This Modern Life

K Key

2008-03-06T21:24:00.015-05:00

My K key is back!
We just replaced the keyboard on my Sony Vaio Laptop FS Series. Since I couldn't find any instructions online, I wanted to show step-by-step how its done.

DISCLAIMER: All actual work in this tutorial was performed by a professional computer-geek. No normal people were harmed in the process. In fact, replacing your laptop keyboard is easier than you might think.! I'd recommend trying this at home, its much cheaper.

First, remove the battery and unscrew the two screws on either side

Now, you can carefully pop-off the black cover that sits at the top of the keyboard. This piece snaps into place, so it is a little tough to get on and off.

Next you will slide out the keyboard BUT FIRST you need to unscrew: Unscrew the four screws that are holding the keyboard in place from the top - then flip over the laptop and remove one more screw. There is a single screw that holds the keyboard into place from the bottom. Take a look at the replacement piece to get an idea of where this is located.

Take note of how the ribbon at the bottom of the keyboard is attached. This can be removed by carefully sliding the black plastic clamp out towards the ribbon. Once the clamp has been pulled away from the cream colored plastic cover, the ribbon will easily come out.

Slip it out, then back in.
Repeat previous steps in reverse order - Don't loose the tiny screws!

Great Job. Type like you've never typed before and clean your messy-ass desk!

(I never knew you could do this so easily, pretty cool eh?)

Trends & Cliches in Web Design

2008-02-13T23:22:00.019-05:00

I'm putting together a bunch of visual resources for web design trends that i've come across lately. Two are most notable, and one shines brightly: ModernLife and Smashing Magazine have both written similar summaries, and DesignMeltdown serves as a constant inspiration with the Daily Slurp and massive design/style showcase.

Here is my condensed|expanded version:

Simple Layout.
http://www.distinct.ie/index.html
http://www.nofrks.com/
http://www.clearfocusdesigns.com/
http://freesbe.es/

Centered Orientation.
http://www.munaya.com.br/
http://www.paul-wallas.co.uk/index.html
http://www.netdreams.co.uk/
http://www.weslicetomatoes.com/

3-D Effects light
http://www.whoooz.nl/
http://www.mccoy.co.uk/
http://www.vbski.com/gallery.php
http://ma.tt/

Gradients & Neutral Backgrounds.
http://www.icdcouriers.co.uk/
http://docsource.sundance.org/
http://www.ohvavaho.com/blog/

Whitespace.
http://www.plankdesign.com/en/
http://www.designedbyanderson.com/
http://chrisgross.net/
http://www.fulcrum-cm.co.uk/

Icons, Badges & Characters
http://www.4recruiting.co.uk/home
http://www.trevorberg.com/
http://www.sitemakers.co.uk/
http://www.dailyslurp.com/default.aspx
http://unite.blogcatalog.com/

Big Text.
http://postmachina.com/
http://www.sublime-digital.com/
http://www.rafaelzundt.com/
http://www.ricardoarce.com/
http://www.citrus7.com.br/
http://www.typeansich.be/exhibit/pierredisciullo/index.html

3's
http://www.bitsandpix.de/
http://www.mansz.pl/
http://www.dee.ie/
http://eutelnet.com/

Transparency/Layers
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/
http://www.belgrade-jazzfest.org/
http://www.bestof.cz/

FLASH Universe.
http://www.depthskins.net/
http://www.newbalance.com/outdoor/
http://unscrewamerica.org/
http://www.unkemptstudio.com/
http://prospectdenim.com/
http://www.chickenjam.eu/

Grung/Drip/Swirl
http://skate.share.ea.com/language.aspx
http://rawnet.com/
http://www.imlousekstudio.sk/en/home

Themes:
Wood
http://www.paul-wallas.co.uk/index.html
http://www.davidhellmann.com/
http://www.designedbyanderson.com/
http://unite.blogcatalog.com/
http://www.gym-bohumin.cz/community/
Collage
http://www.shawnjohnston.ca/
http://www.chemistryrecruitment.com/
http://www.gotaqua.com/
http://www.rxmonsters.com/
http://boostup.org/
http://chicas.elansnowboards.com/

Back in Blog

2008-01-24T09:12:00.000-05:00

Last night's WordPress Workshop at Indy Hall really got me motivated to start sharing more of my getting-bigger-and-better-each-day know how. The event was great - there was a nice sized turnout, many good q's, and some local experts eager to share their knowledge. Can't wait to see how it develops!

So i've been working alot with JavaScript lately, and although i'm far from actually knowing the language, i've had some pretty good luck creating killer effects using JavaScript libraries. Scriptaculous has been on my radar for some time now, but no matter how much I looked at the documentation, I just didn't get it. It turns out that the amazing effects are very simple to achieve, and i'd like to share that lightbulb moment for how to begin using JavaScript Effects.

1) First, download Scrip taculous.
2) Link to the JavaScript files that you just downloaded in the HEAD section of your webpage. The code will look something like this:

3) Next, find an effect that you like in the effects engine. My favorite place to browse these is in the Scriptaculous Wiki.
4) To apply an effect you need to do two things - First, you need to assign an id to the element that will have the effect applied to it, and second you will need to create an event that triggers the effect. If desired, the element that is displaying the effect can also be the element that triggers the effect. Let's look at the code first, then some examples.

CODE: Looking at the effect 'BlindUp' we see that the effect is called with this function:

So what that bit of code says is 'apply the BlindUp effect to the element with id="my_element"'. An element that you apply the effect to can be almost any HTMLelement, the most common ones being DIV IMG SPAN, etc.
Now that you have an effect defined for an element, you will need to define an action to trigger that event. Its EASY! Any HTML element can have an action as one of its properties. Common actions are onmouseover, onmouseout, onclick, etc. Any good HTML editor (even Dreamweaver) will give you code hinting to show which actions can be defined for an element. Or you can see a full list at the W3C Schools.

To give assign an element an action, all you do is list it in the opening tag, in EXACTLY the same way that you assign an ID and other properties like WIDTH and HEIGHT. Here is how you would assign an action to a DIV:

EXAMPLES
So to put it all together, you will place the function that we defined above which applies an effect to an element inside the event trigger like this:

The above code would cause a blind up effect for an element with an id of 'my_element' (which might be an image for example) each time there is a click on the DIV with an id of 'trigger'. You could also assign an effect to the same DIV, which would look like this:

Meaning that each time there was a click on the DIV with an id of trigger, it would fold-up with the BlindUp effect.

So there you go! Step-by-step directions for implementing Scriptaculous JavaScript effects.

Using a library such as this one makes it extremely easy to use JavaScript with your web page designs to being to build interactive elements - even if you don't know the language. Of course, this stuff is extremely addictive, so if you're anything like me, once you see it up-and-running you will just want to build more and more complex interfaces. Unfortunately there's no four-step tutorial for that...

Delicious fruit flavor + absurdist messaging

2007-12-14T11:28:00.000-05:00

I've been honed-in on the trend of absurdist marketing campaigns for awhile now, but a post in AdFreak today has really perked my interest. Some of this stuff is just too good to be true, and watching a few spots starts to feel just like an episode of Tim and Eric Awesome Show (Great Job).
Specifically, Skittles and Starburst have gone head-to-head with the weirdness. Personally, I'll call Skittles the winner on this one, mostly because their switch at the end from bizzaro-world to 'BRIGHT SKITTLES SCREEN' is more effective than the similar Starburst transition.

The best absurdist campaigner in my opinion is Comcast, whose 'Spidey Rommie' spot gets me every damn time (I think its b/c I can relate to tiny dog torture in the form of odd costumes).
Perhaps that is what is at the heart of this type of messaging - it plays with your sense of reality effectively displacing your role as consumer. Instead you sort of 'wonder' at the message, and perhaps can even relate to it in some way in the disjointed pseudo-reality that you are presented with.
So weird, so cool.

I would totally trash the DVR if I had the option of only viewing commercials in this style. In the meantime, i'll have to keep fast-forwarding and look to the web for my healthy heaping dose of weird.

Thank you, double feature

2007-11-30T11:43:00.001-05:00

This week's Philly PHPMeet-up was all about Drupal. The night was jam-packed with many wonderous things, including some of the latest and greatest drupal modules, philly-based sites powered by drupal, and even the drupal song (DANGER:ITS UBER-CATCHY and has remained firmly embedded in my brain since I first listened to it over-and-over again)

Two of the most interesting non-drupal things I first heard about last Tuesday night were Habari and Snag-it. Habari is an open source blogging platform that is being developed right here in Philadelphia, and Snag-it is a wonderful little program that allows you to quickly and easily take screen-shots and pimp them up all nice-like in one simple step.

I am so jazzed about both of these, that I decided to install Habari and produce a step-by-step tutorial using Snag-it. (The tutorial's target audience is a total n00b with a hosting account with Site5, who wants to get in on the early stages of this home-grown 'next-gen' blogging platform)

Here goes:
First, download the package here. Then extract all the files.

Next, create a new directory on your site, and transfer the files using FTP. If you need a good FTP program, download FileZilla - its super-easy to use and totally free.

Now its time for database stuff. Lucky for me, my Site5 account makes it nice and candy for anyone one who can point-and-click to manage databases. Simply log-in to site admin, and select 'mySQL Databases' --> Manage Databases. Scroll down to the section labeled 'Create mySQL database', and give it a name.

Once you have created the database, go back to 'mySQL databases' --> 'Manage Users'. First, create a user, and assign a password. Then, go to the section labeled 'Grant Permissions' and select the database and user you just created.

Now for the fun part! Your first look at Habari's simple-chic interface. To complete the installation, all you need to do is view the directory that you uploaded your Habari files to in a browser.

Fill in the information about the database name, user, and password that you just created. Give your new Habari Blog a name, and click 'Install'.

Voilà! - you have a shiny new home-grown blog!

So there you go - one night, two awesome new-to-me tools, one colorful tutorial. Now I'm off to get my hands dirty hacking into Habari to see what I can find.

woohoo!

Hack 'till it hurts

2007-11-27T14:17:00.001-05:00

Lastnight was a marathon Wordpress hacking session.
*/Breif History/*
After starting with lofty ambitions of Building a Wordpress Theme from Scratch, then giving up on Worpress themes altogether and going back to the warm comfort of Dreamweaver - last night I found the happy medium that feels like home.
*/end/*
I downloaded and installed a fresh copy of the default 'Kubrick' theme (which I had already hacked to bits once before) and began working carefully to modify it piece-by-piece being mindful of staying within my means.
I had great success adding a new footer div that spans the entire width of the page, no sweat. I can really feel my CSS skilz growing stronger every day.

Four hours later it was looking really good, but getting late...
I spent entirely too long looking at wp_codex in a vain attempt to make my monthly archives display in a clean, neat European-style date (mm.dd.yy) instead of the cloddy full_month_name year format. Changing those settings for the blog itself was as simple as looking at PHP date parameters, but getting that to display in the sidebar as 'Archives' is another story. Around 1am I ended up just opting to display the yearly archive, and went to bed with a smile on my face thinking about what the future holds for echo{Ability}.

(falling in love with Wordpress, one late-night session at a time)

Remove the Blogger Brand

2007-11-19T20:22:00.000-05:00

The PANMA Web 2.0 Shootout last Thursday was a blast. My presentation on Blogger was great success, or so I was told...The one point that was mentioned in conversation afterwards was the nagging Blogger brand that must always grace every Blogger Powered Blog(or so you thought!) Well, it turns out that completely removing the Blogger Brand is easier than you think.

1) How to remove the Blogger Bar:
Who knew that by simply inserting one simple line of code into the top of your template's HTML you can completely hide the Blogger headbar? Well, these guys did, so now I know how to also.
Simply add this line to the very top of your template:

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

To edit your template's HTML, simply click on 'Template' 'Edit HTML', paste the code as shown below, and then save the changes.

2) But what about the ".blogspot" domain?
That's easy! Blogger offers two options for you to have a custom domain name. You can either create a sub domain for your blog and change your DNS record to point to the google, or you can publish to your blog using FTP to your site. For more detailed information, check out Blogger Help.

3) Well, the favicon still gives away the fact that my blog is a 'mere blogger blog'
Truf, but have no fear! Simply tell your template where your favicon lives and wola!

link href="%27http://www.ascentive.com/favicon.ico%27" rel="'shortcut"
link href="%27http://www.ascentive.com/favicon.ico%27" rel="'icon'/"

Now you have a fully-branded blogging platform.

Open Source Values

2007-11-15T12:39:00.000-05:00

I just came across this great post on ZD|NET Blogs about Open Source Values. This article pretty much pins the key underlying concepts of Open Source that excite me so much: Transparency and Consensus.
Our access to information means that we demand to know more about who we are dealing with - who they really are - and it's easier than ever to find that out. The power of Open Source Intitatives in this modern landscape lies in their actions:
Tell the world what you do - update them daily.
Let them know what you value and how you are building value.
And share as much of it as you possibly can.
Work in teams, collaborate, and let ideas run rampant to see what they can become.
Invite everyone to participate, and nurture that community.

More than just being honest and giving as much as you can to each to day, an endeavor that strives to be transparent and open, while thriving on consensus, is a very beautiful thing. I want to give my all towards something great.
(Soon enough)

Burn baby, burn

2007-11-14T14:32:00.000-05:00

FeedBurner lets you 'burn' your RSS feed, providing you with stats on subscribers, hits, pageviews, and more. In typical Google fashion, set-up was a breeze and there were tutorials to lead me every step of the way. This Modern Life is now burned, and I can see all sorts of stats on who is subscribed to my feed...namely ME.
Using FeedBurner will allow me to manage all of my blog feeds in one place, which is becoming more important as the number of blogs I am managing continues to grow. The interface is clean and neat, and offers weird little witty things all around.
Today's welcome message:

My Feeds are a bridge over troubled water

Thanks FeedBurner, hopefully with your help I can start to change that.

Happy Birthday Allyson

2007-11-12T21:16:00.000-05:00

While preparing a presentation about the perks of using Blogger for the PANMA Web 2.0 Tools Shootout this Thursday, I came across a photo that reminded me of my bestfriend Allyson from middle school - it was this tacky animated GIF:

It looks so much like the 'Cracker eating contest' in the Three Stooges NES game that I couldn't resist looking it up. Needless to say the game is well documented on this fine website: Moby Games.
Inspired by these photos I decided to put together a slideshow using Picassa Web Albums and embed it in a Blogger Post to see just how it easy it can be...

Google Toolbar Features

2007-11-12T20:40:00.000-05:00

Google Toolbar Features
One click publishing from the browser with Google Toolbar 'Send to Blogger' button.

Implicit Web

2007-11-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

I came across a post in ZDNet Blogs this morning about the 'Implicit Web' - a term that was born from the meeting of minds after hours at the recent DeFrag Conference. Here is the bit that got me really excited:

"The implicit web is not part of the Semantic Web, but they are closely related. If the Semantic Web constructs a conceptual model of World Wide Web, the implicit web constructs a behavior model of World Wide Web."

The Semantic Web has been lingering in my imagination for a few months now. I feel like this sort of 'web theory' is becoming more obviously important (I keep hearing about it more and more in the low-lit corners of my RSS feed).
I want to ride this wave, I want to help build the new web.

Anyway, the post has motivated me to finally get those two books that have been in my Amazon Shopping Cart for a few weeks now:
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder - David Weinberger
Glut: Mastering Information Through The Ages - Alex Wright

Affiliate Program Launch

2007-11-07T16:48:00.000-05:00

The Affiliate Program Finally launched this week, and it has seen some good activity in the first three days. I have approved over 100 Affiliates, done a bunch of custom work on a brand-new Affiliate Blog, and published a New Program Announcement on ABestWeb for the launch of the program.
One thing that is really striking is the amount of utterly horrible content on the web that is extremely profitable - quantity, not necessarily quality, pays in the world of Affiliate Marketing. I am hoping that my program can prove that trend WRONG with the ultimate combination of shiny design and maximized profits. I would love to raise the bar for some of the smaller affiliates, offering them custom creative and basic tutorials on CSS and Usability.

In an attempt to keep my sanity in the midst of reviewing over 300 websites with little to no regard for aesthetics, I would like to present the Top Five most hilarious contenders:

5) Jesus as Customer Service Rep?
http://Galaxy333.myauctionteacher.com
4) Huge Internet Billboard
http://www.vnexpressmall.com/
2) Enlightening discourse on Cupcakes vs. Traditional Wedding Cake
http://weddingguidelines.com
3) Number One Russian Affiliate
http://koc.intway.info & & http://www.usa2017.com
1) Italian Animated Gif Madhouse!
http://fabioaltervista.altervista.org/index.htm

Hopefully some of our clicks will start to convert in the next few days so we can see our ambitious revenue goals realized. Until then, I am going to plunge back into the hideous web that lurks behind the safe haven of the higher-ranked and see if I can make it shine...

TopSpots

2007-10-30T20:10:00.000-05:00

This is a nice new widget for adding value to your blog or website. TopSpots AKA. Scratch//Back is absolutely FREE, and can start to make you a little bit of dough almost immediately. Simply sign-up for an account, and cut-and-paste the code into your website or blog.

I added it to my Blogger Sidebar in two steps:

Edit your HTML by clicking on the 'template' tab, then clicking the 'Edit HTML' tab. Locate the DIV tab that contains your sidebar (my template calls it sidebar-wrapper)
When you preview the change, you will most likely see the TopShops sidebar floating in mid-air somewhere behind your sidebar. To position it, we are going to add one simple line to the CSS:#ScratchBackWidget { float: right; overflow: hidden; }

That should put the widget into place, and you can sit back and watch the link requests roll in! (Or, if you are like me pay yourself $1.00 to populate your shiny new TopSpots with links to your own site.)

DISCLAIMER: This is just a hack to get the widget to display. Someone will probably write a bit of code to make this a proper blogger 'Page Element' - in fact, they may have already!

Open Source Frameworks

2007-10-28T17:44:00.000-05:00

Thursday night's presentation of Open Source Frameworks was awesome. The talk was organized by the Philadelphia PHP Meet-up and the Philadelphia Area Drupal Group in conjunction with PANMA.
Four Open Source Frameworks were presented, and the meeting concluded with information about Drupal Development. The personalities that presented served to showed how diverse and lively the PHP programming community is in the Philadelphia Area. It was very encouraging to see this kind of brainpower coming together to share knowledge in the form of a laid-back, good natured evening presentation.
Events like this really re-affirm that opportunity that lies in every corner of this incredible city.

SEO Friendly Rollovers

2007-10-22T18:52:00.000-05:00

I love web standards. Its true- a new passion is burning in my loins, and it is all coded in CSS.
Allright, enough.
Since our target audience still needs the literal instruction to 'click here' appended to everything nav, I have been struggling to find beautiful ways to prompt click-throughs. Sure, the old familiar javascript rollover buttons will do the trick, but the SEO company we are working with would be ashamed...instead I needed something that had a text link backed by a stunning effect.
I had a hunch that the answer lie in background images, and today I finally stumbled upon a tutorial that gave me the nudge I needed.
You can see it here.

I took the cue, making the entire DIV a link, and added one thing - a hover property:
#logolink
{
display: block;
height: 100px;
width: 200px;
background-image: url(logo.jpg);
}
a#logolink:hover
{background-image: url(logo_up.jpg};
}

I also set a few other properties, so the final CSS looks like this:
#logolink
{
display: block;
height: 150px;
width: 200px;
background-image: url(images/image1.png);
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 60px;
font-weight: bolder;
text-decoration: none;
color: #FFFFFF;
text-indent: 5px;
text-align: center;
}
a#logolink:hover
{background-image: url(images/image2.png);
color:#000000;
}

You can see an example here.

Disclaimer: I have only tested on Firefox & IE 7 at this time.
Enjoy!

Best Practices

2007-10-18T09:25:00.001-05:00

In the vast online space that is e-commerce the divide between legitimate websites and everything else is pretty obvious to me. Here are some basic practices regarding checkout that I think are a given:

Credibility builders are a must: There is an entire industry that revolves around certification, ratings, security, etc. You must have an SSL Certificate if you are collecting credit information. Your Privacy Policy has to be easily accessible from every page. You should put effort into getting your company reviewed online by real users. The more seals and certifications you have, the better (think: Truste, BBBOnline, HackerSafe, etc.)
Checkout must be clean: Best practices for online checkout are pretty obvious. If they need to be spelled out, here they are in good form. Basics include showing your customer an itomized list of ALL charges before they are asked to submit their credit information. Immediately following submission, another itemized list of the charges that have been applied must be presented. A follow-up e-mail receipt and what to expect next are also essential.
Upfront selling: Whether you want to give your users a one-step checkout, or upsell them to death (see this post on GoDaddy's 16 step checkout process) you need to be upfront with your users that you are trying to sell them something. The worst possible scenario in e-commerce is that someone has completed an order without realizing it. If this occurs in your business, it needs to stop. Users should never be fooled into making a purchase - if your business model relies on this then you are fooling yourself.

As for everything prior to the transaction, there are a few things that are an obvious red-flag for grey-hat operations.

Floating content that exists in no relation to an established site structure.
Never ending pages that require users to scroll through content that drags on forever, interspersed with call-to-actions.
A generic 'contact us' form in lieu of actual contact information, or physical fact of the organization.

But then there are those things you can't really put in a bulleted list. You know that feeling you get when you click through to certain sites...an uncomfortable nagging inclination that the site you are viewing wants to take you for everything you've got and give you nothing in return.

It is not hard to overcome this. Just be genuine. Care about what you do. Take pride in your practices and respect your visitors. Tell them who you are. Be Transparent. Create value. If you can just get over the revenue already, you will start to see it grow beyond your wildest dreams.

Site Launched : First Look at Google Analytics

2007-09-25T15:36:00.001-05:00

The new website has finally gone live. The launch date last Friday, September 21st coincided nicely with my birthday.
Our new web entity hasn't seen much action yet, as there is really no natural search presence for our domain - but a quick look at Google Analytics shows that the design is a success.
Our bounce rate dropped 10% the day after the launch and is averaging 15% lower; the average time on the site increased 100% (from 40 seconds to over 1 minute and 30 seconds); and the number of pageviews grew from an average of two to over 4!
These are pretty good increases, and once we start to drive more traffic to the site I hope to work closely with Analytics to improve the usability even further.

With such a huge project behind me, I feel a bit anxious and much less busy! The CEO has selected to invest more into my Web Design skills, so I will be out of the office for the rest of the week for Dreamweaver Classes.

This could be the start of many beautiful (highly usable) things...

Google Custom Search Business Edition

2007-08-15T16:26:00.000-05:00

The website re-design is in the final stages, and today I implemented Google Custom Search Business Edition for the new site. The cost is right (only $100/year) and the implementation is as simple as cut-and-paste, in classic Google style. The search bar can be embedded anywhere on your website, and you control the setting for which pages are searched and displayed on the results page. This is the PERFECT solution for our site, as we will want to exclude all the content in our old design, along with our landing pages which live on the same URL. The only set-back with using CSBE in conjunction with a re-design is that Google must first index the pages that are returned on the search results page, so for the first few weeks the new site is live on the web the content that is returned in the search will be minimal until all the new pages are indexed. All in all, it really is a phenomenal way to quickly and easily add a powerful search function to your website!

Re-design WK3

2007-08-06T14:09:00.000-05:00

We are well into the re-design project, and the new website is beginning to take shape. Basecamp is steadily guiding the project along, and new web 2.0 tools are helping at every step of the way. Especially useful is Fleck--a brilliant browser-based annotation engine that allows you to leave 'sticky' notes on websites, and share these notes with others. This proved to be the perfect solution when my GIMP files did not preserve their text layers when saved as .PSD files for the Adobe Suite our developer works in. Fleck has been amazing in bridging this gap--I can annotate a page with content changes, and the developer has cut-and-paste access to the copy. Fleck also provides a way for me to annotate mistakes, tweaks, and new ideas in a clean and easy-to-use interface. Although co-workers have been reluctant to adopt other 2.0 tools I've served up (read Del.ico.us, Google Docs, Mind42 Group Editing) Fleck's flexibility made it a no-brainer.

Web Design

2007-07-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

In yet another transformation of roles I have begun designing for the web. The project of brining the website up-to-speed is going to be enormous, and the current state of the site is so abhorrent that we need a quick-fix before we can begin the comprehensive re-design. Although I was a little uncertain of what the results would be, I volunteered to present a few designs for an interim site. My GIMP skills were a little rusty, but the results have been stunning! In just one week I have produced a new color scheme and navigational framework that have been approved for the site. Working closely with the CEO this week has been grueling, but will be invaluable for the long-term project. The biggest challenge to making this interim site effective, and the comprehensive re-design more manageable will be to imbue the site with a clean, consistent structure. To this end I have been reading Information Architecture best practices, reviewing SEO conventions, and editing (then re-editing) category trees for our content.
With luck my designs will be live on the web by the end of July, and I can pick-up with project management planning and execution of a full corporate website re-design.

Re-Design, Re-Create

2007-06-22T14:41:00.000-05:00

I have a newly appointed role as 'Project Manager' after a frenzied planning meeting yesterday afternoon. On the table was the question of Brand Identity, Corporate Vision and Web Design--I brought to the table a neat, clean 'Mind Map' produced with web-based diagramming software from mind42.com of what I understood the CEO's vision to be along with supporting materials. I was organized, and he was impressed.
Now I have been appointed to manage this enormous project that will include an entire Website Re-design (including implementation of an Open Source CMS), Corporate Re-branding, Product Line Re-branding, and a Complete Product Overhaul.
First thing this morning I set about producing an overview that breaks this project down into phases and outlines deliverables at each stage--armed with a juicy del.ico.us arsenal that I have been building since my first day on the job this task was a breeze. I am anxiously awaiting feedback and can't wait to see my efforts set in motion!

Basecamp

2007-06-18T16:02:00.001-05:00

The CEO got wind of my suggestion to implement Basecamp as a project management solution for the Marketing Department's NUMEROUS initiatives and he wanted to hear more.
After an impromptu overview consisting only of a log-in to my existing account and a brief tour it was a done deal. The application really sells itself with simplicity of design, ease of use, intuitive interfaces and low price.
Green Light.
Now if only I can manage to lead a successful planning meeting, we should have Basecamp up-and-running by the end of the week!

Wiki in the Workplace

2007-06-14T08:02:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the writer of DoshDosh for his post about the benefits of authoring good information about one's endeavors in . Our VP marketing picked up on that post and a quick flurry of emails resulted in a new and exciting Wiki project. I will be creating an entry in Wikipedia about our Company, which I see as our first real move towards transparency and community.
Further, I expressed my interest in MediaWiki and threw the idea out that we could host our very own Software-related Wiki containing tips, trick, hacks, and how-to's. This would serve to combine the similar efforts of all our competitors into a massive web 2.0 content farm (all for the good of our customers, of course!)
The idea was instantly approved by the CEO to be incorporated into our site redesign this year.
So stoked.
In the lull of usability testing that has been the past two weeks, a bright Wiki light is shining at the end of the tunnel.

Using Usability

2007-06-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

This week I produced an outline to manage the 'Usability' project that hasn't really been able to get off the ground. Everyone knows we need product improvements (almost as urgently as website re-design) but the 'to-do' list is so daunting that it seemingly never gets touched.
On Monday I created a comprehensive outline that breaks down the Usability Project into five stages. Because we don't have the resources to do usability testing, I thought I could instead just use a bunch of competing products to get a better sense of what works and what doesn't.

I have completed documentation of the first two stages (Product Page and Download & Installation Process) and have a TON of nitpick ideas for improvement. By the end of the day yesterday I was feeling a bit down, thinking that all this data might never see the light of an open application window again, so I started to think of simpler ways of presenting this mass of information.
Today I began compiling this information into a Word Document that has Field Tags. Once the document is complete I will use Adobe Acrobat Pro to convert the document and create PDF tags. That way, this massive document can be easily traversed through an expanding tree to easily jump directly to any page containing the visual reference I require.

Pretty exciting!
Check out del.ico.us tag PDF for how-to, and other references.