Web Design, Programming, and BusinessIt has been well over a year since Google Reader said goodbye. While many of us have moved on to brighter RSS Feed Reader pastures some of us may just be getting around to searching out a great new RSS Feed Reader. What makes a great RSS Feed reader? Simplicity of use, ease of subscription transfer, mobile and web readiness are a few items that come to mind. We recently spent some time...
WooCommerce is a great E-commerce solution when it comes to building a store with WordPress, although WooCommerce can be a sledgehammer when all you need is something quick and lightweight. If you’re looking to solely offer digital products for purchase you might consider the Easy Digital Downloads plugin. Easy Digital Downloads comes with built-in features to quickly set up a digital...
Have you ever needed to copy or move a ton of files from one website to another? Have you ever run across the issue where only 1998 or 7998 files can be viewed in a directory even though you know there’s more in that folder? We ran across both issues this week. The issue stemmed from when the hosting company for one of our esteemed clients moved our stage server to the new live server...
If you work with WordPress you probably have a good idea what I’m going to write about today just from the title: formatting issues when switching between the visual and text editor. For those whom may not be familiar let me give you a quick scenario to describe what I’m writing about: You’re a developer/designer working in WordPress. Beyond chiseling out the shape of your...
Imagine this scenario: You’re looking to shop online for a brand new whatchamacallit. You Google it up, get a list of links, and select one of the first that appears relevant. Then you wait as the page chokes and crawls along in a frozen state while the images are being loaded. Within five seconds you jump back to Google and select a different link. It works great. The page loads almost...
What was it that brought you to web design and development? For many of us it was the energy and excitement of creating the most optimal, visually stunning solutions to a visitor interface and subsequently bringing that to life with code. For some, it was solely visual creation – stunning graphical elements and mock-ups, code be damned. Either way, as web designers and developers we spend many...
To generate high-quality thumbnails: Go to Gallery -> Manage Gallery Click on the gallery that the thumbnail is in. For example, if the thumb is on the Idea Gallery page, in the Details carousel, select ‘Idea Gallery – Details’ Check all the thumbnails that are low resolution (fuzzy) and from the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown, select ‘Create new thumbnails’...
Wow, here it is week 4 after starting my business and I finally have a bit of time to sit down and write! And that’s after a 60+ hour week…so that’s something to be ready for too: long hours at first! Setting Up Your Business – All That Paperwork I have my business set up as an LLC, filing taxes as an S-corp. I went this route because it’s pretty easy to set up, has...
The Big Picture: Is It Doable? The first step should always be planning: what are your goals and is it feasible? And beyond that, what’s the risks and rewards? What income and expenses will you have? For me, I’ve been itching to start my own company again for probably the last 2 years but it wasn’t until lately that it all started to really come together. The opportunities look...
Wow, I’ve worked at Peak Systems now for 5 years! Although I’ve enjoyed working at Peak, it’s time to move on and start my own business again. This will be my 4th web design business, and each time I’ve started up a web design business, it’s been more successful and more rewarding. My last business, ABD Insights, was acquired by Peak Systems in 2007, and I brought...
Web Design, Programming, and Business
Professionally building websites since 2002, I've worked at Microsoft, multiple agencies, and a few web design businesses of my own, including White Whale Web, a Boise-based web development agency. Previously, I was an owner of Thrive Web Designs from 2015 to 2022. I've taught classes, run design groups and even ran a benefit auction for 4 years in my free time. I love sharing and giving back to the web/creative community.