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Nice Web Design – Affordable WordPress

September 1, 2010 By admin

Here is a really nice design I stumbled on today. It’s based on a Studio Press Mocha and it’s got a really nice color palette. It’s currently at http://bigfishclient.com/ but that looks like either a temporary placeholder domain or maybe it’s a permanent demo for a portfolio. There is also a nice use of the sidebar – content – sidebar layout. It creates a busy appearance but it leaves a nice little space to add a vertical menu or an unordered list of some type. Again with the color palette, this designer made great use of the tools available and added a 1px dotted bottom border for his unordered list… perfect match.

I’m bringing this one to my website because I’m working on a Mocha Theme myself and I was looking around for inspiration. The theme is so new there are not a tremendous number of them in the wild yet.

My favorite design element on this site is the use of colors and background images in the horizontal menu bar. There is a 1 px gold outline on all the drop down menu selections. And the orange and grey color combination with the textured background is very artistic. It fits the theme perfectly.

If I could suggest one change it would be that on the left sidebar, I might make that unordered list into a vertical menu and then link to each selection. The selections could be individual posts or pages.

Filed Under: Learn About WordPress, Web Designer's Corner Tagged With: ,

Affordable Government Websites?

August 21, 2010 By admin

You bet. Web Design Workplace builds MultiSite WordPress systems where dozens of websites can run from a single control panel. Once the initial site is up, building new sites later is much faster and way less expensive. WordPress 3.x might be the most affordable web platform for multiple government sites.

Government websites have common requirements and they can be attained with old style HTML websites or the modern WordPress style. But of course there are advantages and disadvantages to every choice in the computer world. Lets look at some of the requirements and then look at how affordable we can make them by choosing old HTML or new WordPress.

Government Website Requirements:

  • Security. The site must have an encrypted communications pipeline between the workstation and server. This is called “SSL” for the Secure Sockets Layer protocol. Also note that this SSL link must allow secure logins and also secure work on the administration area or dashboard. Not one or the other but both.
  • Backups. There has to be a mechanism to backup the site and the data and to restore the backup quickly.
  • Multi-Language Support. Many countries now require multi-language support at some level.
  • Ease of use to add / change / or delete content.
  • Provide alternate ways to read images for visually challenged readers.
  • Add captioning for video and sound media.

Security

  • HTML does not provide it naively but it can be custom built in. It’s expensive and proprietary.
  • WordPress has SSL capability build in. Except for the Secure Certificate which is needed at the server level, it’s free.

Backups

  • HTML and WordPress can be backed up at the server level using common server backup mechanisms.
  • WordPress allows MySQL Exports and XML post exports for finer backup granularity.

Multi-Language Support

  • HTML does not offer it. It can be done manually and it’s expensive.
  • WordPress has numerous plugins both free and proprietary that translate posts. WordPress itself can be setup in about 50 different languages so the Dashboard is all in the native language.

Ease of Use

  • HTML requires years of training and hands-on practice before modifications can be made to a page.
  • WordPress allows non-technical people to add / change / or delete content. WordPress also allows non-technical users to change the entire menu system easily.

Provide Alternate Text for Images

  • HTML allows this – but you have to be a computer programmer in order to write the HTML code or PHP language to actually implement it.
  • WordPress allows non-technical users to add alt text to all the images from the Dashboard / Media center.

Which is a better option for Affordable Government Websites? WordPress is the winner in almost every category.

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Chris Brogan Endorses Studio Press

August 5, 2010 By admin

I use Studio Press Themes and I’ve purchased 3 Developer Licenses for Studio Press since 2008. And now in 2010 there are a lot of celebrity social media pundits like Chris Brogan that are going with Studio Press and for very good reasons. It’s the best supported Premium WordPress Theme in the world. Bar none. There is a team of brilliant and above technical people involved with Studio Press and I know 5 on the team personally. Great bunch. For a person that builds out websites all day and half the night, Studio Press is like getting car racing parts directly from the Ferrari Factory.

Well here is a video from a presentation Chris gave last year:

Now if you are a DIY “Do It Yourselfer” go ahead and give Studio Press and WordPress a try. If you don’t want to get involved with HTML, and graphics, and hosting, and domains, and SEO, and PHP, then call Mal Milligan at 201-696-5375 and talk about your web design options. Web Design Workplace is a group of long time web design professionals that can give you a complete website in a week or two at a fraction of the cost most of the big design companies charge.

Web Design Workplace uses only top shelf components like WordPress and Studio Press and Host Nexus and Adobe. We are world class experts in every phase of web design and roll out. This is where affordable web design lives now. It’s here at Web Design Workplace.

Filed Under: Learn About WordPress, Web Designer's Corner Tagged With:

Harvard Uses WordPress

August 5, 2010 By admin

My brother is finishing his Masters in Information Technology at Harvard in 3 more classes. Wow. I was cruising around the various PR8 and PR7 websites he uses and I was not surprised to find a plethora of WordPress in the mix. Why was I not surprised? WordPress is simply excellent in terms of functionality, reliability, artistic possibilities, and price. And that’s why Web Design Workplace is so devoted to WordPress.

If Harvard Uses WordPress – You Should Too

That’s right. There are now countless institutions of higher learning that use WordPress. It’s everywhere these days. This is one of those situations in life where you can let others Guinea Pig the prototypes and when the technology is mature, you can jump in. Well the technology IS mature and by all means, it makes sense to get a website with WordPress now or convert your old HTML site to WP now.

A recent survey of 6000 blogs showed 34% of the WordPress sites 5 years ago were still using WP today. Blogger held up with 20%. But that’s real staying power.

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Affordable Web Design Philosophy

July 22, 2010 By admin

The last company I worked for charged between $10,000 and $32,000 for custom websites. Wow!! Those websites had no e-commerce or special features of any kind. They were made with the old style HTML language. The sites themselves were hosted on a complex proprietary hosting scheme that was not perfectly search engine friendly like Web Design WorkPlace sites are. Because they were a big company, they used their reputation and a sales force of thousands of full time people on commission. Naturally the sales people did not get paid if they did not sell. So they were motivated to sell even if there was little or no benefit to the customer. And on top of that, the more they sold, the more money they made in commissions. So their main focus was to sell as much as possible no matter what was best for the client. Their goals were totally inappropriate in my opinion.

Web Design Workplace has an affordable web design philosophy.

We can take that same 10 page website that the big box company made for $10,000 and we can sell it for as little as $1,000 depending on your content requirements. That’s a 90% savings… and that’s just the up front savings in the purchase price. There are more savings we can talk about later. Our site will probably rank faster on Google and Yahoo and Bing / MSN too because we use WordPress. Our sites have a structure that lends itself to good SEO (search engine optimization). And we make sure every page we put up is fully optimized. Every page we go live with has the “under the hood” features Search Engine spiders are looking for.

So our affordable web design philosophy is:

To provide the customer with a beautiful hand made product at a great price. Simple. Elegant. Perfect in every functional detail.

Web design Workplace for all your affordable web design needs. We are also world class experts at SEO and we can provide search engine optimization services whether you need to rank on Page One for Google, or you need to get your listing in the Google Local Maps directory. We work with Bing and Yahoo Local as well. Our SEO philosophy is also to provide the best service at an affordable price.

Call 201-696-5375 to talk with the Boss – Mal Milligan.

Filed Under: Learn About WordPress, Web Designer's Corner

WordPress Public Library Websites

July 15, 2010 By admin

WordPress is the ideal web platform for public libraries these days. It’s free, it’s easy for a library staff to install and maintain, and when the staff runs into trouble there is lots of help available in free forums and paid Theme support forums. And there are a lot of consultants and web design companies like Web Design Workplace that can be hired for new builds or repairs. Take a look at this WordPress Public Library Website for the town of Dartmouth MA.

It’s a fully functional library site that borders on artistic. They are using a custom made vertical menu bar on the left sidebar, and a horizontal menu bar under the header. They did not go to a flyout 2nd level on the horizontal menu system but they did not see need to. You will notice an alignment issue near the bottom of the image. That’s the kind of problem a librarian might not be able to solve for her / himself. But the good thing is that there are plenty of qualified WordPress consultants running around working for peanuts.

Would I make any changes to this site? Well yes, a few changes… first I would fix the alignment near the footer of course. But besides that I would do a good tune-up to the meta titles and meta descriptions on every page, I would change the permalinks structure to give better keywords to the urls, and I would look at some new Themes with brighter colors. In particular, the vertical menu in the left sidebar might look nicer with some nice CSS based color backgrounds.

I’m overall impressed with the site and I have the compliment the Dartmouth MA Public Library for picking WordPress and implementing it so well with a really nice style. Job well done !!

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Looking For An Affordable Library Website?

July 11, 2010 By admin

You just got to the right place. Affordable Library Websites used to mean a home made looking patchwork of links that one of the Research Librarian’s nephew put together. When the library needed to do updates, it was difficult and it took a long time to get someone to update the complicated mess. Patrons were at first impressed that the public library had the technical know how to build a website, then quickly relayed complaints that it was not organized correctly or it was missing important information.

Using WordPress, public libraries all over the world can have a beautiful website that is easy to add to or change in any way, and meets any budget. Check out a color variation we are trying on this site:

Web Design Workplace can install a base site for you and you can add as many pages as you like. You can change the selections on the menu’s. And when a task seems a little bit too difficult for your staff to handle, we are here with 24 hour service to do the tricky stuff for you with affordable everyday prices.

You can have a stunning site, that is up to the minute accurate every day of the year at a price you though was just not possible. Call Web Design Workplace owner Mal Milligan today at 201-696-5375. Check out our designs and let us put you online with style !!

Filed Under: Learn About WordPress

Affordable Anti-Virals – You Have No Bargain Choices

July 10, 2010 By admin

I have been using anti-virals since 1987. Professionally, I got hit by a legendary Jerusalem B virus that incapacitated thousands of PC’s on Wall Street in New York City in 1990. So for 20 years as a Supervisor of Local Area Networks for 5 of the biggest financial companies in the world, I managed the rollout of anti-virals on 5,000 to 10,000 PC’s in the Manhattan Campus and on thousands of computers in 100+ countries all over the world. So I know too much about anti-virals probably.

Is There An Affordable Anti-Viral Right Now?

Short Answer = NO. I use either Norton or McAfee on all my machines and they aint cheap. But this one in particular is undesirable to me… Norton 360. I’ve had to uninstall it twice from the same machine so far because it automatically installs an unwanted toolbar. That toolbar reduced my work area on the screen and I had to go to the FireFox Tools / Addons to disable it and get rid of it. So I am writing support and I will update this post if I get the other features I don’t need and don’t want supressed. My recommendation to my customers: Don’t Buy Norton 360…. unless you want all kinds of features that I would not trust… like PC Tuneups and PC backups. I take care of those myself. Thank You.

Filed Under: Learn About WordPress

WordPress for Non-Profits

June 14, 2010 By admin

WordPress is a perfect website choice for many non-profit organizations. We just did a site for a local Public Library and it’s a good example to demonstrate the message here. I’ll make a list of reasons but first mention that WordPress started out as a blogging platform, and it quickly evolved into a framework that allows rapid website development. Almost everyone has heard of “blogging”, or “Blogger” or “WordPress”, but the word is still getting out that there has been an absolute revolution in web design created by WordPress. Non-Profit organizations are switching to WordPress in short order these days and for good reason:

Reasons Why WordPress and Non Profit Organizations Go Together

  • WordPress is free to use and it”s Open Source so it’s supported by hundreds of developers and thousands of organizations.
  • You do not need to be a web designer or a computer programmer to build and maintain a WordPress website or to add new content.
  • WordPress websites have a structure that major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing / MSN like, which makes getting your information into the search engines a lot easier and faster.
  • The flexibility in terms of appearance and functionality is nearly unlimited. WordPress can display video, images, slideshows, .pdf’s, and text using artistic rendering as limitless as the owners imagination.
  • WordPress acts like a CMS content management system. When the content is added, it actually gets put into a database. So you can change the outside appearance of the site – the look and feel – but still have exactly the same content.
  • It is easy to find an affordable professional to help with building or changing a WordPress website.
  • Programmers write free WordPress “plugins” for every conceivable additional function you could possibly use with a website so you might never need to custom manufacture a software module. It’s all “off-the-shelf” and free.
  • There are tons of resources to help you learn about using WordPress from books, to videos, to public access seminars and meetups.
Using WordPress to power your non-profit website

View more presentations from Jason King.
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NYC WordPress Meetup May 2010

May 17, 2010 By admin

I’ve been going to the MYC Meetups since the summer of 2009 and they have been great. I find people to chat about WP with that can really not only talk the talk but also walk the walk. The NYC WP meetup groups are friendly – informal – and fun. I personally recommend – Regards Everyone – Mal

Date:
Tuesday May 18, 2010

Location:
Oracle – Sun Microsystems
101 Park Ave – Floor 4
41st and Park Ave.
New York, NY 10017

Learnin about WordPress 3.0 !!! All us WP Nuts have been in the trees looking toward the horizon for version 3.0 to arrive. Steve Bruner has another great session in store with BOONE GORGES from Queens College leading the topics. He will include:

* Multisite setup – What, How, Why,
* New custom post types – why, how
* The new most awesome menu system – what and how

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