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How does your WordPress website or blog  look on your visitor’s screen? Do you know how your site looks on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, on a PC or a Mac – it is something worth checking.

Cross-browser compatibility has always been an important consideration and until we are all using the same browser on the same machine, it always will be – though things do seem to be settling down more now and we have fewer headaches than in the days of Netscape vs Explorer, for instance. Good web designers know to check that their work looks good across all browsers as standard, but as more of you are enabled to create your own websites, you also want to know how to check your cross-browser compatibility.

Thankfully there are tools available to us – of course there are!  I tested the Blogmistress site at BrowserShots and these are some of the results:

Try it out on your website, just to be sure… (and don’t panic if things don’t look as they should – that happens and may only need a small code change to have you cross-browser compatible).

Another option, if you have frequent tests to carry out, might be CrossBrowserTesting – you can run their free trial before committing to that level of service.

Now while you’re about it, you’d may as well consider your site for usability and accessibility – both are as important as ever and we can become complacent about such, especially those of us using WordPress and relying on the system to comply with certain standards.

Usability is something that you really want real people (as opposed to pretend people!) test out for you. If you want us to cast an eye over your site, drop an email to hello@blogmistress.com and we’ll do that for you – we’ve considered usability to be an essential consideration for every website we’ve worked with. If you want to know more about this, I’d personally recommend the book Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug – still the most easy to read, common-sense book for everyone with a website of any kind.

Accessibility may not be as hot a topic as it was a few years ago, but is still essential, and really warrants a whole blog post of its own (as indeed does Usability). To get an idea about it all though, you’d do well to visit the RNIB’s guidelines – they know what their members need and want!

There are tools available at W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative, but that can become overwhelming and automated tools do have to be considered from a human perspective too.

And you have a useful post tomorrow from Sarah on accessibility options that you can implement with relative ease – so pop back and take a look at that, or subscribe so you don’t miss it!

Any questions or comments, please add them here, or send in an email to hello@blogmistress.com

If you haven’t realised already (the blogosphere and twitter is afire today with this update), it is essential that you upgrade your WordPress to the latest version as a matter of priority.

It seems there’s a worm on the loose that is targetting older versions of WordPress – so spending the time to upgrade now could save you a lot of time should you get attacked.  Full details of the situation from WordPress central: How to keep WordPress secure

Remember, when upgrading:

• Backup your WordPress database
• Deactivate your plugins
• Then upgrade

Related post: Disable your plugins before upgrading WordPress

If you need a hand or guidance, let us know…  Email hello@blogmistress.com, call 0845 644 0709 or add your comment below.

The first of such recommendations – all based on direct experience – not just bigging up my buddies!

Many years ago I moved all clients’ website hosting to United Hosting – no mean feat, even then when I had just a few dozen clients, but one that I am glad was made.

Pricing is comparable to any of the bigger names – from £5/month – but the customer service and the support is leagues ahead of others that I’ve dealt with (and often have to – some clients like to stay with their own hosting, which is fair enough but I too often then need to adjust my expectations downwards for any support we may need!).

An issue recently arose for one clients’ hosting – we needed to find out what version of MySQL they included, for WordPress purposes – it took several days to get an answer, and sadly it was not an encouraging one – this large hosting company was running a very much older version than is required to host a WordPress website – so we moved across to United Hosting.  Not only is their hosting server technology clearly available on their website, but if you couldn’t find that, you can ask them and get an answer within minutes, if not immediately.

Another good reason to be with United Hosting is that they have the necessary versions of MySQL as standard – it astonishes me that larger hosting services have outdated versions which mean that the latest WordPress cannot be so easily hosted with them – that’s a big fail in my opinion, and raises concerns about other areas which may be lacking.

Anyway – I am glad that I took the time to move every domain (about 50 at the time) across all those years ago – and in my experience, United Hosting cannot be bettered – one area in which I am very content with my provider.  Right now I host over 100 websites with them and know that they can cope as that doubles over the next year – not only cope but support me as well as I could possible want.  You really cannot beat that…

I could, of course, set myself up as a host provider myself, and while gladly take care of and manage the hosting for clients, others are better off going direct – I cannot offer 24/7 support, but they can and do – brilliantly.

So the well deserved first recommendation is for United Hosting

Many of you will have a list of other websites and/or blogs that you link to – these may be your buddies or simply other sites and services that you recommend.

It’s worth checking your links every now and again.  Twice today I’ve followed links from respected blogs only to find that the person/website they’ve suggested either no longer exists or that the services offered at the linked-to website now seem to compete with the original person’s website, which seemed a bit odd in that particular context. Needless to say I had a gentle word…

So – who do you link to?  Who are you recommending to your readers?  It’s worth checking now and again – perhaps include it in a regular (monthly!) housekeeping schedule.

Just a quick post about a great plugin for WordPress that encrypts any email address on your blog.  So you can add email addresses without worrying that you’ll then be deluged with offers of body part enlargement aids and the like…

Download the <a href=”http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cryptx/”>Cryptx plugin here</a> or search for it from within your WordPress dashboard from Plugins, Add New (I do love that we can do that direct now, don’t you?).