Skip to main content
Category

Design

The new WordPress 2.7.. woop…

By Cool Things, Design, Spots KenyaNo Comments

I am so excited about the new wordpress 2.7 i am now a fully fledged wordpress geek and lover of the whole platform and don’t care what anyone else says but it is probably one of the best blogging and potentially one of the most powerful CMS structures available..  I am just as we speak downloading the new 2.7 release and can wait to get her kick started…

check out this video of what its all about..

I also cant wait to start integrating the socail aspects of it and linking it in with buddy press for the purpose of getting spotskenya run by it..

what do people think do you like it or not..

Changing to WordPress as full CMS for my Website.

By Cool Things, DesignNo Comments

I am seriously thinking of c

hanging my website to a fully automated wp managed site that i can optimise using their clever CMS system but still have the flexibility of changing design lay outs…

I really think i want to do this but the problem i am facing is how to get going i feel that i will use an already developed theme and build from that as a starting point.

Heres one that i really like and am thinking of using…. Infinity theme….

I also do like my current theme that i have worked hard on so please advise on what you  like and surgest some nice ones tooo..

Is this being lazy as in using some others designers work and then making it suit my needs..

Mee thinks not as i can use what they have do

ne and maybe better it and then move onto my own design once i have the system sussed…

i have just read a good post by one of my technical lecturers Will Goldstone

What are peoples thought

New Blog | by Theme Lab | Mashups | Lazy??

By Coding, Cool Things, DesignOne Comment

I stumbled upon this theme that you are currently looking at while I was looking though several… its funny as I stuck with a them by: styleshout | Theme by: Theme Lab . I know its a bit of a cop out in the sense of not designing my own but the thing is it would probably take me weeks to get to grips with doing my own desig…. besides i intend to change the main header image to something that  i have done.

I have been really enjoying adding all sorts of great plug ins to my blog and have found the lightbox 2 one pretty cool along with the all in one SEO one… i have also added super cache and that will hopefully speed things up….(its not like i had the type of traffic that they were talking about.. They said plus one hndred can update the cash frequently so that’s the setting i have put it on… I have also enabled the external link url plug in so that my nav bar or any post can link to an external url…. its a great one as i have other links that i want people to go too..

The problem or dilema i have is that i am not really good enough to design my own wp blog with all the PHP and coding that is needed but i am good at tweeking things and utilizing all the different API’s and plug ins and various functions…

PLEASE let me know your thoughts as i feel that i should be doing it all my self but what’s the point if others have done it and can probably done it better… ( i know that sounds apathetic or quite post-modern of me) its more of a case of learning from others and increasing this ever increasing web cocktail that is evidently the way forward.

The thing is that worpress has thousands of people working together on optimizing code and its all free so what more can one ask for.

I intend to migrate my whole site and portfolio over to worpress as its by far the easiest system that i have come across and it will help me update things quicker compared to editing and ading in each thing int eh html and then uploading this via FTP. Currently my bounce rate is terrible according to my google analytics as my home page is rubbish and boring.. so having it as my blog wil enable me too keep things interesting for my viewers..

So Comments please on if i am being lazy and what your thughts are on onlie mashups of plugins and other web aplications. PLEASE LET ME KNOW

New Photo Blog www.trcwest.com/photoblog/

By Coding, Cool Things, Design, photography130 Comments

Hey every one i have just set up a new photoblog as i was inspired by eight6.com’s theme Monotone

It is a really cool theme that 

Monotone takes the first image attached to a post and samples colors from it for use in the surrounding layout. 

Basically it is like a cool little photo blog that is like a Chameleon and adapts to each photo and puts the sole focus on the image in the post. not more rubbish tiny images that are not framed right. 

As you can see it beautifully chooses the most dominant colour theme in the Photo 

Really nice interface… simple and powerful

I must say now i take my hat of to Noel Jackson director of Eight 6 for developing this cool theme and also for the help that he gave me. He was kind enough to sift through my feeble attempts to fix a .htaccess issue and rename and re point to the right directory as it was in a sub folder. Basically the .htaccess file and the  thumb.php are important and need to be set up right if not using it in a stand alone directory. 

It would be great to hear some feed back about peoples photo blogs and what ones they like using???

Please let me know what you think of mine and my images??

Thanks again Noel 

Ethur Presentation and Interview

By BAIMP, Cool Things, Design, IssuesNo Comments

I have been working on and pitch for part of my professional studies module at Uni. We have chosen to do a company called Ethur they are a missional based creative interactive media organisation that work on in house ideas that they have conceptualised along with other peoples ideas. They take a more direct low budget but high production value approach to producing. 

Deadly Viper on youtube

We had the privilege of interviewing Mike Foster the Founder of the Ethur and were able to talk for over half an hour on all sorts of issues. 

  • Ideas are crucial to everything but unless you create that idea and you put Meat on the bones as such they are pointless. I felt really challenged by this as i tend to get allot of good ideas but i don’t actually put these into action or even get them onto paper sometimes. So consequently i am going to try and get all my ideas down on my blog so at least people can then chase me up and see them. The question is what if people steal them and do them instead of me.. well i geuss that is fair enough if i haven’t been bothered to do them and maybe they will do it even better. Oops ranting on a bit… 
  • Relationships are crucial when forming a client base as these are people who you can go back to time and again and offer new ideas and work. These have to be based on integrity and trust. 
  • Scope schedule budget; these are the production principles that they use in each project and are really simple but powefull

Deadly Viper Charter Assassin is what we talk with Mike. It is such an amazing project as it seems like a huge budget site and idea especially with the book they have put out. I don’t think that it is fair to say, with asking Mike, the budget of the project. Though i can say that it is extremely low compared to what a publishing house or for profit company would ahve spent easily 5 times as much. 

 

The book, that by the way they gave out thousands (10,000) of which is so crazy but amazing, seems awesome.

They used 5 graphic designers that were sourced across the US using the internet and facebook. They also used people from their affiliated media company Plain Joe Studios that mike worked for as the senior creative director.

They have also done some really simple initiives one of is Junky Car Club

I think that if i could do what they are doing with such integrity and passion and able to just get work out there so quickly but with such high standard and values, I would be a happy bunny but sadly it does not happen over night and takes a while to learn and build up links so thank you Ethur. 

PS Keith Mason my good friend did the interview but i feel like i know Mike now as have listened to the Interview so many times 

PSS I shall ask Mike if i can put some clips of the interview up on this post..

 

What CMS Should i use?

By Coding, DesignNo Comments

I am pretty stuck at the moment as i am looking to at how to do content management for my website as coding something from scratch is not my strength at all.. 

So i have had a look at a few open source options such as Joomla, CMS made simple, Expression Engine (Not quite open source though) and PHP Nuke. These are just a few that i have found but i have not actually instaled any of them on my my server as i want to try and get a good one to start with then work with that…. as i am not one to just start of with something that will waste my time… 

So if any one could shed some light on some that can help me

  • Manage Comments and Post to a Database.
  • Upload video, images, and various content. 
  • submit contact forms.
  • Generally edit areas of web pages… 
I am just curious how this intergrates with my current websites and how i tell it to edit say my resume page or my about me tab… i am assume i have to ad the corresponding so that i allows the user to edit that. 
I also realised that in my research that Wordpress can actually do all of this… how could i integrate the lush wordpres CMS with areas of my website. 
Sorry that all of this sounds really easy and basic but i would really appreciate some help on this matter.