Entries Tagged as “General”
Donating to Homeless Women and Children
I'm not one to volunteer all to often. There are however a few times when I set some time aside for a worthwhile cause. Like helping homeless woman and children get back on their feet and turn their lives around.
I recently offered up my web design services to help Women's Empowerment, a local not for profit organization that does just that. Help Homeless women and their children get back on track.
Many who know me well, know that I am fairly critical of the homeless. So it may at first appear odd why I decided to volunteer my time to help them. The whole answer can be a long one, however the short and possibly surprising answer is that I spent most of my childhood and teen years being homeless or forced into a less than normal living arrangement. My brother's and I were casualties of a lifestyle that we had no control over. Like I said, it could be a long story. One that I will spare you from here.
My motivations to help were based largely on helping the children. In this case, to help the children you have to help the mother's too. So it just made sense to me to support the group.
Project Background
When approaching a project like this, I wanted to make sure the members at Women's Empowerment could update the site without knowing HTML or have additional software like Dreamweaver or Contribute. Instead I opted to use the free open source web software called Mango Blog. It's a great blogging tool that I have been involved with for the last few months. Using software like Mango Blog, I was able to quickly develop a simple website and push the limits of what I know about the software to do more than it was intended.
It was a fun challenge to undertake. Especially doing the design and code in just over a week. A true testament to the speed and flexibility of a great application like Mango Blog. I think the end result turned out quite well despite having to cut a few corners in order to make the launch deadline.
Have you donated your services to a group you feel is worthwile? If so please leave a comment below, and If you donated a website please leave a link. I would like to see what others are donating to.
→ Respond NowTags: Design · Mango · General
Mobile Web: Surfing The Web Distraction Free
A few weeks ago I downloaded the Myspace & Facebook apps for my iPhone. Not because I am overly active on either of those sites, but rather just curious about the apps. To my surprise I found them very enjoyable. Much more so than going to the actual website. Gone was the advertising, and was red and blue text on black background, gone was the lame music that starts playing at full volume when I enter the page. Each time I go to the profile page. (urg! I hate that) Also gone… Advertising, pop-ups, annoying flash banners! Oh, yes this is my kind of heaven! I actually found surfing these sites a pleasure once more.
The Epiphany
Checking out these apps, a little closer, they appear to be accessing a mobile version of their sites, just made to look pretty and clean for the small browser. That's when it hit me. Hallelujah! most every mobile version of a site can be accessed via your standard web browser. This means you can access ad free, distraction free, music free versions of your favorite sites online. You do not need a mobile phone to access many sites, just a normal web browser.
With the popularity of mobile phones increasing, Most major sites offer mobile versions of their sites, the trick becomes finding the link or just guessing it. Most of the time it's just their regular domain name with a prefix of "mobile" or "m" instead of the "www". Some sites like Amazon make theirs a bit more tricky to find, and MSN does a redirect when trying to access their site on a non mobile device. Most likely to prevent people from circumventing their ad revenue. All it all it's not difficult to find these mobile versions once you know what to look for.
Links for Reference
Here are a few sites that I visit on a regular basis and have discovered that their mobile versions are better suited to a positive user experience and increased productivity over their full web versions.
- http://m.facebook.com
- http://m.myspace.com
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile
- http://m.news.com
- http://m.cnn.com
- http://m.sacbee.com
- http://www.cbsmobile.com
- http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw
- http://m.youtube.com
- http://mobile.fandango.com
- http://m.netflix.com
- http://m.google.com
- http://us.m.yahoo.com
- http://weather.mobi
- http://m.wund.com
Feel free to leave a comment with links to your favorite mobile sites that you find usefull.
→ Respond NowTags: usability · General
Synchronize Your Life
If your like me, you have more than one computer. I have at least 6 computers that I use on a daily basis - 9 if you count the ones that I use off and on while I am traveling and away from home or office. Don't get me started with shared calendars with my wife's' computers too. Keeping your contacts, emails, calendar, and bookmarks in sync can be a real pain in the you know what.
Fortunately I have found a suite of tools that allow me to keep synced at all times across all of my computers both at home and at work. I wish there were a single application to rule them all, but for now at least there is hope that with a little elbow grease it can be done.
→ Respond NowTags: Software · General
Customizing Dreamweaver
I love Dreamweaver, it's my code editor of choice, but sometimes the default settings totally stink. I couldn't help but feel that space was being wasted, and that there were features missing from a seasoned application like Dreamweaver. I have picked up a few things to tweak Dreamweaver to my liking. Some things are simple, while others require a bit more wrenching under the hood. Now, anytime you go messing with core application files I highly recommend you make a copy of them first and store them in a safe location. Making a mistake could cause Dreamweaver to stop working. Though these tweaks are pretty easy, consider yourself warned.
→ Respond NowTags: Code · Software · Inspiration · General
Decrease your spam by address munging
I think we all would agree that spammers must die! Okay not literally, but the spam does need to stop. I recently closed down an email address that received over 5,000 junk emails a day. I had the address for the better part of 6 years or more. Part of the spam problem was created when I put my email address online unprotected. This is a common practice still employed today because many webmasters either don't know how to munge an email address or maybe it's just too much work.
I don't believe there is a silver bullet for becoming spam free. However, in the last year or so I have done two things to curb my spam. So far it has worked nearly perfectly. I now only see one or two emails a week that are junk mail.
→ Respond NowTags: General · Accessibility
