ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

As you’ll be likely to know, assuming this isn’t the first post you’ve ever read on my site, I’m currently in the process of redesigning my site. The design is still very much a work in progress and no bits are actually finished yet, but I’m starting to get further on down the line with […]

Read: If in doubt, ask a teacher… »

… but let’s get it right: I’m a web developer and/or designer. You could also refer to me as a systems or a database developer or designer. You could also refer to me as a IT Projects Manager. All of these things I do.
What I do not do, what I have never done, and I […]

Read: Web Development: It’s hardly rocket science »

Just for anyone at work who checks my blog over the weekend, I’ll let you know now that we didn’t win the £66 million EuroMillions jackpot tonight. In fact, we won bugger-all, which is about as well as we normally do…

Read: Euromillions »

Okay, so I’ve decided to build myself a Wordpress theme. Great. The first question is how, precisely, do I go about doing this?
Step 1: Take an existing wordpress theme. Dismantle it. Work out the bits you want, put them together in the order you want. When I’ve got it approximately right, then I can […]

Read: A New Site Design »

I see it’s the England — Spain friendly tonight.
Sigh. I find it really hard to have any motivation or interest in England friendlies these days, probably because:

Friendlies are invariably crap.
England friendlies in particular are invariably dull, dull, dull, games
England — now with added “Wembley” — will be reverting to being a Southern team again, rather […]

Read: England, My England »

Two of the sites I have an interest in, Accessites and Revish have undergone some changes recently. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m one of the site graders for Accessites. At times, this has meant quite a significant investment of time from all of the graders, and because we do have other lives to lead — […]

Read: Accessites and Revish »

You know, that’s the thing I like about WordPress. Upgrading is easy. Okay, sometimes it may be time-consuming when you’re making backups and copying files, but there’s not much in the way of complexity or instructions that are difficult to follow. It’s just “make a backup”, “copy these files”, “run this”, and you’re sorted. Thanks […]

Read: Upgrading WordPress »

I bought some cheap shoes last weekend. I wouldn’t normally have mentioned it, as it’s not really the sort of thing you tend to brag about:
Hey everyone! Look at me! I’ve bought some cheap shoes because I’m a miserly skinflint!Bragging about cheap shoes
…but on the other hand I did mention it to a few of […]

Read: Cheap Shoes »

I’ve been thinking about redesigning my site for some time. It first appeared on the net in the back end of 2005, with a nice, blocky white-and-one-other colour feel to it. Not something that by any standards that could be described as a nice site design, but then I wasn’t a site designer, I was […]

Read: Word Press Themes, CSS and a request for help »

Myself, the GLW, our two boys have been to St Mary’s Island today, along with Grandma Jenny and Granda Bryan (who came in their own car). This is a little island just off the North East coast of England (apparently it’s sometimes called “Bait Island”, but I’ve never heard it called that) which is basically […]

Read: St Mary’s »