PHP training blog for DMA C217

Trials and Tribbilation (Star Trek Pun)

modemmack — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:33:29 +0000

I haven’t had too much trouble modifying the theme on my site www.ivaingear.com. I’ve been using a theme called Atahualpa. It’s been a fairly decent experience, although I haven’t been able to make the pages look that pretty just yet. I’m much more experienced using HTML editors, and this is getting me out of my comfort zone. Also a Flash class is completely devouring most of my free time.

So far I’ve swapped out the rotating banners, placed in an icon, and added a ico graphic that shows up on the tab, and the url bars of pretty much all browsers. I need to redo it as it appears to have come out rather spotty on closer inspection.

I rather nervous about dealing with all this stuff. All I every wanted to do was 3D model, but I found out that nobody will hire you unless you know everything apprenticeship is pretty much dead as far as I can see. But I digress.

SEO Inspiration

modemmack — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:11:07 +0000

These are a few of the inspirations I’ve used to make my site (www.ivaingear.com) more SEO friendly. Most of the articles reiterated information from the previous articles. The main theme of all of these articles was to name descriptively, whatever you are naming. i.e. meta tags, titles, url, ect. Too tired to elaborate further. Good night (for me).

SEO Starter Guide – a pdf file on the moodle site.

SEO for wordpress with PAGES (static site)

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/274520

All in One SEO

http://semperfiwebdesign.com/

Basics of SEO friendly URL [visual cheat sheet]

http://www.tothepc.com/archives/basics-of-seo-friendly-url-visual-cheat-sheet/

The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-web-developers-seo-cheat-sheet

WordPress SEO Solutions

modemmack — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:59:14 +0000

I’ve started to make the appropriate adjustment for search engine optimization. My first step was reading the SEO Starter Guide pdf on the moodle site. Once I read a few more urls, I found that I already had most of the SEO friendly criteria implemented.

1. SEF friendly URLs. I implemented this early when I started using WordPress. All of my urls are created based on the title of the blog entry or the page title.

2. The meta tags on all of the pages are descriptive of the content on the page, or at least they will be.

3. The page titles are descriptive for easy search engine query.

4. I guess I’ll need to go into the templates, and make sure that the tags are up to standards for SEO.

5. The last thing I did was install a plugin called “All in One SEO” that did much of the heavy lifting for getting my site to be more SEO friendly. http://semperfiwebdesign.com/

Well that was pretty much it. Have a nice day.

A monster in the works.

modemmack — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:53:16 +0000

In order to hone my skills I’ve opened up some projects that I just quit on when lost my job last year. I’m blowing the dust off of these projects. I hate to say that I’ve been procrastinating, but some of my incomplete projects are several years old. I have a 3D model (not shown) that is my mascot character. His name is “Icon”, and he has 2 robotic arms, and a bobble head helmet. I’ve been slowly, very slowly working on it for almost 4 years! Everytime I get frustrated, I just stop. I don’t have people around me that every know the software. Forums really suck because you never know when anybody will get back to you. It’s almost as bad as the CC online forums.

The monster below has no name as of yet. I created him from scratch using Z-Brush, and a tutorial video from Digital Tutors. Yet again I got frustrated and just stopped. I need a task master to crack the whip sometimes. Otherwise I get lazy.

Trying to get focused again.

modemmack — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:13:42 +0000

I’m trying to get back in the groove, creatively speaking. I’m breaking out all the software that I need to pursue my quest to become a 3D modeler/animator. This is a practice sketch using a program called Sketchbook Pro.

Almost phished

modemmack — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:28:22 +0000

This happened several years ago. As usual, I was broke. I was just checking my email when I got a very official alert from Bank of America (or Stank of America, as Bill Maher calls it). The message said “Your account has been compromised. Please login though this link to check you accounts”. Being that is was a constant real fear of mine at the time I clicked on the link. At that same moment I thought “Wait a minute…”. Seconds later the anti-phishing feature in Firefox (or IE?) kicked in and said, “Slow you roll fool. These clowns are trying to jack your paper”. I could be off on the wording, but it was close. I immediately closed the window, and forwarded the spoofing email to the federal fraud email site, and B of A’s email fraud link. End of story.

He makes a good living when you just click everything.

I’m transitioning to the new site.

modemmack — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:14:53 +0000

Since I don’t have time to work two blog postings all the time, I plan on focusing mainly on www.ivaingear.com. That is unless I absolutely must repeat myself in two locations. In that case copy/paste/copy/paste. No time!

A little more under control.

modemmack — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:40:28 +0000

I was getting very nervous, because I couldn’t seem to get a foothold on keeping up with my studies. I’m finding it too hard to do any serious studying at home. Since I already work in a school, I just asked my boss if I could study in the school. He said yes, so now I’ll be doing the bulk of my studies here. This is the second day, and I’m typing this message in the same location as the image. You know designing anything is so much easier when you add a decent sized screen.

I finally have my blog site up and running. Here’s the link: http://www.ivaingear.com

Possible modules for my demo site.

modemmack — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:30:36 +0000

Here is my list of possible WordPress modules that I will use on my portfolio site.

WP CSS: I want to use this to allow users to make personal changes to their viewing experience while on my site.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-css/

Random Image Selector: This could be used to randomly change a side banner image.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/random-image-selector/

Stream Video Player: I don’t know if this one will be the best I can find, but I’m still looking. We shall see.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stream-video-player/

I plan on researching modules much more. I am pleasantly surprised at how much is available. I’m sure I can find everything that I need to get it done.

Fighting with my hardware

modemmack — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:47:28 +0000

I have a slightly defective HDX18 that has sprung up several hardware issues that have to be resolved quickly. I will have to send this heap back to the U.S. for repairs at my own expense. They will “attempt” to repair it, but they have failed me in the past. I might just get a refund, but I’d rather have a working computer. I have to buy a replacement before I send this laptop back. I’ve been struggling with this because I didn’t want to spend the money, and in Korea the price to value ratio is not as good in America. I can’t even buy a laptop in the States, because the exchange rate is unfavorable for me. 1000 won (the smallest paper note) is rough 80 to 85 cents on the dollar.

I only bring this up to say that it is adversely effecting my efficiency in completing any task. I will try to focus more time to putting my assets in place, and learning more about WordPress CMS. We shall see…

It's a monster when it's working... Appearances can be deceiving.