Posted on December 6, 2007 in , with 0 comments.

Since my recent leave of absence here on the old blog, I have come across quite a number of interesting design/web/other tidbits. Instead of listing them all (which would be next to impossible; I’ve recently moved to a mac, and can’t pull myself away long enough to fire up the ‘ol Compaq), what follows is a more recent list. Enjoy!

• Part of my job now (sometimes) involves creating animated GIFs, no lie! Check out this cool tutorial to get back up to speed with classic online animation.

• Jeff Croft starts a bit of controversy when he wonders What’s not to love about CSS frameworks?

• Learn how to build mobile apps for the best hand held browser ever (the iphone of course)!

• And I thought I was the only one who enjoyed a well built HTML page. Hand coding FTW!

• The iphone gave us our first taste of multi-touch displays, what could be next?

• Now that I’m in the media business full-time, what’s cooler than Cameron Moll blogging about MSNBC’s recent redesign ?

• Banner Report : Sample ads in all formats, great for the online web designer!

• How to size text in CSS . I haven’t read it yet, but it’s ALA , so I intend to.

• If you haven’t heard of eye-track testing , now’s the time!

Posted on December 4, 2007 in Life-etc, with 3 comments.

It was cold. Me and my new wife are from Texas, where cold is 50 degrees, freezing is 40, and anything less than that is a day off. But it’s different here in Philadelphia, and on Thanksgiving it was a cold one.

We had been here in Philly for about 2 weeks, and new position afforded me a a much needed 4 day weekend for Thanksgiving. Having only been here a short time, and still getting settled in, we decided to stay in town, and find a nice restaurant with a turkey dinner.

As with most outings now, Josie (my wife) fired up her brand new iPhone, and found a place to eat, driving directions, and was able to make reservations. It was a nice place, normally a seafood restaurant, and surprisingly busy (to us at least) for a Thanksgiving evening. We got seated right away though (thanks to the reservations), and sat down for our first Thanksgiving as husband and wife.

It was different, being away from home, and only us two. But it was nice. We spent the majority of the evening recollecting on how quickly our lives had changed, and what we were thankful for. In the last few months we: got married, went to Hawaii for a beautiful (albeit expensive and hot) honeymoon in Maui, applied for a bunch of design jobs all over the US, flew to Philly for a sudden and unexpected interview, packed up all of our earthly belongings, and drove across the US in a large rented truck – desperately hoping the place we would rent was going to be decent.

The company I now work for is a large-ish media firm located outside Philadelphia in the small ton of Yardley. Although I applied for a ‘web designer’ position, when they replied to me they had me interview for the ‘lead designer’ position. I wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for Josie. A very pleasant surprise. So after all the boring stuff (buying a suit, stressing out over a little shaving cream on the collar, and meeting with a few of the people here) I was offered the position.

I took it.

So now, I’m the lead designer for the online team of the Journal Register Company. We operate a bunch of different papers all across the northeast, and my first task is to redesign all the websites we operate as well (at my estimate, over 20 daily newspaper sites, maybe over 100 weekly papers, and at least over a 100 niche/specialty sites. It’s a large task, but I’m enjoying every minute of it.

So as we sat, and talked, I thought about how different my life had become. No longer was a part-time web designer, part-time night clerk at the Holiday Inn. There would be no more double shifts at this job, or that job. No more complete days when Josie and I (because of overlapping schedules) would miss each other completely. I would finally be doing the work I love, the work I’ve always wanted to do, in a completely new, and interesting place.

As we walked back to the car that night, and drove through beautiful downtown Philadelphia (with Christmas lights up, no less), I got a little homesick. A lot had changed, and we had relocated ourselves far, far away from all we knew. But I smiled a little, and squeezed Josie’s hand. We had just taken the first step of the rest of our lives. This (life) was our adventure, and we had finally begun to embark. So feeling a little homesick was ok, in all honesty, it seemed perfectly appropriate.

Posted on November 21, 2007 in Life-etc, with 3 comments.

*Or “What in the world has happened to Christopher Scott?!” *

If you’re reading this you’re probably one of the following:

• A friend, or family member – If this is the case, there’s a 50/50 chance you know what I’ve been doing for the past few months.
• One of my few, dedicated readers still left – If you’re still around, you just might be the only one. I haven’t written in about 25 weeks, which is enough time (I’m assuming) for people to forget who I am, or at the very least unsubscribe to what usually amounted to decent yet inconsistent design blog. To these users (readers) I say, thanks, and stick around. I can’t wait to tell you what has happened, what I’ve been designing, and where I live. :)
• Someone who has just stumbled upon my little site – If this is the case, then you should be excited. I’ve never felt more like writing, and now I have a regular work schedule ;)

This is the point (if you’re reading this), when you start to wonder:
“Where exactly have you been, Chris, and what happened?”

I can’t wait to tell you.

Tomorrow’s Blog: The Newly Married Man’s First Thanksgiving

Thanks for stickin ‘round.

P.S. I just had to give a screentshot of this:

Posted on June 11, 2007 in SEO-Site-Promotion, with 2 comments.

In this article, I’ll cover the basics of search engine optimization for professional, amateur, or hobbyist web designers. Most of these tips only take a minute or two to implement, and could greatly increase your search engine traffic immediately.

Enough of the fluff, let’s get down to business.

Use a 301 redirect

Use a 301 redirect to add (or get rid of) the ‘www’ to your domain. This is important, because most search engines consider www.domain.com a separate website from domain.com.

To add a 301 redirect that removes the ‘www’ from your domain name, and directs all the traffic to one domain add this to your .htaccess file (should be in the root directory of your host):

RewriteEngine On
rewritecond %{http_host} ^yoursite.com
rewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Note: this will add a ‘www’ to your domain if it wasn’t typed by the user.

Use your <h1> tags!

Search engines like Google treat H1 tags as more important than other content on your site. Use them appropriately. They should describe the content on the page the user is on, like for instance, ‘Company History’, or ‘Products and Services’.

Don’t Use Images For Text

Text in images don’t get read by search engines at all, so be careful what images to include, and include an alt description wherever possible.

Posted on June 6, 2007 in Weekly-Roundup, with 0 comments.

Well topping the list of exciting news is the release of the 2012 London Olympic logo. Well it was released, that is until it was pulled for causeing protests, and maybe even seizures. See, even the big wigs can screw up a design every now and then. Enjoy.

• The logo for the 2012 Olympics in London looks like a terrible 80’s video game. Update: It seems like more people than me are having problems with the logo: London 2012 Logo Causes Seizures (scotsman.com), Online protest starts over 2012 Olympics logo (vnunet.com), London 2012 Olympic logo ridiculed (ImediNews.com), The London 2012 logo: the blogosphere is angry

• The iPhone will go on sale June 29

• Check out a very different way to tell time: The Polar Clock

• CNN is redesigning again. Check out the beta version of their new site

• Check out this cool typography music video featuring a cover of Ouksast’s ‘Hey Ya’.

• Inspiration glass still only half-full? Check out these 37 ways to get inspired

• The guys over at Diggnation celebrate their 100th episode with a stellar laptop cake

• Typophile gift idea #312: Quote/unquote bookmarks

• A good, short article on why you should paper prototype

• Free, blank wordpress themes that are available for those of you who design blog themes.

• Wow, the guys over at Corkd must be psyched to see ABC news is running a story about their TV show.

• Smashing Magazine uncovers the secret that is Google page rank.

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