need.

If you’re looking to create a website, here are a few tips that are strongly recommended to help you get off to a great start. This page is frequently updated, so do bookmark it!

Table of Contents

• Common Web Terms
• Registering a Domain Name
• Visitor Tracking
• Content Management Systems
• WordPress Resources
• Google Tools
• Building Backlinks
• Growing a network
• Business Cards
• Logo Design
• Asking Questions and Getting Help

Common Web Terms

These are terms and acronyms that you’ll frequently come across whilst running a website.

URL – Uniform Resource Locator

String that identifies a specific resource on the web

e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8054699.stm

HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Way of transferring data from server to web browser

HTML – Hypertext Markup Language

A basic language defining structure and content of a web page

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets

A layer on top of HTML, adds formatting. e.g. fonts, colours, sizes, alignment, position

SSL – Secure Sockets Layer

Cryptographic protocols for securely transmitting data over the internet

PHP – Hypertext Preprocessor

Server-side programming language

AJAX – Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

A group of internet technologies for interactive web applications/pages/web sites

RSS – Really Simple Syndication

Format for delivering info from a regularly updated website

There are loads more common terms. Here’s where you can find out more:

• W3Schools Web Glossary
• Daily Blog Tips – Bloggers Glossary
• Web Design Industry Jargon: Glossary and Resources (very useful)

Registering a Domain Name

There are lots of tips and tricks for registering a domain name, so I’ve dedicated a whole site that gives you a great deal of UK domain name advice, called Pure Domains.

Visitor Tracking

You should track who visits your website. This allows you to determine how people are finding your site, and what keywords they use when searching for your site on the search engines.

• Google Analytics – probably the most useful free tracking tool. You get very detailed analysis of your traffic, more than you’ll need for quite a while. Excellent for beginners and advanced users.
• StatCounter – a free tracking tool that gives you up-to-the-minute updates on who’s visiting your site. The analysis tools are not great, but it’s useful if you’ve got a massive peak in traffic and you want to know why. More suited to advanced users.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Content Management Systems are a fancy way of saying:

software that allows me to easily update the pages on my website without fiddling with the design aspects

There are many free content management systems, since they’re developed on the open-source model.

• WordPress – My personal favourite. Primarily a blogging platform, but is perfectly suited any website where there are potentially lots of pages of information.
• Drupal – A popular CMS, but definitely aimed at users wanting more technical control over their site.
• Joomla – more of a portal-based CMS.
• Want more? You can try out lots of open-source content management systems for yourself at Open Source CMS

WordPress Resources

WordPress is an extremely customisable content management system (CMS), originally designed for running blogs, but is suitable for running any website that releases periodic information (such as news articles). WordPress is not suited to ecommerce, but you could use WordPress for pretty much any other type of website. WordPress allows you to have multiple users with different access who can contribute and help run the site.

• WordPress.org – The organisation that develops WordPress, and where you can download it to install on your own web hosting.
• WordPress.com – Where you can create your own free WordPress blog without having your own web hosting. A great place to start if you’ve never used WordPress before.

Google Tools

• Google Webmaster Tools – Allows you to submit a sitemap, which allows Google to find all of the pages on your website. It also provides statistics on how often your website is being crawled, and what position your site appears in Google search results for keywords.
• Google Local Business Center – Allows you to register your business address and contact details. When someone searches for a business like yours in your area, your details will typically be shown about the normal search results. Those details will be shown on a map with a pin pointing your business location. It’s free, and it’s a great way to get your business, club or society listed in Google.

Building Backlinks

The Do’s

• Do ask for links from related sites
• Exchanges (ok if only a few)
• One way links (ideal)
• Do get involved in guest blogging
• Do put your link in forum signatures
• Do build up networks (on and offline)

The Don’ts

• Don’t buy links
• Don’t spam blogs/forums/etc
• Avoid getting links from unrelated websites
• Don’t ask for links on link pages
• Don’t focus too much on directories
• Don’t do too much of any 1 thing.

Recommended Resources

The do’s and don’ts listed above are very high level. Here are some more detailed tips on link building.

• SEOMoz – Link Building from A to Z – SEOMoz are highly respected in the SEO world. These tips are the current best practice tips.

Growing a network

Growing a network is one of the most important ways to promote your website. Find people with similar interests if you run a club or society. If you run a business, find a business networking group to expand your contacts. This is a great way to get visitors to your site, and sometimes a way for you to exchange links.

Business Cards

If you run a society or a business, business cards are a simple and easy way to remind people of your website. I really recommend Moo.com for getting business cards done. They are pretty cheap (around £10 for 50 cards), and extremely high quality. The best aspect of their service is that you can choose up to 50 different images per order, which means you can create really interesting cards at no extra cost.

Logo Design

Creating a logo that represents your website or business is a fundamental step that can help you establish your brand. Having a memorable logo also means your customers and visitors are more likely to remember you.

I’ve written a detailed article on how to get cheap logo graphics designed, which I highly recommend if you need a new logo.

Asking Questions and Getting Help

No doubt there will be questions that you have in the future, so here are two forums that I recommend where you can ask all kinds of website questions.

• LovingTech Forums – Forums dedicated to everything that’s webmaster related.
• UK Business Forums – Forums dedicated to UK business, but they have very good Internet and IT boards.

Artiseer Startup Screen

This article is all about a template design tool called Artisteer. Artisteer is a essentially a design application that allows you to create your own great looking templates that can be used with Joomla, Drupal and WordPress without needing any technical skills or needing to know how to use Photoshop or Dreamweaver.

When you’re creating lots of websites, coming up with unique designs all the time is hard work, particularly if you’re not artistic. Artisteer comes with loads of ready-made elements which you can blend together to create a great looking and unique theme. So for plenty more compelling reasons why its worth using Artisteer, keep reading!

The Suggest Design Feature

The most useful part of Artisteer is that you can ask the software to suggest ideas for you. When you first open the Artisteer application, you’ll be presented with an initial design. If you look at the toolbar, you’ll see a Suggest Design button. Each time you click the Suggest Design button, Artisteer will generate a completely unique design with a random layout, background, header, colour scheme, menu, and more.

The Ideas Toolbar

If you only want inspiration on just a single element, such as the header, then you just click on the Suggest Header, or Suggest Colour button to choose a random colour scheme. You can get a suggestion on virtually any part of the design just by clicking on one of the suggest buttons.

Initial Design

Random Header

Random Colour

Random Sheet, Colour and Layout

Exporting Artisteer Designs

Once you’ve created your ideal design, you can export your template into a WordPress theme, Joomla template, Drupal template, ASP.NET application, or CodeCharge Studio. You can also export your template into standard HTML.

For example, if you have Joomla and WordPress running on the same website, where Joomla is the main website and WordPress is used for the blog aspect, then you can get exactly the same look and feel on both websites without having to spend hours copying the template from one to the other.

Quick Design Tweaks

If you find you need to tweak an aspect of the design, such as the colour scheme, then it’s really quick to do so. You just adjust the colours in the scheme’s palette and apply the change to the whole design. Simple!

Making structural changes to a design, such as the column layout can easily consume lots of time. The advantage with Artisteer is that you can change the layout of the design within seconds. If you make a change and hate it, you can simply click the Undo button to revert the change. I find that Artisteer is great for experimenting with layout ideas without spending ages doing the HTML and CSS code to try it out.

Resale Rights

What’s really interesting about the Artisteer software is that you have resale rights on all the generated templates (except for the photos used as foreground images in the header). So you are free to distribute the templates as you wish, giving them away or charging money for them!

Just to clarify, you are allowed to use the foreground images on any of your own sites or sites you create for your customers and clients. The licensing on the images just means you can’t redistribute them.

Mac OS X Support

Currently the Artisteer software is supported on Microsoft Windows only. However, there’s already a mature beta of Artisteer for Mac OS X that exists, and any licence you purchase for the Windows version will be valid for the Mac version too. I expect that a supported release of the Mac OS X version will be available late 2009.

Conclusion

If you create lots of websites, then you’ll find Artisteer an affordable way to create lots of unique templates. Buying premium templates and themes can quickly add up to a lot of money. Artisteer costs just $49.95 for the basic version, and $129.95 for the standard version (the latter is what I use). That means a full licence of Artisteer costs between 1 to 3 times the cost of a one-off premium theme bought elsewhere.

So for an low cost and quick method of generated great looking templates, then do try Artisteer. Artisteer does have a free trial, where the final designs are watermarked. I strongly recommend you download it and have a play with it, even if you don’t end up buying it.

The links in this article to Artisteer are affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission should anyone purchase Artisteer having clicked on one of the links in this article.