October 14, 2008
Even though we’re closing in on the most pivotal presidential election in recent memory, the major news stories aren’t happening in Washington—they’re happening on Wall Street. With the Dow starting to look like more like a roller coaster than a stairway to heaven, people’s fortunes are hanging in the balance of our economic system, which has been nothing if not grossly mismanaged by our government.
To be sure, the root cause of a majority of the US’s economic problems is a general lack of understanding of fundamental economic principles, both in Washington and in the average American household. Obviously, this is a huge problem, and the only real long-term solution requires an increase in the baseline level of economic understanding.
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November 16, 2006
If you’ve been around here for the last month or so, then you probably know that I am the architect of the Cutline Theme for WordPress. Also, you might have gotten the notion that I take a lot of pride in my work…
Which is why it should come as no surprise that I would be positively incensed to find out that someone has blatantly ripped off my work and passed it off as his own. Sound ridiculous? It gets worse.
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October 11, 2006
If you could choose between a static home page or a dynamic one, which would you take?
Dynamic every time…but wait, doesn’t that require work to pull off?
Not if you use my incredibly simple random header image solution! Oh, and you could use this for more than just header images; I just figure that most folks will want to rotate their headers, since they tend to be the most dominant visual elements.
Are you ready to go random? Let’s do it!
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October 6, 2006
It seems ridiculous to call something that was created in February of 2006 an “old classic,” but here we are.
Just 9 short months ago, an anonymous Joe by the name of Brian Clark contacted me about designing a site for a little side project he had in the works. Now, at the time, all I knew of Brian was that he knew where to place a comma in a sentence, so to put it another way, I liked him already.
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September 15, 2006
From a usability standpoint, anything you can do to help your readers scan your content more effectively is a positive.
But if you can add an element that not only helps your readers but also adds an elegant, professional touch to your overall content presentation…then by god, I think you’ve hit the jackpot!
Today, we’re going to hit that jackpot together by adding a very simple, very stylish, and very useful element to our blogs — the ever-present pullquote.
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July 25, 2006
Today I’m going to talk about the holy grail of design, the one element that you absolutely must nail if you want your Web site to be effective and useful for your readers. By the time you finish reading this post, you’ll know what the most important element of design really is, and you’ll also know how to determine the efficacy of any Web site thanks to your keen expertise.
What, then, is the most important element of design, and how can you become an expert after reading just a few paragraphs?
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July 10, 2006
When designing or re-designing a Web site, I can’t help but examine the Information Architecture (IA) of the site that’s on the chopping block. Typically, I make a few fundamental changes to the way information is displayed, and one thing I’ve noticed is that I trend towards bringing the newest content to the forefront. I’m sure some of you are reading this and thinking “well, duh,” but I’m actually writing this today to suggest that it may not be quite as duh as you might think…
Thanks to the widespread growth of RSS as a means of content propagation, blog developers need to start thinking outside the traditional architectural box, which usually consists of uploading a CMS and not giving it much more thought. At this point in time, the widespread solution for blog IA is content-centric; however, as we begin to adapt to changing standards, I believe that we’ll learn to present content in ways that are far more user-centric.
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June 28, 2006
Tuesday was the opening day for the World Series of Poker, which has grown to become a six week mega-event for all things poker. Of course, there’s the main event that you see on ESPN every year…You know, the one where the winner gets enough money to support Hollywood-level hooker and blow habits. In addition to the main event, there are a bundle of smaller World Series events that cover other poker games like Omaha, Limit, Pot Limit, and more.
To put it another way, they have everything but a stinkin’ blog.
Until now.
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June 22, 2006
In the wake of my How Much Should a Design Cost post, I received an ironic amount of emails from people (and companies) who were interested in both my work and my prices. The most unique and creative inquiry came from the head SEO guy for an online poker company. The project?
Clonie Gowen, the reigning “poker goddess,” is set to appear in Maxim in the very near future. To capitalize on her already-burgeoning fame, she’s going to challenge Paris Hilton to a $100,000, heads-up poker game for charity. The poker company wanted a small, simple site that would serve as both a linking hotbed and an informational repository for the proposed celebrity matchup. Enter me.
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June 20, 2006
Yesterday marked the long-awaited launch of the new Blog Herald. Along with a new set of clothes, the Herald received a complete re-write of the WordPress back end that controls the content presentation. If you can’t dig the spartan design, then maybe the geek in you can dig on how I extended WordPress to precisely control things like post display, WordPress pages, and even feed lists. Without further ado, let’s take a little tour of the new Blog Herald!
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