Topsoil Screening Equipment Recycles soil, rock, gravel, compost
March 25, 2010 by Wild Web West · 2 Comments
OMH ProScreen - Canadian Portable Soil Screeners Manufacturer Gets Website Facelift
Firebug: Neatest Discovery Since Sliced Bread!
August 15, 2009 by Wild Web West · Leave a Comment
Where have I been? I completely missed a fabulous tool that I could have been using to improve customized stylesheets!
While reviewing the user guide for the Wordpress Thesis Theme last night, I ran across Kristerella, who provided me with one of the most highly prized “EUREKA’s!” that I have experienced in quite some time (well at least since I found Thesis Theme). Kristarella provided Thesis Theme users with insight to Firefox’s Add-on called Firebug. I have to tell you, this find and understanding of what Firebug offers to web designers like me was – the neatest discovery since sliced bread!
With the Firefox browser and the add-on Firebug, I can open my Wordpress sites using that combination, and easily view the html as well as the styles or CSS that creates each element in the page. Take that concept one step further, when I make an edit in Firebug, it only affects my browser and makes the change in visual appearance to the web page, but the changes aren’t permanent to the site and simply acts as a tool to zero in on the snippet of code that I’m wanting to identify for modification.
Firebug has probably been out there for a while, but it took a series of events and Kristarella to open my eyes to the existence of this FANTASTIC tool that I will use and use until the next great EUREKA comes along. Thank you Kristarella!! Here is a link to her excellent video: How to use Firebug for CSS – by Kristarella
Thesis Theme for Wordpress is awaiting my customizing efforts!
Thesis Theme Wordpress Background Customization Success
August 14, 2009 by Wild Web West · Leave a Comment
While I’ve been working hard, updating customer websites, troubleshooting little issues here and there, I did save some time this evening to begin the modification of my Thesis Theme Wordpress Blog.
You’ll see that the background has changed from blah white, to a nice horizontal lined reddish color. It adds a rich visual dimension and the entire process went very smoothly. I had to tweak a few folder names, but if you do follow the handy directions provided in the Thesis Users Guide, you just about can’t go wrong.
Again, I would like to reiterate that my primary attraction to the Thesis Theme was the value in being able to customize the style for my own custom look and feel while not affecting the integrity of the html code that the search engines rely on to gather evidence of valuable content on my website.
I have also been super excited about the “share” plugin feature that is available on all Wordpress installs, a little feature that is easily activated and enables me to post my articles to be shared on any of the social media sites that I want to deliver that information to. Write the article once, on my blog, and BAM! BAM! I put it out there in multiple locations with just a few clicks and keystrokes. WOW!
Stay tuned for the next customization of the Thesis Theme: Customizing the header at WildWebWest.com
Thesis Theme is Wordpress Choice Template
August 7, 2009 by Wild Web West · Leave a Comment
Subscribe to my blog to witness the transformation over the next week
Customizing Joomla websites has been a primary focus of my web design service company for over a year now. I’ve provided many customers with the simply ability to edit their websites, leaving out the massive tedium that was putting my time and my love for design, in a glut. When the light turned on and Joomla became the CMS application of choice, I installed and creatively customized dozens of Joomla sites, and now consider myself a well qualified Advanced Joomla Web Designer.
I decided my focus this summer would be to begin pursuit of that same high level of proficiency customizing the popular Open Source blog application known as Wordpress. I’m not completely new to Wordpress customizations. I’ve been dabbling with the application for a couple of years now, launching my own blogs, and a few simple Wordpress hosted sites customized for people with low budgets who don’t want to pay for hosting but want to have an online presence. Most don’t seem to even be interested in adding articles, but nonetheless, the blog is known to be spidered frequently by the search engines and can generate SEO results with not a lot of effort. Here are a couple of samples of simple sites I’ve customized using Wordpress blog:
Where a web customer wants to focus on self publishing and posting articles as a blog, on a consistent basis, the Wordpress Blog application is a fantastic program. I love Wordpress and in order to ramp up my overall skills, I’ve pledged to launch my own website (here at WildWebWest.com) as a highly evolved, customized site using the Wordpress application. My research began eary this week. Enter Thesis Theme.
In my pursuit of some cool looking Wordpress Templates to initiate my own design, I discovered the Thesis Theme. I watched a well produced video by a gal who had great things to say about Thesis and who is a designer and web guru by trade. I checked out testimonials and was drawn to the highlight of Thesis as a Wordpress Template that could be very very easily customized (by the non-designer non techy types) while retaining integrity of code, even when the style is customized. Thesis claimed a clean code that is not bloated like many of the free templates out in cyberspace, and therefore loads fast. Furthermore, Thesis sports very strong search engine optimization features built in.
In researching applications that can be used by the common business owner, I’m always sensitive to the level of simplicity built in to any application so that my customers have a better success rate of editing their own site, thereby easing the support calls and leaving more time for me to pursuit new web design projects.
When it came to my review of the Thesis Theme, I was hooked and bought the theme. Yes, you heard it right. I actually paid for this highly commended theme, which is typically unheard of in the world of Open Source programs among folks like me. Pay for a template? Why, us web gurus would rather build our own! But in the case of Thesis, its so packed with excellent widgets and components to style the Wordpress Blog application to accommodate a thousand different style configurations, as well as the code integrity and SEO tools built in, that I decided to go out on a limb. So far so good!
The theme on this website is currently pretty simply looking during the writing of this post, in terms of colors, but I’ve been able to easily embed my videos in the standard look and articles. I’ve been able to easily add a subscribe button for the RSS feed to easily engage would be subscribers. I’m SEO optimizing my articles and in time, I’ll be able to report on the traffic rankings that are being generated as a result of the clean code, seo features and keyword rich content.
Over the next week, and in between paying jobs, I will start the Custom Style Sheet transformation of WildWebWest.com to match the look and feel that I envision for its branded look. Because I stay so busy working on customer sites, I have traditionally tended to neglect my own branded look and to be honest, I’ve neglected my WildWebWest.com website entirely. In the past ten years in business, I have considered that as long as word of mouth advertising is earning my way in the world, paying my bills, and sustaining a healthy business model, a well designed site takes a lower priority.
WildWebWest.com Is Turning A New Leaf For The Future
Heading into the next decade of 2010 to 2020, I’m committed to setting the example and hanging up my “cobbler with no shoes” and “butcher with dull knives” stint as a web designer. WildWebWest.com is going to reform itself and its owner will finally, after more than 10 years of commitment to customers, begin to prioritize its own branded look as a focus and a goal to accomplish without fail. Thats a promise! (Note that I’m sounding pretty convinced this is going to happen)
Stay in touch to witness the transformation of this Wordpress Thesis Theme to a new day for WildWebWest.com. I won’t let you down WildWebWest.com. its a matter of website maturity and providing a serious example of what I can do as a designer with the growing popularity of Wordpress blogging!
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