We just released a new website for Chuck Hawkins, the Mt. Pleasant Real Estate Site. Chuck has been living in the Mt. Pleasant area for 20 years, and comes from a pharmaceutical sales background.
I worked closely with Chuck and his wife, Sherry, during the design process, and I am very pleased with the result, both design and development-wise. We used Robot Workshop’s custom IDX MLS Search again, and I am very happy with their work as well. Check out the site, and let me know what you think!
I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and is gearing up for a great 2011!
We just launched a new website for Jay Edgerton and Yard Guys, a residential and commercial landscaping business in the Charleston area. Jay has been in the landscaping business for 16 years and brought Yard Guys to Charleston in 2006. Since then, he has built a very successful business. He has never had a web presence, though, and wanted a website both as an advertising tool to attract higher-end clientele and to keep in touch with residents in the neighborhoods he landscapes.
We collaborated with designer Amy Manucy to develop the site, and I am very pleased with the final look. Apart from the website design, Jay also contracted me to take photos of some of his landscape lighting projects as well as some of his other projects. Amy handled the rest of the advertising campaign as well, and I’m very pleased to have been a part of the project. Cheers!
On behalf of Bryan and I, I would like to thank our country’s veterans for their service in upholding our freedoms. I would also like to thank the families of those who lost their lives serving our country. We wouldn’t be here without you.
In honor of Veteran’s Day, I would like to offer a 10% discount on any of our services to all veterans returning from overseas. Welcome back.
One question I get a lot is how to create a gallery of photos in a WordPress post where a reader can click on a thumbnail and be taken to the full size image. This can be accomplished in a couple of different ways with different plugins, but for the purpose of this post, let’s do it with no plugins using just the WordPress interface. Before we begin, you will need to make sure your photos are re-sized for the internet and that you understand how to upload a photo to your WordPress site. Read More
With the current slew of digital cameras taking increasingly larger photos (file size), photos must be re-sized for the internet. The bigger the image sensor on your camera (mega-pixels), the larger the file is going to be. Since our internet browsing experience is limited by connection speed, its important to not try to display large files on a website, especially since Google is putting more and more emphasis on how long it takes a page to load. Most modern digital cameras are taking pictures at somewhere around 300 dots per inch (dpi) and screen resolution is 72 dpi. You also will want to re-size so the photo will fit on people’s monitors without scrolling. The smallest monitors around today are about 800 x 600 pixels. So, how do you go about resizing a photo? Read More
Back in 2008, Maria Smith, a computer art teacher at Wando High School, contacted me and asked me to be the chairperson for her Career and Technology Education (CTE) council. CTE is a program in the Charleston County School District where different schools specialize in different areas to teach students career skills as well as the three R’s. Wando specializes in computers. Being an ex-Wando Warrior, I happily agreed to do it.
The first time I visited Wando (the new one, not the old one I went to waaaay back in ’93), I was blown away by the tech in the classrooms. Computer labs filled with iMacs, large format printers, graphics tablets, etc. Maria herself has 20 years experience in the graphic design industry and is doing a great job passing her knowledge on to her students.
I visited Wando yesterday and spoke to her Beginning Photoshop, Advanced Photoshop, Animation/Flash, and Digital Art and Design classes about graphic design, web design, and being a small business owner. It was an awesome experience as the kids were great, and the CTE program is definitely working as a lot of the kids are interested in one aspect or another as a career. There were a bunch of questions about what schools they should be applying to as as well as what its like to be a small business owner. The kids definitely will have a leg up as they are using the same text books that they use at the Art Institute of Charleston. You can check out some of their work here.
Thanks, Maria, for letting me speak at your classes, and good luck to the Wando class of ’11!
One of the common questions (or statements) that I get from potential clients goes something like this, “I would like my new site to be at the top of all Google searches within my industry”. While this certainly is a valid thing to want, the first step is understanding what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is.
The first thing I usually tell people is that SEO is like a huge jigsaw puzzle with lots of pieces. Some pieces are bigger than others. My job as a web designer and developer is to get as many of those pieces as possible into place. Notice I said “web designer and developer”, not “SEO specialist”. A good SEO strategy begins with the design and development phase, but SEO itself is a separate field and a full-time job unto itself. Before we talk about some of the different pieces, its good to know how search engines function. Read More
October 25, 2001, Microsoft released its latest and greatest operating system (OS) for desktop computers, Windows XP. October 1, 2010, it’s still used by the vast majority of computers in the world. 60.03% of them to be exact (according to NetMarketShare.com). Since the release of XP, Microsoft has released Windows Vista and Windows 7. Vista was a flop (I’m sure there is someone who would argue that), but Windows 7 is proving itself to be a great OS. So why is a nine year old operating system still on top?
If I had to guess, I would say it’s that most people don’t see a reason to upgrade. Their computer works, so why do they need something new? As old computers begin to die, people will upgrade by default when they buy a new computer. One of the most common questions I get, being a “computer guy” and all is, “my computer’s running slow, can you fix it?” Usually, viruses aside, the problem is that they have a 10 year old computer running an antiquated operating system and an outdated browser, but they want to view the modern internet and use modern software. If you want a faster computer, its probably time to upgrade your hardware.
The OS I use the most only has 2.72% market share (Mac OS X 10.6). It’s modern, though, and I’m fine with the low percentage. Incidentally, the only computer I have running Windows is a five year old Dell with XP. I use it to run one of my printers. It still works fine (minus IE6 of course), and I have no plans of upgrading. For the majority of Windows users, though, I do recommend upgrading at some point, at least because Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported in XP.
So, what operating system do you use? Still using XP? Why?
Brian and I just launched a redesign of the website for Williams & Walsh Law Firm over the weekend. Williams & Walsh is a premier criminal defense and plaintiffs’ litigation law firm on James Island, SC owned by Lauren Williams and Abigail Walsh. They had an existing site that they were having a hard time getting updated, and it also wasn’t performing how they would like in the search engines.
Bryan and I used many of the design cues from the original site, but as far as allowing for easy updates, WordPress was definitely the go. We completely re-wrote the CSS for the site and added in some SEO goodness. Lauren and Abigail did a fantastic job writing their own content for the site. We’re still going to be tweaking the content and code to get it to where we want it to be in the search engine result pages and expect to see some progress in the next few months. In the meantime, check out the site here: www.WilliamsAndWalshLaw.com.
