Tag: web development

  • Two quick updates from McLane Creative

    A fun outlet for me is building WordPress sites, consulting, and social media campaigns at McLane Creative. Since it’s a creative outlet I tend to be pretty picky with who I work with. Here are three quick slogans I use to describe my work there:

    • Guaranteed to be on budget and past deadline.
    • I tend to chose you more than you chose me.
    • I pick projects that matter to me, regardless of budget.

    Interestingly, this tiny business has continued to grow through 2009-2010. And with marketing slogans like that… how could it not?

    I’ve fallen into a pace where 7-8 projects per years is just about right. Any more or less and it’s just not worth it.

    Two quick structural updates:

    1. I’ve moved all of my hosting from Bluehost to 6sync. More importantly, I’ve moved from a shared hosting environment which lead to some unexplained downtime and nasty malware, to a VPS environment where I’m much more in control. More on this move.
    2. I installed a client collaboration tool. The way MC works is that I build a custom team of freelancers for each project. This is an ultra efficient model of web development for the client… but the pitfall is that it requires that I manage a bunch of people working together for the first time over and over again. The new client area (powered by Collabtive) centralizes the teams communication with the client. More on this move.

  • 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.