I’m into Kpop these days, so I listen to any of my favourite songs in any mood I am in at the moment.

The only rule? The more focused I need to be, the louder the song must be playing. I usually set ‘em to full blast, so loud that it numbs my brain. I love how that makes me feel. So relaxed.

Related posts:

1. 30-Day Blogging Challenge: okay, I’m in
2. 30-Day Blogging Challenge Day 2: Meaning behind my blog name
3. 30-Day Blogging Challenge Day 1: Introduction, recent picture of myself, 15 interesting facts

My ideal super power would be the ability to stare at my work and make it finish by itself. Before the deadline, just for the sake of being specific.

No related posts.

Since I am currently working on several (count eight) web development projects at the same time, life has been hectic but very productive. With my improved energy levels, I’m better motivated to learn and do more things at one go, but I felt that I needed to use more new arsenals in the form of web development tools that I hope can speed up the development process and the project as a whole. Preferably those arsenals are free and goes hand-in-hand with my prototyping methods of finishing my projects.

One of the things I don’t really enjoy doing is designing forms. I have to think about client-side validation, and making the fields more appealing and user-friendly with tooltips and whatnot. However, since forms are an integral part of data entry in a web application, I can’t get away without it. And then, there’s the wireframing for layout and functional visualization, very important for documentation. I prefer pencil-sketching. It’s easier to control where everything goes, rather than using my mouse to navigate the precise location of a certain text within Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks. I have wireframing sheets printed out and hand drawn, and I would clip them into my handy-dandy notebook, which, at some point will be overflowing with stuff that it just won’t be practical to drag about.

I’ve just discovered and worked with at least two spiffy apps these past week that made project visualization and forms development much faster and easier for me.

JotForm is not only a form builder, but it also hosts the forms and data for you. I personally like the smooth design that comes with the form. It has the ability to not only get those validation and tooltips in, but it highlights the section of the form you are selecting. Once I’m done, I can either just use the embed code, or if I want to integrate the form with my database, I just copy the whole HTML layout with its CSS and JavaScript codes intact into my app, and voila, pretty form. Happy days.

And wireframing using a computer isn’t as bad as I thought after all. Or maybe it’s just Mockingbird making it easy for me. The widgets and forms that are available for me to use are just enough for me to design a nice website wireframe, and I particularly like the align grids that shows automatically every time I insert a new object in. Once I’m done, I can share the file with anyone I want without having to generate the file as another format and upload it elsewhere. Mockingbird is fast for a web application, most probably because it’s programmed with Cappucino / Cocoa, a relatively new open-source programming framework that runs on a client, giving itself the feel that you’re running a software that’s installed in your computer. Very impressive and very nice.

Evolus’s Pencil and Appnitro’s pForm deserve a special mention here; both look promising and worth a try when I have the time to spare. Pencil is a free prototyping/wireframing tool that to me looks even more powerful and richer than Mockingbird, and runs either as a Firefox addon or standalone app. The free AJAX-powered version of pForm provides a simple click-and-drag way to create forms from a variant of design sets available in the site; the commercial version, in the meantime, has MySQL, e-mail and autoresponder integration for unlimited amount of sites.

No related posts.

I’ve been so caught up with CMS development like WordPress and Joomla since I started blogging, that I haven’t been paying attention to anything else, let alone learning the latest rave in the Web coding world.

It took Photo Matt’s whining about his Dreamweaver predicament to lead me to a web site on Aptana, an open-source development platform and server for developing AJAX enabled Web applications, which then took me to Ruby On Rails resources, where I chose to end up reading a beginner’s guide to developing RoR, called Why’s (Poignant) Guide To Ruby. I tell you, this has got to be the best idiot’s guide to learning a programming language, ever. I can’t believe that I read non-stop till Chapter 3 and I’m still not getting any head ache. Maybe it’s those foxes that keep popping up every once in a while. They’re like breaths of fresh air.

As of this moment, I have to stop myself, because I’ve just realized that I’m missing a mug of my favourite hot drink to keep me company, as well as the fact that I needed to have The Poignant Guide to Ruby site permanently bookmarked somewhere not in my laptop for perpetuity purposes. So here’s my bookmark for Chapter 3. I’m gonna add it in del.icio.us in a while, too.

Ruby on Rails kinda reminds me of Cold Fusion in some ways, without the hefty price tag. Hopefully learning Ruby on Rails will be my first step to becoming an AJAX coding god… dess.

No related posts.

From Through the Eyes of a Recruiter, it basically highlights the following:

1. Listen more than you talk.
2. Network up and down your organization.
3. Be a problem solver.
4. Seek feedback.
5. Don’t curb your enthusiasm.

I’d like to think that I practice all five of them whenever I’m in a new working environment. I’m especially fond of using tactic number 2, where I would even chat up with the cleaning ladies. Oh, the gossips and news you get from them can be really amazing. Not that I’m such a gossip monger or anything, but the info you get from them concerning what’s going on in a company can be dizzyingly accurate. It helps me at least to be alert and take action before any of my colleague would, and takes away the surprise element on any news I get after.

No related posts.

Over the week, I’ve been pondering the fate that is WebGrrrl.net. To be honest, even with the seemingly lack of updates (seemingly, because I’m ignoring my paid posts), I actually have a lot of things in my mind I’d like to blog about. However, the topics I wanted to blog on doesn’t really fit into what I initially envisioned WebGrrrl.net to be, which was… umm, I wasn’t really sure what it was. I never really had a vision for WebGrrrl.net, but I know I wasn’t going to post on anything too personal, or too commercial, or short posts on what I found through my daily bloghoppings.

At first, I thought of refocusing the objective of WebGrrrl.net to topics concerning blogging and WordPress development; I would then create a new blog focusing on interesting doodads I found on the Web, and another blog on Web programming matters. Nah. I finally decided on creating just one more blog for my Web programming stuff called Coding Idiot, which will be launched next week. I may want to look for volunteers to contribute a post every fortnight, with some link love as exchange. Once things are really rolling, I plan to start paying bloggers who contribute to Coding Idiot. I’ll write up some more details in the new blog pretty soon.

As for my doodads idea, I may just dump them back here, because I’m sure others will find them fun as well.

So there. Cheers!

No related posts.

I’ve been contemplating for some time on becoming a WordPress site developer, focusing on WP being a Content Management System (CMS). With a clearly thought-out web site structure in mind, my experience so far tells me that WordPress can go further than even other CMS like Joomla! and Mambo could, thanks to a reasonably low learning curve, and the ease of developing plugins and widgets under WP. No less important is the fact that a majority of WP plugin developers are very generous, and provide their plugins for free, and who doesn’t like free?

Build High Performance CMS Sites With Ease!

Creating websites, blogs, and article-driven Content Websites has Never Been Easier than it is Now with The CMSPal System — Get It FREE!

I googled my way through various articles by bloggers and web site owners who agree about the potential of WordPress as a CMS. I even found one fine article in WordPress.org that discusses the elements and views that can make WordPress an effective CMS.

Now, with all the ideas that I get from reading these information, it’s no less important for me to look at WordPress-powered CMS sites for inspiration, and I am more than a little impressed at what I’ve seen so far.

• “News, analysis and opinion about the digital revolution.” I wouldn’t have guessed that All Things Digital was powered by a blogging software until I saw the footer. I LOVE this site. Wall Street Journal has its site architecture well-defined and has its editorial content beautifully laid out, yet the site uses components that most of us bloggers are already using — tags, excerpts, customized headers, pages, and others, that I doubt the site developers did any custom coding of their own at all. I also love how the multimedia and text posts are meshed together in the Updates section, with small icons identifying each post by type. I think all newsletter-type sites with multiple editors should inspire to appear like this. By the way, oh my Lord, who knew that Steve Jobs was once such a hunk?! Good-looking AND geeky!!
• “The good life in the beautiful island.” I’m not sure if you can categorize Cebu Living as a CMS since the only customization was done on the first page to show the latest post excerpt on top, and 3-column layout beneath it; the rest of the site maintains a blog feeling, which I’m guessing is what the site owner wanted anyways. The site even has problems loading up the images in its post, which could be a frustrating issue for its site visitors. One part I particularly like about the site is its horizontal category menu, although I first thought that the subtext below each category name were sub-categories. Now if they WERE sub-categories and are individually linked, that would be cool. Leon Kilat described how he built this site as a magazine CMS.
• “Quality loves company.” Let me go old-school here and call 9rules a “directory of topics” rather than a standard CMS site. I’m sure they’d rather be called a community site though, which sounds way more cool and Web 2.0. It’s basically a collection of posts made within or outside of the site by its members, but most importantly its content is powered by its members and grouped by topics and tags you can search and filter. This concept is almost like what I’m envisioning my next money-making site to be, sans the community feel.
• “From PowerPoint to Flash, with video and sound.” Although Speechi looks like your traditional commercial web site, you’d be surprise how much of the WordPress elements are incorporated into it. I am thinking that the developers use a lot of Pages in creating their content, and I especially like the idea of using posts to build the customers testimonial section. I also see some familiar WP e-commerce plugins used and can be found in WordPress Codex. You can read this post describing how they went about designing Speechi. I love this CMS concept.
• “Better meetings and events.” The content of Plan Your Meetings web site is very well-thought of, and it shows through a very well-defined and comprehensive set of categories, with posts displayed in numerous ways depending on how the content is meant to be viewed. Nevertheless, I am almost sure that the web site require more customized components than what WordPress has by default, which makes this site more complicated programmatically than it feels. Have you seen any WP plugin that can generate information such as those found in the site’s Sitemap and Resource Directory?

Do you have or have you seen any WordPress-powered sites you would like to share with me? Comment away — I’m eager to know and see for myself. I’ll be using my comments form to bookmark other WP-CMS sites as I go along.

No related posts.

Priority, priority, priority. Was what kept me away from my blog. Really, if I was given one wish in the world, it’ll be to add an extra 100 hours into a day so that I can do more things. Quick recap of the past month:

• My Akismet counter has reached the Devil’s number 666. Or is it suppose to be 999?
• I’m testing out OpenID on my server, but God knows what I’ll do with it since I’m not planning to allow user logins to my WordPress site any time soon (but if you think I should, let me know).
• I moved my office — took me a month to settle in, get my mails and bills re-routed, contact all suppliers and business partners, and set up my new phone numbers, and finally get connected to the Net.
• I’ve been made a director in I-hope-it-is-soon-to-be-a-big company dealing with cost-savings telco and much more.
• I’m currently building a Web-based interface for voice-blasting capabilities which very soon may be used by one of the big telcos in Malaysia — Maxis.
• I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.1.3 a few minutes ago.
• I’m testing out the Top Commentators Widget to incorporate the time period limitation; I promise, Cord, it will be done by tomorrow.
• I got a numerology reading out of curiosity. The gist of it:
  • I’m good at keeping secrets
  • I’m good at keeping money
  • I have hidden talents that no other people realize; people have to dig me like the earth to get to the “oil” within
  • Too calculative, but once I invest on a business and run it the way I plan, I’ll definitely generate more money (oh yeah, show me the money!)
  • I’m a good candidate for a kidnap
  • I should be wary of my friends; most of them are trouble-makers
• I’m half-seriously trying to figure out how to become an insomniac.
• I still hate Internet Explorer 7.0.

Lastly, don’t tell me you don’t find this even remotely funny:

Gotta love Chris and his sense of humour.

No related posts.

An article by Lorna Timbah | 21 January 2007 | http://webgrrrl.net | Republishing of this article on other web site is permitted, as long as this reference to this web site remains intact.

In this digital age, our business relies so much on computers and technology to make our jobs faster and easier. Still, as much as we need technology, we have to admit that a substantial amount of our expenses goes into these technology investments, particularly on computer software, when in reality we would have wanted to spend in more profit-generating activities.

Therefore, why not get these software for free instead? You can start with getting free desktop applications. Computers are virtually useless without office suite applications. An office suite is a package containing more than one common, ready-to-use desktop applications such as a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentation manager, and others that assist you with your work at the office or at home. Here are just a few of the office suites you can get without having to spend a single cent:

1) StarOffice (http://www.sun.com/staroffice/)
Developed by Microsoft’s adversary, Sun Microsystems, StarOffice created much excitement during its release as the first ever office suite available for free, and can even run on all three major operating systems (Windows, Linux and UNIX). As the suite evolves and improves, many users find it very powerful and easy to use compared to Microsoft Office. Whatever Microsoft Office does, StarOffice can do better. Unfortunately, since more than five years ago, Sun Microsystems has discontinued providing this suite for free, although the older StarOffice version 5.2 is still available for free download outside of Sun Microsystems’s web site. Good news for users comes in the form of another free suite that is…

2) OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/)
OpenOffice, an open-source initiative started by a group of people in Germany, caught the attention, and later the financial support, of Sun Microsystems. Slightly buggy than the stable and powerful StarOffice, this suite nonetheless is as competitive as StarOffice and Microsoft Office. OpenOffice developments provide benchmarks and basis for later versions of StarOffice as both suites are continuously improved. Important capabilities such as PDF file conversions and file type compatibilities are conveniently built into OpenOffice without the extra cost involved, compared to what you have to spend when using Microsoft Office. Runs on most major operating platforms just like StarOffice, OpenOffice is well-suited for virtually everyone who needs quality desktop applications for the price of zero.

3) KOffice (http://www.koffice.org/)
KOffice is developed for use on KDE (K Desktop Environment), a Linux-based operating system, although this office suite can run on any other Linux distributions. Therefore, Linux users can count themselves lucky, since KOffice has the most extensive set of tools around (11 applications) compared to any free or paid office suites. Every component of the KOffice application works seamlessly with one another, by allowing any KOffice document to be embedded with other KOffice files. In order to open other document types, such as Word, PDF and WordPerfect documents, KOffice provides file filters to convert to and from different files. Obviously, Linux users will find this suite most suited to them, if their Linux distributions do not come with one already.

4) NeoOffice (http://www.neooffice.org/)
NeoOffice is a version of OpenOffice.org specially modified to run under Apple’s Mac OS X computers. You can expect basically the same functionalities and a little bit more compared to OpenOffice, and with the FOC (free of charge) tag, of course. Although OpenOffice itself does have a Mac OS release, NeoOffice provides more specialized Mac OS functions such as fonts supports, better PDF generation, accessibility options such as voice recognition, and spotlight document indexing. NeoOffice is suited for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) using mainly Mac OS as their operating system, whereas larger organizations are better off using OpenOffice’s Mac OS version, which can handle millions of processes meant for a larger number of users.

5) Online office suites
The most exciting advancement in office suite development has got to be the emergence of Web-based office applications that can emulate exactly what its client-side counterparts could, thanks to the existence of AJAX, the most talked about programming language around. Two of the most popular online suites include Google Docs & Spreadsheets (http://docs.google.com/) and Zoho (http://www.zoho.com/), both of which are 100% free and ready for use. There are only two requirements for using these suites, that you must have an Internet connection and that you have a web browser. The best function of an online office suite is its ability to share your documents to anyone in the Internet for collaborative use. Also, imagine not having to worry about:
- whether the office suite is compatible with your Windows, Linux or Mac operating systems — web applications are cross-platform compatible;
- whether or not you have the latest patches or security updates for your office applications; and
- whether or not you have the latest version of your software.
In future developments, you will also have the option to install it in your company’s intranet servers, should you need to deploy it without the need for 24-hour Internet access. Online office suites are very suited to the “road warriors,” that is, IT-savvy users who constantly travel and who require online access anywhere they are.

Now that you know your option, why not start using one right away? No more burdens about spending on those expensive extra software licenses. Start experiencing the savings you can get by using these free and wonderful office suites, and soon you might even start asking, “Microsoft Office? What’s that?”

Lorna, a business graduate from the University of Alabama, is highly passionate in IT and the Internet, and her passion was what helped her land her first job as a Webmaster (and later as a Web Unit Manager), with the role to manage websites for a state-wide network known as Sabah.Net. She now blogs and makes money online. Lorna is also a part-time tutor with Open University Malaysia, teaching IT and e-commerce subjects to diploma- and degree-level students.

No related posts.

An article by Lorna Timbah | 13 January 2007 | http://webgrrrl.net | Republishing of this article on other web site is permitted, as long as this reference to this web site remains intact.

As much as the saying “content is king” rings true, form and function needs to be balanced in order to create an effective web site. This balance is even more critical when it comes to creating an effective e-commerce web site for your business. Based on a survey of U.S. online shoppers done by interactive marketing solutions firm Questus (http://questus.com), web design plays a key role in determining whether or not they decide to shop on your online store. Listed below are five main web design factors that can make or break your online selling efforts:

1) Visual design
Visual design encompasses the arrangement of content, as well as the use and consistency of colors and images in your web site. Colors and images can be used to emphasize your company’s online image, giving customers the impression that your company is professional, reliable and trustworthy. Arranging the images and information in a clean and consistent fashion throughout your web pages can very well improve the odds of converting your web site visitors into online customers. Therefore, use components such as Flash animations, sound clips, and other bandwidth-consuming forms of multimedia ever so sparingly. If using these fancy components do not add to improved web site usability or improved understanding of your product, then please, avoid using them at all cost.

2) Site navigation
Make sure that your product navigation links are the first thing your online users can focus on when they visit your site. Site navigation needs to be obvious and user-friendly, that is, requiring less clicks and links to follow in order for your customers to locate products or other information. Other than that, online users feel that it is hard to find the information they need when there are too many links in your site navigation. If you feel that you require more than seven links in your site navigation, consider grouping the links into different navigation groups. This will help un-clutter your navigation sections, thus creating “zones” to help your customers focus better when they browse your site. For instance, links pointing to your company information, contact page, press releases and site map can be grouped together, while product categories can be in an entirely different navigation group from your promotions and special offer links.

3) Check-out process
The check-out process starts as soon as your customer selects a product into his or her shopping cart and selects the “Check Out Now” or “Buy Now”. Your customer then needs to review the order, enter shipping and billing addresses, provide payment information, and confirm the sale. Experts recommend that you make these tasks into simple steps of three or less. Even the placement of the Check Out/Buy Now button should be conveniently placed in each product page. In addition, you may include user registration to allow quicker check-outs for customers who frequently purchases from your e-commerce site so that they do not have to re-enter their details. However, do not make a habit of making registration compulsory to all buyers, since one in every five online shoppers prefer not to register and give out too much personal information.

4) Product description
Product description has to do with more than just pasting on a snapshot of your product and adding a few lines of words on it. It also has to do with helping your customer understand your product to the point where your customer can visualize the dimensions or usefulness of your product, even “taste” it. You can use your product description as a place for your online customer to experience your product enough to want to buy it. One of the drawbacks to shopping online is that we are unable to use all our five senses, and have to rely on only our sense of sight and sound. Hence, this section is one place in your e-commerce web site where multimedia can play a big role in enhancing your online customer’s experience. Instead of just putting up the product specifications such as size, weight and color, some media-enhancing examples would be by providing:
- A large-scale image of your painting or hand-painted item (photographer, painter)
- 3-D view of a sculpture or doll (artist, toy maker)
- Color tweaking abilities whereby your product changes color based on your customer’s selection (t-shirt retailer, textile manufacturer)
- Product samples and user comments or testimonials (record store, book seller, infotailers)

5) Online catalog
Though closely tied in with the check-out process and product description, the online catalog factor has more to do with the ease to search and browse for products. A well-designed online catalog should not only contain helpful product description, but also have a product search engine and organized product groupings. This allows your customer to locate your product quickly, and gives your online customer a sense of control over what he or she is trying to look for. Step it up a notch by providing features such as:
- Flexible search on product specification, like brand or color
- Recommending similar product that suits your customer’s current product of choice, such as a tie that would match the shirt selected
- Product specification comparison, which is especially useful for electronics and travel packages

Keep in mind that your e-commerce site design must support your value proposition and objectives, but most importantly your customer’s needs. Based on the web design factors above and by understanding your customers, you can design your e-commerce web site so that your customers will have a pleasurable and hassle-free visit to your online store.

Lorna, a business graduate from the University of Alabama, is highly passionate in IT and the Internet, and her passion was what helped her land her first job as a Webmaster (and later as a Web Unit Manager), with the role to manage websites for a state-wide network known as Sabah.Net. She now blogs and makes money online. Lorna is also a part-time tutor with Open University Malaysia, teaching IT and e-commerce subjects to diploma- and degree-level students.

No related posts.