- Wordpress
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Wordpress Development Themes
Today I set up a Wordpress blog for the Who Reps It project:
I came across a very helpful post at Refueled.net that supplies 3 basic templates to base your Wordpress theme on. It has a basic 2 column, with the sidebar on the left or the right, and a 3 column with two sidebar’s on either side of the main content. The code is pretty semantic and was easy to work with.
- Wordpress
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Sample Wordpress Content for Previewing Themes
Today I set up a Wordpress blog for the Who Reps It project:
I came across a very helpful post at WP Candy that supplied a .xml backup of a Wordpress blog with basic sample content. Acting as a style guide, this allows developers/designers to get a better idea of how their theme will look when the site is full of legitimate content.
WP Candy: Easier Theme Development with Sample WordPress Content
Creating a Video Tour with CSS, XHTML and jQuery
Here’s a little resource I wipped up for the Who Reps It project we’re currently designing at FTS. It’s a re-usable video tour page that runs on Vimeo.
For now it uses a sample video. Once the application is designed we’ll use a screencasting program (I prefer ScreenFlow) to create the videos. Vimeo will host the videos for us for free. Once the videos have been uploaded to vimeo all we need to do is copy and paste the embed code provided into the Video Tour page and we’re good to go.
- Articles, General, User Experience
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Detroit: Learn from the Apples, Amazons of the world
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Right now it’s a little embarrassing to be an American car manufacturer. You find yourself asking for billions in handouts so you can continue building cars that the market doesn’t want. If that weren’t bad enough, it appears that the energy-efficient models, like the Volt, that had been bragged about, won’t see the road till 2011. There are many Monday morning quarterbacks on this subject, but I can’t help jumping in and adding my suggestions for how these dinosaurs might turn things around. U.S. carmakers can learn from guys like Apple and Amazon to create a game-changing business where customers are begging for products.
Let’s start with inventory. On my drives to and from work, I pass several auto dealers. There are hundreds upon hundreds of cars sitting in the lots. This capital-intensive tradition is stupid. Nobody needs to have that many cars in the lots. The web model to learn from is Amazon, and the idea is to carry as little inventory as possible. Amazon has essentially become a supply-chain company. The products that pass through its massive infrastructure are less important than the speed at which they get to the customer. It has moved its warehouses closer to the consumer, and it monitors inventory so closely that it can tell exactly when to restock a local warehouse or when to discontinue an item. Better yet, have an on-demand system in which buyers purchase their custom-designed cars and factories build only those cars that are ordered. Why is it possible for me to customize and build my car online but not order it? Why must I be referred to a dealer? That’s a legacy idea that must go away. Read more
- Articles
- 1 Comment
Online shopping experiences: Joyful of woeful?
First Published: Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology – December 21, 2007.
I just finished my holiday shopping online. It was the last day I could order online and still get free shipping on my gifts before Christmas. That’s important, but not nearly as important as the overall experience. Compared with shopping in the new Natick Collection mall, shopping online is pure joy. But not everyone shares my excitement of online shopping, and they may have a good reason.
- Flash
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Flash / XML Driven Slideshow with Crossfade
Here it is. A basic, XML driven flash resource that is modular and re-usable. It’s built on top of the ActionScript 2.0 provided at rabid gadfly. This allows for a smooth cross fade transition. The transition time as well as slide time can be controlled with the XML file.
- Wordpress
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Blogroll and Pagerank
Some clients want the ability to place links in the sidebar of their blog. Someone along the timelines of weblogs this became known as the blogroll. With Wordpress it is easy for clients to manage their blogroll.
However, there is one caveat to having a blogroll on your blog. Google may misinterpret these links as paid advertisements. After all, if you have a site with high traffic stats those links could be worth $$$ to advertisers. As a a result, blogrolls can have a negative impact on your page rank.
The question becomes: How can I provide clients with a blogroll without their search engine rankings suffering heavy losses. The answer: the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
The Blogroll Nofollow Wordpress plugin will automatically do the job for you. Just download, upload to /wp-content/plugins/ and activate it from within the Wordpress Admin control panel.