Archive for Webdesign

Dreamflicks.com is mostly open for business

// December 6th, 2006 // Comments Off // Stuff, Webdesign, Wordpress

So I posted recently about how I’d been burning the midnight oil (and much of the midday, morning and afternoon as well).

Well after an extraordinarily long bit of coding, writing xhtml and burrowing about in css I’ve completed everything leading up to the open beta portion of testing. (Only about an hour over my midnight deadline, yay me!).

Anyhow if you’re familiar with wordpress then dreamflicks will be a piece of cake. If you’re not familiar with wordpress then head on over to Dreamflicks.com and sign up for an account and enjoy a clean, standards compliant blogging platform. On a nifty note unlike some of the other free blogging platforms out there with dreamflicks you can actually earn yourself a bit of money via the easy to configure google adsense widget I’ve installed.

All in all I really enjoyed working on a project for myself that in turn will be fun for everyone who wants to use it.

Enjoy it

Signup here

What’s been keeping me awake all hours…

// November 16th, 2006 // Comments Off // Stuff, Webdesign, Wordpress

So I’ve been burning the midnight candle oil at both ends or some other pithy statement. The goal is for a Dec 1st launch of a project I’ve been preparing in deep secrecy (not really) for the last few months. I’ve always loved blogging (although I do hate the word) and also have a deep abiding love for film, be it silent films, noir or even the glories of martial art explosive extravaganzas. With that in mind I’ve decided to launch dreamflicks.com

Dreamflicks.com will be using the WPMU (WordPress Multi-User) framework and while I’m still accepting beta testers the main site and full functionality isn’t enabled yet.
If you’d like to test the site out and get an early start on a blog feel free to ask me. Other wise follow the link below and then signup for the launch notification.

Dreamflicks.com blogs for movie lovers

Something Ventured » The Almighty Logo by Zack Jenks

// November 8th, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Reviews, Webdesign

Something Ventured » The Almighty Logo by Zack Jenks

Over at http://www.someventure.com the day by day blog about a new web startup has finally given unto the masses the logo of the new business.
While the logo can be found at http://www.grapeshow.com aside from a pair of grapes, some nifty mac-isian (yeah I made that word up) reflections and a signup form there’s still not much in the way of what grapeshow will be. I for one can’t wait until he reveals what the site actually is. I’ve got a few suspicions but nothing concrete.

No CssReboot for me until May 1st

// October 27th, 2006 // Comments Off // Stuff, Webdesign

So after finally finishing the very lengthy list of what needs to be added into the site’s back end and also arriving at the conclusion that simply redesigning the layout wouldn’t work, I’ve decided to withdraw from the reboot. While I managed to get quite a bit of the work sped through I didn’t think it would be fair to my site or to the spirit of the Reboot if I just cut corners on the elegance of coding possible with CSS in order to complete it by Tuesday.

Some of the things holding me back are:

  • icon area
  • Photoshop brushes
  • textures area
  • ejunkie storefront integration
  • theme sales
  • automatic wallpaper batch tool (this will be released as a plugin sometime in spring)

All of that seems simple ecommerce fluff that shouldn’t effect the end result of the look of the site, however I’d much prefer to code the site to be as lean as possible and then worry about CSS.

The other main reason is I’ve got 2 very large projects to finish before the birth of my son (who’s only got another 53 days until his approx. birthday! Here’s a couple of hints on those two projects though: 1. WordPress MU released. 2. WordPress also released a different product as well.

Anyways best of luck to the rest of you CSS Rebooters. Looking forward to May 1st and likely as not now that my friend Justin is hopping into the CDC Studios family a new design every six months from now on.

Zoe’s Rants & Randomness Theme

// October 16th, 2006 // 4 Comments » // Stuff, Webdesign, Wordpress

So Zoe had been getting frustrated with the inability to use plugins on wordpress.com and asked me to set her up a blog here locally. We went through 20 or 30 themes before finding a few she liked. Finding something with the right mixture of clean layout and good color scheme is far easier to figure out with a client then it is with a significant other. Clients occasionally will trust the opinion of the expert. Significant other’s though, want it their way or there will be difficulties.

Anyways I digress. Using the huge number of themes auto installed by Dreamhost‘s One-click Install as a starting point we scoured a few WordPress theme sites until we could decide on the right style.

I’d taken the liberty of making up a new banner for her myspace profile that was a much smaller version of what we wanted for the header image and also underscored our relocation to the greener side of the mountains. This is a much happier place for us both even with the cold and rain Portland’s had the last week and I think the new look shows it:

Zoe myspace image

Once that was finished it let us pick a theme called ‘Fast-Track‘ then changed enough of it to suit her green fixations as well as make a few adjustments so it plays nice with the plugins she needed. After that I exported her WordPress.com posts/comments etc and popped them into the site automagically created by Dreamhost. Happiness in just under 4 hours.

Zoe's Blog WordPress theme

Here’s the link to check it out:Zoe’s Rants & Randomness

All in all it was a pleasant way to spend the evening. Let us know what you think.

Countdown to the reboot.

// October 13th, 2006 // Comments Off // Stuff, Webdesign, Wordpress

So just like last time I did the reboot, I find that every time I arrive at a “final” idea for the graphics I swiftly change over to something else. I suppose second guessing myself in an ever spiraling and timewasting distraction. Just like the last time though I assume when I have 3-4 days left I’ll go into a nightmarish frenzy of css, php and html coding before finishing everything up with 5-7 hours left before midnight.
It’s funny how when I’m working for clients other than myself I have no issue with completeing deadlines weeks in advance, everything flowing smoothly and surely towards the inevitable moment I cry eureka and am finished. When working for myself I can’t help but get frustrated by my own pickiness as a developer, designer and as is often said; I’m my own worst critic.

I’d post up a few of the elements that are mostly finalized but instead I’ll just dual purposely post a quick list of things I’m going to be adding to the redesign (partially to force me to do them and partially to help me remember them as I code):

  • Lightbox the design page
  • Single story on the front page everything else in the blog section
  • Convert the sidebar blogroll into a Digg feed
  • Feedburner the rss feeds
  • Clean the snot out of the unweildy mess the CSS has become in the year and a half since I launched this look.
  • Prepare the forthcoming soon to launch “sales section” where you’ll be able to purchase photoshop brushes, icons and whatever other sexy graphical goodies I’ve made or will make in the future.

Not altogether the most verbose difficult to imagine list that should be a snap to complete in two weeks. Will it happen? I’ll give it a definitive Yup! for now, but perhaps I’ll be singing a painfully different tune come October 31st.

CSS Reboot signups now open

// October 6th, 2006 // Comments Off // Webdesign

CSS Reboot signups now open

Time once more to throw caution to the wind and update this site. It’s been using the theme I designed way back in April 2005 for the original CSS Reboot. I’ve got quite a few things I still need to get done but this time I have a better idea what I want and the time to implement it. If you’re a designer, head over and register. The deadline of Nov 1st is a great motivator to polish up your personal page (yay alliteration).

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