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

Blog Your Business To The Bank

Blogging For Your Business, Good Or Bad?
My teachers have always told me that there are no stupid questions. Well, the line above this is one that breaks that rule. Blogging is not only good for business; it can be the crack in the wall that breaks you through the other side. Now, I must object to my last statement, at least for the effort to say that, as long as you do it right. 


There is an Irish Proverb that states: 

"Everyone is wise, until he speaks"

Don't Be This Guy.
Feet Stink. Keep Them Out Of Your Mouth. 

Make Them Remember You
Blogging is the new way to connect with multiple consumers faster and more efficiently. You are not only selling products. Sometimes the only thing that needs to be sold is the knowledge that people remember your name, branding. When someone says your company's name, whether they have your product in their home, pocket, or not at all, you want to be associated with The Best Of The Best Of The Best. (Warning: Humorous Link)


The best thing about a blog for a business is that it will associate a face with the company instead of a logo. This face needs to be professional, intellectual, wholesome, and at times even witty. If treated right, your blog (your company's face) will be seen as knowledgeable, entertaining, known for raising awareness of interesting topics, humorous, and of course, trustworthy.*

*You May Never Be This Interesting.

Let's Get To The Statistics

According to royal.pingdom.com there were 152 million blogs on the internet at the end of 2010. WordPress.com's statistics page claims 699,780,829 page views for the week of January 8, 2012. WordPress has slightly smaller than half of all blogs. So roughly 1.4 billion views per week for all blogs. If this doesn't prove that blogging, let's look at these numbers from July 2011

• CNN/HLN had 101.12 million viewers
• CNBC had 98.62 million viewers
• FNC had 99.15 million viewers
• MSNBC had 95.72 million viewers
• Fox Business had 58.15 million viewers

Your blog, granted as long as people follow it, can possibly compete with these numbers!

Benefits Of Blogging

Financially speaking, the best thing about blogging for a company is that it is free. Experts agree that it is the best free advertising tool out there. You can also respond to your client's questions or comments individually, therefore knocking down the wall between the business face and your potential clients. 

This also lets clients communicate with other clients. If your product is good, you will be the gossip of the internet and then the sky will be past tense because your limit will be limitless. 

Suggestions For The New Business Blogs

While the list of suggestions can go On And On, I have put together a list of 5 crucial suggestions for you to follow when creating a blog for your business.

• Envision the future of your industry by extrapolation the current developments.
• Write down a code of ethics for you blog and your business as a whole.
• Keep your clientele as broad as it can possibly go, you always want to expand!
• Use humor and personality to bring life to your blog.
• Reach out to your clients, well because you are doing this for your clients.

There are hundreds of articles on the internet with tips and suggestions on how to create a blog for your business, do not take this list as the only 5, or even the top 5 suggestions! Go forth and investigate!

If I could add a sixth suggestion, it would be to be awesome!

Let's Turn The Tables

This head of mine is full of ideas, and I shall keep the best ones to myself. But let's indulge in possibilities for a business blog for myself and my company range from the new software or mediums for design, to the best from around the web in the art of design. Hopefully one day I will also be selling this software or creating the art that is the best, but small steps for my limitless journey. 

One of my personal favorite quotes is "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." from philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist, George Santayana. Remember that you are now mass-communicating. Be thankful that we now have these tools such as blogs. I will leave you this week with a clip from a loved movie of mine about how we would have to communicate if the internet was not here. A Scene From O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood dreamer, Nick Stamper

What Blogging Tools Are Best For You?

What Blogging Tools Are Best For You?

I have been investigating several blogging tools and have found quite a few worthy candidates, and if you haven't caught on yet, I have chosen Blogger.com. 

In today's society blogging is the new journal. So let's ask ourselves, what is the greatest journal as of today? Honestly, The greatest journals were not written with a keyboard or smartphone. With powerful words and stories that could make the coldest of hearts melt, we still have the diaries from Harry S. Truman, Samuel Pepys, Lewis Carroll, and Anne Frank. These are the journal worlds kings and queens. With the bar set at an amazing sky-scraping height, how does one simply choose blogging software?

Here Lies The Fork In The Road.

Lets Compare

I gave some time to reading blogs on different sites to see how the workflow seemed, how many ads popped up, if everything seemed like a certain theme the writers couldn't break out of (visually), and the elegance of it all. The top 3 blog tools that I have found are:

• Blogger.com
• Wordpress.com
• LiveJournal.com 

I found more than 3, but one must understand how a college student lives, which is usually paycheck to paycheck. Free was a must and thus everything else eliminated. The only other big killer that sought out a candidate and took them out of the run for my blog was the ads. 

LiveJournal

LiveJournal had the most ads. This may not bother some people, but I personally find it quite distracting and at times confusing. I am a digital media student, and if something distracts me on the internet, I'm sure that someone who spends less time online would use words such as intolerable and irritating. It may seem like a trivial, but when it comes to being perfect for the situation, nothing else compares. Although there were quite a few great traits that LiveJournal had, do not let me turn you off to the site altogether. 

The customization seemed in depth and extensive, as well as how they have integrated photos. (I received most of my information via the FAQ page) and even how massive the FAQ page is, it seems to cover anything that could happen and it is well organized and easy to follow.

WordPress

WordPress seems to have a varying amount of options and one that struck me the most was the ability to take a blog from LiveJournal or Blogger and switch it over to WordPress. It is the leading CMS as of today and had 22% of all new websites as of August 2011. It is fully customizable with html, and PHP. The only turn off that I had found was it has a history of security issues. WordPress was my original choice except for this detail that was uncovered. 

This is a major possibility for me in the future, but for now I felt as I had found the tool that I felt warranted time and effort to seek out and explore.

Blogger

Blogger is powered by Google. This to me was an instant advantage. This means a lot of integration with things such as Google Docs. The blogs I read through elegant as well. Not to say that the other ones were not, but there was a simplicity to blogger. 

Nothing seemed overcrowded, or blank and it appeared that the customization was just as extensive as WordPress. I would love to spend some time and adjust the CSS the way I would like, but that all comes with the flow of time and effort. 

So in conclusion to this blog, the point I would love to convey, whether you are a HTML/CSS customization freak or just a basic facebook status lover, let your voice be heard no matter what! There are tons of options on the internet for your opinion to be heard as it needs to be. The best advice for creating a successful blog is to try and try again. Try Blogger, then switch over to LiveJournal, or WordPress. You will never truly know how you feel about any of these amazing modern day tools unless you spend the effort to put your heart into it. Strive to reach into peoples hearts the way Turman or Frank have and forever will.

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood dreamer, Nick Stamper