Results tagged “websites” from Getting to Know Joe

Just finished putting together a new website for the Alabama Byways Program. It will continue to grow as more information is added, but here's a start. Designed in Wordpress!

This week promises to be about as busy as the previous weeks have been. I'm happy to say that, at least for the next week or so, our house is free of workers and renovation dust! The sunroom is completed, the dining room requires only a little paint, the back hall is completed and the living room is still a complete wreck--but is put back together in such a way that we can comfortably function for the next little bit as we wait for windows (which we have yet to decide on).

Ann's been sick today, so I haven't been as productive as I might otherwise be, but have gotten a few good things accomplished. I started work on a great little website for the Moore/Webb/Holmes Plantation and Farm in Folsom, Alabama (near Marion). I'm developing it as a WordPress website and that has been pretty interesting to start to tinker with. Nothing like Movable Type, but pretty slick and simple at the same time. I am liking what I'm seeing so far. Wrapping up an invitation/poster for Alzheimer's of Central Alabama for their spring Garden Art Party. We got some great deals on beautiful art there last year and hope to do so again--and the money made goes to help Alzheimer's of Central Alabama provide services for Alzheimer's patients and those that care for them! I'll post the invite later.

FInished up an initial redeisgn for my friends at Tyler Eaton Court Reporters last week. We haven't quite gone live with the redesign yet (waiting on some additional copy and photos), but I created a Tyler Eaton blog site for them that Laura Nichols is now using to generate more interest. These guys are among the nicest folks I do work for--always friendly, always honest. If I needed a court reporter, I'd sure turn to them. Though it isn't complete yet, here's what the site looks like so far:

But a good one. Paint is going up in two of our rooms! The colors are looking amazing (well, only the lighter color so far, but still looking great. A very light bluish green on the upper portion of our walls and ceiling.

Lots of work done over the weekend--worked most of the weekend on a website for Tyler Eaton and I'm waiting on a response from that.

Finalized a newsletter for Alzheimer's of Central Alabama, sent an email out to 780 friends of Your Town Alabama, made a couple of small changes to the Alabama Front Porches website (mainly adding an entry to the "Off the Porch" blog), wrapped up a newsletter for American Mining Insurance Company and several other projects. Good, solid start to the week.

Our house is under siege--or at least that's how it feels. Renovations are progressing nicely, though. Acoustic Tile ceilings are out, smooth ceilings are in--or almost. Windows are about to be ordered, hopefully. Lots to do....

Much to clean up this weekend, of course.

Working furiously on several projects at once. Just wrapped up a newsletter for Alzheimer's of Central Alabama. Working on the website for Tyler Eaton Court Reporters--this time I think we've got a winner! Finishing up an invitation for Alzheimer's and another for the MS Society.  Making changes to Brombergs and the Birmingham Historical Society websites. Trying to finalize the website for ClasTran here in town. Wrapped up the monthly newsletter for the Alabama Sierra Club early this week and just trying to catch my breath!

Oh, my friend Ben posted his version of our trip to the Black Belt earlier this year: http://www.davisdenny.com/blackbeltben/. Entertaining reading! I also added a few new photos to my flickr page.

Had a very productive week this week. Lots of work on Brombergs website, most of the way done with the Tyler Eaton website, setup of the Mid-South RC&D website, a trip to Bibb and Perry County to do some work on a couple of tourism websites, the Highway 14 Antique Trail and even got to meet with a couple of potential new clients, including someone that raises all natural, grass-fed beef on their family farm that somehow they've managed to preserve as a family since the early 1800's. It was a really nifty place with a good supply of historic old buildings, a general store (long since closed for business) and a house that they are considering turning into a Bed and Breakfast--something the Black Belt really needs. Did not have as much time as I would have liked to snap photos, but plan to go back to the farm and Highway 14 in the coming weeks for some more photos. Here's one of Judson College, where several of my sisters attended.

I came to the blog to do something about family, perhaps post a photo or two, but just can't get myself to do it. Not really in the mood, I suppose. Instead, I think I'll simply toss a few bits of information about some of the stuff I'm working on this week.

Having just finished the Alabama Association of RC&D Councils annual report, a nice 44 page book that I've done for them every year for the past 8 or so, I am delighted to find myself developing a website for another one of the individual councils that makes up the association: MidSouth RC&D. That brings the RC&D websites I maintain up to four (Cawaco, Ala-Tom and Tombigbee being the remaining sites). I've always enjoyed working with these guys. Nice, good folks all. I hate to see when they are, as is sometimes the case, taken advantage of by the less scrupulous web designers (and I use that term loosely) of the world. Watch for their site coming soon!

I've been working on a redesigned website for Tyler Eaton Court Reporters, a longtime client. That should be coming online in the next two weeks. I updated the Alabama Front Porches website and have added another blog to our Black Belt Blog list: Off the Porch. A husband and wife team are providing outdoor adventures in the black belt. Good stuff, I think. They've sent 2 installments so far.

And there's more, but I think I'll skip that. I did post some additional photos of last week's trip to my flickr page. You can visit it here.

Well, I've officially been overwhelmed this week with work. I try very hard to avoid working after 5 p.m., but sometimes I manage to work a little late--I tend to make up for it by working, as I am this morning, early and on the weekend. I completed a complete redesign for American Mining Insurance Company's online newsletter,  www.americanmining.com/newsletter/, I just completed my 38th (I think) Alabama Sierra Club newsletter, I've just about finished an annual report for the Alabama Association of RC&D Councils, I started working on a new client website, brombergs.com and, well, I guess the list just seems to go on and on.  I'm very pleased with the masthead I created for American Mining's online newsletter, though. We went through several revisions, but the end one really turned out best. Here it is:

Update: just posted some of my favorite photos from the trip to my flickr account.

Haven't really been doing a lot of posting this week. Have been doing a lot of work. Trying to wrap up an annual report for the Alabama Association of RC&D's, picked up a nice new client this week, took a trip to the Black Belt to work on an Antique Trail along Highway 14--a three-day festival in the fall that I'll be developing a website for. To many irons in the fire....

Here's the Greene County Courthouse in downtown, Eutaw, Alabama. I do find the Veterans monuments in each county interesting--I consider the one in my home county of Marengo to be one of the better ones I've seen so far in my travels--but I may be a bit prejudiced. The courthouse is in disrepair and surely needs some love. More photos to come.

Seems as though I haven't had as much time as usual to play with my blog. I think I've gotten a bit caught up playing with flickr, plus I've just overall been really busy working on several projects. Getting finished up with a program manual for the Alabama Communities of Excellence and finished a newsletter for AIA, Birmingham chapter. I've been pounding out ads for Underwoods (sister company to Birmingham-based Bromberg's Jewelers). Oh, and I wrote a reasonble itinerary for the Alabama Front Porches website that I posted on the blog I created for them. Need to scan some more old photos in. Haven't really made anything interesting to eat in over a week--busy and boring.

One of the monthly newsletters I work on: The Alabama Sierran. I did the first newsletter for the Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club in January 2006 and have done one each month since then. This is an 8 page tabloid-size newsletter printed on recycled newsprint. You can download the full newsletter at alabama.sierraclub.org. In addition to working on this newsletter, I just finished an online newsletter for Birmingham, Alabama based CGH Insurance Group (www.cghinsurance.com/newsletter). And, perhaps most fun right now, I'm working on a website on tourism--particularly historical and ecological--in Bibb County, Alabama. I'm developing it almost entirely in Movable Type (using a little Dreamweaver to help me handle the CSS stylesheets). Pretty interesting stuff. Not that far along yet, but I've built the shell: www.bibbtourism.com. Other than that, just the usual blog updates at Your Town Alabama and Alabama's Front Porches.

I'm just about finished with another website, this time for someone who found me through, as usual, another client. My friend Laura Nichols at Tyler Eaton (whose website I did several years ago) suggested that the folks at Aztec Construction contact me. They did and the result, still in draft form, is below.

After a month of testing and review, the AIA Birmingham office's new website is up and running officially. There are a few holes to plug, but overall, pretty much complete. We finalized the website along with their June 2008 newsletter so members would get the new website along with the most current newsletter all at the same time.

The website turned out just as I had hoped, and, as best I can tell, everyone is very pleased with it.

www.aiabham.org

Also, completed the upload of the Alabama's Front Porches website, alabamasfrontporches.com, yesterday. It has a good many holes, but is substantially stronger than their previous website and built for expansion. Soon, it will have over 100 great attractions throughout the Black Belt. I'm getting ready for two trips next week--on Wednesday, I'm heading to Tuscaloosa to meet with some Appalachian Regional Commission folks to discuss potential scenic byways in the ARC portion of western Alabama. On Friday, I'm off to meet with the board of the Rural Heritage Center to discuss a possible website, marketing materials and to just give them a general overview of some tourism opportunities that they might be missing. Looking forward to that as well.

It is ALWAYS a good idea to test anything you do on the web on several browsers. That's why I have both a Mac and a Windows XP machine--I refuse to get Vista for now--just too much trouble.

Anyway, yesterday I posted my second Slideshow Pro for Lightroom created flash slide show. The slideshow is just below this entry--and included photos from Do Day Day. The day before, I posted a slide show of Southwest Alabama scenes that I'm also using for the Alabama's Front Porches website. I tested this earlier slideshow under Internet Explorer and Firefox and possibly Safari for Mac. Once I posted the Do Dah Day photos, I tested the slideshow on my Mac using Firefox--that's where I do most of the work on my blog. All was fine and I patted myself on the back for successfully including two slide shows on my blog. This morning, Ann got to work and looked at my blog using Internet Explorer. It didn't work.

It was an easy fix (involving renaming div tags so that each one has an individual name)  and all should be working fine now--as far as I can tell it is, anyway. The bottom line is to always test, test and retest.

These are photos I've taken over the last 5 years or so from the rural part of Southwest Alabama. Some are just a few weeks old. Others I took back in 2003. I'm putting these on my blog as much to test adding Slideshow Pro Flash files as anything else. Seems to work. Watch for more slide shows in the coming weeks!

I've just about wrapped up a new website for the American Institute of Architects, Birmingham, Alabama Chapter. We're still in the testing and review stage, but I'm particularly pleased with it right now. It involves using the many good photos that they have--and we'll change these photos out regularly--in a Flash slideshow. The Flash was pretty easy to accomplish using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and an optional plug-in called Slideshow Pro. I've used it before, but never with Lightroom. It worked really well, but not flawlessly. I had combined it with a Spry menu to manage the links (easy to set up by itself as well). For some reason, these two things didn't play well together. A bit of hair pulling and then a quick search on Google helped me to track down the solution. Once that was in place, all worked as planned--what a nice change!

I developed the look of AIA's previous website as well--still really like the look of it, but it was time for a change as the website was about 3 years old. Here's a before and after.

Before:
After: