solidhex.com

Fluidesign, my home away from home, has just launched our new website and identity. We think it’s pretty groovy and we think you will feel the same way.

Of particular note is the fact that users can comment on our portfolio - as we far as we know, no other interactive agency allows this type of public discourse on their site. We like to encourage people to give us feedback wherever possible, and this puppy is no exception.

The team is still ironing out some kinks, so if you see something funky, get in touch.

I think I can safely speak for all of us at FD World Headquarters that we are amped beyond all belief to have this sucker live. The previous version of fluidesign.com served us for roughly 3.5 years. It did it’s job, got us clients and put our name out there, but after a while, it simply didn’t feel like us anymore. Now, we’ve been refined and reloaded.

Here’s to the next four years.

Update: QBN has featured our new site, woo hoo! Check it out.

Co-worker and friend Kristina has launched brockandkristina.com - a website dedicated to her ceremonious wedding later this year. Not enticed by most of the free wedding template sites, she cranked out a custom motif that draws its inspiration from the desert landscapes of Palm Springs, California.

As it turns out, not only is the site a good way to learn the back story of how she and her fiance Brock met, but it’s also a damn good resource for hotel and activity information for those planning a trip to Palm Springs.

All the coding was handled by yours truly. jQuery helped keep the Ajax call simple and also allowed me to use nyroModal, the highly customizable and flexible jQuery plugin from monsieur Cédric.

This morning, while trying to cure a rash of comment spam awaiting me in the moderation queue, I accidentally deleted all (but one) of my real comments along with the all the links to rapid weight loss pills and online poker.

Aside from feeling slightly stupid, I realized that no matter how well something is designed or implemented, someone is going to either a) make a mistake or b) find it counter intuitive. We do our best as designers and developers to make doing stuff online easier for our user base, but every now and again, someone like myself comes along and manages to screw it up. Shockingly, I am more than familiar with the WordPress admin section and I still managed to jettison my valid comments. I can chock that up to too many late nights banging away at the keyboard and too little sleep.

Sadly, my host is not running back-ups of MySQL at this time, so all those bright, shiny comments you all have left me are lost in the sands of time. Forever.

Fear not. You can begin commenting away anew.

Now I am little older, a little wiser and have a lot less comments on my site.

The other night, I upgraded to WordPress 2.5. The process was painless and quick, just like an upgrade should be. As everyone and their third cousin twice removed knows by now, the admin section was given a new swash of paint by the fine folks over at Happy Cog.

Had you asked me before I installed version 2.5, I would’ve said that the previous admin wasn’t broke so why fix it? Well, Happy Cog proved me wrong. Only after you give the new skin a test drive do you realize how cluttered its predecessor had become. As feature creep set it in over the years, it’s easy to forget that the primary focus of WordPress is publishing content on the web. 2.5 doesn’t bombard me with so much stuff up front, but everything I want and need is there waiting for me patiently should I decide to use it. It just feels, and I hate to use this word, streamlined.

I won’t go into an exhaustive feature or API list here, get that info direct from the horse’s mouth.

If you haven’t upgraded yet, I suggest taking the plunge when you get a chance. Just please make sure to make back-ups of your files, fer cryin out loud.

Realizing I won’t have much validity as a front end technologist running the default WordPress install, I have begun tinkering away on my own custom theme. It won’t be winning any Webby awards, to be sure, but it will be something crafted and slaved over by the solidhex committee. As things have slowed down a bit for me at The Company, I have stolen a few extra hours every night to fire up Photoshop and fiddle about with a grid based layout.

I figure I will give this whole blogging thing a twirl and see if it’s for me.