Tips, Tools and Trends
We are always finding cool tips, tools and information to make our lives, and yours, easier. Want to get these in your mailbox? Join our mailing list.
Written by Nick Villaume
|
14 June 2010
Posted in
Tools & Services
Wordpress will soon be releasing the 3rd major version of the open-source CMS tool and I received a chance to take a nice long look at Wordpress 3.0 the other night at the Atlanta Graphic Design Meetup. I have been hearing so much buzz about these "custom post types" as well as all of the new functionality that is being added to 3.0 and I was happy to get a demonstration and see what all the noise was about.
Although wordpress does claim the largest chunk of market awareness amongst open-source CMS platforms, I wonder, after seeing a live demo and tour of the new version, if Wordpress is really going to become a better tool or if it's is breaking Jason Friends rule of less is more by trying to be more like its competitors.
Written by Nick Villaume
|
14 June 2010
Posted in
Project Planning & Management
"How much for just one rib?" For those of you who grew up in the 80's like me, you might recall the classic spoof film “I'm gonna get you sucka!” In this film, Chris Rock plays the part of a goofy kid who walks into a BBQ joint in Harlem and inquires about buying a single rib and a sip of soda poured into his hand and then pulls out a crisp $100 bill to pay. Over the many years that I have been a web developer, this phrase has come to stand for clients who want all the features of a professionally designed web site, but do not want to pay for it. Not to say they can't. They just don't see the value.
In this article, we'll look at why goes into a web site and why the $500 web site is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
07 June 2010
Posted in
Project Planning & Management
There is a vast range of technologies available to today's web developer, and it is very easy to become bogged down in trying to understand and accommodate sales and markets for each. However, it is prudent to identify the technology in which you work best and then identify a market that matches this technology.
This article is an except from our Web Designer Certification Program and helps to explain the core technologies used in web site development.
04 June 2010
Posted in
Tools & Services
Have you ever wanted to kick the tires on a content managment system, but can't find a good sandbox site to play with? Installing and configuring some of the populat CMS tools on the market can be a daunting chore. In order to give you a better understanding of each of the content management systems we use, we have setup some sample versions for you to kick around on our site.
25 May 2010
Posted in
Tools & Services
Check out this article from 37Signals.com product blog. http://bit.ly/dfmk2Z It is about how a design firm in Brooklyn uses their product called Highrise to organize his business. Guess who else uses Highrise? That's right! The Dev Department.
16 April 2010
Posted in
Tools & Services
We get a lot of emails from our clients asking us, "Was this site done with Joomla!" or "Can you tell if this is flash or AJAX?" Here are a couple of tools we use to figure it out.
05 April 2010
Posted in
Tools & Services
The Dev Department is now offering RSS-to-Email campaign setups that take your Joomla! enabled content and automatically sends it via MailChimp.
02 April 2010
Posted in
Project Planning & Management
Are you a designer who regularly hands sites off to developers for building? Do you want to be? If so, we want to make sure you are putting the right amount of time into your estimates for planning and project management.
01 March 2010
Posted in
Announcements & Special Offers
We have just launched our certified web designer program and would love to get your feedback about the program and our new web site!
