Iacob Ionut - Freelance Website Design

Wordpress How-To : Week 1 - The Excerpt

Ionut — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:09:36 +0000

I’ve decided to make some changes to the blog. One is to write a weekly series of “Wordpress How-To’s ” . Every monday I’ll try to find something interesting about Wordpress and write about it . Ok…now let’s begin.

Week 1 : Wordpress Excerpt - how to limit the number of words displayed

The excerpt displays the first 55 words of a post…a “teaser” if you like.It’s usually used on front pages of blogs and online newspapers . Unlike the_content() , the_excerpt() does not show a “Read More” link after the text …this is replaced by [..] .

Today we’ll learn how to change the number of words displayed by the excerpt.Let’s say that you don’t have the space to show the first 55 words of a post/article and you would like to show only the first 25.This is how you do it :

First of all you’ll need to open the functions.php file of your theme and add these following lines:

< ? php
function string_limit_words($string, $word_limit)
{
$words = explode(' ', $string, ($word_limit + 1));
if(count($words) > $word_limit)
array_pop($words);
return implode(’ ‘, $words);
}
?>

Then add this where you want the excerpt to be displayed :

< ? php $excerpt = get_the_excerpt();
echo string_limit_words($excerpt,25);
?>

Don’t forget to remove the space between “? php “.

Freelancing

Ionut — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:36:59 +0000

Hey guys , I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write in these last couple of weeks , but I’ve been really really busy designing and developing sites . I wanted to write some posts about Wordpress , about Photoshop etc but I’ve failed miserably due to the lack of time .

I have some spare time these days and I’m planning to do some changes around here:

Minor tweaks to the site (contact form , paragraphs etc )
Some free wordpress themes for my “Freebies” section
A couple of posts/tutorials about Wordpress

Until then…take care.

The new version is coming soon

Ionut — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:29:02 +0000

I didn’t have time to update the site because I was really busy with some other projects ( exams , graduation paper etc) . Tomorrow I’m gonna start working on improving the site.There’s not going to be major changes … some sections of the site will be replaced , I will upload some free templates , CSS code is going to be cleaned up and modified etc.

Hopefully the new site will be ready in 10 - 14 days . Until then take care.

PS : Oh and by the way … watch Cloverfield ( on bluray if possible ) .

Update : I’ve been making slow progress with my redesign due to other projects I’m working on.

Mac vs PC …vs wtf?!

Ionut — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:10:02 +0000

I found this funny video on the net.Enjoy!

Warhammer Online Delayed….again

Ionut — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:51:23 +0000

The long awaited MMO from Mythic is being delayed again until this fall.The reason for this delay is simple : they need more time to tweak some important aspects of the game.

"During the most recent phase of beta testing, two things have become clear …One was that our key innovations–Public Quests, Tome of Knowledge, and Realm vs. Realm combat–were all coming along extremely well, as was the first stage of our innovative crafting system. The second, that the game would benefit from additional iteration time as well as adding a layer of polish or two. Fortunately, as part of Electronic Arts, we are able to do just that." said Mythic’s president Mark Jacobs.

The good news is that Mythic announced a MMOG’s collectors edition : Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning Collector’s Edition.The Warhammer Online Collector’s Edition includes some cool things like a Gameshop Miniature,an original graphic novel , an art book.

As for the In-Game content,the box containes two items ,new quests ,rewards and titles.Unfortunately only 60 000 units will be available…and only in North America (fuck!).I’ve been playing WH Soulstorm a lot these days and the fact that this collector’s edition will be available only in NA comes as a huge blow to me.Oh well…it seems that I’ll have to wait for the MMO.

I just learned that those who buy Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath will get a chance to beta test Command&Conquer : Red Alert 3.Wow,how nice of them to do that.If you didn’t see the pics from RA 3 ,you can go to my Red Alert 3 - Short Preview page and check them out.

Red Alert 3 - Short Preview

Ionut — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:01:10 +0000

As you already know, Electronic Arts announced about a month ago the return of Command & Conquer : Red Alert 3.After seven years the Soviets and the Allies are back…but wait ,there’s more.

The story

After years of war between the 2 uber-powers, the Soviet Union is on the brink of destruction.Fearing that everything will be lost, they decide to use an older project (the time machine) to go back and kill Albert Einstein (who is responsable for most of the technological advances made by the Allies).The mission goes awry ,creating an alternate timeline…and a new superpower : Japan or the Empire of the Rising Sun.

What’s new?

EA is introducing a new cooperative mode in single player.This means that you can play with a friend, or with an AI commander by your side.Each commander will have a different personality : one commander might favor a ground assault while another might favor an air strike.

Another thing that is going to change is the naval gameplay. Naval battles will have a greater impact on the final outcome of the game.Every faction will have their own amphibious units(units that can be used on land and sea) and "sea-only" units.If the naval battles will actually influence the outcome of a mission,we’ll just have to wait and see.

Red Alert 3 will be available on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, probably by the end of 2008.

Welcome to my site….

Ionut — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:49:53 +0000

Here it is! The first version of my blog/portfolio.I’ve been meaning to put together an online portfolio for a while and I said to myself :"Why not blog too? Everyone’s doing it.Why not me?" A couple of months ago I started working on this site and two days ago i finished it.What a relief….

About this site…

Wordpress has all I ever wanted from a CMS :easy to use , highly customizable , it’s free etc, so I decided to use it for this site.A few weeks into the designing process,I changed my mind about how this site should look and did a complete makeover …you can check out the old version in the portfolio section of this site.

The first page is a custom designed template (home.php) ,while the other are pretty much the same , although I had to make minor changes to the headers and colors. As you can see I’m using some plugins for different sections of the site :

Flickr RSS - for the flickr feed
Get Recent Comments - displays recent comments
Twitter Tools

All the links from the bottom section are made using WP Links Manager , except for the Last FM flash widget.You can find this here.

Everything else you see on this site is CSS and XHTML with a little help from Wordpress Codex .

Well this is pretty much all for now.I hope you’ll enjoy the site and….be nice.I’ll see you later.