Design
Usability & SEO are doing ok, time to invite Content to the party
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 | Design | No Comments
http://www.artemisphere.com/posts/30-you-dont-need-seo-usability/
Enable Clean URLs in Drupal 6.x
Saturday, August 16th, 2008 | Design | No Comments
So you installed Drupal 6.x and the Clean Urls options are grayed out with an ambiguous link to the drupal clean URL handbook.
It makes no sense to you. You’ve searched Google. You can’t find anything. You’ve figured out at least that you need to rewrite something in the .htaccess file. (it’s a hidden file - enable hidden files in OS X or enable hidden files in Windows)
If your .htaccess file looks like this:
AddHandler php5-script .php
then follow my instructions. If your .htaccess has a ton of stuff in it, try this out instead
Test if mod_rewrite is enabled
Add these two lines to the bottom of your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule .* http://drupal\.org [L,R]
Visit your website. If you are redirected to drupal.org, mod_rewrite is enabled.
As long as that’s in working order, just erase what you did and replace it with this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
#Rewrite current-style URLs of the form ‘index.php?q=x’.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
That’s it. Go back to the Clean URLs settings page and you should be able to enable it.
ATTN: All DNN Developers–
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | Design | No Comments
I’d like to know when you plan on learning web standards, XHTML and CSS. It’s 2008, and there’s no excuse for a module that costs money–PHP-based CMS’ have a wealth of free, high-quality modules–to have poor layout techniques ( tables and span tags everywhere ), amateur of CSS and crappy admin screens.
I’m calling on the DNN Core Team to encourage web standards and learning professional HTML and CSS, instead of half assed lazy HTML/CSS generated by IDEs for programmers who don’t care to learn. To the Core Team’s credit, they’re getting close with DNN 5.
I’m urging the operators of SnowCovered.com to give careful evaluation of submitted modules for: professionalism, web standards, UX design, simplicity and value. A lot of crappy vendors are ripping people off on your web site with terrible modules, outdated code, bloated features and lazy admin screens. Stop letting it happen.
The leaders in the DNN community need to step up and show people the way. Start by Getting Real (also mentioned on the DNN blog recently, a good sign) and learn what matters: making your web site easy for your customers to use–visitors and editors / administrators.
Hopefully, www.dnngallery.net can be a push in that direction, even if Cuong Dang has a strange affinity for Khoi Vinh ;-P
I’ve been writing elsewhere
Friday, June 27th, 2008 | Design | No Comments
Hi. I’ve been writing for my company blog a lot more lately.
Thanks.
Is anyone else interested in microformats?
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 | Design | No Comments
I’ve taken up an interest in microformats. In my opinion, any technology and language that can make machines understand our content more is very cool. I’ve always been fascinated by computers since I was a kid, always knew I wanted to work with them.
I’m absolutely amazed that we can accomplish intimate detail and precise understanding in computer languages, and share it all across the globe within seconds.
Dear Internet: Learn how to Spell
Sunday, April 27th, 2008 | Design | No Comments
Even second graders can get this right, yet somehow the distinction between the words “lose” and “loose” is completely lost on Internet users.
Here it is, the concrete definition as understood when I was seven fucking years old:
“lose” means to have lost.
“loose” is when you sleep with the head cheerleader.
Got it?
So tired of seeing this bullshit on every forum and message board and yahoo answers page I come across.
Why DotNetNuke is Terrible
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | Design, DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Programming, Ranting, Usability, Venting, Web Development | 1 Comment
I really could go on and on about this, but just a few notes.
1. Forced Registration to Download their Software
When you go to DNN’s web site and sister sites, like the new DNN Events site, the first thing you have to do before you can download anything is register an account. Now, it’s not all bad because it’s free and I guess they just want to track popularity (ever heard of Google Analytics?), but the registration process takes too fucking long. I registered an account to download the new Events Module beta about 10 minutes ago and still haven’t received my “verify your account” email. Sorry, DNN team, I’ve now lost all interest in your beta.
Not only that, but it’s not clearly obvious you have to register. They bury the instruction to register in their rather long and boring content. If I go to wordpress or drupal’s site, I see big freakin links to download (no registration required of course). It wouldn’t be so bad if they had a big link that said “Register and Download” but no, of course they don’t.
Which leads to my next point,
2. They really don’t support or discuss usability and accessibility
DNN modules and the DNN platform itself are so hard to use. Their website is hard to navigate, most of the icons don’t make sense, and the forums are cluttered and don’t work in all browsers. You can’t make a post in their forums in Safari. Sorry, Safari users, outta luck. Get firefox, I guess. No one seriously talks about how to make the admin screens and layouts of their modules more functional, faster, and easier to understand.
Most of the modules we have to buy (another point) are riddled with awful and outdated front-end code, and have the absolute worst Admin screens.
3. You have to pay for most of the modules
Now this isn’t that bad. I mean, a software developer’s gotta make money, and some people run their business solely off of DNN modules, right? Ok, but step up your game and make a module worth paying for. Refer to point #2.
More later, I have to get back to work.
My Fingers are going to be Bloody
Saturday, March 29th, 2008 | Design | No Comments
Don’t drop your iPhone on cement!
It still works, I can answer calls, go online, touch the screen anywhere, but I might also get shards of glass in my hand. Oops.
Well now I have a legitimate excuse to buy a 3G iPhone this summer. (besides the fact that it’s going to be awesome)
Cheap Web Companies are Ruining the Web
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 | Clients, Computers, Design, Feedback, Improving Code, Life, Programming, Ranting, Usability, Venting, Web Development, Websites | 1 Comment
This is completely opinion and I didn’t do any research but I’m probably right in most cases. This is really me venting because I’ve been having more than enough run-ins with external companies who under-price our clients for “services” such as consulting or even developing systems that they can’t afford for us to do. › Continue reading
CFD Smile Goes Live!
Monday, November 12th, 2007 | CSS, Clients, Code, Custom Development, Design, Portfolio, Portfolio - Freelance, Programming, Projects, SEO, Semantic XHTML, Skinning, Web Development, Websites, Work Stuff, XHTML | No Comments
Well, my first side project has finally gone live! After months of hard work, I now unveil www.cfdsmile.com to you. We wanted to bring out the services right up front for best emphasis, and lots of heavy stock photo usage for high impact.
We also worked with a professional web content writer to make the content more effective and search-engine optimized. This, coupled with semantic HTML, CSS, and google web master tools, will help this site rank high in keywords for Texas Dental Services.
So, please visit the site if you get a chance, and enjoy!