Sunday, June 29th, 2008

I know, I know - it has only been a few months since I launched the SquareOne Web Design website, but as is my custom, I get bored and feel the need to redesign. So, I present to you version two of the site. I’ve moved to a much lighter look and feel, and after publishing the first version, I wasn’t too thrilled with it. This one works a lot better in my mind, but I still do have some work to do.

One of the main things that I wanted to do is spend more time making the site easier to update. I rethought how I actually coded the pages and came up with a much simpler, template-based system that makes updating almost any aspect of the site a breeze now. Additionally, I’m much happier with the color scheme. I’ve always been a big fan of earthier colors - browns, greens, etc - so this works a lot better in that regard.

There’s a lot of little tweaking left to do (notably having each page have it’s own ‘banner’), but these things will come in due time. Hope you like the new site!

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Posted on June 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

All of you Mac users out there probably know about Camino, the excellent open-source browser that is based on Gecko (Gecko, you may not know, is the same basic codebase that FireFox is based off of). You may even have heard that Camino 1.6 was released this week, after nearly a year of work on the 1.5 codebase.

Some of the new features are as follows:

• Toolbar search (you can now add on searches using OpenSearch) improvements
• Find bar now is not a pop up dialog. It’s on the footer, where it should be. Safari still kicks Camino’s ass with it’s search highlighting, however.
• Built-in software update via Sparkle framework.
• Better session saving
• Better Keychain support
• Leopard-specific UI fixes (retouched toolbar icons as well)
• Newest stable Gecko rendering engine.

Camino would be my default browser of choice if it weren’t for a few nagging issues. That doesn’t mean that I don’t use it almost all of the time, but little things keep me falling back to Safari. But the bottom line is that Camino is fastest browser on the Mac with a very low memory footprint. That means that it’s fast, and it doesn’t ever slow down your system over time. The Safari folks can’t say either of those with a straight face, though they seem to want to claim it. Throw in excellent cookie management, built in flashblock and adblock, and throw in the excellent UI and wonderful Camino community, and you’re set.

However, with all of that said, as long as some of the following nag the browser, I’ll be sticking with Safari 3.1 as my default:

• Buggy Flash: flash still doesn’t play nice with Camino all of the time. Sites that don’t crash any other browser have a tendency to crash Camino.
• Camino needs draggable tabs, a la Adium, Safari, etc. This was supposed to be in 1.6, but has been pushed back to 2.0.
• .Mac sync. I want the same bookmarks at work, at home, everywhere. All the time.
• Widget weirdness - this should be fixed in 2.0 when they switch to Gecko 2.
• If I can be picky, I’d love some developer tools type stuff: Activity monitor, DOM inspector, javascript debugger, source/css editing … but I’m not counting on it.

Still, Camino is the fastest. lightest browser on the Mac as it is, and the issues I have are all trivial. If you haven’t ever used it, you should give it a try. You’ll definitely be happy with your experience.

Technorati Tags:
applications, macintosh, reviews, software, camino, gecko, mozilla

Posted on April 20th, 2008 | No Comments »

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Recently I came across a problem in Mint that I thought I’d share a solution to. Over the past month or so, I had noticed a huge drop off in traffic on my site. At first I figured this was due to the fact that I wasn’t writing anything interesting (certainly a possibility), but I also noticed a substantial drop in Google’s organic results too. After doing more research, I noticed that only a tiny fraction of my pages were actually logging page visits to the database, and the rest were returning 503 errors, saying that the service was unavailable.

Basically, people were visiting the site, but Mint was not able to record the visitor information because it was being rejected by my server. After talking with the DreamHost support staff, it was determined that mod_security was probably to blame. Mod_security is basically an add-on for my webserver that protects against folks running attacks (usually through malicious javascript), but can also sometimes shut down normal services such as my Mint tracking software. I was able to turn it off in the control panel, but I also had to add the following to my .htaccess in my wordpress folder (which for me is the root level of the server):

<IfModule mod_security.c>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
SecFilterCheckURLEncoding Off
</IfModule>

After saving the updated file, I was able to view statistics for all of the pages on my site. I honestly have no idea what caused this to start happening - maybe the upgrade to Wordpress 2.5 was the culptrit. I hope this helps anyone who is experiencing similar problems.

Posted on April 15th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

So, I finally took the plunge, came up with a name, bought a domain, ordered business cards, and did all of the paperwork necessary to get the ball rolling on my very own shiny new (side) business. I’m really excited to have more control over expressing my creative side, along with making some extra money to boot. The ultimate plan is to grow my own business and run that full-time within the next 2-3 years, but for now it will be a side project that I work on along side my current job. So, without further adieu, I present to you SquareOne Web Design.

I anticipate my workload increasing steadily over the next year or two, to the point where I can then quit my job and do this full time. The nice thing about my current full time gig is the fact that I get one weekday off in the middle of the week. This gives me ample time to focus on other things, and will allow me to ramp up to a second full time job. However, for now at least, it’s all about building contacts, building a portfolio, and getting a workflow of my own so that when the time comes, it will be a seamless transition into my own gig.

Why am I doing this? While some it goes back to frustration at my current place of employment, it has been my plan to own my own business by the time I was in my 30s for quite some time. So really, this is a natural progression for me on the way to that goal. I feel like I have the talent to compete just fine with other small design firms around here, and should be quite successful once I get in the swing of things. I’m really excited about the prospects of working from home full time at some point in the future, which is something that’s definitely realistic in the line of work I am pursuing. On top of that, I kind of love web design. So, if I can do this full time, on my terms, I’m going to be a happy camper.

So, please check out the site and let me know what you think! It’s going to be kind of bare until Michelle and I work on the text, I finish all of the minor changes I want to make to the site, and I get through with my first round of clients … but I figure why not launch now and get the word out. If you’re in Atlanta or the Southeast and need web design work done, don’t hesitate to look me up. I’m giving 10% referral fees to friends and folks in the early goings (maybe until the end of August or so), so if you know anyone who needs web work done, send them my way as well & and there’s some money in it for you.

I’ll be chronicling my successes and failures here as well, but I am also planning to start focusing more on web design articles over at the SquareOne web site, and more general stuff here. So maybe you guys will luck out and not have to read as much html-related stuff anymore.

Technorati Tags:
businesss, web design, announcements

Posted on March 8th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Monday, February 18th, 2008

I think that one of the things that I struggle with the most as a web designer is the delicate balance between realism and idealism–the idea that I should only be involved in projects that somehow better myself or my clients, especially based on their artistic merits. A sense of regret and frustration fills me when many of the projects I am involved in are finally published, and I feel that an opportunity has been lost. Either the site is hurried and thus lacks the polish that I’d like to give it, or we are not given the materials or clarity we require to do our best work. Of course, sometimes we simply drop the ball — it’d be silly to assume otherwise. However, I do feel most of the problem is bad communication, and that is an issue that you can solve. I suppose I live in a dream world where I expect every project to be portfolio-worthy.

Of course, this cannot always be the case. Moreover, much of the time the client leaves completely satisfied, and it is only I who am disappointed, unaware that we have actually fulfilled the main objective — to make their voice heard on the web, and get their message out to their customers. If I succeed there, then the client is happy and I should be happy. Sometimes their artistic goals are much more modest than mine are. However, lately at my job I have been dealing with an endless cycle of frustration — lacking the opportunity to speak directly with many of our clients, and thus lacking the ability to give my creative input, give direction to the client, or educate them about why we are suggesting a specific direction.

This is something I struggle with constantly, and I doubt any specific person, client, or decision can shoulder all of the blame for this feeling. It is not a desire to be perfect, it is a desire to make a positive change. I make my share of mistakes and that is okay–it’s feeling undermined by my clients or my employers that really nags me. As previously mentioned, the lack of ability to control the direction of my current place of employment is ultimately the nail in the coffin for me.

The bottom line, of course, is that I have to just get over it. I either must cede control to my superiors, or I have to take that control for myself. I’m not sure there is a middle ground when working in small business. With that said, one of the things I have been really considering lately is going into business for myself. This would allow me to do things my way — which is what I thought I was being promised some time ago at my current position.

I honestly think this is the best (and perhaps only) way that I can be happy doing design. I know people all across the design and development spectrum who I could tap to help provide crucial support along the way, and I have enough contacts that can refer business to me that I should be okay when I do make such a move full-time.

Back to square one, I suppose. Regardless, it’ll be an interesting few months as I try to work out a direction in my professional life.

Posted on February 18th, 2008 | 4 Comments »