Pretty quiet around here… I wonder why?
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Archives
Blogging in the Rain
Aug 14, ’05
10:58 PM
I’m sitting on my porch and the rain just started to bucket down. It’s very welcome, since the humidity has been at about 100% all weekend.
Mike and I have just won a fairly ambitous new project… It’s both exciting and scary, but I’m totally confident that we can get it done, and with some help, build a truly best-of-breed site. I won’t tell you what it is for now, but it’s going to be very, very cool. And it will look great. 
I do have something I want to put out there though — I wish my ask.mefi week-long limit was up, but I’ll post it later and link to it, since no one will read it here.. this post can just remind me to ask the question later in the week.
So — I’m going to be stretching MT‘s capabilities as much as I can for this new project. I’d like to know which plugins you have found helpful in the past. I know the pagination plugin is going to be helpful to me, and dirify plus is likely to come in handy, but I want more. I need to break boundaries and expand the abilities of the editors. I have lots of ideas, but I don’t want to miss anything, so pass them along.
BTW: Don’t try to sell me on WordPress — I obviously already know about it (and love it), but MT has features that are deal-breakers for this project.
Thanks in advance.
New Monkey Do Project: Sciencegate
Jul 5, ’05
12:45 PM
Things have been quiet around here lately because Mike and I have been in rapid development mode, building a blog for Seed Media called Sciencegate.
Sciencegate will be covering the ideas and deeds of the G8 summit in Scotland, from on-site and from around the world. Even before the summt has begun, the blog has a running start, and very interesting stuff has already been post.
The blog is WordPress-based, and reminded me how simple it is to skin a WordPress site. I need to work on my own.
New Hotness: Pirated-Sites.com
May 16, ’05
4:41 PM
My old dog, Pirated Sites, has picked up some new tricks, namely, a phpBB forum.
PS.com has been around for about 5 years, and was feeling its age. Times were simpler then, and I had much less on my plate. Of late, the site had been neglected and infrequently updated. Despite this, traffic remained consistent and the site remained a resource for designers, developers and even college professors (hi Suzanne!).
My hope is that installing forums will allow the users to take ownership of the site. They can tell their own stories, upload their own screenshots, and follow up later with more info. Plus, for the first time, users can get real feedback from the rest of the community.
So, if you’re a long-time PS.com fan, or have never heard of it, give it a shot. (The original site will continue to live here.)
An empty forum is a lonely thing.
(Oh, and if anyone knows of any slick, minimalist phpBB templates, please let me know!)
Cloud King Reigns in Austin
Mar 23, ’05
3:46 PM
Mike and I went to the South by Southwest conference in Austin, mainly because it’s a kick-ass conference, but also because Cloud King was up for an award. I thought CK deserved to win (as did others), but I didn’t think it would. CK has a graceful, subtle design, attributes which usually lose out to bold and dynamic.
CK was nominated in the CSS category and the competition included AIGA Austin (the sentimental favorite) and Firewheel Design (the beautiful and popular kid).
I think what did it for us was the content. Cloud King hosts some fantastic art in a wide variety of styles and mediums. Cloud King is almost exactly what I wanted it to be, and I’m very proud that other people think so too.
(Of course, it may have helped that I put up this kick-ass piece by Nate Van Dyke on the homepage as soon as I found out we were nominated.)
In general, SXSW is the best conference of its kind, and it’s always awesome to hook up with the folks whose stuff you read (and are inspired by) regularly, or even every day. Folks like Jeffrey Zeldman, Andy Budd, Jason Santa Maria, Thomas Fulp, Jason Kottke, Sam Brown, and tons more.
And I can’t say enough about Austin. The thing I keep saying to people, if they don’t end up saying it first, is that Austin is like Boulder, CO, or Madison, WI — medium-sized cities with a liberal bent in the midst of conservatism. They all have money, business and youth, and it makes for very interesting cultures.