The robots.txt file is a file you can include in your site directory to help prevent most spiders or bots (automated programs) from ‘crawling’ or indexing certain directories. Here someone (on the Lastfm crew http://www.last.fm/robots.txt) decided to have a bit of fun with it, note the last set of rules.
I’m a sucker for a good liquor bottle label, I love The Prisoner wine and most of the Orin Swift collection (how cool is the Papillon label?). So it was no surprise that this awesome bottle caught my eye. I confess I have not tried this rum, but I’ll have to report back to you as soon as I locate a bottle. The Kraken is our of my favorite sea monsters, and one you don’t want to meet on your oceanic travels!
I stumbled upon an interesting fact while reading up on a post about how Google is creating a competitor for Facebook. Every month Google records over 2 billion searches for the word Facebook. Here is a screenshot of the AdWords Keyword Tool results.
Screenshot of the search for the word Facebook using the Adwords Keyword tool.
So it stands to reason obviously that a good number of these searches stem from people not knowing the difference between the search bar and the address bar in most of the popular browsers these days. Here is a screenshot in case you don’t actually know! The one on the right is for searches, and you can actually choose your own search engine (you don’t HAVE to use the Googles you know).
There is a difference between these two fields!
One other interesting thing to note…Google has their own browser (you might have heard) called Chrome. In a twist to the usual address and search field set up Google just has one field for both.
Google Chrome, one search to rule them all.
If you enter just the website title in the address bar most modern browsers will take you to the correct site if it is available (filling in the http:// and the .com etc). Google Chrome however will take you to the search results page since you are using their address/search field, thus adding more hits to their results pages…A bit crafty I say.
It’s amazing how fast the world of business, and seemingly the world in general, has changed in my lifetime. This is, of course, heavily due to first the personal computer revolution, and secondly the internet boom. I graduated from Boston University in 1987 with a graphic design degree which gave me the ability to hand-paint fonts! Needless to say, it quickly became obvious to me that unless I started learning how to use computers I would be left behind as an artist and a designer.
In addition to designing and developing websites I also run a small business, which has opened up a whole other area of evolution and education for me. I interact directly with every client, and when I am approached by a potential customer some of the first questions are generally:
“Help me understand the process of building our new website.”
“How long does it take?”
“What are the costs involved in this?”
So let’s hope this post will begin to illustrate one of Bitclone’s basic processes – developing a WordPress CMS-based website. It should provide something of an overview, and help you get started in thinking about your project and some of the questions you’ll need to answer. We feel it is important to point out that every job is different, and part of our goal is to help you maintain your company’s unique identity among your competition. Having said that, there are some common points of focus we have identified through experience, and can discuss here.
So I had been writing this big post about WordPress 3.0 coming out, and how we were so sneaky as to be running a release candidate on our site…Then we got busy and by the time I came back they went and released the final version! The new version 3.0 is called “Thelonious” after the great jazzman and purveyor of awesome hats I assume. I am going to try to do some specific feature updates as I encounter them while upgrading our small fleet of WordPress clients! Some of the most noteworthy additions I have been testing include the merging of MU (multiple user version) into the standard version. That and the new custom post types alone make this a pretty huge upgrade and really push WordPress closer to being the perfect full CMS solution. My only concern is the application will get too bloated, as they continue to add to it, so I am going to also run some speed tests to compare this new version. Results to follow shortly I promise!
If you have not seen “Straight No Chaser” the Monk documentary directed by Eastwood…I’d recommend it.
Here is a preview video for the upcoming release of Opera Mini. The developers at Opera have always been really sharp, their browser is standards compliant, and usually full of cutting edge ideas. It seems the only reason I can think of people don’t use their web browser more is they initially charged money for it. My good friend Mark Wyner even used a version of Opera along with a Mac Mini to build an amazing kiosk set up. Check out the video below, they do a good job of displaying the functionality and speed of this little beasty. What do you think, if they charge money for it will you pay?
Hey Portlanders! We are working with Someday Lounge (one of the coolest clubs in Portland) to put together this benefit concert for Haiti. We have organized nine really great local bands who will be doing renditions of their favorite Neil young songs, with all the profits going to benefit earthquake relief in Haiti (i’m sure you heard about that right?). you can catch me playing bass with miss Lana Rebel and her crew from various bands. tickets are on sale now and you can get more info from this webpage I set up.
Sometimes it’s a simple idea and really great execution that results in a pleasing piece of art, other times it can be a grueling exercise of narrowing down shards of ideas right? These pieces by artist Katerina Orlikova combine two things I really love, typography and anatomy in a fresh and pleasing way. Replace the bones in these animal x-rays with elements of typography, simple yet brilliant spark of an idea carried out to fruition. I have to say I’m a bit jealous I didn’t think of the idea first, as I have a pretty large collection of anatomy books I’ve scored at thrift shops over the years. Well earned kudos to Katerina nice job!
Hard to believe 10 years ago we were all (well some of those people) worried about the great digital disaster Y2K! We are fortunate to still be around and to be celebrating 5 years of our little design agency Bitclone here in Portland Oregon. What’s been the key to our success? Well in addition to a meticulous obsession with new technologies and how they affect design, I believe it is our desire to provide a personal commitment to serving our clients. My grandfather was an amazing and inspiring human being who ran a Ford dealership in Old Saybrook CT. He had clients all across the country and he was often driving to places like Florida to personally deliver their cars to them! The man was always on the move, he would take these 15-20 minute power naps to recharge, but then pow he’s back up mowing the lawn, tending his huge garden, or helping someone out with a small task. He lived to a feisty old 93 years of age, take what you will from that and let’s rock 2010!
Here we are at our favorite little Perierra Crepe Cart (corner of Hawthorne and se 12th).
While WordPress obviously wasn’t initially designed to be a full featured CMS, and it still has a ways to go in competing with Drupal or Concrete, this is a great trick you can use to expand your ability to add content which is editable from the admin area. WordPress Custom Fields will allow you to add data below the post area when you are creating a post (or a page which uses “post” info basically). You can create a Custom Field “Name” and “Value”, the name is basically a key that you can use to call the content in your template…which is the great part of this as it allows you to place editable content outside of the main post area on a page. Here is a screen shot where you can see I have added two Custom Fields, one for a picture (I didn’t add the picture value yet, but you can add a pict via the main content area then just copy the HTML info and paste it in) and one for a quote the client wants to change on each page (click the thumb for full size).
You need to actually edit your templates a bit, but it is fairly easy. Once you have created your Custom Field Name and added some content (value) you can use the get_post_meta() (click here for more detailed info) function as demonstrated below, just swap out Custom Field name where indicated and you can place this in your template-
<?php $key=”YOUR CUSTOM FIELD NAME”; echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true); ?>
You can play around with adding html in the custom field or your template to get styling correct. This is how it looks in my template where I want the quote to show up.
I also recently discovered a nifty plug-in which will add tinyMCE toolbar functionality to the Custom Fields! Very cool.
Bitclone is a small Portland, Oregon based Web Design Agency owned by these two nerds Eric Baldoni and Alex Carey (pictured above somewhere in the outdoors, clearly lost without their trusty computers).