It’s about 48 hours from start to finish, beginning on Friday evening. There were long days and nights (some folks even slept over) and it was hard work but what a wonderful time! It’s not often I get up at 7am and I’m out until 10:30pm or later. Luckily the drive was off hours so it only took 25 minutes instead of … I don’t even want to think about it.

I met and worked with some really amazing people. Our team worked on a new WordPress website for fellow West Seattle-ites Southwest Youth & Family Services. (Big thanks to the folks from SWYFS – it was a true pleasure meeting & working with you!)

Here’s the before:

SWYFS had an HTML site that they wanted to convert into a WordPress website so it was easier for them to update. Our designer, Sheyna, kept most of their design elements and spruced them up a bit. We added a slideshow to the home page, featured image banners (in place of the slider) on all the other pages, as well as updating the navigation and adding a News feed (blog).

I built the WordPress theme from scratch (not something I’ve ever done in less than 48 hours before and I don’t think I’ll be trying it again anytime soon – but it was worth it!). I started with the Boilerplate theme and used Sheyna’s design to create their custom theme. The slider is one I’ve worked with several times before, Advanced Slider (from CodeCanyon). I set up the banners so that everywhere but the home page, it uses the featured image if it’s set and uses a default image if not.

Here’s the after:

If you have the chance to participate in a GiveCamp near you, please do. It’s a great way to give back and I think you’ll really enjoy yourself. You don’t have to be a designer or developer (or geek of any kind, for that matter). If you don’t have a particular technical skill you can help out as an administrative volunteer. It’s a good way to spend a weekend and help out those that help others in the process.

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The Web Design and Development Survey 2012 – If you are a designer or a developer, take a few minutes and complete this survey. Generally speaking, we’re a pretty small group so when we can get informational stats it’s really helpful. The survey closes March 20 so you have some time, but don’t use that as an excuse to forget! :)

Progressive And Responsive Navigation – Coding one site for screen and mobile but not sure what to do with the navigation menu on the mobile version? Check this article out for ideas.

Download a sample article from The WPCandy Quarterly – WordPress designers/developers/power users! Ever wish there was a magazine all about WordPress? I first mentioned this in November and now it’s just about here. You can check out a sample article here and sign up if you like it. I’m looking forward to my first copy!

Define Your Own WordPress Widgets – Speaking of WordPress… this is a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on creating your own widgets in WordPress. Very handy for when you can’t find a plugin widget to do what you want. Sometimes it’s just faster and easier to do it yourself.

Have a great weekend!

Don’t Be Afraid of Content and Long Web Pages – This is an interesting topic. Not too long ago it was standard to tell website owners that their content couldn’t be “below the fold” or they’d lose visitors. All you have to do is think about your own browsing habits. Do you scroll? Yes, everyone scrolls. The real issue is having valuable content. If you have excellent content that is easy to read, no one is going to mind scrolling to soak it all in. Just remember to keep it relevant and to the point.

Promote Your Business Without Being Pushy – This is a really simple concept but we tend to make it really hard. It’s all about the brand message and strategy. If you have that down, the rest is easy.

Redesigning the Site Redesign RFP: Eight Do’s and Don’ts – This is an excellent article if you are looking to do work on your website. You have to sign up for their site to read the whole thing but there is some really good information in here. It discusses mobile integration, content sharing, SEO, community features, and personalization. The tips for what not to ask for are even better.

Seven Ways to Whip Your Website into Shape – These tips are perfect. I think it would be a good idea to print these out and go through them once or twice a year, particularly: simplify, fix the problems, and refresh the about page. The final tip may be the best of all, though.

What to Do When You Underbid on a Project – This is a really hard one for me. I usually end up eating the cost because I think it’s my fault if I underbid. But the reality is you are doing work for the client and they should pay for it. To keep your lights on and because they need to know how much your services cost. The author suggests eating the cost might help land a long-term relationship with the client but then you’ve started the relationship off by giving them more than they paid for – and they may expect that in the future. You have to set expectations.

Tech news is up next. Have a great weekend!

How to Turn Off Google’s Annoying New Personal Search Results – This is kind of a follow-up to the Google+ integration in Google Search articles I just posted about in this week’s Small Business Roundup. This article tells you how to hide these new search results by default. It doesn’t really turn them off and you can easily turn them back on, but if you find them annoying or unhelpful, this will help you out.

WordPress 3.3.1 Security and Maintenance Release – WordPress released an important security update. This update shouldn’t cause any trouble for your theme or plugins and you should apply it now if you haven’t already.

Speed Up WordPress with W3 Total Cache – I’ve used this plugin on a couple of sites now and it really seems to work. This is a good write-up covering all the features.

New High-Quality Free Fonts – You know me, I love fonts! Especially when they’re free. There are some really slick ones here. Great to add to your collection.

Amazon’s Send to Kindle App Makes Sending Documents to Your Kindle as Easy as Right-Clicking – As a relatively new Kindle owner, I’m super excited to try this out. If you’re on Windows and have a Kindle, definitely check this out.

Have a great weekend!

Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut – Google really wants you to use Google+. I suppose that’s one way to guarantee your social media venture is a hit – integrate it with the world’s most popular search engine and no one has a choice. Many differing opinions on this. There are so many more articles out there, but this is another one I particularly liked: Google Search Plus Is Shaking Things Up a Bit

Stop Looking Like a Phisher in Gmail – There are a lot of us using Gmail and you’ve probably seen this error message before: “This message may not have been sent by [email address]. Learn more Report phishing.” If you use Gmail and people see this when you send email to them, read this article to figure out how to fix it.

Freelancing Un-resolutions to Make 2012 Your Best Freelancing Year Yet – There are 10 really great suggestions here. There are a few of them that I could definitely put into practice.

How to Compute Your Business Income – This is a good article if you need a refresher or if you are just getting started and want to know how to figure out these numbers. I highly recommend working with a financial professional but you really should know what these numbers mean and how to calculate them yourself, too.

I Am Not a Web Designer – I thought this article was fascinating. And, it’s very true! As small business owners or freelancers, we do a lot more than our job title indicates. I primarily identify myself as a web developer because that’s mostly what I do. I mean, it’s what pays the bills, right? But I’m also business consultant, customer service, billing/accounting, blogger, project manager, adviser, brainstorm-er, troubleshooter, and – maybe most of all – fixer. That’s something to really think about the next time someone asks you what you do. Maybe I should drop the “web developer” and just go with the “Internet Business Consultant” title. Except that always confuses the heck out of everyone, so maybe not. ;)

Tech news is up next. Have a great weekend!

Google’s Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome – I don’t know that it’s “jaw-dropping”… maybe “eyebrow-raising”; certainly interesting. If you know anything about how Google search operates, paid links are a big, bad no-no. And now they have their own sponsored links. It’s not okay unless they do it? There are two follow-up articles at the end that continue the story.

Google+ Is Going To Mess Up The Internet – I think this is somewhat related to the previous post. Apparently Google is ranking shared links on Google+ higher in search results than the original article. This is obviously a rant but it’s still an interesting read because even though the author is noticeably angry, he has a very good point.

10 New Year’s resolutions for designers – I love this article! And not just because of these two: “stop stealing crap” and “learn to write,” but also “Stop being your own obstacle,” which is one of my all-time favorites, and “Stop Using Your Mom as an Example of a Stupid Person.” There’s a lot of good advice here and I hope people read it and embrace it. Oh, and these aren’t just for designers…

Test on Real Mobile Devices without Breaking the Bank – Interesting article and a good resource if you’re looking to expand your mobile testbed on the cheap. I don’t know that you really need to own all of these devices. There are enough emulators (yes, I know they don’t do everything – I ran into an excellent example of that this week) out there to get by on and I’m sure you have friends you can hit up to check things out for you occasionally.

Seven things still missing from CSS – The author of this article named some of my favorite pet peeves about CSS. Great stuff!

The Best HTML5 and CSS3 Cheat Sheets of 2011 – Quite a few cheat sheets here. Great if you are still learning HTML5 or CSS3 or to use for quick reference when you’re working on a project.

Have a great weekend!

Finding the Cleanup Crew After a Messy Hack Attack – This article provides a real-world example of a small business responding to being hacked. It gives you some good tips on what to do and how to respond, namely: act quickly, secure your entire network, and inform affected users. These are all extremely important and, of course, how you tell your users is also vital. Something to keep in the “just in case” file in the back of your mind.

More Small Businesses Plan to Push Up Prices in 2012 – With 35% of small businesses increasing their prices in 2012, what are your rate plans? A lot of folks have trouble raising their rates for various reasons and I will say it can be difficult. But if you make it a regular part of doing business it takes some of the pressure off. Also, as suggested in the article, you can try increasing rates for new customers only and grandfathering in your current clients. That’s something I’ve done and had success with. And, it makes it less scary!

Rethink your professional profile photos – Some good tips here. It boils down to: don’t misrepresent yourself or your company. One thing I’ve noticed people have trouble with is professionalism. Because professionalism varies by industry, a good rule of thumb is to be professional for your profession.

Will Google, Facebook, others ‘nuke’ Internet over SOPA? – Several weeks ago I was going to do a whole series on SOPA but I wasn’t sure the level of interest and I got caught up in other things. Now that I’ve come across this, I think it’s time to give it a mention. There’s a lot of information out there on SOPA and the controversy, but this is a good start: Setting the Record Straight on SOPA: Some Evidence-Based Analysis. If you’d like more, post a comment below or contact me and I’ll send you more info.

The power of failing – This is a really great article on the positives of failing. If you don’t fail at something, it’s probably holding you back. A must read.

Tech news is up next. Have a great weekend!