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May
9th
9th
Weekend Photos
Went out and did a little poking around at an old factory here in Chattanooga, TN. All of these photos were taken on my Motorola Droid and edited in Adobe Lightroom.
May
6th
6th
BEING CLEAR on WHAT YOU WANT
We’ve all been in personal relationships that are going along just fine when one party decides they need to ‘define’ the relationship. You know how that can go especially if you are the one seeking the definition. Either you arrive with a well rehearsed set of questions and reasoned responses (rare result) and your relationships advances and flourishes…or you drive home kicking yourself for sounding vague, never making your point or being just plain incoherent (likely result). Read the rest of this entry »
Apr
12th
12th
Dynamic vs. Static Websites
Completing a job correctly requires selecting the right tool. Sometimes you need a simple hammer, while other times a nail gun is a must. Similarly, you have options in the tools you select to maximize your effectiveness on the web. We’d like to briefly discuss two different website tools available to help you achieve the best results: (1) dynamic website, and (2) static website. The better you understand your goals, the better you’ll be able to select the right website tool. Here are three very important questions that will help you select the right website tool:
What are the basic differences between dynamic and static websites?
The differences are pretty simple. When building a static site, the web developer will construct the pages as they will be retrieved by the browser, usually in basic HTML and CSS. With dynamic sites, the pages are constructed “on the fly” by scripts ran by the web server. As a result it’s much easier to add additional pages and functionality to the site. A correctly programmed dynamic site will enable the website administrator to easily edit or change content through a Content Management System (CMS). On the other hand, changing or updating a static website requires building a file transfer protocol (FTP) process, downloading pages, making changes to the pages, then uploading to the static site.
Which is the best tool for me, dynamic or static?
Static website: A static website is simple. It is best when you never (or seldom) desire to change content or functionality. Search engine optimization (SEO) should not be your goal with a static site. It’s primary purpose is to provide information on your business or service (often referred to as an online business card).
Dynamic website: Your desire is to add or update information; the site can be managed and edited by one or several people. You can add new and different functions, while improving search engine recognition. A dynamic site is essential when seeking to sell products and acquire new customers.
What should I do to receive a high rank from Google, and increase visits to my website?
Frequently updating your website is extremely important to achieve sustained recognition from Google, but more is required. Having well placed words is crucial, whether you have a dynamic or static website; well placed keywords in your content will definitely help to improve your Google ranking. Generating additional traffic to your site is also very important for improving your Google rank, and one of the best ways to increase visitors is to keep updating and changing content. A dynamic website provides a great advantage because you can keep visitors coming back for updated information, and you’ll have others wanting to link to your site.
Most importantly, be persistent. Your success will increase as you learn to interact with your website visitors. Understand your goals, then select the appropriate tool.
Mar
20th
20th
IE Hacking, Again
I loathe IE, and what developer doesn’t. Can I get an amen from the choir!? Anyway, found another useful hack for IE. When putting Flash content on a site, sometimes the user is required to click the Flash component to activate it. Annoying, but easy to fix. For all of you jQuery lovers, here is how to fix it. (You can laugh under your breath.)
$(‘#flashWrapper’).html( $(‘#flashWrapper’).html() );
So basically you are taking your Flash embed code and adding it back to the div that contains the, you guessed it, your Flash embed code. Believe me, I laughed when I discovered that this was a fix for this issue as well. So simple. So trivial. But the thing works.
- Blessings
Mar
9th
9th
SEO vs SEM Part 2
Search Engine Optimization, or “Organic Search” results as defined in Part 1 of this series, is all the things you can do to advance your website in the regular unpaid listings on Google, or other search engines.
There are many things that your site designer can do to help your site be as optimized as possible. But AT LEAST 50% of your search engine optimization is up to you, I think it’s more like 75%. Here are some of the basic things we do to make sure your site is optimized:
- build sites in DIVs with CSS
- include a keyword relevant, reasonable title for each page
- include text links to all main pages of the site
- include a site map
- place ALT tags on all images
You don’t have to understand what the heck we just said. There are many more that we do but won’t go into here. Those are just some of the basics.
Honestly, that paragraph is far less important than this one. Here are some of the things that YOU can do to improve your SEO that will outweigh the things mentioned above:
- UPDATE YOUR SITE FREQUENTLY
- Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, whatever Social Network you use – post updates there about your site and provide links
- UPDATE YOUR SITE FREQUENTLY
- Ask friends with sites, or companies that provide complimentary but not competing services to link to you
- UPDATE YOUR SITE FREQUENTLY
All of this stuff is explained further in the Blog Post – Committing to Your Website, take a look at it.
Mar
3rd
3rd
Sketching: Ideas On Paper
Developing concepts and ideas for a website design, icon or logo, or any type of graphic development can seem like an overwhelming task at times. No matter how many websites you have created or logos you’ve developed, the creative process is always something that can take a lot out of you. True, there are days when this process seems to come as easily and naturally as walking or breathing, but those days come about less often then I would care to admit. This is where sketching, for me, enters the picture (no pun intended). Sketching out ideas and concepts helps me quickly sift throughout the ideas trapped inside my head. I must admit, I do spend a bit too much time in this phase of the project because of my love for it.
Layout sketches for Zoowee Music. Developed layout for container that would hold Artist profile, album list, songs, etc.
Thanks to an extremely talented artistic mother, I have been sketching obsessively since I was young. Thankfully web and graphic design gives me an outlet to put this obsession to use. Sketching out layouts for websites is essential to my process, but I really enjoy icon and graphic development. This is where the pen and pencil really helps me plan out how an objects or graphics will end up being rendered on the computer.
Zoowee Icon Development
Sketch for Zoowee Dashboard Graphics. Depicting the monitoring and managment of your Zoowee Bubbles.
Launch Icon Development
Rocky Horton helped me discover the graph paper moleskin (I know, I know its typical designer to carry this around but it fits so well into my bag and they are so easy to keep organized) which has really helped with sketches for websites and logos. Its a wonder I didn’t make this connection sooner (living in a pixel based world).
Layout sketch for Addicted to the Outdoors
I’ll post a follow-up to this with more of my sketches once I get my sketch books together. This just happens to be the sketchbook sitting in front of me at the time, but I will sift through the boxes I have at home and post some more detailed images and more on my process in my next post.
Mar
2nd
2nd
Funny Google Transcripts – Volume 2
Call me back. Good Shepherd.
There are a lot of lengthy Google Voice transcripts that I have gotten that are in fact funnier than this one, but I keep coming back to this one. It makes me laugh.
For more check out http://gvWTF.com
