Thinkcage

Since the re launch, I have been paying special attention to the web server logs looking for broken links and missing files. In my redesign I really paid little attention to what came before, despite the fact that many of the items are crawled by the various search engines.

That said, there were a few items that were the main source of 404 Errors on the site, primarily my resume which is rather well indexed. So I quickly restored it and added some custom error pages to help anyone else that has an old link find something useful.

This has been a busy year in all the realms of my professional practice. At Advanced Academics I have been busily working on a brand new web site. This effort was a complete overhaul in content and strategy. Furthermore, the site has been cast completely in XHTML/CSS and Macromedia Flash. Its not 100% but its close. Some of the content is unfinished (in my eyes) and not every page validates 100% XHTML/CSS, but I think it’s a world better than the previous version. And more importantly, it launched last night. Visit the site now »

This has also been a busy year for me in my freelance work. Sometimes it feels like I’m too busy, but the work is rewarding and gives me a much-needed break from the single identity I design for in my day job. Now that my weblog is working properly, here are a few of the site launches that I failed to detail here:

Oklahoma Golfer is the online companion to Oklahoma Golfer Magazine, a new publication for golf enthusiasts. The site, like nearly everything I do these days, is all XHTML/CSS with data driven by PHP and MySQL. I can’t say enough about how powerful and easy it is to develop with PHP/MySQL. The syntax makes sense to my visual mind and the support of the community is fantastic. Any web developer with some familiarity with basic scripting (like javaScript) and access to PHP.NET should really consider PHP/MySQL. With OkGolfer, the site can accept and manage subscription requests and output them to a format compatible with the mailing house that ships the magazine; plus, it uses an open-source polling system to track reader poll answers —all via PHP. Take a look »

Pine Cone 66 Ranch is a very small company in Shawnee, Oklahoma that deals horse trailers. I built this site for a client that I had worked with in the past on Trailer Depot. The concept is the same, its a very basic site that lists current inventory along with lots of detail photos for online shoppers. While you can’t really buy a horse trailer online, you can get pretty close. It wouldn’t seem that horse trailers would be a logical online product, but Dave Mattern over at Horse Trailer World boasts over 6,700 visitors a day. The great thing about it is that Pine Cone 66 Ranch, via their web site, has the same access to customers that Trailer Depot and Horse Trailer World have. He can expose his inventory to shoppers all over the world. Furthermore, the site features a pretty robust content management system. The owner of Pine Cone 66 Ranch, who is a grandfather and lives out in the country, bought his first computer a month ago. Today he is updating his web site. The CMS allows him to type his listing and upload pictures from his new digital camera to the web site where they are dynamically re sized and displayed. That is what I love about what I do.

The site is more or less launched now. The design is really minimal until I work it further, but it’s functional. I’m pretty happy with the new logotype but the design is still too plain and the typography needs work. The weblog is woefully neglected, but now that I have a brand-new content management system things should really start to pick up. That said, I’ve been working too long already today so I’ll detail the nuts and bolts another time.

Look for many updates to the portfolio tomorrow.

Can you believe it? Two updates in one week? Ok, not exactly in the same week but they are technically only seven days apart.

Anyway, the reason for this update is the launch of Butter Boardwear. Ok, got me again. It’s the launch of the coming soon page. But it is coming soon. This is a cool company doing gear for wakeboarders. I’m working on their web site which will let you buy their gear online. Additionally I’m working on some designs for said gear. Those of you fortunate to both read this page and live in or around Edmond, OK might have seen me sporting a Butter t-shirt this weekend. But probably not.

Added some new items to my portfolio, and fixed the goofy display bug that made that page all wanky in IE6/Win. Not the portfolio I have been dreaming of…its mostly there these days to get my new clients into Google. Hehe.

My thoughts and efforts move more toward a blog-style of personal publishing with each passing day. I dream of a super-organized file system of XML data and dynamic pages that parse and display it. Doing database stuff on this site seems like so much overkill.

I also wanted to share this fantastic article I just read on Netscape Devedge with one of the creatives involved with ESPN.com’s forward-thinking redesign using structural XHTML/CSS. Its a great read — especially if you are in the process of convincing a boss or client of the values of standards-based design.

So today, thinkcage stands before you naked. There will be no big launch. No unveiling. I’m just going to put the thing up. Piece-by-piece. One line of code at a time. Expect things to be broken, missing, ugly, and otherwise strange at times as the site progresses. Maybe it’ll be interesting to watch or maybe it’ll simply be motivation for me to work faster. I am fascinated by the creative process and hope that some of you may be interested in my process.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the site. I don’t know all of what this site will be just yet — that is the beauty of it for me. There will be a portfolio for certain. Likely some little side projects that I’ve been thinking about will appear as sections. I’m leaning about 60-40 toward doing a blog in some form. I do not know.