Posts on graphic and web design.
Just got an invite to the Measure Map alpha. It’s a tracking software for blogs, developed by the fine folks over at Adaptive Path. Obviously, I’ve just signed up for it, so I really can’t say much about it at the moment. I am looking forward to seeing how well it works.
Here’s a “trick” from Rbird.com’s About Design blog on how you can update the appearance of Basecamp with these treats. (Kill me for my puns, I beg you.)
I wonder if it would freak our clients out if we changed how Basecamp looked all of a sudden? Hmm….
This gives me an idea… it would be cool to provide a resource of “theme” ideas for Basecamp. I know I struggled somewhat to come up with the right color combo for the PowerServe Basecamp…
Hat tip: Signals vs. Noise
It looks like AOL is giving it’s popular Instant Messaging app: AOL Instant Messenger a brand makeover. The logo shown to the right features the new AIM “speech balloon” that is prevalent in marketing materials promoting the new AIM Triton Beta client.
I’m surprised that AOL has taken this step to brand AIM more than it has in the past. In the past, they only used the little AIM “buddy” as the logo… but the new materials seem to either place him in a less significant role, or eliminate him altogether. But I guess they see AIM as being more central in their future plans.
Upcoming.org is a social event calendar, completely driven by people like you. Manage your events, share events with friends and family, and syndicate your calendar to your own site.
Note to self: add to that: Upcoming.org is now a part of Yahoo!
Another great concept for the web was snatched up by one of the big guys. Yahoo!’s been on a buying spree lately. Wanna make some fast cash???? Quick… start a ‘Web 2.0? company, build an app on Ruby on Rails, and build up a lot of hype around it. Yahoo! or one of the other major players will be around to buy you in no time! 
All joking aside… congrats to the Upcoming.org team. It’ll be interesting to see what they’ll be able to accomplish now with the support of Yahoo!
(Hat tip: 43 Folders)
I love web design, because it’s such a liquid format. With print design, once you create a piece that is all it will ever be. As long as it exists, it can never be anything else. With web design, once you create something… you can easily turn it into something else by tweaking the CSS or adding some additional imagery into a layout.
If you don’t like how something looks, you can easily change it. I love having that sort of flexibility.
So, having said all that… obviously, you’ve noticed some changes here at cdharrison.com. I’m sporting a slightly different layout, a new logo… and the blog is the core of the site now. It now utilizes the same design thoughout. The core of the site is using Blogger to publish content onto the site. I tweaked the templates to utilize some chunks of ColdFusion and Blogger code that I crafted up that enable me to use ColdFusion templates on every post page.
Making that happen wasn’t easy. I had to utilize some of Blogger’s conditional logic to pass off the proper relative paths to the generated pages. I was able to use <MainPage>, <ArchivePag>, and <ItemPage> to pass off the proper relative paths to the rendered pages. Using <MainPage> passed <cfinclude template="inc/hdr.cfm">. Using <ArchivePage> passed <cfinclude template="../inc/hdr.cfm"> to the render pages (due to them being a folder deep – /archive/). Using <ItemPage> passed <cfinclude template="../../inc/hdr.cfm"> to the rendered pages that were two levels deep (i.e. /2005/08/, /2005/07/, etc.).
It took me a few tries to get Blogger to play nice… but… as you can see… it’s now working. I am now using Blogger as a quasi-CMS. Whodathunkit?
Honestly, I’d really prefer to use something like MovableType, Textpattern or WordPress… but my current host doesn’t support PHP. I’m not complaining though… this solution will work fine for my current needs.
If you’re looking to try this sort of “technique” for your site, you may have to manually go into each post and republish them. One hiccup I encountered was older posts were not getting published with a .CFM extension. They were retaining .HTML extensions (which did not want to play nice with my ColdFusion markup). I had to go in and republish about 60 of my existing entries in order to fix this error. I think it’s due to the fact that Blogger only recently started supporting publishing all blog files to certain extensions. Previously, you could change your index and archive page extensions (and filenames), but all post pages were rendered out as HTML docs. I’m glad they made the swtch.
So, what’s next for the site? Good question. I plan on using Blogger to manage even more content on this site. I’ll be incorporating additional blogs into the site to manage the Folio and Links that I post to the site pretty often. Doing it this way will enable me to publish new things consistently…and will automate the process of linking all relevant pages together and creating Atom/RSS feeds that people can subscribe to. Because I’m able to use ColdFusion throughout the whole site now, I’ll hopefully be able to toy around with the design more. I plan on incorporating my Flickr feed into the site soon. I also plan on re-incorporating my iTunes Now Playing feed back into the site. I may also incorporate some other ideas into the site as well.
Anyways, stay tuned, because this site is sure to evolve even more in the coming weeks. I have only just begun tweaking this site out.
Here is a small design project I did for Mike Leaptrott, one of my co-workers over at PowerServe. Mike wanted some custom-designed poker chips for his new poker room. This was the first time I tackled this sort of design project, but I think they turned out pretty well, and definitely give his chips a more unique look. I can’t remember who Mike actually used to have the chips put together, but they exceeded his and my expectations.
Below is the artwork that I came up with for the chips. As you can see, each of the chips features the same basic artwork. To differentiate each of the chips, I used different color combinations to help them stand out from one another visually. This color differentiation was further enhanced by the colors chosen for the poker chips (see the photo above).
Yesterday, PowerServe joined the National Association of Photoshop Professionals as a Corporate Member. Personally, I’ve wanted to join NAPP for quite some time. I’ve enjoyed PhotoshopUser, the organization’s magazine, for quite some time.
Members get discounts on seminars, books, products, etc. Have you thought about joining?
I am considering some new directions for this blog and my website, cdharrison.com. I am currently investigating several new blogging packages, including Movable Type, WordPress, BlogCFM, and a few others. I think Blogger has worked so far for me, but it lacks several features that I feel a Blog application must have for me.
I am leaning towards BlogCFM, because it is 1) free, and 2) offers a lot of high-end features that I could really use. It does address most of my concerns (see above), which is nice. I feel comfortable enough working with ColdFusion code to think that I could add some of the additional areas to the code to my blog, should I choose to use the software.
I am also trying out a new stand-alone application for posting to my Blog: w.Bloggar. It’s a freeware app that integrates well with Blogger, Movable Type, and more. I’m pretty happy with it so far. I’m very comfortable drafting up posts solely in code, and this app allows me to do that. I can also access previous posts very easily, upload files via FTP, and more through the app.
Those crazy geniuses over at Firewheel Design finally released BlinkSale to the public. If you’re looking for an easy and affordable way to manage invoice clients, this may be the way to go. I really like the use of AJAX in the site. It’s easy to toggle between panels with the XMLHTTPRequest’s that are being made. The invoices seem very customizable. I really like what I’m seeing so far. I’m going to evaluate it a little further and actually use it to send out some invoices just to see how well it handles that part. But, if it’s half as good as what I’ve seen so far, I’ll be extremely happy with it. It’s affordable too! Plans range from Free to $26/month. Not too shabby at all. Nice work, Firewheel Design!
The folks over at 37Signals have been hard at work making continual improvements to Basecamp, their online project management app. They just enhanced the To-Do List functionality – adding drag and drop sorting, Adding/Editing tasks without reloading. Very cool AJAX stuff going on here.
Some people are not going to like these updates. I think they’re cool AND useful.
According to the Basecamp Forums, it looks like Time Tracking and an improved calendar within the Milestones section is forthcoming. I can’t wait.