WaGooh - Cutting Edge Web Design

Back to School

Christina — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:18:16 +0000

It’s hard to believe that in just a few short weeks the kiddos will be going back to school. A little bitter sweet for me because I really do love sleeping in and spending time with them. It will however be so nice to get back to a more structured schedule as it seems summer can become a little more impulsive in that department. So that being said, I created a “Back to School” theme. It includes an iGoogle theme, Firefox Persona and wallpapers for download. Enjoy those last days of summer as they will soon be over and the holidays will be looming just around the corner.

Back to School iGoogle Theme

Get the iGoogle theme here.

Back to School Firefox Persona

Get the Firefox Persona here.

Back to School Wallpaper

Click on your resolution size to download the appropriate sized wallpaper.

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Redesign 2010

Christina — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:04:16 +0000

It seems that re-designing the WaGooh website is becoming an annual event. Each year the web and browser capabilities are growing at an astonishing rate. Because of that, it’s an exciting and challenging job to keep educated on all the cutting edge web design techniques. I love learning and I can’t help but get the urge to implement some of the great things that I have learned this year into a new design for my company.

The last couple of years has brought about a major increase in the use of the Jquery library. Jquery is a great tool for web developers as it allows us to make websites far more interactive. I have utilized many Jquery techniques throughout the redesign including a carousel on the homepage and throughout the portfolio pages, rotating functions for the testimonials and lightbox features throughout the entire site.

I chose to take the design quite a bit brighter with a yellow gradient background. Maybe it represents how much I’ve missed the sun this year as it has been a gloomy one here in Oregon. I made up for that in the colorful, bright colors throughout the website. What can I say, the child in me LOVES color.

The redesign also includes the use of some CSS3 property’s including border-radius and box-shadows. Most browsers have some level of support for CSS3 and it is rumored that Internet Explorer 9, being released next year, will finally begin to support it as well. That is a very exciting thing in the world of a web designer as it translates to more customization capabilities & faster page load times as we won’t be forced to rely as heavily on images.

So without further ado here is a side by side of old & new.

Easter Egg Chick

Christina — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:38:16 +0000

It’s hard to believe that it is already Spring. This year is absolutely flying by. It’s crazy! Here is a persona & wallpaper set I created for Easter. I have created an iGoogle theme to match, which can be found here. Please let me know if you like this theme. I love to have your feedback. Happy Easter!

Here is a screenshot of the iGoogle theme:

You can get the Firefox Persona here.

And here are the wallpapers:

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Valentines Candy Hearts

Christina — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:03:00 +0000

Here is the persona theme/wallpaper duo I created for Valentines Day. I actually created an iGoogle theme too! You can use it as your iGoogle theme by logging into your Google account and adding it here. Candy hearts are one of the first things I think of when I think about Valentines Day. It’s probably because as a child, my Mom always bought them for us. I just love them and they still bring out the child in me. I hope you enjoy this set. I’ve created it in both purple & pink. Oh…I almost forgot. Now there are iphone sized wallpapers!

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Christmas Canes

Christina — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:26:48 +0000

Here is another Firefox Persona & matching wallpaper set I finished for the holiday season. Let me know what you think and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!

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Holiday Fun

Christina — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:27:14 +0000

This is such a great time of year. It’s so exciting when the holidays begin approaching!!! The smells, the food, the lights, the parties. Ahhh, I love it. Here is my first holiday set this season including a wallpaper and Firefox Persona! Enjoy!

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Halloween Personas & Wallpaper

Christina — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:38:19 +0000

I have created a couple of new Firefox Personas for Halloween and because it’s nice to have desktop themes I created matching wallpapers to download.

“Halloween Haunt” Persona

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“Halloween Glow” Persona

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Firefox “Personas”

Christina — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:04:24 +0000

I have been a long time fan of the browser Firefox. One of the things that makes this browser the best is the thousands of great add-ons available to customize the browser to your personal needs and likes.

I often spend time looking up the newest and best add-ons and when doing so recently I came across “Personas”. Personas is a ” lightweight, easy-to-install and easy-to-change skins” add-on for the Firefox web browser. What is really cool is the ability for anybody to easily create their own skin. Using the Personas website, you are walked through each step of the process with detailed instructions. After being approved by the Personas team, your skin becomes live and available to use personally, or with your consent, for anyone to use under a creative commons license.

One of the coolest features of Personas is the ability to look through their gallery, hover over the skin and have it temporarily apply itself so that you can see how it will look. You know how it goes, you have to try it on to make sure it fits. It looks like the developers took that old adage and applied it well here. FYI…the Personas add-on must be installed for this feature to work.

Inspired by the first day of Autumn, I quickly got to work creating a fast but cute skin for myself. It really was very easy and I can see that in my free time I will get to creating a few more skins. You can see & use my skin by visiting the Personas website and searching under seasonal. I named it Autumn Breeze.

I also created a simple matching wallpaper. You can download it by clicking your resolution below. If you don’t see your size, let me know and I can create and upload it for you.

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Setup Your Email in Outlook 2007

Christina — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:23:19 +0000

Believe it or not this is probably one of the most common questions I get from clients. How do I setup my email to run through Microsoft Outlook? I think it’s a lot easier to see a visual record of it, especially for those like myself who are visual learners. Regardless of what version of Outlook you have, the instructions are very close to the same. There are small variations between different versions of the software (ie Outlook 2000 or 2003), but you should be able to get around them easily. I would recommend first of all that you get your email settings from your email provider as well as make sure that you have enabled POP3 for that email account. In my case that would be Lunarpages who I host my website through (by the way, they are an awesome web host).

I will start by opening Microsoft Outlook. At the top left of the screen click on “Tools” and then “Options”.

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Then click on the “Mail Setup” tab at the top and click on “E-mail Accounts”.

Next click on “New”.

Choose Microsoft Exchange, Pop3, IMAP, or HTTP and click “Next”.

I recommend manually entering your information to make sure you meet all the requirements of your hosting service. Check the box next to “Manually configure server settings” and then click “Next”.

Choose “Internet E-mail” and click “Next”.

Fill out your information. This is where it is extremely helpful to have your email settings from your provider. FYI… if you are a lunarpages customer the + instead of @ under the Logon Information is required. Next click on the “More Settings” in the lower right hand corner.

If you are a Lunarpages customer, your outgoing server requires authentication, so you will need to click that box on the “Outgoing Server” tab. If you don’t have Lunarpages, you will need to check and see what your email settings are. When you are done with that click the “Advanced” tab at the top.

I usually leave the default settings on this tab, but some email providers and Internet Service Providers (ISP) require certain port settings. You can change your port settings here to comply with those needs. When you are finished click “OK”.

Next click on the “Test Account Settings”.

If all of your settings are correct you should see two green check marks. Click “Close” and then click “Next” & “Finish.

Your all done!

WaGooh Mobify’d

Christina — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:33:54 +0000

I have been thinking for a while about creating a mobile version of my website and when I heard about Mobify I dived right in. Mobify is an online web application set up to allow you to make a smaller fully functional mobile version of your website using their design dashboard. It has an great user interface that makes it easy to convert any website. What is even more amazing about it is the ability to adjust the CSS and HTML.

Mobify works amazingly well with WordPress and there is even a plug in to assist in the setup of your custom mobile web address. There are a couple of other features that makes Mobify even more cool. At the bottom of each mobile page they have added a link to view the original page keeping the user in control of their viewing preferences. Mobify also has the ability to run analytics using Google Analytics or AdMob Analytics. I haven’t yet been successful at setting up my Google Analytics on it because it doesn’t seems to allow enough digits to work with my web property id. I do think they may be ironing out some kinks as any application takes time to do so. All in all this is an easy, quick and user friendly way of setting up a mobile web site. I love it!

You can check out WaGooh’s mobile view here http://m.wagooh.net.