For whatever reason, the div (which is actually an h1 tag, didn’t want to center in IE7 and when I finally got it to center, then it wouldn’t go the whole way across the screen. It stopped at the edges of the #wrapper container… which is odd because the branding graphic isn’t even inside the #wrapper container. I’m sure I’m missing something simple but I’m too tired to find it right now.

I plan on writing about my experience with the coding of the site and what I had to do as far as custom loops and such to “bend” WordPress to my will. Of course, I was pretty sure a few times WordPress was bending me to its will.

If you come across anything out of place in IE7 or 8, please let me know. I don’t have access to anything but IE7 and though I tried some of the free browser services online they can only help so much. Funny enough, after I decided that I wasn’t going to support IE 6, I had to create a special stylesheet just for IE7 because the navigation was 1 pixel off in Explorer. Gotta love it.

Captify adds semi-transparent captions that appear on top of images when the user’s mouse rolls over them. It offers a simple way to add captions to images in a manner that doesn’t add clutter to a design. Tested in IE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

You can view examples of how this works here.

There are other fun words that can be found within the graphic—can you find them?

In Wrangler’s new French ad campaign there are two possibilities—maybe it’s that people who are into these jeans are also into Necrophilia or, two, garner enjoyment from violently harming people near water. Either way it seems like people are straying from the “sex sells” idiom to “death sells.”

From the official campaign press release:

In today’s society, our animal instincts are smothered by daily modern life, city-living and constant technological developments. Man is an animal, but he no longer knows it. Wrangler’s new strategic and creative platform seeks to re-awaken our bottled-up instincts and to encourage who and what we fundamentally are, by putting all that is pure, natural and instinctive back into Man.

Hmm, well, if these images depict how they “seek to re-awaken our bottled-up instincts” I think there are enough people acting out on those “bottled-up instincts” for the world’s liking and creating an ad campaign to highlight that “animal instinct” isn’t necessary.

Tom Breitling ‘Double or Nothing’ Book Web site

I am an admitted Dreamweaver user. What that doesn’t mean is that I’m not a professional. What it does mean is that is the tool I’ve chosen to use to code sites with. It also doesn’t mean I don’t know how to code by hand or that I don’t code by hand when using it. It doesn’t mean that I can’t develop standards-based sites or sites that validate when completed. It also means if I could find a program that offers split views, code completion, highlighting of code that will cause problems in browsers and their possible solutions and a new document that has the DOCTYPE, meta information and the opening and closing body and html tags, I’d jump on it. Oh and said program would have to be a Mac app.

That said, below is a list that of what I consider needed to be a professional web designer/developer (in no particular order):

• Knowledge of xHTML and CSS
• Design skills
• Time management skills
• Communication skills
• Clients
• The ability to hand code
• Troubleshooting skills
• Tools you are comfortable using to save time and clients money
• Ability to compromise
• Knowing that you’re way is not necessarily the right way
• Ability to take and consider constructive criticism
• Ego
• The ability to lick your wounds when your ego has been trampled on because it will

I’m sure there are many other skills I’ve left out that are needed to be a professional web designer/developer but none of them include the tools you use to accomplish the task. What kind of tool you use to apply those skills is unimportant—they are just that, tools. Anyone with the proper skill-set can use any tool to turn out a pristine end-product and that is what is most important in the scheme of things. Just because you may have the tools does not mean you have the skills and I’ve seen all too often people who cry the importance of tools are mostly lacking in skills.

Also, if you weren’t aware of the site previously, it’s a great resource for folks in the Mac design community, though I suppose windoze designers’ can get some use from it too.

The site isn’t completely finished at this point, I still need to complete the portfolio page but other than that, it was an exercise in patience. I’m sure I’m also going to lose some of my SEO ranking but I figured what potential clients needed to know was going to be placed on the front page.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Copyright ©
<?php // automatically update the copyright date each year
      ini_set('date.timezone', 'America/New_York');
     $startYear = 2000;
     $thisYear = date('Y');
 echo "{$startYear} - {$thisYear}";
?> all rights reserved

You can get a list of timezones from the PHP manual.

I’m toying with the idea of redesigning my business site some time in the future but am not horribly motivated at this point to do so. I do know that when I redesign it, it will not be in line with this design.