Under the hood of YSpalooza.com

For the last month I’ve had my head under the hood on a brand new event for YS called, “YSpalooza.

Over at the YS blog I’ll talk a little more about what the event is and why we are excited about it.

But here I wanted to take readers behind the scenes to show off some of the nerd-factor I added to the website.

  • The site is fully HTML5 compliant. (No flash or plug-ins required to view the site, it looks great on mobile phones. All the hover overs and what-not works the same on a computer which it does on a phone.)
  • Since Internet Explorer isn’t HTML5 compliant, we had to learn a lot of hacks and workarounds for the world’s least functional browser.
  • This is our first big event to use Eventbrite for registration. I’ve used Eventbrite for a number of things and I totally love it. I especially love how it integrates with Mailchimp.
  • This is the first site in FOREVER (like maybe ever) that I build just in HTML/CSS without a content management system. It was like learning to ride a bike all over again. I love the customization level I was able to achieve by going this direction… but when it comes to managing content, there’s a reason you go with a CMS!
  • Building a site in this way has an aesthetic to it all it’s own. It’s a slow and methodical method. But I have a much more intimate connection to the site than I typically would. I have spent a ton of time on each of the 50+ pages.
  • Dave Luke was a freaking wizard. I’m not very good with coding websites and fortunately for me… Dave is formally trained. I broke stuff and he fixed it.
  • With no SQL databases or feeds or anything like that, the site loads super fast. Really, what you see is what you get.

This was a fun project to work on. For one thing, it’s a brand new event. So we were creating a lot. Typically, I manage a group of freelancers who all do 1-2 pieces of the pie. For this one it was a blast to do it in-house, with coding help from Dave.


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3 responses to “Under the hood of YSpalooza.com”

  1. Dave Luke Avatar

    Uh, the link is broken, minus the ‘s’ in designs and it will work

    1. adam mclane Avatar

      Fixed that. You’d think I would know.

  2. Todd Porter Avatar

    I love the site! Very cool looking and I love the idea of what it is advertising even more.

    BTW, I would have had a special message that came up for anyone who tried to view it on IE. Something like “How in the world is it that you are using Internet Exploder when there are so many better web browsers out there? You must be a moron and that is why you can’t see this site.” But that is just me. 🙂

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