All posts by 2020media

2020Media is a leading UK web host offering Linux and Windows website hosting. The company specialises in WordPress, Joomla and Drupal support.

Modifying WordPress Theme

We recently had a customer ask to replace the header text in the WordPress Twentyeleven theme with a logo.

This thread on the WordPress website gives a very good explanation:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/twenty-eleven-theme-modification?replies=5

The only tweak we made was to keep the Site Description text visible.

h2#site-description {
text-indent: -18px;
}

h1#site-title {
text-indent: -99999px;
}

You can see the finished site at www.lifeworld.info

Joomla helps power the Games

This article is taken from the Joomla Community Magazine and can be read in full here.

The Flame Relay passes Clapham Common
The Flame Relay passes Clapham Common

The Games of the XXX Olympiad are underway in London, United Kingdom. They’re powered by the world’s best athletes, years of training and a lot of muscle. It turns out that a lot of the Olympics are also powered by Joomla! websites (just like the 2020Media website).

National Olympic Committees

Sports Governing Bodies

Olympic Teams

Paralympics

Other

2020Media is a specialist in Joomla Hosting and we welcome migrations of existing sites, new hosting and developers.

 

EU Cookie Law

The new EU Cookie law is now in effect and applies to websites hosted in the UK. The law requiring websites to gain explicit consent before storing cookies on users computers was passed in May 2011 but the ICO granted firms a year to comply before prosecuting any cases.

What the law means for webmasters

There are a few steps to go through in order to achieve compliance with the law:

  • You must audit your cookies and present clear information about them on your privacy policy
  • Depending on the kind of cookies you’re using on your site, you must decide on a model for managing user awareness and consent.
  • You must make any technical changes to cookie-storing scripts in order to test for consent before a cookie is stored.

In practical terms it means you need to avoid using cookies or deploying third party software that uses them except where it is essential for the purpose making your website work. This is because as soon as explicit consent is required, users may refuse that consent. If you see a particular feature as important, you’ll want to know that it will work all the time, whether or not users have consented to cookies.

Bear in mind that in the UK, the ICO is taking a relaxed approach to analytics. Their guidance is that analytics cookies are fairly unintrusive and that therefore, as long as you inform users about their use, explicit consent is not required.

Use a Plugin to Update your Website

http://civicuk.com/cookie-law/index Cookie Control enables you to comply with UK and EU law on cookies, in a couple of quick and easy steps. Proudly developed in Scotland by CIVIC

WordPress 3.4

There’s a new version of WordPress out. Dubbed “Green” in honor of guitarist Grant Green, this release is mainly a feature and under-the-hood update. There are no critical security fixes.

wordpress 3.4 logo
wordpress 3.4

We recommend all our clients using our popular WordPress Hosting plans to upgrade.

Facebook <=> WordPress

Integration between Facebook and WordPress just got a whole lot easier, as Facebook have announced an official plugin for WordPress.

After Facebook announced its new plugin for WordPress, the relationship between the two popular applications just became stronger. With the new plugin, features like publishing and @mentions has become easy for WordPress publishers, many of whom have never written a line of code in their lives.

Once users install this plugin, they can start posting their WordPress content to their Facebook Timelines and Facebook Pages. We think that this is a really good move because it makes content sharing a whole lot easier.

New Top-Level Domain Name Applications Revealed

Historic Milestone for the Internet’s Domain Name System

At the New gTLD Reveal Day Press Conference
New gTLD Reveal Day

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today revealed who has applied for which generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) names in what is expected to become the largest expansion in the history of the Internet’s Domain Name System.

A total of 1,930 new gTLD applications were received during the application period of the new generic Top-Level Domain program.

“We are standing at the cusp of a new era of online innovation,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer. “That means new businesses, new marketing tools, new jobs, and new ways to link communities and share information.”

Beckstrom made the comments during a London news conference, where it was revealed which organizations have applied for which specific domain names.

Senior Vice President Kurt Pritz noted that the applications will now be subject to a public comment and objection period, and a rigorous, objective and independent evaluation system.

“A 60-day comment period begins today, allowing anyone in the world to submit comments on any application, and the evaluation panels will consider them,” said Pritz. “If anyone objects to an application and believes they have the grounds to do so, they can file a formal objection to the application. And they will have seven months to do that.”

Of the 1,930 applications received:

  • 66 are geographic name applications.
  • 116 applications are for Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs, for strings in scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic.

Applications were received from 60 countries and territories, broken down by ICANN’s geographic regions;

  • 911 from North America.
  • 675 from Europe.
  • 303 are from Asia-Pacific.
  • 24 from Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • 17 from Africa.

To listen to the audio file from the London Reveal Day event, go here: http://www.icann.org/en/news/press/kits/reveal-day-audio-13jun12-en.htm

To see who has applied for which generic Top-Level Domain, go here: http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/application-results

To post comments on applications, go here: http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/application-comments

To file an objection, go here: http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/objection-dispute-resolution

To obtain background information on the new generic Top-Level Domain program, go here: http://www.icann.org/en/news/press/kits/reveal-day-13jun12-en.htm

For information on ICANN’s geographic regions, go here: http://archive.icann.org/en/meetings/montreal/geo-regions-topic.htm