I have been pretty busy working on a few new projects and remodeling some of the older sites I have created. My newest adventure is http://www.my-classic-car-trader.com/ Classic Car Classifieds. I am redesigning the backend of the site to make it more Search Engine Friendly to improve its ranking.
I just completed a new web site http://www.reiki-in-nj.com/. The site turned out great and I hope it works well for the site owner.
Another project I am jumping back into is Road Dog Photo, I am updating the site almost every part of it is editable for the owner. During the inital site design I did not include the fading images, or the pricing of the photographs.
Traffic is starting to pick up on this site so I figured I better update the home page a bit. I wanted to find a unique way to display a screen shot of the sites that I have recently created. But I didn't want them to appear as flat images, I wanted to add a little bit more to them to make it stand out a bit better. I ended up using fireworks to create some transparent .png files
but I soon found out that Internet Explorer 6 does not correctly render them by default. So I had to go out and find a solution.
#el_id {
cursor: pointer;
position:relative;
display:block;
float:left;
padding:0;
margin:0 -100px 0 0; /*shift the element to the left 100 px */
text-align:left;
width: 228px; /*size of image */
height: 306px; /*size of image */
z-index:47;
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(enabled=true, sizingMethod=scale, src='/web-site-pngs/thesignco.png');
}
Above is the code for IE, but the problem was nothing showed up in firefox or the other browers since they ignore the filter element.
html>body #el_id{
background-image:url('/web-site-pngs/thesignco.png');
}
So I just added the background image to the element....and away we go. You can see the example on the home page.
You know, being in the IT field you realize how many of the "techs" that come out for an install really know. If they go off of their scripted setup they are lost. When did the field get so watered down? I realize that I still have a lot to learn but basic knowledge should be required when you are an ISP's tech support.
IT People already have a stereotype, I need not explain as you already have an image in your head I am sure. I would like to add another, some IT people are not the Over/Under weight person you have in your head, but rather an average computer user who only is able to do what is fed to them.
I mean if you are configuring a router you should at least be able to realize when you change the internal IP, you can't ping the default internal IP...You should not have to call tech support in order to get a router to work. You should know how to ping and tracert to figure out if you have connectivity. You should know how to move around in a router....
Well so far so good, I added a new spam prevention for the post comments section of the blog...Not like anyone is posting but I am tired of deleting the spam from bots :). I added a image captcha that for one day has stopped the spam dead in its tracks. This was very easy to implement once you knew where to look. I found the code for the captcha at http://www.ejeliot.com/. If you need something like this, check out this class.
My wife and I took a trip down to the Shenandoah Valley in VA over this past weekend. What a beautiful place that was. We spent the first day visiting two of the areas wineries oasis winery, and rappahannock Cellars. Of the two wineries we preferred rappahannock. The staff was very friendly and knowledgeable, the wine was outstanding and it had great view.
Over the next few months I am going to create individual links to each of the blog posts so I can have more pages indexed by my site. I also need to allow for the page header, keywords, description to be updated dynamically by the blog software. This would allow each page to be indexed individually and not be bulked into one category. I hope by getting more pages indexed on the web site, that the page rank will improve over time since the back links to the home page and all pages will increase with every new blog entry. Also I added an RSS feed to the blog that allows the page to be picked up by RSS readers, it is listed on feedburner at the moment. This provides a new back link to the website. I just need to tweak the title to include 'New Jersey Web Site design' more.
I haven't had much time recently to work on the spam problem I have with the comments section. It seems that the only thing I see on there is spam. I need to figure out a way to stop it or at least slow it down. I don't know if I will be able to create a system that will do it automatically, unless I start filtering out words, addresses etc. like a email spam filter. You know maybe that would work, the next chance I get I will put some effort into that.
I have been pretty busy lately building new sites for family and friends. I created a site for my dad and it is working well for him. I also have a few other sites in the works that I hope to be able to add to my portfolio soon.
I just added a news feed for the blog and i will be tweaking it to see how it relates to my search engine rankings. Blogs get eaten up by the spiders since their content is always changing and being updated constantly. I want to make this blog more portable without making it overloaded with features. I know when I went looking for blog software I wanted it to be simple with the ability to add on later. Most packages come with a ton of overhead to accommodate everyone's needs.
Ok one feature down, a few more to go :). Now I just need to add multiple images to each item. That shouldn't be too tricky.
I have been working on the blog for most of the week. I have been working on securing it as best as I can. I know its going to be an ongoing adventure as I will find holes in the system that I am creating. Right now I am pretty comfortable with it even though I know it still needs work. I have the admin section 99 percent complete, I need to add the ability to add images along with the posts. I have a php upload script that I will port into the blog and see how it works. I want to keep it simple, Most of the pre-packaged blogs out there seem to have too many features that I will never use. I have actually had a few comments, even though they were just spam it’s a start.
The Comments won’t show up until I approve them, this way it will allow me to keep the spam down. Oh well I will keep on plugging away at it. The next Update should include, RSS feeds, image upload, and trackbacks.
I have been working on the admin section of this blog for the last two days. I wanted to create an easy way to change the status of user comments to 'live' or 'draft' quickly. I will be posting a tutorial soon on how I used ajax to update the comment table without leaving the current page. I plan on having the admin section fully operational soon, ajax included. This could turn into a tool that I will use for all of my websites admin sections. If you can update the sites content without leaving the current page, it will increase productivity. Now things are getting fun.
Its crazy how fast things go by, I have been so busy lately I haven't had much time to finish this system. I have two new web sites that I should be finishing in a few weeks. I have been spending most of my time working on Search Engine Optimization. Getting ranked on certain Keywords is harder then it seems. I seem to do better on MSN then I do on Google, hopefully that will change with the recent tweaks. Maybe I will get some time today to work on the comments section. I just need to ensure that I can monitor what is being sent to prevent spammers.
I have been working with PHP for over 5 years now, and by no means am I an expert, there is still a ton to learn. I can build my own applications, pull data from a database, and I can work with sessions.
What I have been meaning to do for some time now is learn the procedures that would allow me to re-use code and make it more portable. I am writing this BLOG application to use OOP, so I can reuse the code for other sites that I build. It will also allow me to write pages quicker since I can just use the same basic classes for all of my sites. There is a tutorial that I have been working with recently, and I think it's a great way to venture into the world of OOP. If you have experience in PHP, and would like to learn OOP check out this site OOP Tutorial.
I plan on playing in a volleyball tournament in Ventnor NJ, next weekend. We shall see how it goes.
Welcome to version 1.0 of my blog. It still needs a ton of work, since I just started to develop it. I first downloaded and installed bblog, and I did like it but I decided I didn't need all that it had to offer.
What I really wanted was a simple app, that would allow me to post ideas or items that I am working on. I still need to add the following features to the blog.
- comments
- trackback
- Category Pages
- News Feed
I used a simple php/mysql database system to create this, I am learning oop for php and I hope that I can package this one of these days. I will keep you updated.