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Spots Kenya Rough Design

By Spots KenyaNo Comments

Here we have a simple splash together of a design that i did in Illustrator. I have never used illustrator properly so this is one of my first times with it..

What i want to do is to keep things simple but quite artistic and quite textural…
I intend to use charcoal and pastels to draw up my textures and then scan them in and use them as the main borders and Header and footer sections

I am still working on the Spots Kenya Logo at the top likewise with the visual side of the paw prints..

I know its really rough but its just, as mark said, done from the eye. I will then tweak and make sure that it flows better in the css and web design part.

You can click on the link below to open it up in Light box

spotskenya_rough

So if people could let me know if they like the design in general…

– if it will work in CSS?

– not a white background?

– Any other thoughts tips trick and crits??

SpotsKenya – Buddy Press & WordPress MU Vs WordPress OR From Scratch?

By Coding, Spots KenyaOne Comment

Basically i am not sure what i want to use a separate installation of wpmu and wordpress…

benifits well these are simple..

————–

WordPress

for

more stable and easier to use.  plugins and code is simple.

themes and design is simple.

editing and making my own theme is simple.

against

having two set up mean they are not nicely integrated

i will be working double time on each installation

it will just be a blog really.

———–

Wordpress MU & Buddy Press

for

the ability to have multiple users

an already set up social networking system

less work and more time to work on Geo Tags and Mobile functions.

easy integrated design

theme design can have a widget enabled system to syndicate all sorts of content.

against

DNS wildcard settings means no sub-domain creation on a shared hosting package… (could be over come with VPS but i dont have the budget for a VPS)

Code and already created php would have to be learnt (not such a bad thing as learning will give me the best of the best in this field) more complex coding.

limited to what wordpress can do and buddy press ( Just means i can add and develop my own settings)

————-

From Scratch I rather not…

Basically no i don’t want to waste all my time creating a CMS and social networking system as i want to focus on the main important aspects like the Spots and the Geo tagging and google maps integration and the Mobile site.

The questions that came out in my presentation were i cant just create an editorial blog that i spend all my time censoring and editing… i have to create something new and innovative that i am designing as i wont get marks for using wordpress MU except for “engaging with current issues” so what was recommended was exploring the new areas and utilising those and that is what i want to invest time in and on..

These new areas are the use of Geo Tags  and locations services using pin point gps tags and the google maps API … I want to integrate this by using the similar system that google use on there maps.google.com site or what Joe Flintham used for bournemouth sound seeing. So help in creating this type if php and mysql integration for google maps is needed.

As Kenya has a huge mobile network i want to explore and develop a simple mobile site that allows for spots to be submitted and spots to be searched for.. I want this to have a simple search feature a add spot and top spots by genre and location. Probably using a mobile optimised site eg m.spotskenya.com with nice lard text tabs and also the possibility on how to use a text message service.

I also need to make sure i focus on a few key types of spots here in Nairobi. One definite will be eating or restaurant spots. The other may be hotel spots or maybe hospitals.

The main thing i am worried about is not having something set up and ready to go. This is why i want to launch buddy press quickly with spots Kenya to at least start getting people creating there own spots.. and to be honest i think generally people are sensible which means i wont have to worry about filtering and censoring content until it gets big and people do start creating silly stuff.

I would appreciate some feed back on all of this thanks so much.

https://trcwest.com/blog/baimp/spots-kenya-project-synopsis/

above is an old post that has a bit of a synopsis of the idea.

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