Create unique content layouts that are editable by people who don't know HTML.

Easier to figure out which date string you need thanks to a handy dandy tool.

Great addons for the P2 WordPress theme including email notifications for username mentions

How to handle posting and submitting images from the public facing fornt end of a WordPress site.

Use MySQL CASE to update multiple rows with different values all in one query.

Equations for calculating the contrast of two colors.

Tricks for enhancing a mobile version of a site tailored to iOS devices.

How to use AJAX with WordPress using the wpAjax JavaScript class

Toss this into your functions.php file to add or remove items from the favorites menu (dropdown by Howdy greeting) in WordPress.

Lecture on PHP performance and how to debug bottle necks in your code.

WordPress MU function reference that still applies to Multi-sites in WordPress 3.0

PHP class useful for generating PDFs from HTML/CSS.

A PHP class for displaying the built in media uploader tools in custom forms

Good reference for creating a class in PHP and extending it and what not.

WordPress source code browser. Good for documentation and reference.

PHP Scripts/WordPress plugin for making your own URL shortener complete with stats.

How to modify WordPress' Gallery HTML shortcode

a very simple chunk of code to auto-link the following parts of a tweet:

* URLs (into direct links)
* hashtags (link to a twitter search for that hashtag)
* usernames (link to that user’s profile page)

Ever since the surge of interest in my pet project dummyimage.com I’ve been meaning to add some new features. Today is the International Day of Awesomeness (which coincides with Chuck Norris’ birthday) and I couldn’t think of a better time to unveil DummyImage.com’s new functionality to the public.

Here is a run down of the changes: Specify Custom Colors You can choose the background and foreground colors of the dummy image right in the url using a 6,3,2, or even 1 character hexcode. Don’t worry if you forget to do this as dummy image will default to gray and black. Add Your Own Text A lot of people wanted to be able to add their own text to a dummy image to better communicate what it is representing. Now using the &text= parameter you can. A Better Typeface Arial be damned! Font geeks cringed at my basic choice of a font. Some seemed worried about my distribution of the most popular font on Earth. Now both camps can be happy as I’m now using the completely free and open M+ Font. I also changed the X in the middle of the images to a multiplication sign × as pointed out by Erinah and Dave Cortright. Standard Image Sizes Dummyimage.com is a useful prototyping tool and a lot of prototypes and wireframes have ad positions. Instead of memorizing dimensions you can now bring up ad sizes by their industry-standard name like largerectangle, skyscraper, and fullbanner. You can even customize the colors, text, and formats of theses sizes as well. Pick Your Format Before you could add any image format extension to the url but my script would still generate a GIF image everytime. Now you can generate proper PNG, JPG, and GIF images and drag them into another app trouble free.

And with these new features I figured it was time to give the site a proper, though still simple, design. Rather than bury how these features work in long, boring text I made a little tool that shows you everything you need to know with minimal fuss. Not a fan of change? Don’t worry, you can still use Dummyimage.com to generate place holder images exactly the same way you have always been doing it. So thank you to everyone who has e-mailed me, tweeted me, left a comment on a post somewhere or otherwise provided feedback on dummyimage.com. I’m glad so many people found it as useful as I think it is. Keep the ideas and dummyimage variations coming. I’m sure this thing could be better. a

Handy functions for scrubbing PHP input clean and sanitizing it.