Sneak peek #1

I have an ever so slight break in my schedule where I find I have an hour or two of free time on hand and as the saying goes, idle hands make great websites... er... or something like that.

Anyhow, I have got something completely awesome in the works, a little some-some for me, a little self love. So I thought I would start a little easter egg hunt (since that's probably around the time I'll finish, LOL), and give you a little piece of the puzzle every week or so, depending on what I get done in that time.

So here is the first little nugget for you. It's not much yet, but let me tell it's part of a bigger, cooler whole.

I'm still alive

It’s been a while hasn’t it? I’ve just come off from making a run of RapidWeaver themes for THEME WEAVER; THEME 007, THEME 008, THEME 009 and THEME 010, all of which I am extremely proud of (but THEME 010 is my favourite). I’ve also been busy updating my own edGy, viEw and 2hadow (not quite ready yet).

So what’s kept me busy in my… erm… off time? I have a few things on the go. Namely RapidWeaved.com which has turned out well. It’s the RapidWeaver showcase site that lets anyone with a RapidWeaver site to show off their stuff. It’s kind of a throwback to the old RapidWeaver showcase that was once on their site but in recent time, have opted to hand select only the very finest examples (in their opinion) to post instead.

And it’s that very project that has really spun the old cogs in my noodle. That site is a database right? Why then am I treating it like a blog when it should be handled by some sort of content management system with a database and some back-end programing to control it all? Well… because I don’t know a lick of SQL and can only struggle through enough PHP to parse a few RSS feeds. So I figured enough is enough, I’ve been wanting to learn some back-end web programming and I have now set off to do it. I am currently making my through the SitePoint book Build You Own Database Driven Website using PHP and MySQL by Kevin Yank. I am riveted. No really, I love this sort of reading.

So what about Objective-C then? You might recall that I wanted to give Chris a hand in the whole RapidWeaver plugin market and I did read the book, Programming in Objective-C, but then I saw the support involved through Chris’s eyes. Honestly, it’s not the sort of thing that a guy with a full fledged theme store like mine should get into. Don’t get me wrong, I want to some day. And Chris has definitely shown my that it’s a worth while endeavor, but it’s the sort of thing where I would have to sell my theme store before I got knee deep into plugins. I am not ready for that.

Who knows though, if all goes well with the PHP and MySQL, there are certainly a lot of things I could see making for RapidWeaver that have been missing for some time.

Running web apps closer to home

What do these seven little sexy icons have to do with each other? I made each and every one of them. I have a new obsession called "turning your web apps in native apps" made possible by Fluid, a nifty little app by my fav developer, Todd Ditchendorf (who also makes BlogMate and is my hero because of it, as well as iZoom, to name a few).

So I won't get into too much detail about it but Fluid basically takes your favorite web services and makes a native app out of them. I countless reasons for wanting to do this which I am sure you'll see me get into on nutMac.com.

New frontiers

What a busy, trying time! With many projects on the go, logo's, banners, themes (and more themes), showcase sites, tutorials, photography gigs to wrap up before Christmas... It's no wonder the holidays never feel restful to me. So why then would I go and do something as crazy as learning Obective-C programming at such a time? I guess I am just a little crazy that way. That and because Chris has taken up making plugins and wants me to join him in our continual quest to take over the world together. I have to admit I have wanted to make RapidWeaver plugins for quite some time and this was the fire that needed lighting under my proverbial behind. Will I actually make any plugins and how soon? I can't/won't make any promises. It's a little far beyond any limit I have stretched my self to in the past and I do have a theme store (or two) to support. So here it to the new year and all that it may (or may not) bring!

The cats out

Well the project I had alluded to in the last post is starting to see the light with it's first public peek-a-boo. The site, RapidWeaved.com, is a showcase project for RapidWeaver users by RapidWeaver users. It's kind of a backyard sandbox, if you will, instead of the elitist, high-brow playgrounds that other showcase sites seem to be. The premise is that no-one gets rejected so long as the contest is G-rated and the site is built with RapidWeaver. It's not a new site or project by any means, I actually took over the domain and concept from Gary Byrd who found it was getting unwieldy. And indeed it was. I had a few ideas how to better manage this kind of data and put a plan into action. Only time will tell if I really know what I am doing or just talking through my butt. My intent is to make it an attractive site with attractive content but also make it as pain free as possible to update. We'll see about that I guess. There are a few other finer details that will come to light later as well. But first things first. Oh, and by the way, if you are a RapidWeaver user and have a site built using RapidWeaver, feel free to submit it to RapidWeaved.com.

Showcase site project is back in the mix

A while back I had taken over a particular showcase site (I'll keep that quite at the moment) and was charged to take it to the next level. Well real paying jobs kept getting in the way, support kept getting in the way, life kept getting in the way... So I've recently had pause to look into this project again and was surprised at just how close I was to completing this site the first time around. So with that said, I am amping up to get this thing done early in the new year. I'll keep you posted.

Unobtrusive is great but what about unencumbered?

So in the last few years javascript libraries and snippets have popped up like spring flowers gasping for light. One will round corners for you, one will make an image pop out at you, one will make a box spring open, one will make a drawer slide, and so on... All of these libraries, it seems, have their struggles and inadequacies much the same way a CSS/XHTML developer does; browser behaving badly. Where it gets infinitely more complicated with the javascript is that some libraries and snippets will inadvertently interact with one another from time to time, and that's where a whole bag of ugly gets thrown upon the table. What makes this worse? The fact that we can now just throw these bits of javascript sweetness in our html projects without the foggiest notion of how it works and how to fix it should the need arise. And since these are all open source projects, don't expect great support, or any at all, for that matter. And so this is the muddy water I currently stand in, waiting to sort out a scripting issue on a product while I tell my client base that we are doing everything we can.