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Apple.com

One of today’s most inspirational sites was very different 10 years ago. They still kept their site very simple back then.

Google.com

You’re witnessing what was the birth of one of today’s biggest corporations. Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google officially went live in November 1999, 10 year birthday celebration? The founders invested $25,000 from credit cards to get the site going (along with a grant from the Stanford University Library), probably the best $25,000 of the banks money ever spent.

Microsoft.com

It’s a bit concerning that Microsoft’s download center site still looks very similar to their site 10 years ago.

Yahoo.com

It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago people were using something other than Google to search the web.

Amazon.com

Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1995, Amazon saw fast growth online being named by Time magazine as one of it’s 10 best sites of 1996. By 1999 Amazon had 8 automated warehouses, each costing $50,000,000… Ouch. No wonder Amazon didn’t post it’s first full-year profit until 2003.

Cnet.com

One of the web’s premiere destinations for anything tech, cnet has managed to stay a popular destination for it’s visitors by evolving with the web to give users what they want.

Ask.com

Ask Jeeves was a popular destination to get your questions answered on the web. Today you don’t get to Ask Jeeves, the name was later shortened to just Ask.

AOL.com

Once a monster Internet Service Provider, AOL had over 30 million subscribers. Today AOL has been on the decline since 2002 after merging with Time Warner and now has less than 6 million subscribers.

Adobe.com

One of the worlds leading software companies, many elements of their 1999 site are still used in modern website design.

IGN.com

Still a popular site for gamers IGN has been around for quite some time, here’s what it looked like in 1999.

Sources:

• Website Screenshots from: Way Back Machine.
• Wikipedia
• 50 great e-businesses and the minds behind them, Random House Australia 2007.

It turns out the problem lies in Photoshop’s color profiles.

The solution

Visit the following site and follow the instructions…

http://www.viget.com/inspire/the-mysterious-save-for-web-color-shift/

I hope this helps… And kudos to the writers for finally finding a fix for us!

What is it?

To learn how to find the loop, it would be good to know what it does, and it’s purpose within a template. Loops are used in virtually all computer programming languages, it’s purpose it to repeat a set of tasks. Basically, you could code the same thing 10 times or use a loop to repeat the action 10 times. In WordPress, loops are used to get each blog article, or piece of information from the database, then read it out in HTML. This is how you see multiple articles presented on your blogs homepage without the code being in the template for each article. “The Loop” will generally only be on the index.php page of your template.

Finding the loop…

Every PHP programmer will program their template differently which means each loop is different. to combat this I’m going to attempt to arm you with the basics of PHP so that you can understand the workings of the code and find “the loop”.

Reading PHP

Lets start with separating the PHP from the HTML. It is important to recognise the difference between PHP and HTML, PHP being what’s known as a “Server-Side Language” and HTML being a “Client-Side Language”. PHP is run on the server, hence the term “Server-Side Language” – All PHP scripts are read by the server before any information is sent to the web browser for the “client” to see. HTML being “Client-Side” is read by the web browser on the clients side – using their computer resources, not the servers. “Server-Side” scripting will always be processed first on the server, then the information will be sent the “Client-Side” so it can present the information to you.

Finding the PHP is fairly easy. All PHP is enclosed between either of the following:

<?php
	// PHP script here
?>

<?
	// PHP script here
?>

Both <? php & <? do the exact same thing, just one is shorter than the other. ?> will signal the end of a set of PHP scripting. So to find “the loop” you need to look within these.

The start of the loop!

The proper term for the most commonly used “loop” in WordPress is a “while loop”. The most commonly used “while” codes will look like this:

while (have_posts()) : the_post();
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();

This is the start of “the loop”. It’s effectively telling the server “while there is new posts, do the following”. Not too different to standard English. The “if” on the second code is first asking “if there is a post, then do the while loop”.

It might be an idea to mark this spot for reference, so after the PHP script put a HTML comment like follows:

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<!-- Start of the loop -->

The end of the loop!

Now we’ve found the start of “the loop”, we need to find the end. This should always look as follows:

endwhile;

This will end the content that is being “looped”.

Lets mark the end of “the loop” with a HTML comment once more but this time above the PHP script like follows:

	<!-- End of the loop -->
<?php endwhile; ?>

Okay so now you have found “the loop” the content within where you have marked is inside the loop, anything outside this script area is “outside the loop”. HTML within this loop will behave as normal HTML however it is just repeated multiple times.

So there we have it – finding “the loop” in a nutshell. “The loop” will generally only be on the home page and there should only be one loop, if you find multiple loops, use your HTML knowledge to find which is the correct loop for what you are trying to do.

What not to do…

You see it all the time when browsing the web, large blocks of text that would just take so long to read. Have you ever actually thought about how often you’ve actually read the information they’re trying to present you? Most people lead such busy lives they don’t have time to stop and read what looks like a large amount text.

For Example:

Too Much Text

Personally, I wouldn’t stop and read that. Therefore they have lost me straight away. So how do you present the information in such a manor, it becomes interesting, digestible and still gets your information across?

What to do!

Firstly, less is more. Find the key points you want to get across, cut out the rest of the blabber, people don’t have time to read blabber. It’s all about refined information, only say what needs to be said.

Secondly, once you have a list of you key points that you want to get across, then we need to present these key points in a manor that is clear, uncluttered, and to the point. The best way to do this is present the information in small digestible chunks, with short key point headers, icons to match the point, and short sentences that inform about the point.

Apple do this well when they sell their products.

Apple's Way - A Good Way

As you can see the key points on Apples site stands out, they are presented with large images which give readers a taste of what the point is selling. The key points (feature titles) are clear and stand out, and it allows you to see if the feature interests you. If it does you may read a little about it, otherwise you check out the next feature.

Imagine if the images weren’t there and the information was just as a list – chances are people would not read all the points/features as they would be 1) Cluttered and unclear, 2) Indigestible.

Here are some other examples of well laid out information for easy digestion.

Mail Chimp

Mail Chimp sets it information next to large screenshots and clear headings so you can flick through the features and choose to read about it or see what the next feature is.

NexTunes.com.au

NexTunes.com.au uses icons to breakup each of it’s features.

It’s a fairly simple concept and should help you better lay out information on your sites to make it more clear to your visitors as to what you are trying to get across.