I came across something while working with Wordpress and Thesis that I know will help at least one person and possibly save them hours of frustration. So here is the tutorial.

I was working on a revision to a visual layout of a website I previously helped develop on the Thesis theme framework. I spent more time than I should trying to find out where the extra space between webpage elements was coming from. Was it the CSS? It had to be.

I checked the CSS using my editing tools. No extra margin, no extra padding, yet I still could not get page elements aligned the way I wanted. There was a mysterious “gap” between page elements. No matter what I tried with my CSS (other than negative margins—no bueno in this case) the gap would not go away.

I finally got smart and looked as source code—the html. Typically I get to the source code earlier in the process, but this time I thought all my issues were in CSS but they were not. The key to the solution lie inside the HTML.

I recorded the video tutorial below in hopes that it might help you. If it does, let me know in the comments.

Be sure to click on the small, 4-arrow button in the bottom right corner of the video (as shown in the graphic below) to see the video at full size. Hope this helps.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I knew about this video a while back when it was in production. I had read about it somewhere in an RSS feed, or was it Twitter?, or Facebook?, or LinkedIn?… anyhow I did know that this video was being created. Day before yesterday Seth Godin brought it to back to my attention. I took some time to watch the entire video and was really struck by these people who were handed the “pink slip” and in turn made something come of it. Each person has their own story, and you have the power to write the ending.

Watch this. If anything it will get you thinking.

Today was a big day of sorts. I completed design and development work on new website. It is a custom designed website in form and function. It’s a significantly modified version of Thesis [ #thesiswp ] running on the latest install of WordPress (presently 2.9.1).

The site is http://www.ckwrites.com

I learned a great deal more about Thesis and what’s possible. New tools and techniques that I plan to share with the #thesiswp community in the coming months. I already have at least 4 new tutorials coming; from the simple to the complex.

I’m very happy with the results of my work with Christopher Korody, a.k.a. ‘ck’ of http://www.ckwrites.com. I’m sure he would agree that it was a tough slog but well worth the results. In fact you could just ask him.

I’ve been meaning to publish a post like this for a while. The irony of that combined with the topic is not lost on me and I find quite priceless. Have a look+listen and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Do you publish? or Do you wait?

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve been remiss in updating the blog. This is for various sorted reasons. Suffice it to say that I am back. Here is a video to help catch up.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was sent this information graphic today and was struck by how effective it is. There is something that resonates with me.

It puts your brand at the center of the page and graphically shows you how everything encircles and supports said brand. The guys at the site provided this fantastic embeddable graphic below for you interactive pleasure and I just had to share.

This next phase of the overall Re-Alignment of Berchman.com as I stated in my first post for this project is to “define purpose, guiding principles, and desired outcomes” with this website.

Note: I am working on this project when it fits between client work, and posting when I can. I have not posted in a while because work has picked up a bit. However, I have no plans of abandoning this effort. Stay tuned!

By going through this ‘exercise’ I’ll also be constructing the map of my content. The map of content consists of what I write about on this site, the topics I cover, and the overall taxonomy of the web site in general.

Define Purpose

• Primarily to share things I learn and in turn learn from others.
• Secondarily it is a personal chronicle.

Guiding Principles

• I want to keep it honest, real, and fun. Pretty simple really.

Desired Outcome

• There are actually many. Instead of pontificating I will suffice it to say ‘successful‘
• Success would mean helping you, having readers, comments, and new clients to work with

How does this now impact my content map?

By knowing the definition of these three it helps me understand content requirements. What types of content are required on the website in order to meet the above needs?

• WordPress/Thesis Tutorials
• Video (Tutorials and Misc.)
• Writing on other topics

Presently there are 22 categories on this website. That is way too many for this size of a website. When reviewing the 22 I was able to narrow it down to 5 categories going forward

1. Articles/Features
2. Tutorials
3. WordPress
4. Thesis
5. Video

All my other categories were really misused ‘tags.’ Over time, in moments of hasty thinking, they accumulated and became more fractured. The remaining 17 “categories” are really “tags.” This is because they are classifying information within the content, not the content itself. Here is an excellent article articulating the distinction.

When I implement the website realignment I am going to remap those present “17 categories” and move them to tags and validate the members of each redefined category title.

Main Navigation

In addition to the dynamic content (blog posts) that evolves over time there are other content areas:

• Home
• Hire Me
• Pricing
• Contact
• Résumé
• Who is Berchman?

Tthere are also a host of other links; RSS, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. on other areas of the page. In order to simplify and streamline I am going to reduce the number of main navigation elements from 6 to a simple 4. I do this by adding smart subcategories.

The resulting navigation will be:

• Home
• Hire Me
  • How we work together
  • Pricing
  • Form to start the process
• About Me
  • Résumé
• Portfolio
  • Visual Examples
  • Client List

As always things change so I will remain flexible. I do think that this new structure—once visually in place—will be serve information better to you the visitor.

As always I appreciate your feedback, thoughts and input. Let me know what you think.