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A WordPress Post Category Accordion

Posted on June 17, 2012 in Wordpress Tips and Tutorials

There are quite a few ways to showcase your posts in WordPress, but I’ve found many of the archive functions to be pretty lacking. WordPress was conceived as a blog first, and a content management system second, so if you …
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A Simple jQuery FAQ style Show and Hide

Posted on June 9, 2012 in Snippets and Demos

Animated show/hide expanders seem to be very popular with clients lately. Although the jQuery UI library has a good accordion plugin that utilizes the Themeroller style gallery, it’s often overkill or not quite right for simple applications. I’ve created a …
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How I Wireframe

Posted on May 28, 2012 in The Website Design Process

I have come to buy into wire-framing as an essential part of an effective web development workflow.  There are many techniques and approaches for crafting strong wireframes, I don’t think there is necessarily a single right way to do it, but I …
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Friends & Farms

Posted on May 27, 2012 in Portfolio
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Friends and Farms supplies subscription based “Baskets” of regionally grown food along with extras purchased from a store, based on seasonal availability and consumer demand.  The site features e-commerce solutions in two parts, a Dynamic Springs Registration powered subscription based membership, and a Smith …
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Lightning Master

Posted on May 21, 2012 in Portfolio
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Lightning Master creates industrial lightning protection equipment and devices.  Their line of products covers a variety of industries and applications. This project was and upgrade to an existing website, with the goals of providing better content management, strong SEO, a …
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Coping with a Time Crunch

Posted on May 9, 2012 in Client Management

Having too much on your plate is a good problem.  Yes good, but I place the emphasis on problem for a reason. A sudden influx of clients and/or work needs to be addressed and dealt with head-on, or you will find yourself …
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Make Visual Studio Front End Developer Friendly in 3 Easy Steps!

Posted on May 5, 2012 in Tips and Tricks

Visual Studio, while pretty feature laden, isn’t the type of editor that a modern day front end guru salivates for.  When I first started developing in a .Net environment I found it pretty cumbersome and even a little intimidating.  These days, it rivals …
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Criticism in Creative Enviroments

Posted on May 1, 2012 in Leadership

Any team leader worth his salt has some trepidation when it comes to leveling criticism.  Doubly so in creative environments, where good designers and developers invest something of themselves in their designs and user experiences. I personally still find it …
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A Good Foundation

Posted on April 17, 2012 in The Website Design Process

After years of trying various techniques and workflows I’ve settled on three key areas that I focus on at the very beginning of nearly every web development process. Site Map I prefer a classic outline, but many people like more …
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Managing Expectations in Web Development

Posted on April 12, 2012 in Client Management

Content Management Systems are better and friendlier than they have ever been.  As a result, its very easy to oversell capabilities and reliability.  Microsoft office style interfaces make it tempting to advertise any CMS with a WYSIWIG as a no training, …
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Sample Job Interview Questions for Web Developers

Posted on April 6, 2012 in Leadership

I’ve participated in quite a few interviews and I do enjoy the process of meeting people and evaluating them for fit.  When assessing a potential designer, developer or other position, I try to orient candidates into a collaborative rather than …
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Precision Joint Solution

Posted on April 5, 2012 in Portfolio
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This DotNetNuke site was a blast to create and develop.  Great imagery and motivated clients made this simple site a success in just a few short weeks of development. DNN Modules Used: SmithCart Easy DNN Solutions News