I think these icons are a great free resource for developers. If you would like to download them, please visit the following link and download the file from Komodo Media. Enjoy!

Download Link: http://www.komodomedia.com/blog/2009/06/social-network-icon-pack/

• Grand Opening Welcome to the grand opening of Fro Designs! Please feel free to bookmark this page using our social bookmarking tool in the right column of...
• Image Rollovers in WordPress This article is an expansion upon my last article which discusses how to set up jQuery in WordPress. In this article, you will learn how...

I would first like to apologize for not updating my site in a while. I’ve been extremely busy with the holidays and work and I just haven’t had the time! I finally finished my undergraduate program at Western Michigan University and I am now the proud owner of a BBA in Electronic Business Design! It feels incredible to be graduated from college and to be a part of the professional work force.

Speaking of which, I have been busy developing a website for the company where I am interning, Landscape Forms. This website is going to be the home for our new electronic auction system. Currently these auctions are all done via paper and pencil, and my job is to give them a more eBay like feel. I have been developing this website using ASP.NET and SQL Server, and it has been exciting learning new interactions between things such as ASP.NET and jQuery along the way. I would love to show you this website, but it is internal only. Sorry!

I hope that everyone reading this had a wonderful holiday season, and I’d like to remind you that Fro Designs is always happy to answer your web design and development needs. Enjoy the new year!

• Helbreath Sig Request For a while I have been making free forum signatures for the players of a game called Helbreath USA (www.helbreathusa.com), which is a free online...
• Social Networking Icons Recently, I was looking for some ideas to change the Connect section at the bottom of my site. In my search, I came across a...

Technorati Claim Token: [MU3SZKEZ7HXS]

• Helbreath Sig Request For a while I have been making free forum signatures for the players of a game called Helbreath USA (www.helbreathusa.com), which is a free online...
• WordPress Dates with get_posts() One problem that I had when I created the Fro Designs web site was with dates displaying incorrectly when I list my 3 most recent...

Here is a link to the tutorial: Illustrator: Abstract Vector Art

And here are some of the results that I had from this tutorial:

I have had a lot of fun with this tutorial, and I hope you will as well!

• The String Collector The String Collector is an online store that sells new, used, and vintage instruments. They specialize in everything from guitars to tuners and accessories. I...
• Social Networking Icons Recently, I was looking for some ideas to change the Connect section at the bottom of my site. In my search, I came across a...

I am currently working on a web store for a band called The Vala. One of the members is a personal friend of mine, and he came to me for help with this project. The design was largely done by him, with input from myself along the way. The test website is still in its initial stages of setup, so you’ll have to wait a bit to see more from this one. This website will be using WordPress and WP e-Commerce just like the store that I put together for The String Collector.

On a different note, I’m about halfway into the school semester, my last semester at WMU, and I can’t wait to be done! It’s exciting to finally be graduating and truly moving into the work force. I know my web design and development skills will continue to expand, and I will use everything I have to help my customers create successful websites.

• jQuery In WordPress When I was building this website, I wanted to add some simple hover effects, or image rollovers, to the home page of my site to...
• Image Rollovers in WordPress This article is an expansion upon my last article which discusses how to set up jQuery in WordPress. In this article, you will learn how...

Link: http://www.stringcollector.com

If you are interested in learning more about WP e-Commerce, I wrote an article about it that you can read here: WP e-Commerce – The Ups and Downs

• jQuery In WordPress When I was building this website, I wanted to add some simple hover effects, or image rollovers, to the home page of my site to...
• Back to Work Now that I have moved in to my new apartment, I am back to working on web design projects. I recently finished the first draft...

First of all, I love the fact that it is free. For a free platform, it gets the job done. Unfortunately, if you want some standard features such as product search, or grid display of products, you need to purchase their $40 gold upgrade. No big deal, but these should still be standard features. One gripe that I have with the product search is that it only searches through product titles, and tags that are manually added by the store manager.

Applying my theme to the website was fairly simple, unfortunately I had to modify some of the core PHP files to achieve the result that I wanted. This causes problems, because if you ever want to update the plug-in it will write over all of your changes. One other gripe I had about the software was the ‘Product Specials’ feature. It did not work out of the box. I had to add some custom PHP code to write to the database to register that a product has been given a sale price. Even when I add a sale price now, there are some quirky steps I have to go through to make sure it’s still showing up.

One last gripe I have has to do with Search Engine Optimization. The plug-in does render nice URLs, and you are able to set some of the features with the All in One SEO plug-in. Unfortunately, there is no way to get the product and category pages to be included with an XML sitemap generator to submit to the search engines. This would be a nice feature that I think is very important to websites.

Aside from these few issues, it was a very easy platform to set up. Adding products and categories is simple and shouldn’t be any trouble for the store owner. Managing orders seems like a simple process as well. I believe that it is possible to make decent web stores with this software, but anyone looking to run a large e-Commerce website should look elsewhere.

I hope this article provides some insight for anyone shopping around. I will post a link to my client’s WP e-Commerce site soon in my portfolio when it goes live!

• Moving Saturday Just a quick update. I'll be moving to a new apartment on Saturday, and that will involve lots of packing this week. I don't expect...
• Client: Allen's Photography A co-worker of mine at Landscape Forms was looking for some help updating his photography website. When I first looked at the website, I noticed...

The whole process went really smoothly. I was able to install WordPress on his web host with no problems, configure all of the necessary plug-ins, and apply the theme from his HTML website without any trouble. He is very happy with the new features, and I hope that the work I have done for him makes his job easier, and helps to bring in new business to his company.

Link: http://www.allensphotography.net

• jQuery In WordPress When I was building this website, I wanted to add some simple hover effects, or image rollovers, to the home page of my site to...
• Client: Gabbing With Grace The owner of gabbing with grace came to me looking for help with her wordpress blog. She had a blog that she had been running...

As always, Fro Designs is giving out free quotes for web design and development work. If you have any questions relating to the web, we are happy to try and answer them for you. Designing web sites is a great passion of mine, and I’m happy to share my skills with business and people whether they are located in the Kalamazoo area, or anywhere else in the United States or even the world.

• WordPress Dates with get_posts() One problem that I had when I created the Fro Designs web site was with dates displaying incorrectly when I list my 3 most recent...
• Social Networking Icons Recently, I was looking for some ideas to change the Connect section at the bottom of my site. In my search, I came across a...