WordPress

I've started twinfountain.wordpress.com. It's a testing ground for content management and tagging to use in other sites, particularly the soon to be significantly de-Flashed Pratt CSDS site. That site is going to be a wonderful confluence of technologies when we get it right.

Oh and also...

The Pratt CSDS site is now live. Constantly in flux and with a Flash based interactive map. Luckily I only have to manage and update the Flash, not write real code.

Redesigning

While I should focus on redesigning the actual site, I think the blog needs an overhaul too. Hating templates, but not sure what to do otherwise.

UPDATE: Went with this strange template, with minor edits. Both columns are fluid based on percentages, I imagine. We'll see.

Checking back in.

The site mentioned in the last post was fredandmartin.com which is now live. I like it very much, though there is a glitch in Safari and Opera where the site seems to "jump" when changing pages. So more than 2 months later, that's done.

new things

Began new project today as we began a new administration. A playful artsy portfolio site. I borrowed a bit of the design for twinfountain.com's 404 page. I should probably give it to the client. They are the designers. I probably should not have mentioned it.

I also tidied up the design of twinfountain.com. Take a little look-see. It's cleaner and a bit more modern, if you ask me.

e-commerce preferences

A client's site needs some kind of shopping cart to sell gift certificates. For my time and money, the simple and elegant solution is PayPal.
However, it seems that people don't like PayPal, or so I am told. Is signing up for an account that takes money from the same place any other shop would take money too complicated? If you've ever bought anything on eBay, odds are that you already have a PayPal account. Is it the leaving of the site you are shopping on? That might make sense as one doesn't generally leave the store they are shopping in to pay for their goods elsewhere in the brick-and-mortar world.

The current alternative is the e-shop that comes bundled with the client's hosting plan. It is a large store with more features than I probably understand. A template must be chosen and customized. The items for sale may require photos and there will be a fair amount of data entry. It may require an SSL certificate. Plus who knows what else.
But it may be prettier and look more like the original site.

What to do?

Flash update

Still stupid and unintuitive.