Today is the launch of Bluelime’s fourth website re-design. I’ve revised and reduced the content to bring clarification of my skills. I’ve also cleaned up the blog. I know that some folks don’t believe in killing blog posts, but I just couldn’t have old, irrelevant info and I must confess, I’m addicted to the delete button.

I also inserted various jQuery elements. I’m not a jQuery ninja and I don’t think that I’ll ever be, but these few elements were easy enough to achieve and are here to showcase what can be done.

I’d like to thank Todd for editing my website content and Kathleen for her visual input.

Hope you like the new look. Let me know what you think.

Having said that, we’d like to make sure that our presentation meets the audience’s needs. If you have your ticket for WordCamp Vancouver, are interested in learning more about how to use WordPress as a CMS and have a question, please leave a comment below or on the WordCamp blog post.

See you next weekend.

During the holiday season, I took a stab at redesigning the kitsilano.ca blog. The original design was somewhat too constricting and Rob wanted a few features added. The greatest addition is the incorporation of random banners submitted by the community. If you ever find yourself in Kitsilano and snap a few pictures, simply upload them to flickr and tag them with kitsilanoca, and you never know, you’re picture may be used as a banner on the site.

We also completed a blog for Patricia Robitaille’s company, PR Strategies Inc. Being self-employed since 1993, Patricia’s wealth of knowledge on self-employment is incredibly valuable. Her blog will allow her to share tips and tricks with those wanting to learn more about self-employment.

Another self-employed colleague of ours, Bruce Clarke is president and co-founder of Superna Life Sciences which is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the commercialization of treatments for niche diseases and indications, primarily hematology and oncology, in the Canadian marketplace. We built a simple, yet elegant website for Superna allowing them to promote their new venture and raise funds. The branding and design of the website were created by Johnny Kuan at Avenue Creative.

Next, we also collaborated with Splat Designs and built two websites for the Yaletown Laser Centre and Cosmetic Dentistry. Both sites used the same layout and look and feel but display different content. Building two sites at once was very efficient but also very confusing. More than once, I inserted the wrong image and content on the wrong site.

Last but not least, my on-going collaboration with Tzaddi at ThriveWire continued and we put together a WordPress site for the Vancouver Convention Centre‘s Intranet. Unfortunately, this site is located on their own private server with no public access so we can’t show you anything. Working with the VCC’s IT team, we developed it on an IIS server which proved very challenging at times, but the the team at VCC is very happy with the end result and it will serve their company well.

Working with Catherine Worrall and Marga Lopez from Ideastream Design, the Minerva Foundation created a new logo and colour palette. Instead of simply slapping the new logo on the old website, Ideastream Design approached me and inquired about converting their existing site into WordPress. The old website consisted of a huge amounts of documents, static html files (with Ack! tables) and images, making it quite challenging to update. Converting the site to WordPress, simply made much more sense. Using a few plugins, like the Next Gen Gallery, the Foundation can now create as many photo galleries as they want and the rest of the website is a breeze to update. The new website is inviting, easy to navigate and will hopefully help the Foundation with their future endeavors.

I recently came to the same decision when building a website for the Challenge Series which is a celebration of the planning, design and building of Vancouver’s first sustainable neighbourhood – Millennium Water: The Southeast False Creek Olympic Village.

Published as an online book, the first of eight chapters was recently launched and, just like The Ford Story, uses WordPress as a CMS to deliver a wide variety of static content, downloadable documents and photos. Future issues will also include videos. When I was first introduced to this project, I instantly thought of WordPress as the CMS for this website, but wondered if perhaps Drupal or some other CMS might be a better platform. The design of the home page alone proved somewhat challenging and uses a large number of custom fields, but with proper training and the use of simple HTML, I think that the website is fairly easy to maintain and look forward to seeing how it progresses and develops. Finding out that companies like Ford also choose WordPress has convinced me that I’ve made a good decision.

Located right here in Vancouver, BC, they are a great resource for small and large companies looking for solutions towards greener business.

As the years have progressed, I found one template that I modified and used as my starting point, but I found myself doing the same things over and over. As a result I decided to create a series of new templates which are very basic. They only have the absolute necessary, are very clean, simple and easy to modify. You won’t find crazy function files with lines and lines of code, they only have one image and the colours are neutral.

The idea behind these templates, is that they should be used as your starting block. Once you have them installed, you can modify the CSS, add your images, required plugins and style them the way you’ve envisioned. I’m hoping that these new templates will be useful for WordPress developers, especially those who are just starting out and learning CSS and how to navigate through the many WordPress files. I’ve released the first three templates at www.framework-templates.com and will be releasing more as time permits. I’ll also keep a blog there where you can read about WordPress, templates and plugins.

Please check out the new site and let me know what you think.

The products consist of a GamePak “The Nogs of Notch Hill” which is a learning program containing everything you need to help your child learn to read, write and sound the lower case letters of the alphabet and “Pam’s Patterns” which helps your child develop pre-alphabet learning skills, using simple pegboards.

Developed by Joan Thornton, these products were derived from a notion that children learn best whilst playing. While taking children for extra reading practice, Joan discovered patterns in the behaviours of the students who were struggling. She created games that practiced the skills the children were missing and began playing them with the children. The children loved the games, and began to learn fast in her care. Over the years she has given hundreds of children the gift of a solid academic foundation.

With the help of her daughter, Nicola Lott, the first Educational GamePak and a fun, informative website were recently released and plans are underway to create 8 more GamePaks taking children to a Grade three level in reading, writing and maths skills. Working with Nicola was very interesting and we wish them great success in their new business venture.

Inspired by a beautiful design by Mizu Creative, my task was to convert the design into a WordPress based website enabling the client to make edits themselves and insert a series of slide shows with different behaviours. Converting the design into WordPress templates was a breeze, but finding a way to integrate the slide shows proved challenging. My initial thought of course was to use flash, but flash is expensive, annoying, hard to update and quite frankly, I don’t like it. I knew that Tzaddi had recently built a WordPress site where she used jQuery, so I thought I would investigate.

After a couple of Google searches, I found exactly what I needed.

InnerFade by Medienfreunde
The first demo I found was the InnerFade plugin. As the name suggests this plugin allows a series of text or images to fade in and out.

I’m not exactly sure who created this code, because my German is non-existent, but using his/her demo, I found the solution for one type of slide shows and used it on several sections of the Enhance Dental Centre website including this page, where you can see a series of before and after shots fading in an out.

Better Coda Slider by Remy Sharp
The second demo I found was the better coda slider. The aim of Remy‘s demo was to look at the original effect used on the Coda site and improve on it. Once again, using his example and making a few adjustments, I was able to use the code and create a “slider” effect where users can view the various testimonials.

All in all, I’m very pleased with the final outcome of the site. What proved to be daunting and challenging initially, turned out to be fairly simple and I look forward to playing with jQuery on more sites. What are your thoughts?

Although I never make resolutions, over the holidays, I do think about the year and how I can improve things at Bluelime Media and every year, I do the same thing. I think about it and then do nothing…. So this year I thought I would put it up in writing and make myself accountable.

Keeping it small

When I first started web design, I normally thought that I would create a company, get office space, hire a few employees and increase to a half dozen people over the years. At least that’s what BNI and business coaches were envisioning for me. I realise now that that dream isn’t mine. I have no desire to grow and manage staff. I enjoying working by myself and like Dave Shae, happy to be the little guy. So I’ve removed my careers page and updated my about section to reflect this new direction. At least in writing it’s a new direction.. it’s always been like that in my heart.

Embracing WordPress

For the past 2 years, I’ve been building more and more WordPress sites and have come to the conclusion that it’s the best solution for me and for my clients. I’ve updated my home page to reflect this change and in the next week or so I’ll be updating the service section to inform potential clients, that this is what I offer. Not to worry though, I know people who can use Drupal, Joomla and flash, so if that’s your flavour, I will gladly refer you.

Work Less

This is the reason I never make resolutions… Ever year, I look back and think that I’ve worked much too hard… but when you decide to work on your own and refuse to delegate or resist offers of helps… then you end up with a lot of work. So I only have myself to blame. In the past, I’ve taken weeks off here and there and enjoyed the breaks where phone and Internet access is limited. This has worked very well for me in the past and I will keep doing this, starting this month. At the end of January, I’m heading out to India for a yoga trip with Christina Sell and Genevieve Gilbreath. I’ll take lots of pictures while I’m there, but won’t be putting them online until I get back. Doing so, would require finding an Internet cafe which could lead to peaking in my inbox.

Happy New Year to all of you and best of luck with your goals for 2009.