Mainstreethost design blog entry #3 – Stop the Stress Habit

Stopthestresshabit.com is a mainstreethost design and seo client that needed a promotional website for a self-help book on dealing with stress. The Author, Dr. Leslie Torburn, didn’t have any specific design requests but wanted a clean & clear look to impart a feeling of relaxation to her fans and potential customers.

To keep things easy on the eyes I used a lot of washed-out blues and off-whites inspired by her book cover to make sure nothing stood out except for her product photo and headline typography.  There is also a subtle background grunge background near the top of the page that I’m not sure is very obvious but I’ve always really liked.

This site was built the old fashioned way by hand coding html pages into notepad. Its one of the last sites I’ve built at mainstreethost that wasn’t built into some sort of CMS platform.  So far this makes sense because there haven’t been many content changes but I’m hoping I’ll get the chance to redevelop this site into WordPress at some point.  It would be great to add some sort of social community element to this website.

Check it out at www.stopthestresshabit.com and feel free to leave a comment.

Mainstreethost mobile – Using a smartphone to update your website

At Mainstreethost I usually develop websites in either WordPress or Joomla. Lately I’ve been experimenting with different options for controlling both platforms from your smartphone. I’ve personally been testing on iPhone but most of these apps are available for Android as well.   None of these apps give you 100% control over your website.  Instead, they’re mostly geared towards mobile blogging & minor content changes so don’t expect to be installing plugins or SEO  from your phone just yet.  Drawbacks aside, these are my three favorite apps that I’ve tested so far.  I’ll also update this post in the future any time I find another app that seems promising.

WordPress

The official WordPress app is a free download on iTunes & Android Market.  It gives you most of the features you’d expect for blogging on the go but lacks any features like page creation/administration or html editing that would make it truly powerful.  It really does excel at mobile blogging, though.   Compared to other apps, WordPress iOS’s typing screen is bigger and more intuitive.  It also gives you a few useful shortcuts for posting links and speeding up other everyday blogging tasks.    Being free, its a great place to start with mobile WordPress admin.  You may never outgrow it, but if you find yourself needing different options you can always upgrade to a more specialized paid app.

Joomla Admin Mobile

I recently installed this app on a Mainstreethost client’s iphone and he absolutely loves it.   It’s so much more powerful than any of the WordPress apps I’ve tested so far and gives you tons of control over both content and internal Joomla options.   My client takes photos with his smartphone of closeout inventory and instantly posts them with captions to their ‘closeout deals’ page.  It’s especially helpful in situations where keeping your content current is of utmost importance.  Joomla Admin Mobile (or JAM, as it refers to itself) comes in a free version and a paid version for $9.99.  The free version includes advertisements and only lets you control one Joomla site.  The paid version also removes restrictions to 3rd party plugins and gives you more control over menus, categories & users.

BlogPress

Blogpress is $2.99 on iTunes & Android Market and supports all sorts of platforms including Joomla, Wordpess, Blogger, Tumblr and many more.   In addition to a clear and full featured blogging interface, BlogPress also includes a few nice features that I found myself wishing for in a few other apps I’ve tried.   When controlling wordpress it allows for all user levels to update the site. (WordPress iOS only allows administrators & editors).  Best of all it has a simple HTML editor that gives you a lot more power over your content than other mobile admin apps.  Blogpress also integrates with your YouTube and social networking accounts, allowing you to automatically take videos from your phone, upload them to YouTube, and add them to your website from one screen.  You can also automatically update your Facebook & Twitter feeds announcing your latest updates.  I haven’t tried this one yet at Mainstreethost, but in my limited experience with it I found it easy to use and extremely powerful.

Click here to leave a comment & let me know if you think there’s an app I’ve left out.

A few examples of Nextgen Gallery in my Mainstreethost projects

Nextgen Gallery is one of the most versatile & useful WordPress plugins I’ve used.  Time and time again it’s been the magic answer to some of my clients’ most puzzling requests.   At this point I use it in 99% of the WordPress sites I work on at Mainstreethost.  These are a few examples of some of it’s basic uses and configurations.

Traditional Photo Galleries:

Obviously this plugin was created first & foremost to display and manage photo galleries.  Example 1, okamishfurniture.com uses Nextgen to display their huge furniture catalog.  (We also installed a 3rd party plugin called Nextgen-Search to make sure visitors can simply search the word ‘table’ to see a custom gallery of all tables in their catalog.)

Check it out here - http://www.okamishfurniture.com/furniture/bedroom.html

Crescentbeach4rent.com also uses Nextgen for simple galleries but rather than create entire pages of albums they’ve added single galleries in their content with simple captions.   I also used a slightly customized thickbox effect on popup.

Check it out here - http://crescentbeach4rent.com/crescent.htm#gallery

Third Party Plugins:

All sorts of other options can be added to Nexgen Gallery through the use of 3rd party plugins.   A few of my favorites come from a group called J.J. Coder, who created a few plugins adding various slideshow options  [click here for a list].   Another Mainstreethost client of mine- Getshotbybob.com, uses JJ Nextgen Gallery Slider to create the homepage & alternate slideshows.  The site’s owner, Bob Ditommaso can easily add/rearrange photos and captions.

Check it out here - http://getshotbybob.com

Same plugin with a slightly different effect on Bambinobar.com

In addition to porting Nivo slider effects to Nextgen, JJ also developed Jquery Cycle & Carousel plugins.

Custom Templates

Using WordPress shortcodes you can control the template Nextgen uses to display your thumbnails.   The pre-installed templates have different borders, captions & other misc looks.  Taking this a step further I developed a custom template for blakemaninteriors.com that pulls each photo’s caption and displays it in a left column beside the image.  The custom Nextgen template also displays the gallery’s thumbnails in a horizontal conveyor below the selected image.  This was one of the more specific gallery requests I’ve received while working at Mainstreethost and I was happy we were able to use Nextgen to create a portfolio that matched our client’s vision.
Check it out here – http://www.blakemaninteriors.com/portfolio/kitchens.html

These examples really only scratch the surface of this plugin. It comes pre-bundled with several different lightbox effects,  automatically resizes uploaded images, and supports a tag based sorting system right out of the box.   These basic features are really what makes Nextgen so useful.

Click Here to Comment.  As always, I appreciate any feedback.

Mainstreethost design blog entry #2 – Tannersfish.com

Tannerfish.com is run by the Tanner family in Ninilchick Alaska. They’ve been buying, processing & selling fresh Alaskan seafood since 2006.
Before coming to Mainstreethost for a complete website re-development & SEO marketing they’d been experimenting with E-Commerce on their own but found the learning curve a bit too steep. Their products seem top-notch so with a proper website & SEO they’re not having much trouble attracting new customers.

Design
Besides making it easy to use, they had no specific requests for the design. I tried to keep things simple and use a lot of warm, natural colors and textures to make their product photos stand out better. We wanted to leave plenty of open space to fill in with as much search engine friendly content as possible.

Development
This was one of the first websites I developed at Mainstreethost in Virtuemart, which is a full-featured e-commerce plugin for Joomla – and I really got into the nuts & bolts of Virtuemart for the first time on this site. A lot of the techniques & customizations I first tried on tannersfish.com come in handy for me all the time these days so it was definitely time well spent.

>> Check it out at www.tannersfish.com and click here to leave a comment.   As usual I appreciate the feedback.

Removing upgrade links from WordPress administration panel

Automatic WordPress upgrades can occasionally have unexpected results.  While working at Mainstreethost every once in a while I’ll get that “I hit upgrade and now my site doesn’t look right” phone call (instantly creating a lot of extra work).  One easy solution is to give their account a lower user level to remove access to important functions, but sometimes for one reason or another a client needs administrator privileges- and no matter how many times you explain the risks, some clients simply can’t resist that big yellow upgrade link.

I was planning looking into the php  files and try to remove the links until I discovered this easy CSS solution on the WordPress.org forums:

Just find & open this CSS file: http://www.yourdomainname/wp-admin/css/colors-fresh.css

and add display:none to #update-nag

You can also remove plugin upgrade notices with this class: .plugin-update-tr .update-message

Source & Further explanation here

Mainstreethost design blog entry #1 – Bambino Bar & Kitchen

Working on the new Bambino Bar & Kitchen website at Mainstreethost was great.  First of all, I really had no idea the place existed before I started this project and it’s always great to discover another quality restaurant in Buffalo.   Trying new restaurants as a vegetarian can be a bit tricky so when they sent over their menus I was happy to discover at least 3 things I can actually order. (that’s really all you can ask for sometimes) Combine that with their excellent beer & wine selection and I can’t wait to get a posse together to finally try this place out.

Design
Web design is 3000% easier when your client already has a decent logo & high quality pics.  Luckily Bambino had almost 100 great photos and great branding.   The site design had to reflect their dark, stylish but rough around the edges style.   I used stained wood textures and a simple, dark palette to try to match their physical decor.

Development
I’m starting to use the google-font Oswald a little too much, but in this case it really made sense because it matched their logo so well.  I developed the site in WordPress because I wanted easy access to misc plugins including Nexten Gallery for their  Gallery page & All-in-one-Event-Calendar.   This was also the first site I’ve developed at Mainstreethost where I had to integrate an OpenTable reservations system and I’m really happy with how it came out.   I may actually use it when we make our way over there for dinner one of these days.

>> Check it out at www.bambinobar.com and click here to leave a comment. I appreciate the feedback. (Except from jerks.  I hate feedback from jerks)