Mobile-Friendly: Responsive vs Mobile Websites

Mobile friendly website comparisonWith last month’s release of Google’s new ranking algorithm that lowers non-mobile-friendly websites in a mobile search, people have been running to get their site mobile-friendly.  But for those out there who have yet to make the switch, the options for turning a website “mobile-friendly” can be confusing and frustrating, especially for those who aren’t familiar with web design terms.   Continue reading

Modern Cloud Typography and Browser Font Compatibility

fontWhen web designers get together they like to discuss current trends and happenings in their chosen industry. Some developer’s responsibilities include making web and mobile versions of print magazines. As can be expected, typography can be one of the major challenges that a web developer would face in getting content published.

Print magazine designers and publishers have greater freedom than their online counterparts in terms of typography. This may be difficult to believe for average users of word processing or desktop publishing software. There is a typographic disconnect between web design standards and browser compatibility that makes print design difficult to reproduce online. Imagine the challenge of bringing Ray Gun, a mid-1990s rock-and-roll magazine that was legendary for its rich typography, to an iPhone. Continue reading

The Art of Typography is Alive and Well on the Web

The current era of Web design is extremely visual. People are increasingly drawn to websites that are rich in videos and images, but most of them do not realize that they are also attracted to typographic design. Web users are reading more than ever, and they can thank typographers and designers for this trend. The effectiveness of a written statement is heavily dependent on typography, and this is something that Web designers are keenly aware of. Continue reading

Why Websites Need to be “Remodeled.” Is your site outdated?

Is your website outdated or are you thinking of starting anew?

To remodel or not to remodel? That is the question.

Everyone knows that there is a season to remodel. Remodeling our kitchens, remodeling our bathrooms, remodeling our homes, etc., but who really understand what it means to remodel a website?

Or should you just move to a new home/domain?Home Remodeling

Why is it necessary for you to update/remodel your website? The simple answer, everything gets outdated and needs to be redone eventually. It’s part of life. Let’s explore this with a house analogy. Continue reading

Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make While Writing Code

There is a lot to learn related to web development while surfing the web, but there are a few common mistakes that you should not make while you integrate HTML, CSS, and a dynamic language like PHP.  I’m choosing this topic because there are number of famous writers/authors and coders who have tons of knowledge and written about almost everything that they have learnt throughout their professional careers.  But Emma Edgar motivated me to write something from my own experience and just to give it few minutes of my time, but as it is going to be my first ever blog post in last five years it took me a day to think about “What should I write?”.  

As per my experience, most of the programmers around the world have a sound knowledge of programming fundamentals, HTML and CSS. But still I noticed most make silly mistakes while writing code. There are so many reasons for these silly mistakes, the ones I have noticed are:

 

  • Lack of co-ordination and understanding between team members.
  • Lack of proper knowledge about the CMS that they are working on.
  • Lack in understanding of coding.
  • Lack of differentiation between dynamic and static HTML Elements, ids, classes.
  • Lack of conditional statements where they are actually required.

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Orion Group’s Top 10 WordPress Plugins

WordPress PluginsIn the last couple months several people have asked me what WordPress plugins are the best, which do we use on our sites, and what each plugin does.  There over 31,000 plugins in the WordPress repository, and thousands of paid plugins and add-ons available on the web.  It can be hard to figure out what to use.  So to get started, here’s a list of our top 10 plugins that we use on our latest sites. Continue reading

Introducing Project Force Field: Protect Your Website!

WordPress Plugin Project Force Field Save your WordPress sites and servers from certain death during brute force attacks with Project Force Field by Orion Group!  Install the plugin and start protecting your website in under 10 seconds!

The developers at Orion Group bring superior brute force attack protection to WordPress with our new plugin, Project Force Field. By tracking failed login attempts and taking advantage of Apache’s mod_rewrite module, Project Force Field stops Brute Force Attacks from bogging down your sites and servers. Continue reading

Why do fonts look pixelated in Chrome?

Pixelated Fonts in Chrome on Windows fonts look pixelated

As developers make websites, we come across a lot of funky things on the web and how browsers display websites.  Most are Internet Explorer issues, but once and a while we find a bug with Chrome or Firefox.  Recently, a bug in Chrome on Windows came to our attention that makes most fonts look pixelated and distorted. Here’s a picture words in both Chrome and Firefox.

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Is your website looking like it’s working for you?

Chris

Does your site look good? Does it POP? I mean is it easy to look at…do folks want to stay there a while…to see what happens next?

Opinions vary… but if you’re not happy with the look of it, chances are your potential customers aren’t either and you may need a graphic tune up. It’s been a while since graphics made web sites slow. Today’s graphics will make your site slick!

Some features in today’s web sites that you may be missing out on… Continue reading