New in Version 1.2.1:

• Added ability to delete CSS from the style library

New WordPress plugin: WP Post Styling. The plugin serves only one purpose: to create a place to add custom styles which will only apply to the current page or post in your WordPress blog.

Although not widely used on the internet, it’s a valuable magazine design technique to give each article a unique look and feel. A look and feel which shows the face of that article in a light which best represents the subject, topic, or style.

This plugin is intended to make that kind of post-by-post styling simpler.

It’s not that you can’t readily do this in WordPress — either by using a theme which applies style hooks for unique articles, by utilizing WordPress conditional functions to check whether a given page is active, or by whatever other means you might imagine — but this makes it much simpler, since you can simply enter the desired styles into a textarea directly in the post.

Comments and requests should be made at the WP Post Styling home page.

Technically, this plugin has been available from the WordPress plugin directory since last Monday, but today is it’s official launch. This is for two reasons: first, it gave the plugin a week to “shake out the bugs,” so that the official launch could be as stable as is reasonably possible.

Second, it’s my birthday, so I’ll be able to remember when the plugin launched. Isn’t that sweet?

The plug-in is pretty straightforward: it posts a status update about your new WP post to Twitter, passing by Pierre Far’s Cli.gs URL shortening service on the way. If you have a Cli.gs API key, you’ll get the added bonus that your Cli.gs will automatically show up in your Cli.gs account, so you can track the statistics of that Clig right from the beginning.

By default, the plugin will take a chunk of text you’ve defined and your post title and truncate them to an acceptable length (including your Cli.gs post URL) to send over to Twitter. However, you don’t have to just accept this stock text: you can custom author your Tweet for every post, using the WP to Twitter custom field in your post authoring interface.

Read more about WP->Twitter

Download it at WordPress!

Giving a talk is an interesting experience. In this case, with a time limit of 15 minutes, the biggest challenge was figuring out what I had time to cover. With a subject like web accessibility, I firmly believe that every aspect is critical — anything I leave out is something that somebody needs to know.

But it’s 15 minutes. You can’t really be effective if you try and cover the entire scope of a subject in 15 minutes.

The first challenge is figuring out the audience. In this case, I was speaking to a group of internet marketing professionals and site owners. For the most part, no programmers, no interface developers — not even people who necessarily have any direct access to the code of their sites. What can you teach them which they’ll be able to apply and understand immediately?

I’ve already given the speech, so I’m not trying to solicit suggestions for this particular event. However, I’m curious to know what you think are the most key issues.

For your reference, I covered three general areas:

• Navigation which can be used by non-visual, non-mouse using groups.
• Content which can be read sensibly by text-aware devices
• On-page navigation which can make the page easier to navigate

I completely ignored HTML validation, web standards, accessibility guidelines, and anything about following technical specifications. For this audience, this didn’t strike me as an actionable conversation. Instead, I focused on practical investigations of site problems: whether the site can be used with a mouse; whether the site makes it’s content available to screen readers (or search engines); and whether standard methods have been employed which will enable disabled users to quickly and easily get around the page.

So I’m curious: what would you have talked about?

This is just cool:

“Sitelinks” are additional links Google generates from the contents of a site in order to help users navigate your site — they provide these links in their search results for selected terms. Most sites don’t have site links, so I’m finding it pretty cool to notice them for myself!

If you can’t see the image, the current Sitelinks for this site are:

• Gallery
• Blog Home
• What is Web Accessibility
• SEO and Accessibility
• Articles

On the whole, I’m pretty pleased with the selection chosen here. They’ve pretty well pinned down the key areas of the site: web design, web accessibility, search marketing, and my writing on these topics. Everything is reasonably represented. Perhaps, in my forthcoming site redesign (don’t keep a look out; it’s not going to be that soon,) I’ll make a point to better promote these specific areas of the site.

If we call ourselves professionals, we owe it to our clients, their clients, and ourselves, to do our job properly. A chef must care about health, a builder must care about safety, and we must care about accessibility.

James Edwards, aka ‘Brothercake’ has published a very neat argument on the frequently-asked question “Why Accessibility?”

Read his comments at Why Accessibility? Because it’s our job!.

So, this is an interesting non-profit web tips blog meme which is being started by Elizabeth Able. Her concept is that we should write up one tip — just one — on how nonprofit organizations can take best advantage of an online presence.

Just one tip, eh? So it better be a good one.

Make it easy for people to give you money.

There’s nothing like visiting the web site for a nonprofit organization you really care about, wanting to give them some help, and not being able to figure out how. A nonprofit’s website, ultimately, has the same needs as any other online business: to convert visitors into “purchasers,” or, in this case, donors.

It’s not just about making sure your contact information is obvious, or that you have a convenient, highly noticeable “Donate” button plastered all over your site. If you’re a nonprofit accepting donations, you have other important factors to take into consideration.

First of all, be sure to list your legal non-profit status: if you have 501(c)(3) status, you need to say it. If you don’t; you also need to say that. Most donors want to know right away what kind of organization they’re dealing with. (And if they don’t; they should.)

Second, make sure you provide the practical information: will you send a receipt? What name should be written on checks? Can you accept donations via credit card? Over the phone?

Third, and most importantly, be explicit what you will do with the donor’s private information. Your privacy policy is very important to your donors. I want to know whether giving you money will cause me and my descendants to receive junk mail from you and your “charitable partners” for the next 150 years. If there’s an option to contribute without getting on any mailing lists, tell me. If there isn’t, tell me that — and start planning to create one.

Visitors to your website must have confidence that you are an organization that they can trust. They need to know that you will handle their information in good faith and that you will handle their money effectively to build on your mission.

Check out the Charity Navigator “Donor’s Bill of Rights”. If your web site can’t answer these 10 issues in the affirmative, it’s time to revisit your online presence.

Here are my tags

So, I have to tag three additional people to participate in this meme. So, here goes. First, I’d like to tag Jack Pickard, to get the voice from over the big waters.

Second, I’m going to ping Rhea Drysdale, a person I finally met in person just last week at Pubcon2007. Hope she’ll run with the topic.

Last, I’m going to tag Mike Cherim. Why? Because I always tag Mike – he’s usually got something worth saying. That, or I’m just sadly lacking in creativity.

Well, I’m back in the saddle — I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but do expect to get a few things posted here in the next few days.

I’ve also got a lot of cleaning up to do. There were major storms here in Saint Paul while I was gone, and I appear to have lost a couple of trees. Just can’t think where they might’ve gone…