Phew… We are in the final throws of the new website for Glass beadmakers UK www.GBUK.org
Depending on when you look at it it will be either the old or the new site, If it doesn’t look like this picture, then it is the old one.
I will make sure the old pages link to the new ones with some dodgy mod-rewrite rules, so all the old links and google cache should be fine and updated.
The whole site will be run from WordPress with my own custom theme. Therefore because its WordPress its all XHTML compliant with as much semantic markup as I can manage and all styling is CSS… I’m sure that there are some incompatibilities with some very old browsers, but it works fine in IE5.5, 6 Firefox and Opera.
One advantage of using WordPress is that I can let some of the committee members post news items themselves, and update any pages that they own (ie tuition pages)
But on that… that’s one thing that I find a bit anyoying about WordPress “as it comes”, is that I cannot set up a page to be editable by another user… posts yes but not pages (If you are allowed to edit pages then you can also create new ones… and I don’t want that). Therefore I will need to write a plugin to do it, which is something that I really like about WordPress…!!!
To be honest though, the site will probably not be up for another week, as I also have a very hectic schedule this week mixing and producing a CD with my wife which is booked in for mastering at Cyclone Music Productions next Wednesday. It has to be mastered by then because we need the CD run to be available for sale by the middle of March. (More on that when I have finished mixing it)
Too much to do… and not enough time.
Oooo Oooo Oooo… a new post… well OK maybe a bit boring for most, but I stumbled across this site
www.skimcss.com
It’s just cramed full of links to very useful CSS articles.
Very handy when you are trying to come up with some new ideas and site designs !!
Posted in CSS, Web Stuff
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Ahem… so come on… what the hell was that all about…?
I am of course refering to LOST… (well the final 2 episodes that were shown tonight on C4)
Now I am more confused than I was before. That was certainly an exciting ending, but man how many cliff hangers can they leave you with… especially at the end of a series.
Well at least we only have to wait till spring for the next series.
I just feel annoyed now !!!
After a mad day getting up far earlier than should be legally allowed (7:00) to go to one of Sarah’s Jewellery fairs, we also decided to go visit IKEA to get some bits for Sarah and try to sort out and organise our living room. While trying to find our way around the new layout at Croydon’s IKEA, I spotted a rather useful opaque white plastic storage box that will (I hope) be perfect as a light tent for photographing jewellery and beads without all those annoying reflections, and for much less than a light tent.
If it works I may well post the results here and let you know how it worked out.
Getting the right set-up for taking pictures of beads and jewellery is very difficult; we have spent countless hours taking photographs, only to come out with one or two useable ones… (Personally I think Sarah is a bit picky, but hey it’s her stuff so therefore her prerogative I suppose!)
So anyway, these ones are NOT made out of ticky tacky.. but they do all look the same !
Well I have just moved my blog here on downton.me.uk, from blogger…
I shall be updating the style to something more “me”, as soon as I can get around to it.
It’s about time I moved away from blogger, onto something more professional
Well I have just received possession of Sonar version 5… !!! Woo hoo… Thanks to my family for a nice Birthday present. I am looking forward to having a play, although I can see when as we are on a tight schedule here at work (imminent release in less than 2 weeks), but I’m sure I will fit in some time somewhere.
I am reliably informed on the Sonar forum and from Edirol Europe that although the minimum spec is Windows XP running on a P4 1.3Gig that my paltry 1Gig PIII with Win2K will run it just fine… So here’s hoping.
After a long time away from the Blog I have finally come back !!!
I have taken the plunge and gone for a reseller hosting package, this means that not only can I host Sarah’s Jewellery and lampworked Glass beads site www.sarahdownton.co.uk but I can now also host many other sites, as I seem to be getting into web design, I can now offer hosting as part of the design package.
Not only is Sarah’s site now all fully PHP and database driven, but also includes a blog (beadlog as Sarah likes to call it), which Sarah seems to be keeping more up to date than mine… Then again that’s not very hard is it.
I will shortly be taking over the hosting of the GBUK society web site.
I have great plans for this, including integrating the members forum, which is currently running on MSN, and perhaps adding member editable pages for them to put up their own pictures and information about themselves… There is so much that CAN be done, and yet so little time. (Hmmm.. That old chestnut, anybody got any spare time they can give me? )
Well I will try not to be away for so long next time…
Well… had some time to recover from the course held by Eric Meyer on Professional CSS XHTML Techniques (It was a long day, up at 6:30 for a 9:00 start, finishing proper at 18:30, then talking in the bar for an hour or so, finally getting home at 21:30… Phew !!!)
It was certainly an interesting course, and it has definitely clarified several things for me… One of the things I was pleased about was the fact that, as I am pretty much self taught as far as CSS and XHTML are concerned, I have not got it all wrong. That’s got to be a good thing.
I will try to gather my thoughts for a more in-depth review… but then again if Peter is going to do that…. maybe I won’t bother !! Who knows…
Posted in CSS, Programming
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Not posted for a while but I’m looking forward to going to Eric Meyer on Professional CSS XHTML Techniques – A One Day Workshop by Carson Workshops, focusing on CSS, XHTML and Accessibility
So I’d better go to bed as I have to be up at 6:30 tommorow morning, and I’m still here typing away…!!
I hope to get some nice nuggets out of this course, I hope so, as I need to do a presentation on what I’ve learnt at work when I return
I am going with Peter Westwood and I hope a good day will be had by all…!!
Well off to bed… night
Posted in CSS, Programming
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Right… a bit of an overhall on Sarah’s site tonight… new pictures for the “Spring Collection”, plus prety much every page was updated in some form or another.
I am looking into how I can make this all automatic. Hopefully we will shortly be moving over to a new host that supports PHP and mySQL so I can automate a lot of the boilerplate work, plus let Sarah add her own news items and pictures into a gallery (possibly Simple PHP Gallery) as they come up. Also thinking about maybe using word press so she can keep a blog on the site too… maybe I can even run the whole site off it… (I will have to see about that).
The best bit will be the automated gallery, as at the moment adding all the descriptions multiple times for the alt and title tags and the image title is a pain in the bum. Plus I have to create all the thumbnails by hand, and make sure all the thumbnails are linked to the correct images.
Ahhh well, now just got to work out a way to give her an admin interface that she can use easily, but is also powerfull enough to do what she wants.
