I am a big fan of the Seinfeld television show. To me, the show epitomizes middle class America comedy in a way no other sitcom has ever managed to do.

In one particular episode, for some reason that I can’t recall, Kramer decides he’s at the time in his life to go without underwear. In a particularly funny scene with Jerry and Elaine, Kramer announces to the world that “I’m out there Jerry and I’m loving every minute of it!”. Free at last, free at last.

What does all this have to do with website design you might ask? Well, read on and let me tell you the rest of the story.

Free at Last from Internet Explorer 6.0

While developing a new website I was faced with the standard task of breaking down the CSS and XHTML code to insert the necessary hacks to make Internet Explorer 6.0 behave. As we all know, IE 6.0 does not comply with web standards and presents nightmare scenarios for web designers who feel they should continue to support this outdated piece of software. The original version of IE 6.0 was released in 2001, making it almost nine years old. Heck, IE 7.0 has been released for a couple years now and IE 8.0 is the current production browser from Microsoft.

I don’t know what came over me, but as I delved into the code and begin to write my IE 6.0 hacks I had a revelation: Enough is Enough. I am through with IE 6.0. I will no longer support it, code for it, or otherwise let it enter into my life as a web developer.

What a breath of fresh air. I immediately felt free from the bounds of some unseen master who has been imposing his will on me for years now. But no more. Finished. Done. Ended. Complete.

I’m Out There World and I’m loving Every Minute of It!

My best wishes to those who continue to use Internet Explorer 6.0. Your trusted friend will continue to serve you in some fashion, but not well I am afraid. Good luck and good riddance!

As for me, it’s time to move past the “boxers” or “briefs” stage of my life. It feels great being “out there”!

ProBlogger.net is a very successful and lucrative website that Aussie Darren Rowse has developed over the years.  That got me thinking: why not AmateurBlogger.net?

While following a series of Tweets sent by  Chris Brogan while attending  BlogWorld Expo I came upon one that mentioned the domain name AmateurBlogger.net. You can see the Twitter message for yourself.

I am looking for great ideas on how to successfully market and develop this domain. If you have some ideas about how to develop AmateurBlogger.net please contact me to discuss it?

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Here’s the most Twitter-like feature from Facebook, the @Mentions. This feature allows you to tag on your status update anything you want including friends, groups, and events just by adding the “@” symbol..

By typing a “@” symbol on your status, a drop-down menu shows up to let you choose which stuff you want to include on your status update, and that makes the user you tag clickable on your status.

Breaking news … more to follow.

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I’ve been developing websites at 1955 Design for several years. I’ve designed and implemented dozens and dozens of websites. In that time, I have only had one contract go south on me. The client simply was not willing to comply with the terms of the original contract, wanted to keep adding additional features and time consuming modules to the project, and finally the lines of communication broke down. Even though I had a cause of action against him, in my opinion, we parted ways with me having done 95% of the work for the original 50% deposit paid.

That has been the exception. Each and every one of my other projects has been completeled smoothly and to the full satisfaction of the client. Sure, there have been some bumps along the way and some issues that need to be worked out from time to time with a given client, but for the most part the process works smoothly.

In fact, the process works so smoothly that it reinforces my faith in human nature. My typical project goes something like this:

• I receive a cold contact from a client about their website project
• Communciation begins, with quick replies to their email questions & concerns
• After gaining an understanding of their needs, I develop a web design proposal and submit it to the potential client for review
• Once the project is approvoved, and a 50% deposit received, I begin work on the project according to the timeline specified in the contract
• Sometime thereafter, the project is completed and the client completes payment before the files are transfered to the client site and made live

What Intriques Me the Most

The thing about this process that I find most intriquing is that in almost every case I have never even spoken to the client, either by phone or in person. Most of my projects are completed for clients distant from me, often in states hundreds or thousands of miles away. But somewhere along the way a trust is developed between us. A trust that causes the client to send me hundreds or thousands of dollars, sight unseen, with the promise that I will perform work for them.

And the beauty of it is that I do perform the work for them. Everyone ends up happy and satisfied with their end of the bargain.

The internet can be a scary place, full of tricks, hazards, and pitfalls. But I have found it to be a comfortable spot where reasonable people conduct business, often times by simply trusting the person on the other end of the transaction.

What has your experience been?

I have a friend who is having some bandwidth stolen, so I am trying to modify his .htaccess file to stop the theft. I think I finally have the problem solved.

Here is the code I included in his .htacess file to prevent bandwidth theft from outside websites:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+\.)?vintagerotaryphones\.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png|wav)$ /images/nohotlink.jpe [L]

That being said, here is the link to the wav file that is being stolen. Give it a click and see how it works. I think it will solve the problem.

One of the struggles I have had recently is determining the best way to allow my clients to update the content on their websites. Although there are a myriad of content managment systems to choose from, in my experience most of them are too complicated for the needs of the clients I normally work with.

I have personally become a convert to using WordPress as the backend for most sites that I design. By doing so, I can update most client sites from anywhere in the world through the WordPress web based interface. This is a great advantage as I am no longer tied to the various desktop software applications in my office in order to accomplish most updates.

With the exception of blog themes that I have done, none of the clients for whom I have setup WordPress as a CMS system have ever updated the content on their sites. Not a single one. This isn’t a client failing, but rather I feel that WordPress is just a bit too complex for most clients.

Enter CushyCMS

Earlier this week I stumbled upon a simple content management system called CushyCMS. In keeping with the claims made at their website, CushyCMS clearly is simple to use. It took me five minutes to setup CushyCMS to control the content at one of my own websites. Five minutes.

The CushyCMS interface is simple, intuitive and user friendly. It’s hard for me to imagine any client who will not be able to use it to update their content. I look forward to using it on a client site that I am currently developing.

One of the best features of CushyCMS is that it allows the web developer to control which particular page sections the client can update. No longer does the developer need to worry that the client will disrupt the navigation elements on the page, for instance. By applying a simple CSS class class="cushycms" to any page element, the developer is able to limit the client to only modifying the content of those particular elements. Brilliant idea and integrated nicely into the CushCMS package.

Although I have only been testing CushyCMS for several days now, it’s clear to me that I will be able to use it on many future website projects. I recommend that you take a look at CushyCMS to see if it meets your needs and those of your clients.

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One project I completed earlier this year featured optimizing the placement of Google Adsense code. Many blogs, including several that I control, use Google Adsense to help monetize their operation. Do you use Adsense on your blog? If so, are you all warm and fuzzy about Google Adsense? Is it worth the time and the aggravation?

There seems to be a love/hate relationship with Adsense. Some site owners swear by it, while others find the limitations imposed by Google to be difficult to deal with. Another camp feels that Adsense ads ruin a blog and cheapen it in the process.

I maintain several blogs that utilzie Adsense to try and recover some of the expense of the server costs, maintenance fess, etc. It’s nice to get that check from Google – even though it’s not very often!

• www.RecycledBugs.com
• www.SaveOurPolice.com
• www.RochesterMich.com
• www.TicketQuota.com

I Really Should Work Harder

I really don’t put much time into any of these blogs. I have not done much in the way of stydying ad placement or tweaking the Adsense code or placement. For the most part, I break even and cover most of the cost of rleasing my server and other hosting fees. Hardly the stuff dreams are made of in terms of adverstisng or click-for-pay dollars. Needless to say, much of this is a function of the realtively low traffic that these blogs attract.

Tell Me About Your Adsense Experience

What is your experience with Adsense? Are you making enough money to pay any other bills other than hosting, etc? What advice do you have for others on how to improve their Google ad revenue? What ad placement have you found to be successful? What colors scheme and what ad layout have worked the best for you? I’d love to hear everyone’s experience with Adsense.

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Who wouldn’t want their own custom WordPress smiley icon?

I often visit at Mike Cherim’s Beast-Blog. Mike is a genius withto WordPress, and I always learn something new when Mike writes about tweaking WordPress. Adding Your Own WordPress Smilies explains how to make your own personal smilies / emoticons for use with WordPress. Following Mike’s instructions, I was able to make a personal 1955 Design smiley in a matter of minutes. :1955:

Using a text editor, open the functions.php file in the wp-include directory. Look for an array that contains the following code:

     ';)' => 'icon_wink.gif',
    ':!:' => 'icon_exclaim.gif',
    ':?:' => 'icon_question.gif',
    ':1955:' => 'icon_1955.gif',

I added the last line of code and created a small icon in Photoshop and named it icon_1955.gif. Save your icon in the /wp-includes/images/smilies directory. That’s all there is to it. Any time I type the text :1955: into a line of text, the graphic smiley icon is inserted in its place. Pretty cool.

Custom Formatting with CSS Markup

The one tip I can add is that you might have to make some adjustments to your CSS file to make the smilies work correctly. On this website my CSS floats images and adds a border by default. So I needed to write some CSS markup to keep the smilies inline and borderless. No problem. WordPress automatically adds the class wp-smiley to code that it generates for all smiley icons. You simply need to write some CSS markup to handle that class. In my case, I had to make certain that the smiley icons did not float and remained as inline images with no padding and no borders.

.wp-smiley {
    padding:0 0 0 0;
    margin:0 0 0 0;
    float:none;
    display:inline;
}

That’s all there is to it. Now the smiley image appears in the text as if it was another text character.

In fact, the little graphic at the end of this paragraph is another WordPress smiley! Many thanks again, Mike, for helping the world become more proficient with WordPress.

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I’m addicted to designing websites. I mean really addicted.

The devil, in this case, is in the details. In your experience, do the last 5% of the details of site design take up about 80% of your time? I just can’t seem to finish a project. No, I don’t mean that I get lazy and put it off. What I mean is that the details never, ever seem to be satisified.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it is important to pay attention to the details when designing a website. After all, it is the details that probably set your site apart from the others. Attending to the details is a good thing. Obsessing over the details is what I am talking about. I have a hard time completing a project because it always seems there is one more detail to attend to. And one more detail after that. And so on. You get the picture.

How to you handle this problem? Please tell me there is a way I can finally knock out the “last” detail of a web design project!

The art of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is quite magical. I know that I have only just begun learning about it, and I suspect that no amount of study will ever give any web developer more than a glimpse at what its all about.

I consider myself a novice at both designing websites and SEO techniques. What I have learned about the process has come from information shared by others with far more expertise than I have, such as Mike Cherim over at Green-Beast.com. Mike’s article on SEO was very informative and really got me thinking about the process. Mike also gives a brief but accurate synopsis of why Google will love your website, too.

I think that most web designers and marketing gurus agree on one thing: a website designed in a semantically correct manner, using valid CSS and XHTML markup and regularly updated content, is far more likely to have a higher page ranking than a site that does not employ these practices.

With this in mind, I have been extremely happy with the page rankings I have achieved with some of the websites I have designed. In fact, my own website, Stoney Creek Web Design, has achieved what I consider to be very good page rankings by using the techniques noted in the previous paragraph. Here are a few of the results for my website:

Google Results

• Rochester Michigan web design
• 48307 web design
• Rochester Michigan website design

Yahoo Results

• Rochester Michigan web design
  
• 48307 web design
• Rochester Michigan website design

As you can see, my success at Yahoo is a bit better than at Google. Yahoo has my site listed #1 on two of those searches and #2 on the third. Google has me listed in the 4th or 5th position, but as a rule the sites above mine in ranking do not seem to have anything to do with Rochester or Michigan. Go figure.

Note: As of October 17, 2007 each of the search terms above results in a #1 ranking with both Yahoo and Google! Yeah!

I have had similar success with some of my client sites, too. Although much remains to be learned about SEO techniques, which are ever changing, it does seem like common sense, good coding practices and fresh content play a key role.

What are your tips for enhancing Search Engine Optimization?

Complete: I just completed a very small project for a new friend of mine over at Table4Five.net. The project involved adding a little bit of PHP code to the sidebar widget features of that site. The purpose of this code is to either display or limit the display of certain advertisements on the sidebar based upon a set of criteria about each particular post being displayed.

While working on this PHP module, I had occassion to read several of the posts and found Elizabeth’s writing style to be interesting and unique. If you get a chance, stop on over at Table4Five.net and give it a read.

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If you updated WordPress in the past few days, download the new version and update it again. A hacker was able to add malicious code to the download. The new version is WordPress 2.1.2. For more information see: WordPress 2.1.1 dangerous, Upgrade to 2.1.2.

If you have only upgraded to WordPress 2.1, this does not apply to you. If you upgraded immediately after WordPress 2.1.1 was released, you should be okay. This appears to apply only to downloads within the last three or four days.

This is a highly unusual situation and more information will be forthcoming. Check out the announcement for more details.

My friend Mike Cherim recently posted an article about his experience with email spam. This got me thinking about all of the spam email that I receive, too.

I receive over 70% spam in my email. Maybe some day I will need all that Viagra, or all those penny stock tips, but for now I just push [Delete]. No harm, no foul, but I bet I miss an occassional legitimate email as I delete the numerous spam emails.

Come to think of it, though, I bet my postal mail is about 70% unsolicited garbage, too. Fortunately, it’s easier to delete the spam email than it is to process the postal spam. For me, this involves handling the postal mail, tearing off my address, shredding it in a cross-cut shredder and placing the mail in the Recycle container. Each week I take the recycled paper out to the curb so they trash men can collect it, recycle it, and have someone else send it to me in some future unsolicited postal mail.

I would be interested in hearing from others about their experience with email spam. Do you receive it? How do you deal with it and what do you do to protect yourself against it?

The site isn’t without the occasional slight oversight. There are a few errors when it comes to some of the finer points of semantic elements, and the occasional poorly chosen alternative text. On the whole, however, this is a well-crafted website: and certainly a fantastic first stab at accessibility!Joe Dolson
Accessites.org

We have carefully crafted our main website to be accessible to the largest number of website viewers and devices. We have also paid attention to using only valid XHTML and CSS code to run this website.

With this in mind, we are very pleased to announce that this site was recently reviewed by Accessites.org, which is a website that aims to prove that accessible, usable web sites built with universality and standards in mind need not be boring. They showcase artfully crafted sites made by some of today’s most progressive web developers.

We are very proud to be recognized with a “Quality Universal Design” award by Accessites.org and thank them for their recognition.

Complete: I have just completed a new project for a southeastern Michigan landscape design contractor, Willson Steinkopf.

This project, as with several others I have done, involved working with a Detroit area marketing firm. It was necessary to coordinate the design of this site so that it fit with the flavor of the existing print adverstising that was in use. It was a fun project and I am pleased with the results!

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Choosing the proper words for your blog’s hyperlinks is an art form. When you give it some thought, you realize that there are many different ways to write the text for the link. One of the mistakes that many new bloggers make is to use link phrases like Click Here. The most highly regarded web standards organization, World Wide Web Consortium, makes the following recommendations to consider when developing your link text:

• Provides some information when read out of context
• Explains what the link offers
• Doesn’t talk about mechanics
• Is not a verb phrase

To read more about properly forming your link phrases, visit the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website.

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