No Brag, Just Fact!

Published 12/01/2011 Under Bizness,News
I just have to brag on Ivan a bit. You don’t hear from him much, but he’s responsible for all of Pixelita Designs’ graphic artwork and a great friend and confidant. He’s been busy these last few months keynote speaking all over the place. Today he was the first speaker at the Internet Gurus of [...]

CMS Showdown: Appendix B (Recommended Modules and Plugins, CMS Made Simple and WordPress)

Published 11/11/2011 Under Design
This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series CMS Showdown
RECOMMENDED CMS MADE SIMPLE MODULES Form Builder This is on our short list of modules we install on every CMSMS site. You can have as many on your web site as you want and they can be as simple or as complex as needed. Aside from the standard contact form, we’ve used these as client [...]

CMS Showdown: Appendix A (Comparison Chart, CMS-MS and WP)

Published 11/11/2011 Under CMS,CMS Made Simple,WordPress
This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series CMS Showdown
COMPARING THE BASICS FeatureCMS Made SimpleWordPress URLcmsmadesimple.orgwordpress.org LicenseGPLGPL Latest Version1.10.13.2.1 PlatformPHPPHP Database(s)MySQLMySQL User LevelsYesYes WYSIWYG EditorYesYes Themes/SkinsYesYes Admin Themes/SkinsYesYes RSS SyndicationYesYes Multi-SiteNoYes URL RewritingYesYes XHTML CompliantYesYes Auto UpgradeNoYes Auto Upgrade Add-ons*YesYes Link ManagementAdd-onYes Community Resources**YesYes BlogAdd-onYes Support ForumYesYes e-CommerceAdd-onAdd-on * The term “Add-on” refers to plugins in the case of WordPress; and modules or plugins [...]

CMS Showdown: WordPress

Published 11/11/2011 Under CMS,Web Design,WordPress
This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series CMS Showdown
HISTORY WordPress began as a fork of the blogging system B2 Café Log (which is still being developed under the name B2 Evolution). It got a jump start by then-top dog blogging system Movable Type when Movable Type changed its licensing structure causing a mass exodus of users away from Movable Type to WordPress. From [...]

CMS Showdown: CMS Made Simple

Published 11/11/2011 Under CMS,CMS Made Simple,Design
This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series CMS Showdown
HISTORY CMS Made Simple (http://www.cmsmadesimple.org) (“CMSMS”) was founded in 2004 by Ted Kulp, who was looking for a solution to drive commercial, small business web sites, rather than just support bloggers or be a portal. Thus, CMSMS was born. And it remains today one of the best solutions for a small business or non-profit web [...]

CMS Showdown: CMS Made Simple Versus WordPress

Published 11/11/2011 Under CMS,CMS Made Simple,WordPress
This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series CMS Showdown
CONTENT (MANAGEMENT) IS KING If you are a web designer, you are no doubt familiar with the vast array of content management systems (CMSes) available today. WordPress has become the darling of the CMS and web design crowd and has been for quite some time now. Its large and active user and developer community has [...]

Take a Lesson From a 20 Year Old

Published 11/05/2011 Under Bizness
I came across a young man’s blog post summarizing his experience at BizBuzz 2011, just concluded in Nis, Serbia. My best friend is Serbian, and although I don’t understand much of the language, I still try to read things I think may be important or beneficial to me, with the help of Google Translator. In [...]

Ten Author and Book Web Sites for Inspiration

Published 10/27/2011 Under Design,Spotlight
With self-publishing all the rage and the ease with which one can publish one’s own book or offer up an e-book for sale, the author/publisher/book web site is more common now than ever. But you don’t want your site to be run-of-the-mill. Ideally, it should showcase your writing talents, feature your books and offer users [...]

Community Fire Department Gets Branded

Published 10/27/2011 Under Case Study
Concurrently with a web site redesign, we were asked to design new business cards for the Fire Chief and other key personnel at Sheldon Community Fire & Rescue. We took imagery from the new web site design and create a fire engine red palette that the guys love.

A Dozen “Five-Star” Restaurant Web Sites

Published 08/10/2011 Under Design,Spotlight
The lovely Sara Waters shared a Slate.com article on really bad restaurant design. That was my inspiration for this post, showcasing a dozen well-designed restaurant web sites guaranteed not to make you lose your lunch! 1. Zocalo Cafe Design Studio: Charlie Chauvin Platform: WordPress 2. The Arches, Malta Design Studio: Isle Creative Platform: WordPress 3. [...]

Five Web Design Mistakes Novices Make

Published 07/23/2011 Under Web Design
Nowadays, everyone’s got a web site. But not everyone has (or needs, or can afford) a professionally designed web site. If you simply cannot afford to hire a web designer right now, don’t sweat it. There are a few things you can do to make sure that your web site is at least not shooting [...]

Cutting Corners on Web Design Can Cost You Dearly

Published 07/19/2011 Under Bizness,News
Small business owners, and especially lawyers, if you want a web site, be prepared to shell out a bit of money for it. Just as you would any other service. Somehow, the web design industry has become cheapened and skill and talent and expertise are not appreciated. Until it’s too late.

Ten Terrific CMSMS Modules

Published 07/06/2011 Under CMS Made Simple,Resources,Spotlight
As you know, our focus is on web design using WordPress and CMS Made Simple. The last few sites we’ve developed (and one we will be launching soon) are based on CMS-MS. Why? Well, it lives up to its name, for one thing. And there are some great plugins out there. Some that fill a [...]

Upgrading a Really Old Version of ZenPhoto

Published 07/03/2011 Under Blog Tools,Technology,Web Design
Since the devs over at ZenPhoto moderate all newbie posts and they didn’t like some problems I was having with the upgrade, they decided to be a bit childish and not let any of my posts through. Even the one that solved the upgrade issue. So we can see from this that their egos are [...]

A Baker’s Dozen Beautiful Photography Sites

Published 06/26/2011 Under Design,Spotlight
A few days ago, I featured A Baker’s Dozen Online Portfolio Services for the starving artists among you who wanted to get your portfolios off the ground. Today, I am showcasing some beautiful photography web sites, some self-hosted, others using an online, web-based service. Each is beautiful in its own way. Enjoy. Alberto Oviedo Bottle [...]