Hey everyone- I’m thinking about writing a book targeting student freelancers, but I want to see if there is interest first. Over at Freelancing the Net I’m currently running a poll to see what kind of audience there is for it.
I hadn’t realized it, but next month will be 2 and a half years since my last redesign, which is considerably longer than my previous time between designs; I was young and impressionable and didn’t know what I wanted. But now something is different. My needs in 2007 were different than my needs now. Then, this was just a place for blog entries (and the occasional trying out a new web dev trick). Now information sharing has increased 10 fold. I have shared thoughts and links on Facebook, Google Reader, Twitter, and here. The new design needs to reflect that, especially since my day-to-day blogging has decreased with the advent of Twitter. I present to you: Info Overload. If you’re in a feed reader, click on through.
A couple of weeks ago I was working on a WordPress site and thought it might be nice to add a simple widget that allows the user to place my bit of code anywhere in the sidebar they’d like. Here I’ll show you how to add a simple widget to WordPress.
WordPress is becoming an increasingly popular content management system on top of it’s popularity as a blogging system. More developers are choosing it as a solution to enable clients to update their own websites. And while WordPress out of the box is an excellent system, it could use a few tweaks to give most clients the freedom they need. Here are 7 plugins that will make your client’s job of managing their own website easier.
I’m happy to announce my first Theme Forest component, Directory Handler. it’s a simple set of 2 classes that handle (in several ways) listing the contents of a directory. The main class, DirectoryHandler, includes several functions that:
TheImageDirectory class extends the functionality of DirectoryHandler by changing the get and print directory functions to:
You can view a live demo here and Download the full documentation here.
A few weeks ago my friend Mary came to me with an idea for a new website; one in the same breadth as FML and Texts from Last Night, but for “That’s What She Said” jokes. A couple weeks and some quick coding later and I we give you Best That’s What She Said!, a place where you can share your favorite “That’s What She Said” moments with the world. Aside from the utterly hilarious innuendo that will undoubtedly come from the site, it was a nice practice in JQuery coding for me.
Most of the home page uses JQuery to post and call the newest moments, and the voting also makes use of JQuery. I actually found it easy to use and modify. Since it’s really flashy Javascript, I’m glad it follows the tradition of Javascript in being able to Google most of what you need. That’s not to say it’s all written for you, but there is a nice base for you to start with. I’ll be sure to integrate more JQuery into future sites.
Anyway, check out the site- any feedback is much appreciated! I can’t believe I went all the way* without making a that’s what she said joke!
* That’s what She Said
It used to be the case that Sunday truly was a day of rest. Shops closed, people went to church, had an early dinner, and called it a day. Then stores started to stay open on Sundays. The hours got longer. Now some places are open 24 hours, 5 days a week. Some 24/7. It used to be the case that once you left the office for the day, you were done working. How could you work? All your stuff was at the office. How would anyone reach you? Now we have cell phones, IM, email on our phones; we are reachable all the time. “Open†24/7. And that’s what people expect now. Our culture is moving towards a 24/7 work mentality to be more productive, and make more money. That needs to change.
It’s more coincidence than anything that I started to have these thoughts before, but on the same day that, I started reading The Four Hour Work Week. I’m just into it, and this post is not a book review, but Ferriss does talk early on about some of the stuff that spurred these thoughts. I wrote a while back about not responding to email right away. It’s not to be rude, but to set a precedent and draw some boundaries. If people think you are always available, they will expect you to be on call all the time. This isn’t healthy for you or them. And it’s not just with email.
I’ve had clients call me at midnight because they ‘needed’ to talk to me. I get calls on the weekend, and people who want to schedule meetings on Sundays. And it’s not that I’m lazy that I don’t want to do that; people can’t work all the time. It’s not physically or mentally healthy. So how do we solve this problem?
Don’t be afraid to draw those boundaries. Tell your clients or co-workers that you’re only available during business hours. Don’t answer business email on the weekend. Take the weekends for yourself. I took the 4th of July weekend completely off. From Friday to Sunday I did no work- I even put up an email auto-response. It was the first time in a long time I did that because I have the same mentality others do- I work a lot. Usually I take the weekends for side projects or small rush jobs I want to get out of the way. But it’s that mentality that causes a lot of people to burn out hard and fast.
Maybe it’s that we are in front of a computer anyway, or we think, “Well I’m not doing anything now,†that we take that call or work on that project. But we don’t have to produce all the time. It’s ok to do nothing. Having a lazy day is perfectly acceptable, and in some cases, needed. So far I like The Four Hour Work Week because Ferriss talks about how to be more productive in less time, and how to take time for yourself. I’ll post more about it as I read it, but remember this: Working 24/7 is NOT a good mentality. I think we should remember the days when Sunday really was a day of rest.
A couple of weeks ago, when I officially launched the redesign, I mentioned the forthcoming release of a plugin I wrote for the redesign. Random Code Generator is that plugin. I needed a plugin that generated a random promotional code and stored it in a database. I’m currently using it on Manifest Development to manage various promotions and ‘prizes’ I have going on, to make sure people can get a code, but cannot use it twice. Here is the official description:
(more…)
Cross posted at Manifest Development
After several months of design and development, I am proud to announce the launch of Burke Catholic High School’s new website. Burke first came to me back in November seeking a new, more interactive, easier to update website geared towards current students, parents,and prospective families. In development, I created the first iteration of Minerva CMS, a content management system powered by WordPress and geared towards high schools.
My freelance company, Manifest Development, has a new face! Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on a new website that accomplished a few specific goals: have a cleaner design that integrates the new logo, have a theme that is more general and easier to update, and be more blog friendly. I think I’ve managed to hit all of those goals.
(and use it to your advantage instead)
Join hundreds of business owners who are building simple, powerful systems through automation.