Month: April 2006

  • April 28, 2006

    Wrcnepa.Org

    Women's Resource Center

    When the WRC of Scranton, PA came to me for a redesign, their website was in poor shape. There was not main navigation or template, meaning the back button was used A LOT. way to much. It was a plain white background, and not to much effort went into design. It was also poorly coded. O, and did I mention that right click was disabled by javascript? Because it was. SO I had quite a task ahead of me.

    We needed something far more esthetically pleasing that this. We also needed great functionality. There was a lot of pages and navigation to deal with, a a good folder structure was in order. So we broke up all of the pages (some 35 pages on the main navigation) into 8 main links, with mouse over menus bringing you to the other 27. I then created a folder hierarchy of those 8 main links with the other pages within. There was also an images folder and an includes folder to make my life easier. After that was set up, I started on the design. This was the first time I used a “drop shadow” background on the main content, and I like it. I also wanted to make a more image intense banner- since the last site was basically baron, I wanted to spice things up. A few nice effects in photoshop and we have an “involved-but-not-to-involved” banner. They also wanted a button for internet security. One of my favorite parts is the history page, where I implemented the “Lightbox” AJAX program to display different years in t he WRC’s history

    When it came to the navigation, I used some javascript menus (the main nave works even without javascript enabled, so no worries). They also wanted the browser to close when you click escape, which I also did with some javascript. The final thing they wanted was a flash intro, which I gladly made upf or them. All in all I am pretty proud of the site- it was definitely the biggest I have worked on page wise. Which there was not to much programming involved, design implementation was huge. View the site here. Let me know what you think in the comments! Later!

  • April 21, 2006

    OMG MySpace!?

    OMFG

    As many of you might know, I was a big hater of MySpace. This was because of all the emo, 12 going on 20 year olds that infest its system, as well as the horribly (HORRIBLY) done layouts. I mean, they break every rule in the “Book on Good Design,” that is- picture as background, a million animated GIFs, embedded music, super wide layout, no color scheme. It’s all wrong!

    So, I was going to make it my undertaking to fix it up, and learn how to make it look awesome. However, Mike D. of Mike Industries beat me to the punch. Much thanks to Mike D. for the time he spent making it “web developer friendly,” if MySpace could be such a thing. What I hope to accomplish when I get some time (Lord knows when that will be…) is to make it real cool and add some of my own things to build on top of what Mike did.

    What I like about MySpace, after you get through lines and lines of CSS to make it look nice, is the social networking aspect of it that Facebook has. I figure it’s a good way to put my name out there. We will see what comes of it. You can check it out Here. Let me know what you think. Later!

  • April 18, 2006

    Another AIM virus

    I just got this one, so keep an eye out, and as always, make sure you ask the sender if it is lagit.

    would this pic of us be ok for myspace or facebook? http://dl2.filehd.com/1/66284…icture14.zip [part of link removed]

    The aimFix was updated last week- I will keep you posted if a new one shows us. Later

    As a Side note, if you do ever get an AIM virus, http://jayloden.com/aimfix.htm is always the link to check out.

  • April 15, 2006

    Scams-A-Plenty!

    (No Image b/c their logos are copyright protected and they would most likely actually sue me…)

    An online company, Blue Hippo, trying to get the best of the not-so-tech-savvy. Of course, they didn’t take into account DiggNation.
    To break it down a little for you, You put $99 down on the desktop. Then pay $39.99/week for 52 weeks. That is $2079.58 + the $99 down = $2178.58 for a computer. Must be good, huh? Here are some Dell computers with comparable/better features, none of them exceeding $600. Why? Because the computers they are offering are bottom of the barrel computers.

    The laptop they are offering does not even have the minimum required amount of RAM to run the OS it comes with. They mask this little scam by telling the customers it does not matter what kind of credit you have….because clearly, no matter how bad yours is, their’s is probably worse.

    So, stay away from Blue Hippo and make sure to tell your friends. Later!

  • April 12, 2006

    PC Starter Kit

    Let me start by saying I suck for not bring my PC charger home over break. No worries though, I have a back up PC with none of my files and stuff on it. But it is enough to get by. Unfortunately, this is a bare bones PC with none of my regular software on it. I have to rely on freeware, both new and old. So, here is a list of the software I am using to get by. Eventually I want to make all the installs part of a .bat file so I can run that one script and everything I need will be installed!

    Firefox
    First and foremost, I need a good browser to get all my other stuff. Firefox, without question.
    Gaim
    For all of my Instant Messaging needs
    Notepad++
    In my opinion, the best text editor. Supports many languages and it’s very lightweight.
    FileZilla
    I will always be doing FTP/Web Stuff, and for that, I have FileZilla.
    The GIMP
    For my photo editing needs
    Open Office
    When I don’t have MS Office handy, this is the next best thing
    Fox It PDF Reader
    I know Adobe Reader is free too, but Fox It reader is 100x better.

    And there you have it. My quick and dirty list of stuff I constantly use, no matter what PC I am on. You can find a huge list of freeware here too. Later!

  • April 8, 2006

    Treo 650

    Treo 650

    My new toy. About 2 weeks ago, I was able to buy a new phone with the renewal of my Verizon contract. I decided after a lot of thinking to go with the 650. I could not be happier with my decision. On face value, the reasons I went with the Treo 650 over other phones was this: 1) it is made by Palm, and therefore trustworthy. 2) It is significantly cheaper than the 700, which also runs Pocket PC software.

    The reason I like palm better than pocket pc(ppc) is primarily because there is more freeware for palm than for ppc. It is also more stable and just seems less cluttered. PPC looks just like WinXP, which I am used to looking at on a 14+ inch screen, so when I look at it on a 3×5 inch screen, it’s a little cumbersome. But onto the phone.

    The Palm Basics: It has your calendar, contacts, todo, memos and prefs that come with all palm stuff. Sync it with your computer using hot sync and you are good to go. Then there is your run of the mill calculator.

    The Fun Stuff: So we know it has your basic stuff. It ALSO has a camera, camcorder, wireless hotsync and internet if you want the National Broadband Access service(which I highly recommend). It plays music and video and has an expansion slot for SD cards, which is great because that is also what my camera takes. Finally, it has the QWERTY keyboard making it easy to text. O yeah, it also has Bluetooth.

    Nice features: Here are some nice aspects of the 650. Its text messaging system is very much like an IM system- actually it looks just like one. The camera takes some nice quality pictures, esp. for it being a camera phone. You can find some of mine on my Flickr Site. Having the internet wherever I go is also a huge plus. And since is it always connected, if you are so inclined to set up an email account on it, you can get email anytime. (but really is that a blessing or a curse?? ;)).

    Pimp your Palm: Now one of my favorite things to do is download some nice freeware to make my palm better. Freeware Palm is the best for this. A couple of apps that I really enjoy having on my 650 are: the Palm Today Screen, which gives me the same kind of Today screen as ppc, without the clutter. It really makes viewing my appointments and tasks much easier and allows me to set quick icons. The other app I really like, which is only for the 650 is Call Log+, which I guess I only have the Trial of, but I didn’t notice. It allows you to write notes in you call log next to your recent calls. I find it great since I deal with a lot of calls from a lot of clients.

    So there you have it. A not so short overview and review of the Treo 650. I am very happy with it. Later!

    UPDATE: The fact that I got a play-by-play of the Yankee Game from my phone while out is absoultely amazing.

  • April 6, 2006

    E-Mail Virus

    I just got an email from a friend that I am 99% sure is a virus. It has the subject “Birthday Please” and says this in the body:

    Hi

    Click on the link below and please enter your birthday for me. I am creating a birthday list of all my friends and family.

    http://www.birthd…(link removed)

    Many thanks
    [person]

    So, I wouldn’t click on that link. Watch out. Later.

  • April 5, 2006

    Now I have seen everthing

    Mac Boot Camp

    I think Disney put it best when they said I saw a peanut stand, Heard a rubber band, I saw a needle that winked its eye. But I think I will have seen everything When I see an elephant fly. Well ladies and gentlemen, the elephant has taken flight. Intel Macs are booting Windows, officially. Get the software off of their site here. I knew a couple of weeks ago of a hacker who managed to boot XP on an Intel Mac, but hackers do all kinds of crazy stuff that mess with the powers that be. This is different.

    This is monumental. Mainly because now I have no good reason to hate Mac computers. Some of my readers know I am not a big fan of macs because of how proprietary they are were. But now, Intels, and WinXP legally booted onto a mac. What is the point of buying a dell or gateway now? I mean, there are the IBMs, which are untouchable in my eyes. But now you can have the multimedia aspect of a Mac, with the familiarity of WinXP. I got to say, I don’t really know what to think. Even though I just kind of told what I think. Will I buy a Mac now?? Probably. Will I enjoy it? Not at first. But it will probably be like sleeping in a new bed. Kind of ehh at first, but you get use to it. Let me know what you think! Later!

  • April 1, 2006

    CKY [again]

    CiG

    WOW. Over the last week I have been very very very busy, and will be until probably April 10th. Then I can breath and enjoy my (slightly longer) spring break. However, I did take the time last week, on Sunday night, to see CKY again. They came to a small club near my school called Tinks and I couldn’t say no.

    As usual, they put on a hell of a show. They played a few favorites, like Disengage the Simulator, Escape From Hellview, Close Yet Far, and a new favorite of mine, Shippensburg. The first time I heard it was the Albany show, and I had to hear it again. My favorite part of the show was probably when Chad did the bitch toss (which he retired in 2005) during a GG Allen song.

    After the show we stuck around and talked with the band. They are all really cool. My bro and I took our friend Melissa (it was her first show) around and helped her get her stuff signed. Over all a good time. If you ever get the chance to see CKY in concert, you MUST. Later

    Pics from this and the otehr show here