November 29, 2012

Since this is the second to last blog post due for class, I would like to get a bit philosophical about a few things.

First of, for those who still read this blog in class, you are most likely under the age of 20 and still young, naive, and full of hopes and dreams. Never let that feeling die.

I am not much older, at 24, and have already seen so much pass me by. I graduated high school, went to Western Carolina, which was picked out on my own as a bit of a last minute resort, mostly because everyone kept saying that I needed to go to college. I went, did poorly, and decided that school wasn't right for me. Turns out that waiting tables is much worse than reading some books and taking tests. I moved to Florida with some friends for a year and promptly moved back to go to school. Florida was my time to myself to reflect on what I wanted, cut ties, be fully independent, and get a taste of the real world. I came back and got a job at the Grove Park Inn thinking I was hot shit and school would eventually come if needed.

I dabbled in and out of school to see what I would like and found out that graphic design was pretty cool, I had always drawn things since I was small, but this puts a new tool in my hand to make beautiful art.

Plus it makes other things, such as sharpies
and highlighters look like child's play

There was one night in particular that I remember more than any at work. A table of 4 came in, 2 older couples, and had ordered food. Our kitchen was not the most prompt, or efficient (yes, one of the restaurants at the great gpi, one would be surprised if they knew more). I had placed the order, as I have many many times before, and one of the gentlemen's plates came out wrong, I do not recall if it was a steak prepared wrong, or wrong sides, but that is besides the point. The gentlemen was livid. He told me later, as he was paying his bill, that he did not want to, but is still going to leave a tip and that "you can do better."

I knew that it was not directed at me, and nothing that guests say ever offend me, its something about the clientele of grove park that gives people a sense of entitlement and can talk down to people. You can typically spot these people out rather quickly. I am the calm cool center of the universe whenever someone yells/talks down/ridicules me. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I never crack. But for some reason this comment stuck with me.

I digested it, let it settle, and still could not get it out of my mind. 

"You can do better."

This random stranger, who I could not point out to you today if I had to, had more effect on me with four words than most people do after whole conversations.

A week or so passed with these five syllables playing over and over in my head.

I took it as, "I can do better at life." at that point I decided to pull myself together, do everything better. After work one night I went home and spent hours online looking at classes and researching what I would be getting myself into. And even today, in all aspects of life, I tell myself the same words that this random had told me.

Something inside of me changed and always pushed for more, better, never accepting anything as the best, because even if I were the best at something, I can do better.

So I will say that life is an adventure. Do better than you did yesterday until you are the one that is the best and continue to raise the bar. Settling is for the weak and mentally poor. If you are not on an adventure, then destroy anything that is in your way and live your adventure.

Do right to those who help you, and do right to those who dont, eventually they will understand and envy you.

I will end this with a few tips to hopefully help you in the long run.

You do not want to end up paying $600+ in rent money that you will never get back. It is wasted money. Buy a house, but in order to do so, get a high paying job. Get a high paying job, but in order to do so, graduate from college. Graduate from college, but in order to do that, you must do your homework and dedicate yourself to what you want, and what makes you happy.

If there is no happiness that comes from what you are doing, either directly, or indirectly, then stop doing it.

Do not buy materialistic things, invest in memories.

Find your happiness, find your bubble, your happy place, use this as your resting time, then be restless at all other times. Nobody became wealthy by waiting. Fulfill your dreams, set your hopes high with expectations, that way if you make it halfway there, you will still have made it, and still trying to better yourself. 

Friday Nov 16, 2012

So it has been sometime since I have wrote a blog. My apologies for the delay, I hope this will catch everyone up on situations and of course, the cat at the end.

The past month or two have been up and down, over and over. My mother has been in and out of the hospital, my longtime girlfriend, who I lived with and own furniture and animals with, have split, my step-fathers father has passed, and I am trying to get my sister in a situation to be able to pass her senior year in high school. On top of the family issues, my job is going south fairly quickly with a new company that has bought it and I couldn't care less about it. And then, what should be most important, in a sense, school. I am a bit behind, this is the first semester that I have done that.

I am not looking for hand outs, not would I accept them, but a shoulder to lean on at this point is crucial. My friends have stepped in and helped more than I could ask for.

I used to draw, or write, or design, as a way to get aggression and sorrow out. Now I have been drinking, not to the extent of where it messes with my job or school, but alcohol has been the answer. To clarify, I have a two drink limit when I go out somewhere. I always drive myself because of this as well. I do not like being drunk, nor do I get drunk, but I do drink.

My mother used to drink... A lot. My 18th birthday, I took care of her. Graduation night, I took care of her. Yet I do not blame her or hold her to that. She was a single mother who raised two children from paycheck to paycheck. She did right by us and always had. Now we still look after her, just under different circumstances. The nervous system in her feet are now raw, as well as her liver not looking so good. She went to the hospital with enough time that everything can be fixed with time and medication to where she can get back to where she needs to be. The path will be long, and we will be beside her through it all.

My girlfriend left to go to Paul Mitchell in Orlando florida 8 months ago. She will be back in two weeks, but at this point every insecurity either one of us has had, was split open and drove us apart. She is no longer the same person, nor I. As I am typing this, she is texting me about how it's bullshit that I am pulling this so close to her coming home. Yet she is the one that formally ended our relationship. So in this case, the one I would love to talk to about her, is her. So I have been avoiding her, which is difficult as I live with her brother. This is just petty drama, but still weighs on me.

My sister, because of my mother, hasn't been doing so hot in school. She needs to get on the ball. She is 18 without a job, car, or permit/license. I understand that it is not her fault, but when I was 16, I was working 30 hours a week and paid for my first car. Motivation to leave the nest was my biggest fire. I want the best for her and wish she could see how big the world is, Asheville is the biggest city she has seen, New York would blow her mind and hopefully motivate her to leave this small rural city.

Im just rambling at this point, so if I think of anything else, I will add it later. But for now, here is a cat!

Analyzing "What Sacagawea Means To Me"

This was a good article that I related to on a cultural level. Sacagawea has been revered as a hero. She has statues, sculptures, memorials, a river, and even the Sacagawea Center in Idaho. Most Native-Americans do not celebrate Columbus Day, this is like celebrating Valentine's day because of the Massacre in 1929.

Sacagawea, to some, was a sell out and helped to doom the Native Americans. But without her, we would not have the amazing country we live in. So how does one decipher how they feel about the genocide of their ancestors? But for me personally, my ancestors are the ones who helped in the process. I am the offspring between both parties.

Sherman Alexie's article deciphering this is one that cause unease and questions. He speaks to everyone involved with America

Paradox

The last post has been weighing in on me still. Paradoxes have a way of prompting me to wonder quite a bit. Schrödinger's cat, Grandfather Paradox, Hitler's Murder Paradox, Omnipotence Paradox are very few of the world of known paradoxes.

The new movie Looper is coming out about a guy who has people sent back from the future for him to kill. The twist is that his future self gets sent back. If his future self kills his younger self, how did he continue to live into the future to get sent back in the first place. This is the Grandfather Paradox.

Hitler's Murder Paradox says that if you go back in time to kill someone famous, before their time of fame, such as Hitler, then they never became famous and you wouldn't have known about them to go back in time to stop them. 

The Omnipotence Paradox says that if there is a deity out there that can create anything, can he/she create something that can'not be moved, even by the deity? And if not, then that mush mean that they are not omnipotent, right?

I could just like driving myself crazy with puzzles with no answer, but I find this fascinating. 

Questions to the Answers

How would you describe ghosts? Déjà vu? Conscience before birth? Self conscience? This post will not have any actual answers, just different ways to perceive and think about the eccentric events in life.  I will begin at the same point that started my thoughts one evening.

Donnie Darko

For those who have not seen the film "Donnie Darko," I would suggest it to anyone who enjoys watching a movie in order to have an issue resolved, but look at life in a different light. I will skip over a lot of the plot in order to move on to what I want, the airplane engine. At the beginning of the film an airplane engine destroys Donnie's room, luckily he was sleepwalking that night. So an investigation occurs and the find the plane that the engine came from, fully intact. Later in the film (28 days in the plot) we see the plane engine fall off and disappear into a vortex. From the ending of the movie (jumping back a month), we find out that Donnie was in his room and the engine hits his room and kills him, but how is it possible that he saw the engine fall off a month later?

Scientist have confirmed that it is possible to tweak the fabric of time when altered with speed. This is proven and fact, but only is the forward direction of time. So how is it possible to have something in the present time return to the past without messing up the present?

One of the solutions that came into view in my initial discussion was parallel universes.

If there is a parallel universe for every decision's outcome then the solution, then this wormhole could have connected two universes. A solution could be that in Universe A and Universe B both had a engine fall off, only at separate times. So while in the film (Universe A) there was a month of having 2 engines, Universe B had an engine missing for a month, only to essentially have the engines switch universes through the wormholes.

Then comes this concept relating to our lives. What if ghosts, or déjà vu, are universes that open up a wormhole and we peer through them for a moment? An easier way to think of it is like FM frequencies. Lets say that 95.5 ROCK is out of Greenville, while 95.5 LIVE is coming from Charlotte. Seeing how we are in Asheville, the Greenville station will be prominent, but every now and then 95.5 LIVE from Charlotte will dip into the frequency and we will hear it. When we see a ghost, this is just another frequency that is traveling along the same time but we pick up the interference of their alternate universe and we see this things happen. Déjà vu is another universe that is at the same point in time, or something that has happened slightly off from us, that we have already seen, and we feel a sense of awareness and often times a knowing of what is going to happen.

Without getting into quantum mechanics, I will leave off of the subject of alternate universes. How would one describe self-conscience? As a soul? What is a soul? Most people say that animals don't have a soul, so what is the difference? I read an article about how we could possibly be just in a simulation (link has NSFW language). For those who know php, we could essentially be in a WHILE Loop. The loop could say while this body is still breathing, give it mechanics and thought until X. X could be time, accomplishments, whatever. Yes, I am talking about the essence of life as a scripting language that is running variables and functions.

It is a bit farfetched, but then again, having a glowing bulb of light was farfetched at one point as well.

Tesla > Einstein

I will leave the floor open with the question of how would you describe self-conscience before birth? Religious or scientific theories, no matter how crazy are all welcomed!

Longboarding

Originally I was going to write about Digital Media and the things I have done such as websites, logos, and digital art, but wanted to let that be for another day (If you can no longer contain your excitement then just visit http://nickconraddesign.com/ to see some of my work).

Today this will be about longboarding, a recent fascination that I have been picking up on.

Growing up I used to skateboard quite a bit, my last board broke about 2 years ago and I just never went to get another one, until last June. I went to buy a board and throw my old trucks on it and saw something else that caught my attention.

Sector 9's 2012 42" Bamboo Drop Through

I felt like a kid on the day after Halloween with too much candy that will eventually hurt themselves. I had seen videos online of guys hitting speeds in the 40's on a longboard and always wanted to experience it myself.

These guys are from Florida going down our local parkway. Little did I know what all waited to be explored when you start getting more into longboarding. Speed seemed to only be one of the many abilities. Sliding seemed to be the next progressive step.

Sooner or later this will be accomplished, and the speed thing will not be as tough of an adversary because sliding is essentially breaking. Obviously special gloves are needed with thick pads on the palms and fingers to have the ability to not wear your fingers through like early 90's style jeans.

Here is a good video that shows a bit of everything. The first actual skating footage begins around the 4:15 mark, and if all you wanna see are falls skip on through to 12:35.

If anyone is interested, the basics are easy and I would love to teach someone and skate with others. Just let me know.

And as always... Another reason why cats are jerks....

Class Assignment

SPEAKER

Camel Lights Cigarettes.
OCCASION

A placement ad for Camel Lights in the 1980's. Possibly a poster or magazine advertisement.
AUDIENCE 
1980's alpha male, or those who wish to be the alpha male. It is saying that if you want to be a man, this is what a man does. It takes a broad audience, males as a whole, and tries to entice them to be like the advertisement. 
PURPOSE

To make males buy and smoke cigarettes to be like "the man."

SUBJECT

Camel infers that smoking will make you look like a "man."

TONE

Condescending in a sense, direct with a bit of subliminal messaging. Natural colors, for the nature man.

I'm sure that this ad was successful, every young male adult wants to be "the man." The 1980's was a time when manly men dominated the big screens and culture media. This ad went along with the times to capitalize upon the market.

Link To Video*

SPEAKER

Nintendo

OCCASION

The "new generation" of games is out and challenging people.

AUDIENCE

Young adults that want to be challenged by ground breaking video games. 
PURPOSE

To advertise the "new generation" of video games and entice people to buy them.

SUBJECT

Nintendo is presenting a challenge to those who want to take on the endless challenges of the super mario game.

TONE

Epic, upbeat, early 1990's feel with the music. The word "EXTREME" feels like it needs to be shouted throughout.

This ad was successful, I remember seeing this at a young age and wanting a nintendo myself. The kids in the video seem to have so much fun and who doesn't want to have fun?

SPEAKER

Anti-smoking ad.

OCCASION

When smoking hazards became a big deal and there was a movement to help those to quit. Roughly around 2005.

AUDIENCE

Anyone that smokes, even those who do not smoke probably couldn't help by notice.

PURPOSE

To make smokers quit smoking.

SUBJECT

Smoking kills and makes you look gross.

TONE

Informal, a bit of a parent-child feel to it. Shock value was wanted.

There is no way that this ad was not successful in raising awareness.

Cat related Advertisement to relate to the topic and show again why cats suck.
Hair.
Hair everywhere. 

*Every time I try to post the video from youTube it only brings up options for a Pitbull song. The only thing worse than cats are songs with Pitbull. That will not fly on my blog. So I do apologize to the lazy who do not like to click links to open up a new window, hopefully they are few and far between.

Self Is The Only Prison That Can Ever Bind The Soul.

This quote from Henry Van Dyke is still relatively new to me, but fits well.

For a quick history about myself would say that I grew up in a lower class home with my mother, sister, and myself. This upbringing has instilled beliefs and priorities in my life that have set me onto the path that has me writing this now. Since I was young I knew that my hard work, loyalty, and dedication are the only things that would get me anywhere. I have drawn conclusions about life and love to debate with anyone with opposite views.

Knowledge is power and I invite all knowledge, no matter the relevance or randomness.

With this being said, I declare myself as an atheist agnostic. I love talking religion (please note the word "talk.") and hearing other views on life and afterlife. Hearing people try to describe what déjà vu in their mind is and translate it to words is usually an interesting conversation piece for instance.

Another topic that is dear to my heart is talking hip-hop. Conversations tend to heat up over the definite line between hip-hop and rap.

Just to throw some of the other things I love to talk about are emerging technologies (videography/graphic design/typography/special effects/mobile technology/websites), beer (local and the other good stuff, unlike budlight), bourbon, movies, longboarding, cars, basically all around guy stuff.

Things I am interested in are xkcd, cyandide and happiness, freddieW, hyperbole and a half, to name of few online things.

and of course mma and the technical side of things

As we continue on with class more will develop and get revealed, hopefully with a bit of humor as well.

No guarantee that I will be this awesome.

To finish my blog, this last gif is just to suck up to the teacher, and probably the same way that I will end all of my blogs. This is why people do not like cats, they are mean, just for the fact that they can be mean.

...so rude...

Mobile For Wordpress

So for a missing feature that is missing that is wanted within my project my team and I are currently working on is the availability for mobile. Yes, it is easy to pull up the site on a mobile device, but I feel like if you are going to optimize a site for mobile, it needs to be done specifically and correctly.

Optimization for mobile devices is the new way of connecting with people. Smart phones are the way to look things up on the fly, not laptops, not desktops, not yellow pages. My client had mentioned his interest in this ability and it is appropriate for his business.

Plugins

There are multiple plugins for WordPress and I am looking for a simple one that my client may use and change if need be. Granted my client does not understand how to implement any of these ideas yet, let alone even customize HTML, so simplicity is key at the moment. 

WordPress Mobile Pack

Wordpress Mobile Pack is a plugin that has lots of cool features and seems easy enough to implement. Apart from the small things like color schemes and themes, you can re-size images, switch between mobile and desktop presentations, and standards adherence. 

MobilePress

MobilePress is another mobile plugin with a cool feature of showing ads, even your own managed ads. It is SEO enabled and works well with Google. Customization of themes is of course an option here as well. 

Mobile Admin

This plugin is specific for iOS devices, but can be used to customize for specific browsers as well. Some of the features are creating and editing posts, comment moderation, and ability to toggle between mobile and desktop.

Other Benefits

WordPress has an application to manage your site from iOS devices. With this you can moderate comments, create posts, and add images and videos, which makes everything a whole lot easier at times.

I'm Late! I'm Late For A Very Important Date!

While some of us can remember everything with what dates they are going to happen on, there are those of us who are jacked up on caffeine whose life depends on calendars.

The Truth In This Is Horrifying. 

Sliders! (Galleries, Not Burgers)

Galleries are necessities in today's tech savvy websites. Well every website I should say. For the WordPress project my team and I are working on, we need to find and implement an easy to customize, easily managed, easily implemented Wordpress gallery slider. There are quite a few just on this WordPress site.

Image Sliders, I said Image Sliders..... 

So With This Task, Comes The Research

With selecting a slider for this site, I looked for management and implementation as the top 2 credentials needed. Cropping is one of the big things that would be awesome to find within a slider for my client, as well as no need to know PHP, HTML, or CSS. As long as we can get it set up and teach him the basics of how it works, it will be perfect. 

Smooth Slider

Smooth Slider is a free WordPress plugin. *Free* we're off to a good start.there are many features listed, but I will translate a few that stood out to me:

• The CSS is fully customizable
• Easily readable for search engines
• Slider preview in admin panel option
• Custom size option for images

VSlider

VSlider is jQuery based slider that sells itself as the smallest file size because it uses the core WordPress jQuery library. Some features are:

• Customization of images
• Customization of transitions
• Customizable CSS
• Unlimited Image Sliders. 

While my search goes on to find a slider worthy enough for my teams upcoming project, there are thousands of others out there waiting to be discovered. Go forth and find the one that fits yours appropriately, at the moment my choice seems to fall upon VSlider. 

WordPress Contact Forms

Plugins for WordPress are not limited, if you haven't ever looked into it. I have been given the task of finding a good contact form plugin for WordPress for a future project.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 seemed to pop up wherever I went on my search. It can manage multiple contact forms, that allows customization, has CAPTCHA, and is powered by Ajax. The set up is as easy as uploading and activating through the plugins menu. It seems very user friendly with the set up and the basics. This, I believe is why it is so popular. For a free plugin, this is a good solution.

SimpleModal Contact Form
SimpleModal Contact Form (SMCF) is an Ajax contact form as well and uses jQuery and the SimpleModal jQuery plugin. It has options such as contact from elements, subject field, and "send me a copy" option. The installation is pretty basic and gives you 4 options on how to do it. It seems to have a bug that may or may not be worked out yet, in WordPress 3.3.1.

Send E-mail
Send E-mail was imported from Grunion Contact From. It adds full internationalization using localized string from WordPress core. Instillation is simple with this as well, just upload and activate. It allows you to add the contact form with inserting [contact-form] in the post.

Conclusion
There are more free contact form plugins for WordPress than you could possibly sift through. Summaries are everywhere and all it takes is time to fully look through it all and decide what is appropriate for your project and how in depth you would like to get into it.

Template Modeling

When it comes to creating a website and creating the template that your site will use, you have several choices. You can design your own, use and modify an existing one, or buy one from a company. As designers, buying a template is out of the question, you are a digital Leonardo Da Vinci, and  Leonardo Da Vinci never bought a painting and called it his. He used Francesco del Giocondo's wife for the inspiration for the Mona Lisa, and just like the great artist before us, we all should use inspiration. 

Stealing Spree

There are so many sites that use have the potential for inspiration. I have found that the best way to use sites for inspiration is to consolidate everything that you like in order to create what you are attracted to. 

Es Developed has a 2 giant orange slices on the front of their home page. While we are creating a site for a restaurant, this seems like the perfect choice for a home page. A paragraph about some food can be summed up in 1 photo. Every time I look at the oranges it makes me want one. You get an A+ in your subliminal stimuli class!

I enjoy the sleekness and simplicity of Vignette Brand Communications. The color treatment and layout of the navigation makes it seem so easy when in actuality there are 11 links. The inset makes the background feel like the main image and everything else is secondary. 

Yogy has a simplicity to it that seems childish, and it works perfectly. With 2 colors, and some variants of the in between  they have accomplished a design that works magic for your eyes. The only issue is the navigation gets lost once inside of the pages. The aesthetics are what are amazing here. 

Resources?

You got em! The best place to learn about templates are straight from wordpress. The community that is behind WordPress is so large and helpful, you will have a hard time trying not to find help with creating templates. 

One can find numerous free templates online for Wordpress as well. 

CMS for The Future Projects

After lengthy research, I have found, without much surprise, the top three CMS's are WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. these are the most widely used and most common content management systems. These top three are consistent no matter where you look on the internet, WebDevNews, WebDesignerDepot, and NetTuts all agree on the top three.
There are definitely more out there, and many comparison charts to help you choose, but when it comes down to it, WordPress seems to be the most widely known and with that, the easiest to get into.
WordPress

If you haven't heard of a content management system before, you still have probably have heard the name WordPress, there is reasoning behind this, and it is because the ease is what has made is so popular.
Now, I personally do not like a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor because it creates bloated code isn't the cleanest way to do things, (think using a hose to mop the kitchen floor, it will get done, but probably with lots of excess water)

This is the hard coder who will save you from the WYSIWYG flood

For most people this will not be an issue, mostly because they don't even have to look at the source code, but as designers, our world revolves around it.
Perks of WordPress
WordPress has many features like Plugins and Themes.
The community behind Wordpress is impressive to say the least, with forums and the contributions to make everything simple, such as the plugins page, it seems effortless to find what you are looking for.
The themes page as well has lists of featured themes, popular themes, and newest themes, as a designer, these are all starting points to tweak and modify, but for a basic client, or one who is doing this on their own, this is the perfect solution.
My Choice is Made

And it is a choice of a new generation

WordPress takes the cake with ease for the simple fact of ease and popularity. This may not be the case for everybody, I consider myself more of a graphic designer than a script and code writer. For a starting point in the content management system world, WordPress should be your base as you stretch out into the wild hills that are made up of TextPattern, Contao, Umbraco, or Concrete5. So go out and enjoy it all.

The Tale Of The Tape!
As Bruce Buffer calls the contenders down to the octagon, it is clear that this will be a good match up. Get Simple is coming off of some good wins against worthy opponents, and Website Baker has been putting some heat in the kitchen! Cheesy? Yes, but the point is there! This is a battle of utter greatness!

Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Live!

The Weigh In
This is the first time I have gotten the chance to work with a CMS, and it seemed a bit confusing at first. Well, it still is to a certain extent. A CMS (content management system) is used for site maintenance for ease. Some are flat file CMS's and some are database driven. These are two perfect examples of each.

Technically, they would be lightweights.

Get Simple

Get Simple is a flat file CMS with no database requirement. It uses XML files to store data. The installation is rather easy and simple, one could possibly make that conclusion from the name itself. I used a lot of trouble shooting and found that Get Simple has a great community behind it that is willing to help the rookies out.
Website Baker

Website Baker is a database driven CMS that uses databases (obviously) to store data, it all falls into one single database file. The set up was not too complicated, but a bit more than Get Simple. Those who use WYSIWYG editors would enjoy the option with this one. WB also has droplets that are easily downloaded and installed. This helps out and helps to customize with ease.
The New Champion!

I would say that I am not proficient with a CMS yet, but I enjoyed both of the CMSs. Website Baker was a bit more complicated, but it lets you do more. If I were to start a new project today, I would use GetSimple, for the shear fact of how simple it is. Website Baker will stay for the long run and I will try it and use it at a later, more comfortable date.
Honestly, there is no clear winner. It seems like the age old (digital age) battle of Macintosh and Windows. One is simple and easy to use, but holds back, the other is a bit more complicated and gives you more freedom.

Content Management Systems!!

A content management system is can be as in depth as you want it to be, for those who do not know a scripting or programming language, it is easy. Those who do know PHP, Java, Python, HTML/CSS, or any combination, the customizations are endless. CMS’s are designed with non-tech savvy consumers in mind.

You may feel like you are hacking into alien software, but honestly, it is supposed to be easy for you.

CMS for businesses

So for a business, a CMS will be good and efficient. It has features that will help grow your business such as being faster to create pages than a basic website, greater consistency, better flexibility, great security, and it is cheaper.

Some of the better features of a content management system are the ability to have a language manager, post polls, endless menu customizations, and having a search button for your site. There are so much more, but these are the ones related specifically to joomla.

Not To Mention It Also Will Tie Your Shoes

CMS Evaluation

Now, having coffee pre-made for you is cool and all, but it is a bit too much. Do not add too much extra functionality you’ll never use. The only way to be exempt from this is if you have a site about all the different functionality you could have, but that probably isn’t what yours is about.

The right CMS regardless should be easy for non-geeks to use and have the ability to be changed into something beautiful like one of Bob Ross’ paintings.

The most important part you should look for when choosing a CMS is ease, speed, and simplicity. You want it to be fast, easy, and efficient, all websites should strive for this.

More information here!

Search Engines!

Search engines do not work well with a CMS. Dynamic URLs, bad Meta tags and keyword poor URLs make it quite complicated. Having your site be number 1 on Google isn’t the easiest thing to accomplish and takes a long time. Don't get mad at the designer you hired because you can not get your face to pop up as the first thing on Google when you search for "cool" 

Puppy Sarcasm. You Will Never Be This Cool, But He Tries To
Make You Feel Good About Yourself

Best Way to Become Better With A CMS?

The easiest way to learn more about CMS’s are to do research and to build one yourself. You can talk of painting all day, but that gives you no advantage with holding a paintbrush.

Yes, Second Reference To Bob Ross In This Blog! BOB ROSS FTW!

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood dreamer, Nick Stamper

The 3 Best CSS Resources Every Designer Should Know

So you want to be a web guru, a CSS master, use web standards with the dedication of a monk? Well I have a few links that may be quite useful for you to learn and grow from a young grasshopper to the greatest to ever create a website.

Bruce Lee said, “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”
This being said, before you sit down and write, just realize, you have power to do a lot with the water you possess. You should always be trying to find new techniques and more effective ways to go about doing anything, just like water trying to find the path with the least resistance. 

DocHub

Dochub is for CSS, HTML, JavaScript, DOM, JQuery, and PHP. DocHub has an amazing list of CSS properties, summaries about them, examples, syntax, and browser compatibility lists for each. The tutorial (which is actually from Mozilla) is based on CSS 2.1, but quite helpful for those who are starting out.

The HTML page has lists of tags, but no tutorials. The organization on all pages is lackluster, but is still great for reference.

Mozilla Developer Network

Mozilla has an amazing set of tutorials about CSS that is split into three categories, introductory, intermediate, and advanced. When I had originally found this website, I jumped straight to the advanced section and watched the tutorials on CSS3. It felt as if nothing was left out and the author was very strategic about how he said things and brought things onto the screen. I wish there were more of these tutorials because the author seems like a good teacher.

These tutorials will not be something that is referenced time and time again, but it is good to see and get a foot in the door to understand how CSS works and how to use it.

AListApart a

A List Apart is full of articles about everything to do with the web as a designer. With 290 code articles, and 160 design articles, it will keep you reading and researching for a lengthy stint. “Floats 101,” “Positioning 101,” “CSS3 Bling in the real world,” who wouldn't want to read these articles. It covers everything from CSS sprites to separation of content and design. This is good for just browsing possible solutions for your website, but not a good walk through from start to finish for creating a website.

Web Standards

By time this is being read by someone out on the Internet looking for good CSS/HTML/Web Standards tutorials, the web standards may have changed. Our good friends over at XKCD can help a little bit better with this one.

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood dreamer, Nick Stamper

Presentation of the Future

I will be a bit technical in this blog, but I will help start with the beginning of what CSS is and what it does. CSS is an acronym for Cascading Style Sheet. Every webpage should have a separate CSS file that has rules that tell the HTML how to look and what to do. This CSS sheet is linked into the HTML to help make the HTML less bloated. Without these rules your webpage will be black and white with basic styling like one font at one size, and, well that’s it. No photos, no colors, no background.

Here is a good analogy, HTML is like speaking of a noun, which states what something is. If I say that is a car, you understand that whatever I am speaking about is a car. To add values or properties to this car is adding in adjectives to this noun. These adjectives, or the values and properties, are like the styles in a CSS sheet.

The Long Rich Deep History (from 1994)

The World Wide Web Consortium, which is basically the united nations of web development,  had introduced 9 different style sheets and dwindled it down to 2 to become what we know today as CSS. In 1995 the W3C had a workshop on style sheets proposed ideas and a structure for CSS 1. Here is the agenda to the workshop. There were many times that CSS level one recommendations were revised and updated, while the CSS level 2 drafts began in 1997, and CSS level 3 drafts began in 1999.

Today CSS 3 is not fully compatible with all browsers, but is used quite often.

I assume this is the security at the W3C headquarters, and they really like cats.

So What Exactly Are We Talking About?

CSS essentially helps to make your website look good. I could talk about this all day, but showing you is much easier to grab the concept. Here is the site in its full entirety.

And here it is without CSS.

As you can see, it is much more elegant and aesthetic. Why wouldn’t you want to do this for your website?

Technical Features

CSS has its own syntax which isn’t too hard to understand. www.HTMLdog.com is a favorite resource for me. It has tutorials, reference sections, articles, and examples that are extensively useful.

Now CSS3 has stepped it up and has more features, with often times less code. HTMLdog does not have CSS3 features yet, but here are some features that are quite useful.

Some of the most exciting new features are box-shadows, multiple backgrounds, opacity with RGBA, HSL, and HSLA colors, text-shadows, and multi-column layouts. Transform and Transition is one that is still not being used to its full extent. The best example I can find involves a javascript file, which will be held back for a different blog later on, but uses the transform and transitions very creatively.

There is much more to look into with new CSS features. You are essentially a young child, curious and enlightened by the unknown. So go explore and try something new, the worst that will happen is you will learn something.

If you have a pet tiger, the road may be safer.

Watch Out For Cow Pies!

The road will not be a paved highway, it will be an off-road path, so in doing so, try to make sure that you watch where you step. You may design something that surpasses the Mona Lisa in beauty, and when you open it up in Internet Explorer, it looks like a bad Picasso piece.

Oh The Beauty!

There will be kinks and bumps in the road and the only way to battle that is to expect it and seek out solutions.

Conclusion

Whether you are new to web design, or feel as if you are a guru, practice makes perfect. You are never alone in your search for creating beautiful websites. There are generators, tutorials, techniques, and inspiration  everywhere!

Your journey will be long, so a fore warning, the internet is obsessed with cats. So I figured I would go ahead and help out to. Enjoy the video! 

(In Your Best Don LaFontaine Voice) In A World That Is Forever Changing... 

One agent is ahead of the curve, but this too, will change? We live in a world where the only constant is change. Well Don Lafontaine, one of the greatest voices ever, whom has voiced well over 5,000 movie trailers and countless TV spots got away with just his voice, but not all of us sound like a God. For the rest of us, we have to get by with our bloody beat up hands and our crazy irrational brains. (well at least that's how I like to imagine it)

A change agent is "someone who alters human capability or organizational systems to achieve a higher degree of output or self actualization." according to toolbox.com. I personally like the think of a change agent as an acting catalyst for change. 

And With The Looks Of Brad Pitt

"Love Is Three Quarters Curiosity"
To be a change agent one must essentially live in the future. To change for the better, you must always look to the future for the best and brightest ideas and innovations. A change agent is the one that is fueled by passion and is the spark that gets others inspired. Steve Jobs may be one of the most famous of these people. He was always pushing for the best, the most excellent, and would not except anything less than perfect. 
To be on the cutting edge of technology is a tough challenge, technology as a whole is no longer a battle on one front, this battle comes from many directions, mobile devices, web standards, touch screen TVs, Xbox's kinect, iPads, and all trying to go green! We are the minute men of this war. 

Yes, just like this, but without the tights

Newest Technologies 
I am myself a change agent, I was before I knew what a change agent even meant, which means some of the people that will read this will realize that they, as well, are change agents in a sense. When you combine passion with getting the newest and most efficient technologies, or you could substitute technologies with just about anything, for your company or yourself.
Whether you like it or not, the world is run by money, people will pay top-dollar for the shiniest, sleekest, newest things, obviously you want these things. At the moment I am a cock-tail server and it drives me crazy that our computer systems run on old software. I have researched this and found better ones, newer ones, even ones within the budget of what the current one was in. 
I would love to see implemented technologies in my life in the fields of:

• Gesture motions to improve qualities and speed
• HTML5 and CSS3 
• Web Standards being reinvented and implemented
• Smart phones growing to include: windows, TV's, cars, and games (most of this has already started)
• Voice recognition for, well anything. (also for safety reasons with motor vehicles)

Or safety for your smart phone

Looking To The Future
The biggest impact withing the next 5 years will be improvements and tweaks to things that are breaking ground now. The kinect is one of the most popular. Doctors using it mid-surgery for help without having to touch a keyboard is probably one of the greatest accomplishments I have seen with it. 
Within the next 10 years I think is a bit too far off to imagine. There are technologies that have not even been imagined that will be out at that time. Personally I am hoping for time travel or displacement devices. To keep up with the frontline I will be standing, musket in hand, eagerly waiting for the new and boldest to approach and embrace change for the good!
I realize my dreams of space travel or real life portal guns are a bit crazy, but someone has to be! What are some of your hopes for future technologies?
Until next time, your friendly neighborhood dreamer, Nick Stamper