J Taylor Design | Blog

Awesome Flight Attendant

2009-05-22T16:16:59Z

If you have ever been on an airplane you have heard a flight attendant stand at the front of the plane before takeoff and they go through their whole speech of safety, etc. and what to expect on the flight. That’s pretty standard. I received an email this morning from a client which contained a link of the following video which I really felt was worth sharing! I don’t want to give away the contents of the video so just take a look.

Google is Always Looking Out

2009-05-19T19:32:11Z

Google is always on top of it’s game with trying to make it’s services better and better for it’s users. There are so many great tools that Google offers (mostly for free) to help people in so many ways. There are the obvious tools for searching. There are tools for blogging. There are webmaster tools and they have their videos section and the list seems to go on and on. And one of the cool things about Google is that they don’t stop because something is going well. They continue to put out new products and ideas that it’s no wonder that Google holds more than 60% of internet searches. I watched a short video today that I thought I might pass through our site to help our clients and visitors who may not have noticed a small changed on Google.

They have recently added a small ‘Show Options…’ link right below the Google logo after you have searched a term. Clicking there you are able to filter your searches even further in order to help you find what it is that you’re looking for. Take a look at the video below for a short demonstration.

What the Incrediblend?

2009-05-12T13:24:16Z

Incrediblend is a new project that we recently started that isn’t really a new idea, perse; however, it’s bringing an idea down to a local community. We love to look at the different web design galleries that are all over the world and we’ve been fortunate enough to be featured in a few (CSS Mania, Unmatched Style, CSS Fresh Blend, and more…). So basically Incrediblend is a design gallery showcasing great websites designed by Lehigh Valley based design teams. Since we love to submit our sites to galleries all over the world we thought it might be a cool idea to showcase work from teams close to home. It’s a bit of an interesting thought because we’re kinda promoting our competition but the overall goal is to bring quality design to the Valley.

We think that this is a cool idea and are really relying on the teams in the Lehigh Valley, PA to submit their work to make it happen. So help us make it happen! Visit www.incrediblend.com.

How We Work

2009-05-11T23:21:59Z

A couple weeks ago I got an email from Paul of Digital Hand who is located in the UK. Paul had a couple questions to ask us on how we work so he could possibly get some insight from us to better help his client base. If there is only one thing that I have learned from the web community, it is that there are so many truly awesome things out there to help people with questions. So the tutorials on our site is kinda our way of trying to help to give back to the community and maybe us answering a couple questions might be able to help some people out there. Now there are tons and tons of ways to get the job done so our answers may not be someone else’s or even work for someone else. These answers are simply how we do things. And please, if you have any thoughts that you might be able to add please don’t hesitate to comment!

These are mostly Expression Engine or CMS questions. So lets get to it!

With working with Expression Engine do you find that you need to know a lot about PHP and MySQL?
Honestly, Expression Engine is really easy to use and doesn’t require much knowledge of PHP and MySQL. You of course need to be able to set up a database and link the two together but it’s just as simple as setting up a site WordPress or any PHP and MySQL driven program.

Is it possible to work with a number of different page templates for use within Expression Engine?
With Expression Engine you can set up multiple site areas. I’m sure there are multiple ways to set up your templates. I basically set the main site up in one main group. I have seen on other sites that each different page gets it’s own group. Unlike using WordPress or Joomla the template is stored differently. In WordPress you can build your whole site within one folder and point to it in the backend. In Expression Engine the template is stored within the CMS and all other folders (images, js, etc.) are kept wherever you’d like. I simply keep them in the root public folder.

Do you build all of your sites using Expression Engine?
I don’t build all sites in Expression Engine. If I’m working on a project that is going to need a lot of custom fields or many dynamic areas that I want to be able to control the look and feel of to the extreme, then Expression Engine is the way to go! If I’m building out a simple site that isn’t going to be too dynamic then I use WordPress. WordPress is also fantastic. They both have their sets of pros and cons. There are some things about Expression Engine that I love that WordPress lacks and vise versa. It all depends on the client and the project.

What plugins and modules do you use?
With WordPress there are tons and tons of plugins that you can take advantage of. One of the problems, however, is that being WordPress is free not all of the plugins work, and depending on upgrades you may run into plugins that worked but don’t work when WordPress is ready to be updated (By the way, WordPress is so easy to update). With Expression Engine there are a couple key Plugins that I have used. One is Sitemap Module which you can buy here for $40. Freeform is awesome with working with, well forms. Fortyseven Media is a team located in Tennessee here in the states that are huge advocates of Expression Engine (and they seem like really cool guys too!) and they’ve compiled some great tutorials in their blog as well as this list of plugins they seem to like!

What about with shopping carts?
Both Expression Engine and WordPress have some plugins for adding commerce to a website. However with a full blown online store these options may not be the best. A cool tool my team has been using is Magento which is free! It’s a super power cart; however, it is really complex to use. Another cart that I’ve heard great things about from a good friend is called digiSHOP. This one isn’t free but it seems to be easier to use all around.

So we help that this might answer some questions that are out there. Again, please remember that these are our solutions and that there may be other/better ways out there to do things and we’d love to hear them if you have them!

Making Great Presentations

2009-04-20T19:47:52Z

For those of you who have browsed our site you may have seen our little video on how we handle most web design projects. In this entry we’re going to give you a really quick overview as to how we put that together. The biggest key is that we used Keynote to make it! Keynote is an Apple application (sorry PC users) that is simply awesome. It’s extremely dynamic, clean and easy to use. For PC users, it’s basically a much easier to use, better version of PowerPoint (in our opinion). It has beautiful transitions and effects that help make your presentations pop.

The audio was recording in Keynote as well. All we did to record the audio was plug in a $100 USB microphone and press record and we basically commentated live while the slideshow was going on. Pretty easy stuff! After we finished up on the audio we simply exported the video out and uploaded it to Vimeo and grab the code and pop it in our website. So if you’re a Mac user and you need to put together an awesome presentation for work, school, church or whatever, check out Keynote. You won’t be disappointed!

Here are some Keynote related links to check out

Keep it Simple

2009-04-10T15:09:54Z

I was forwarded this video from a friend who works in marketing. The idea is that the ‘stop sign’ hasn’t been created yet and an agency is hired to develop it. It’s really a fun video that anyone in a design field can get a kick out of. Sometimes clients can overcomplicate a simple idea that is otherwise a perfect idea! Sometimes designers can overcomplicate a design. So it definitely works both ways!

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
~ Leonardo da Vinci

Removing index.php In EE

2009-03-29T22:48:04Z

With using Expression Engine your pages default to using a index.php on all of your pages which is quite annoying. So rather than being able to tell people to visit your contact page by going to yoursite.com/contact you have to send them to yoursite.com/index.php/contact. Honestly, it’s not a huge deal breaker; however, it’s ideal to not have the index.php on every page. I tried a couple ways to eliminate the index.php. The first way was by using a plugin for Expression Engine that is supposed to write the necessary information on your .htaccess file. However, when I went to use the plugin it basically took my site offline. So I had to just delete the .htaccess file. I’m sure that the plugin does work but maybe something with my hosting wasn’t connecting properly. After trying that a few times I pretty much gave up.

One day I was just browsing around the internet and found a possible solution which did the trick perfectly! With my hosting I am able to access my .htaccess file and write to it. I simply dropped the following code which I got from Wil Linnsen’s website into my .htaccess file.

# BEGIN Expression Engine Rewrite

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond $1 !\.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?$1 [L]

# END Expression Engine Rewrite

It worked! However all of the links on my website were still automatically including the index.php in the links. To fix that you simply need to remove the index.php option in the backend of Expression Engine under Admin » System Preferences » General Configuration where it says Name of your sites index page. That’s it! Thanks Wil!

Pepsi Rebrands, So Why Can’t You?

2009-01-25T19:31:18Z

I’m sure that most of us have realized that Pepsi has rebranded and a lot of people don’t like it and a lot of people do. Honestly, when I first saw it I really didn’t like it. I thought it was a silly version of the latest version of the Pepsi logo. Over the years that Pepsi has been in business they have rebranded multiple times. The same goes for their direct competitor Coca-Cola. But back to the topic at hand… I really didn’t like the new logo when I first saw it.

However, the more I’ve seen it I’ve taken some more time to think about it. I actually do like it. I think it does have a modern look to it which I think the old logo wasn’t sporting. Looking at the product packaging I really do like the solid colors. Maybe it’s like hearing a song that you don’t like over and over again until you start to like it but I really think that the rebranding of Pepsi is a good move forward.

So my question for smaller businesses is this: ‘Why be afraid of rebranding?’ Yes, smaller businesses don’t get the advertising dollars that big brands like Pepsi does. However, looking through a lot of the rebranding that big businesses do, it’s more revising a current logo rather than inventing something completely new. You don’t want to loose the recognition that people get with looking at your logo. However, it’s a decent idea to get a face lift every now and then. I’m definitely not saying that every business should rebrand. Rebranding doesn’t always work! I think that a businesses timeline needs to be evaluated and analyzed. But it’s just something to think about and not be afraid of!

Here are some links to check out showing rebranding:

Using WordPress Custom Fields

2009-01-07T17:03:45Z

Using WordPress Custom Fields is actually much easier than one would think. I went to use it a while back for a project and didn’t really have time to work with it so I passed it by. But recently I needed it and was surprised at how easy it is to use it! With one little line of code in your template you can use Custom Fields in WordPress.

When you’re in WordPress and you want to add a Custom Field to a blog entry all you need to do is scroll down to where it shows the Custom Field options. We’ll use the standard Mood: Happy example as used on the WordPress website. In the ‘Name’ box we’ll type Mood and in the Key or Value option we type Happy. After you save your post and try and view the live version you will see that it has had no effect on your post! Hmm… referencing the little line of code that we mentioned above, that’s what we need!

And that line of code is as follows:

<?php the_meta(); ?>

So plug that in your template wherever you’d like to see the data loaded! Upload your revised template and refresh your blog and you should see the data! Now you can get really involved and do some really cool stuff with CSS to really put the Custom Field to use! In this example we’re really only using the Custom Field at it’s simplest. Take a look at the WordPress Using Custom Fields page to really get your hands dirty!

PS: Also note that you can use Custom Fields for Pages as well!

Getting Twitter Badge Code to Validate

2008-11-18T12:55:41Z

So I’ve just recently started using Twitter. I figured that I better hop on the train before it completely pulls away! Also, I figured that in the future that I would have clients that would want to integrate Twitter into their sites. So if you take a look at toward the bottom right of our site you’ll see our little Twitter feed. Well you should see our Twitter feed. I’ve been noticing on our site as well as other sites that Twitter doesn’t always show up due to their server. So many people are using Twitter now so sometimes it gets slow.

Anyway, so basically the easiest way to start putting up your feed onto your site is to go to www.twitter.com/badges and log in (if you don’t have a Twitter account you’ll want to set one up quick first, of course). Then it gives you the option to pick a MySpace, Blogger, etc. default image. Of course those are not the links that we want, so at the very bottom of that page you’ll see an ‘other’ option. Clicking that option it will bring you to another set of options and the one we want to pick is the last option which uses HTML/Javascript.

After that has been selected you have a few options before you grab the code. You get to select how many updates you want to show, if you want to show a title, and then the code. A cool part about this page is that you can adjust the first 2 options and the box with the code will update automatically for you as well as the preview. So for our example on this site we only want to show the latest Twitter update so we’ll set that option to 1. And we don’t want a title so we’ll check the ‘No Title’ option. After that we’re ready to grab the code. But we can’t just drop in the code as is. We want to take the 2 <script> tags and put them right above the closing <body> tag. Then next is working with the HTML to put the feed on your site.

As you can see on our site we didn’t just want to throw up the code. It’s really easy to add just a little bit of dynamic to the look quickly so let’s take a look at what we’re trying to make. After working with the CSS and pasting in the code from Twitter we get our final result. But then after heading over to the W3C to check validation we get a big old Invalid page. What the heck? We took the code right from Twitter…

So I experimented with the code a bit. The reason that the W3C says that the page isn’t valid is because our list is empty. Since Twitter’s code is set up to be a list we basically have <ul> opening and closing tags with nothing in between. So I tried a couple things that didn’t work then finally thought about it for a second. The Twitter Javascript is pulling in the information dynamically. So when the code is exported its not actually placing the text into the HTML like PHP does. So our <ul> code is left blank even though the feed is showing up. So what does a list need… Hmm… A list needs the <li> tags. So after throwing in an opening and closing <li> tags with nothing in between the page validates!

And thats it! All we needed was an <li></li> in between the <ul></ul> to make it work!

J Taylor Website Evolution

2008-11-12T00:24:09Z

So I’ve been toying around with doing this post for a while now and I’ve finally had a second to sit down and throw something together quick. The idea here is to show all the versions that this site has seen. The first site was built in 2005. And come to think of it, the first three that are shown were built within 4 months of each other; and after 6 months to a year the same goes for the next three. When it comes to the seventh image shown, thats actually designs number 7 and 8. 7 was the same exact design but without the wrinkled, watercolor paper look.

The final picture is the longest standing design for J Taylor Design. It was live for a year and a half. So hopefully you’ll see the progression is style and design through the timeframe. A lot of it was experimentation. I would get excited about learning something new that and I would work the design around that one thing. Where as over the past couple years, my skill has refined and I have learned to develop a whole site. There is always room for improvement so I’m looking forward to seeing www.thejtsite.com in years to come. But for now we can enjoy the following…

Using Mac Screenshot to Your Advantage

2008-11-07T03:02:52Z

So I’ve been using this method since I’ve realized that I don’t always remember everything; and what I’m talking about is using the Mac Screenshot to measure pixels. If you’re like me and use ‘px’ as your measurement rather than ‘em’ then this may be a technique that you can use as well. So lets jump right in…

When I built out a website I write all the code and export all the images by hand so I have an idea of the width and height of different div’s and images are… but I don’t always remember the exact pixels. For example if I’m trying to position a div tag in a certain spot and I have it set to ‘absolute’ positioning and its off by so many pixels, I just hit Shift + Apple + 4 to activate the screenshot cursor and draw a box the size that I need to move the div tag.

When I do that it shows me the width and height of the box I drew so I have a better idea of how far I need to move the div from the top, right, bottom, or left. Then to avoid taking a snapshot just click ‘Esc’ before letting go of your mouse. So in my preparation if I remember that I was planning on moving the div 25 pixels and my screenshot box is showing 24 pixels, it helps to kick-start my memory so I can just edit the CSS. So rather than playing the guessing game in the CSS to try and position the div tag where I want it; or reopening my Photoshop or Fireworks file to draw a slice and measure it out, it’s a quick way to do a measurement on the fly.

It’s not a perfect method or always an exact method but if you’re like me and try and remember different width and height measurement’s it may be a handy technique.

Food For Thought on Driving

2008-11-01T15:44:10Z

I’ve thought about this a lot lately. Having your own business is awesome and a huge responsibility. There have been many design companies in my area of the world that have such a bad reputation because of how they treat their clients… while every networking book that I’ve read talks about how important relationships are. Interesting… and those companies seem to do well for a while then completely fall apart. From my personal observations I’ve noticed that those companies I’m talking about put themselves up at such a high level. In laymans terms, I mean that they exaggerate! Whether it’s exaggerating what can be delivered or exaggerating skills, it basically boils down to lying to the client! Which is not good. Obviously it’s not good to lie. We were all taught as kids that lying is bad. So I don’t understand why these companies which seemed to be doing well would risk everything with a client by lying.

Without having to learn from those companies, I strive to be honest. If I’m not sure on a subject or if a client has a question that I can’t answer from the top of my head, then I simply tell them that I don’t know but that I would be happy to look it up and get an answer for them! There’s no reason to make excuses. It only lowers your value to your client. I strive to establish quality relationships with clients so when it comes time to redesign their website that they know exactly who they want to call.

The whole purpose of this entry was to get to this final point… When I’m driving to a meeting or just driving in general, I always notice people driving like idiots. People cut people off… People merge without using their blinkers… and all that stuff that we call inconsiderate driving. My point is that say I’m running late for a meeting and I cut this guy off. Then I get to my meeting and find that the guy that I cut off is my new prospective client… Ouch! That would be horrible… I don’t think that that would show quality in my character.

So my point in this post is to think and be a decent person. My relationships with my clients is so vital. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize it in any way.

Vitamin Water: Bad for you?

2008-08-13T14:19:04Z

Personally, I really like Vitamin Water. A year or 2 ago when I was drinking soda regularly I took a sip of a Vitamin Water and I thought it tasted like a watered down juice of some sort. Then I kinda got myself into a little bit of a health kick and I started drinking a lot of water. More recently I have been drinking one vitamin water a day. My personal favorite at this point is Focus which has a kiwi-strawberry flavor to it. At first, again, it tasted like water down juice or lemonade. After about 2 months or so of drinking it everyday I have noticed that it tastes a lot sweeter to me since I’m not drinking soda. Plus I’ve read some articles on how Vitamin Water is not good for you. So maybe its phycological that I taste the sugar in it now because the three main things that I’ve been reading that people are harping on are…

Made with distilled water
Lots of sugar
The calories

Personally, at this point I’m still pretty skinny and I could probably use the calories. Maybe in ten years I’ll have to back off it. The sugar thing makes sense. In the Focus drink there’s about 13 grams per serving and there are 2.5 servings in a normal size bottle of Vitamin Water. So one option if you’re going to just drink Vitamin Water like a glass of anything, is to drink it in portions. Maybe drink half of the bottle in the morning, then the rest at night. Think of it like a glass of wine or beer. If you are going to drink 2 beers in a short amount of time, it’s going to do something different to your body then if you drink 1 beer at lunch then 1 beer at dinner. Personally I don’t have the taste buds for beer but the concept makes sense to me.

With the distilled water I need to do a little more research. I know that distilled water is water that has been stripped of its vitamins, gases and minerals. So in that sense it makes sense if the company is trying to monitor more accurately the content in the drink. But does distilled water fight vitamins in your body? I’ve read a few articles arguing that it does but I think that I need to look it up for myself. If it does, then what’s their reason for using distilled water? It would be pointless for them to use distilled water if it truly fights vitamins.

So if it doesn’t kill the vitamins and you are able to drink it in portions if you just drinking as a regular drink then I don’t really see what’s wrong with it. Rather than drinking water all the time it adds a little flavor to your life. Don’t get me wrong, I think that water should be the number one choice drink and I personally have felt the difference when I keep myself properly hydrated but I think 1 bottle of vitamin water a day isn’t so bad. I’ve read that you’re supposed to drink about half of your body weight in ounces of water everyday, so if you’re doing that then a Vitamin Water everyday won’t kill you, right?

The Dark Knight

2008-07-28T19:44:35Z

So with my beautiful fiance, my little bro’s and my dad we all went to see The Dark Knight a couple nights ago and I totally loved it. It was excellent. I wasn’t crazy about Batman Begins; in fact, every single time I tried to sit and watch it I fell asleep because I found it so boring. I don’t know why. Most of my friends loved it but it just didn’t hold my attention. But the new movie is absolutely incredible. It is extremely gripping. Heath Ledger completely lives up to the hype of his character. Also, there are some twists that I wasn’t expecting that I won’t ruin here for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie.

My brother said he saw what I’m hinting at coming but I didn’t. But he was constantly watching the preview and checking information online where as I didn’t really want to do that. I find that if I watch a preview too much it drains the hype from me so I try to only watch previews a couple times. But anyway, it’s a great movie, check it out. Also, out of all the poster artwork, I love this one. It’s pretty sweet.