I’ve been super busy. I finished up a dynamic widget that hooks into LifeChurch.tv’s website and displays the time until the next church online experience. I have it here on my personal blog but I built it for http://edmondoklahoma.us which has been doing really well in search rankings under a lot of key words. I also launched our first podcast for EdmondOklahoma.us called Best Of Edmond. We pretty much pick one type of food or something and discuss the top places to get it in Edmond. The point of the podcast is just to collect the information from a user base and develop a well rounded list of places that will become a more detailed post on the site. I’m looking for guests on the podcast as well, if your interested, it’s a lot of fun and only takes about an hour to record. Or if you just want to submit recommendations for your favorite places just go to http://edmondoklahoma.us/best-of-edmond/ and see what we are talking about next.

I also started doing micro loans through Kiva.org. I’m new to it, but it seems pretty neat. I got into it through a podcast I listen to called Stuff You Should Know with hosts Josh and Chuch, or is it Chuck and Josh. They talked about it a lot and I looked into it a little deeper and was pretty impressed with the potential of taking a little money and helping make a big impact in one persons life. I’ve started with a fairly small amount of money, but if I keep adding a little each month then by the end of the year I will be able to personally finance home building mortgages in some seriously impoverished areas around the world where 5-7 hundred dollars will add a room or build a one room house. I encourage you to check it out. And if you listen to podcasts, you really aught to be listening to Stuff You Should Know from howstuffworks.com

Today I built a quick little fun project. I have committed to give blood every time I get the chance ever since late last year. It isn’t that hard of a thing to do, but I have to be reminded of when the next time I will be able to donate, because when you donate, you can only donate after a set number of days has past. So, being a programmer, it was easier to code a php file on the web to do the date conversion and show me the next time I can give blood then it would have been to look at a physical calendar and count the days. Also, since it’s on the web and other people can see it, it builds some accountability for me to keep it up to day by donating. You can check it out here at http://giveblood.dev.nxil.com/

I went ahead and scripted it so that people viewing could also find out when they could give by inputting a date and the type of donation they gave. The whole thing was tossed together pretty quick with my eldest daughter watching over my shoulder half the time while I explained the process. I love how you can take something like PHP’s easy date handling and jQueryUI’s interface tools and easily put something together that works on any device and with a little CSS3 to make it look pretty. Oh and I did use a table in my layout, so suck it design snobs. That’s a nerdy inside joke for HTML nerds.

Chat for Google Talk with Push $.99

HomeBudget with Sync $4.99

MONOPOLY for iPad $.99

Angry birds, fruit ninja and cut the rope games $4.99 $2.99 $1.99

What do you think? Any suggestions?

This is almost doable accross all browsers now. I’m becoming more of a fan of  degraded design, meaning that if you use a current (good) browser then you get the sexy design and if you use an older browser then you get a usable design without some of the pop and flash like gradients and rounded corners. Of course for some sites, that isn’t a solution, but for extremely low bandwith solutions, it works great.

background-color:#AB1364;
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(114deg, #AB1364, #52FF26 11%);
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(114deg, #AB1364, #52FF26 11%);
background-image: -o-linear-gradient(114deg, #AB1364, #52FF26 11%);
background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(114deg, #AB1364, #52FF26 11%);
background-image: linear-gradient(114deg, #AB1364, #52FF26 11%)

My boss and I have the same discussion every time a new version of WordPress is released. Especially the security updates.  Is it better to have a software developer who brings out updates often or one who is just  more thorough in their testing and delivery? Does it build trust or does it shake user confidence? It seems like lately since the switch to 3.0 there have been a stream of security updates for WordPress. It looks to me that they have been haunted by different areas of the same issue. From what I gather, WordPress does it’s upgrades and labels them like this.

X.X.Y

Where X.X are the current feature versions and Y is the current bug fix of that version. So as long as you are upgrading from 3.0.3 to 3.0.4 or even 3.0.5 then you should not expect to see any changes that would effect how your site works or how plugins that modify how WordPress functions would work. So in general, you should go ahead and upgrade. But if you are running 3.0.5 and 3.1.0 or 3.1.1 is available, I don’t recommend clicking the button right away unless you are just blogging for fun and don’t mind if your site is effected or even down for a few weeks. Another thing to note with WordPress is that the change from 3.0 to 3.1 may be just as large a change as 3.9 to 4.0 will be. They just keep counting forward with the version number to identify major feature upgrades of the system.

On business sites or sites with big audiences, I always recommend waiting a few weeks (3-4) before clicking the upgrade button on feature version changes such as 3.0.5 to 3.1. WordPress has a large pool of beta testers. I run this site in beta for example as well as three other sites I run in alpha (nightly builds) where I test the latest software on the latest builds of WordPress. Usually by the time a major feature change has come out on WordPress to the main audience, it has been pretty well tested. But maybe not well tested on your configuration. With the number of plugins and themes available and every possilbe combination of software and settings, there is no way to know for sure.

You just have to understand the risks involved and how much it is worth to you to keep a solid up-time for the site. I have a lot of clients who will just have me push the update buttons for them. For the most part this is straight forward and inexpensive for the client if there are not problems. The advantage though being that if there is a problem they have me working on it at that moment and not later the next day when they were able to get some time with me. For even more important sites there is a sure way to know for sure that the upgrade will be flawless. Backup the site and run it on a test site on the same server. Run the upgrades on the test site and then test the functionality. This can be time consuming to do but then you will know for  sure that there will be no conflicts between  the new version and the plugins and configurations of the theme you are running.

Of course, for the more minor security upgrades, there are still risks involved, and it’s always good to read the WordPress blog to see if the security issues even effect you. For most people, they don’t effect your site and you don’t “have to” upgrade. But I generally always do and usually without much concern, but that comes from the experience of running the upgrade on several test sites before my own and then, because I blog regularly or am tweaking my theme and plugins, I get to test the new upgrades before upgrading more important sites. The important thing to remember is that, for most users, the upgrades are not urgent. Take your time and upgrade when you are comfortable. But don’t take so long that the upgrade will be a large jump. If you are still running 2.6, then you should start to worry about database conflicts that may occur when you upgrade to 3.1 because that jump, although probably scripted in the system, is not well tested and if bugs are present,you will be the one who finds them.

When it comes to webdesign there is one agreed nemesis to all coders and designers alike. It’s name has always been IE6 or in my view all IE browser versions. I know that IE is still the most widely used browser, but the question is, by whom. When it comes to browser consistency, thanks to CSS and IE’s introduction of conditional tags for running code most common design issues between old browsers have been resolved or made simple to resolve. Another big help has been the introduction to CSS frameworks which help coders and designers avoid simply forgetting the workarounds. Like most people in the business of making websites I have grouped together and customized some frameworks that work well for most every project.  So it’s become a rare thing to find an old IE bug. There are a couple obscure IE7 bugs that do pester me from time to time. The biggest problem I see currently with browsers is the consistency of the rate in which they adherer to new standards and technologies. CSS3 and HTML 5 being the most obvious of these issues currently. The common issue is that most browsers pickup new technology, at least 80% of it, at the same rate, while Microsoft’s IE is usually only adapting 10% and makes no major promises to catch up. They say that they will be a lot closer to current standards when IE 9 is released, but at that point I wonder if they will no longer be the major provider of PC and internet technology platforms. With Apple reaching new heights in sales of tablet and mobile devices, I worry about the future of the Microsoft operating system. It will probably keep it’s place as the number one system for office spaces, but for consumer home use, they are falling far behind.

With all that in mind, this is the method I use when considering browser support for web design. I design specifically for Firefox and Chrome, because these are your power users who will judge most sharply on the basis of the design. Because these browsers support a lot of CSS3 and HTML 5 technology, the users want to use these functions. My best example for this is the rounded corner’s available to all objects using CSS3 but not supported under the current version of IE (8).  Now if it is crucial to the design of the site, then I will do the old fashion work around using layered background images to give the look of rounded corners, but if we are only talking about a minor tweak to the design and not the major theme, then why not allow the two browsers to render them differently? Who ever said that the design needs to be 100% identical in all browsers? Mind you, I am not referring to compatibility, just design. The site will look fine in IE, but just be missing some flourishes when compared to the other browsers. In reality, IE users won’t be switching between multiple browsers to compare. My wife has a computer with IE on it and only IE. Its a laptop provided from the school district for teachers and it is locked down for security reasons. I can’t install my favorite browsers on it, so I’m stuck with IE. I have noticed that I don’t really notice much difference when using IE even though there are a lot of minor differences among major website software. The truth is, when you are using old technology, you don’t know what your missing. Only once you have used something better will you be disappointed when you go back to the old. And as you should. IE is not a well supported browser when it comes to current web standards. Why are we doing our best to hide this from the world.  So here is what I say.

• If it is not central to the design of the site (and it shouldn’t ever be) then allow browsers to render the site a little different.
• By allowing them to render differently we are educating the world, even subconsciously, about the differences between browsers.
• By educating the world we are improving the next generation of browser statistics and pushing Microsoft to keep up.
• We are also freeing our mind from trapping the content and site into one perspective. Truthfully, the site will be viewed on many devices and many screen sizes and web designers should embrace this and move toward more simplistic and versatile designs based on good clean code.

I’m trying my best to organize my life and that sometimes seems to be an unsurmountable task. I have found a couple new tools that have helped me out.

ToDo.ly
Allowing you to create simple to-do-lists with deadlines. This just allows me to compartmentalize my life and when things pile up, it helps to set priorities.

Evernote
Sometimes you have great ideas and you just need to jot them down in a private manner to store away for later. I used to keep a notebook for such a thing, but then if I ever misplace the notebook, those ideas just get put on hold for way to long. With evernote I have a consistent place to put important information or notes that I may need to use later. It’s not the sexiest tool out there, in fact, I don’t really even like it, but it gets the job done.

Google Calendar
When life is simply overwhelming, its nice to know that some random thing that I promised to do a couple weeks ago will get sent to my phone via a text message from my Google Calendar. I can also simply text message new items to it and add items as soon as I make the promise.  Now if I could only avoid ever loosing my phone or letting it die from now power.

Facebook Groups
When you need to organize a small group of people, there is no better tool then setting up a Facebook group. First of all, it’s likely that you are all on Facebook anyway,  so it doesn’t require users to all learn a different system.  It also works so intuitively. Just like you post thoughts, statuses, and photos on Facebook, now you can post ideas, conversations, and resources up in the group.