I’ve been in Los Angeles for about a year now. Who’s bright idea was it to relocate at the lowest point in the DOW? (This chart shows the last 5 years.)
Griffin Chapel (www.griffinchapel.com) is a small site for a wedding chapel in Brunswick, TN.
Built on the Joomla 1.5.15 platform, this site uses the following plugins:
The site also has a photo gallery built on Gallery 2.
The site’s content is still being written, so a couple of the pages are still blank. The site has been live for about a week, and the client has already had several calls, one just to say they loved the new site, and three more to book a wedding.
More photos will be coming in April from weddings that have already been booked.
Serenity Retreat League (www.serenityretreatleague.org) had a site built on Joomla 1.0.x, and was having trouble with the admin system. I recommended upgrading to the current version, Joomla 1.5.15.
The client was happy with the design they had, so I modified the existing template to be compatible with the new Joomla, moved the content from the previous site to the new install by hand, and upgraded the Contact Us page to use ChronoForm.
Back in October, I noticed that a Google search on my name placed this site in the number one position on the first page of results. Then a few days later, this site had slid back to about number three.
I’m posting again to say that at least for now this site is back at number one on a search for wayne hastings
Here is a screen shot of my first page of results, with my sites in bold — sites that are not mine are ghosted back.
When Apple released the iPhone, it was obvious that it was a great device. Great for everything, it seemed, but making phone calls.
AT&T has been the Achilles Heel in the iPhone becoming a true “God Phone”. I know people in San Francisco complain about AT&T reception, but here in Alhambra, working from home, with AT&T cell towers all around me, I could not get a reliable cellular connection. The iPhone was unusable for me. And since I was working from home, being unable to use the phone at home was the dealbreaker.
I have said for a while — at least two years — that if they grew the iPod Touch into a 5.5×8.5″ format, or half of an 8.5×11″ sheet of paper, it would be perfect. Well Apple did me one better, going for the 10″ display at 1024×768 resolution. This is slightly smaller than the screen of my old 12″ PowerBook. Intuitively, this feels right.
I have held out on buying an e-book reader. The Kindle and Nook are interesting devices, but aren’t the solution that feels right to me. The hardware is expensive and not nearly as versatile as I would hope. My instinct tells me that the iPad’s color screen alone will be enough to make the iPad a better book reader than any others. The backlit screen, and shorter battery life, will be the tradeoff for using the iPad as a book reader over a Kindle or Nook.
Pair an iPad with the Skype app, wifi, and a bluetooth headset, and you have a media device capable of making phone calls. I don’t know how many iPad users will do this, but that is a usage statistic I’ll be watching for as the polls start coming in.
For web browsing, the 1024×768 resolution is perfect, in my opinion. Most websites will be viewable at actual size without left-right scrolling when in horizontal orientation.
The screen format has gotten some criticism since many movies are 16:9. So you’ll see black bars across the top and bottom of your screen. Tough. You get black bars on the sides when viewing standard definition movies and television on your high def screens. It isn’t ideal, but we don’t live in an ideal world. Deal with it.
Flash? I don’t want Flash. I want Apple to continue to stonewall on implementing Flash on all their products to spur the development communities on to better solutions. I agree with the person who said that Flash was a stop-gap measure — it should never have been used as a platform. Let the people who can’t live without Flash choose a Linux or Windows-based product.
Writing and responding to short e-mail will be better on the iPad than on your smart phone, but you’re not going to be using the touch screen keyboard to write anything very long at all. I hope I’m wrong about that, as it would be nice to do some blogging and writing/editing on the go with the iPad without needing a laptop, but I really hate the iPhone touch keyboard.
Aside from e-books, I expect gaming to really pick up with the iPad. As developers take advantage of the form factor to develop new and innovative games, I expect the iPad to become a really compelling portable game device. I don’t see much difference in God of War on the PSP and Assassin’s Creed on the iPhone. And I would love to see true virtual worlds come to the iPad platform, especially Second Life.
So I have my iPad on reserve. April 3 at 9:00 am, look for me in line at the Pasadena Apple Store.
I. Can’t. Wait.
Here are some quick comments I’ve received this week from some of my customers.
“It’s looking great — I had a [website visitor] call me today just to tell me she loved the new website.”
“[The clients] were very complimentary of your quick response to getting this web site updated. They also were all very pleased with how the #10 brochure turned out. Thanks for all you do.”
“I keep telling you… you ROCK!”
I’m very excited to announce the launch of a new client website at www.southernhand.com
Southern Hand Centers provides hand and upper extremity rehabilitation services through their 7 locations in Tennessee and Mississipi. This is the client’s first appearance on the web, and provides basic information about their services, staff, and locations.
Built on the Joomla 1.5.15 platform, this site uses the following plugins:
In case you missed it, watch the Apple iPad product announcement here.
I just saw on Facebook that PBS has created a widget (below) to help website managers and social media users to promote donating to Haiti relief.
Back in mid-December, I started thinking seriously about upgrading my cellphone from the Blackberry 8073e to … something else.
I’ve had a company-issued iPhone for a year or so, and it is cool, no doubt. But the AT&T service in my home doesn’t work — the signal is too weak for some reason. So switching to AT&T isn’t an option for me.
Sticking with my existing carrier, Sprint, my main contenders then became the HTC Hero and Blackberry Tour. Both looked like worthy smartphone upgrades. I had used the Blackberry OS for years, and knew what to expect there. But this hot, new Google OS, Android, has some buzz. And since I’m a heavy Google Apps user, the idea of automatically syncing with all the data and e-mail I have on Google already seemed like a dream.
After several weeks of mulling my options, I took the plunge and got a HTC Hero.
After living with the Hero for two days, I have to say I like the new phone quite a lot. I’m happily surprised that most of the apps I used heavily on the iPhone are also available on Android, and if an app isn’t available then there is something very similar or even better out there. (One app that I like a lot on the iPhone is the New York Times app, but on Android there is a USA Today app that is just fantastic!)
I do wish the Hero screen was larger. The phone feels good in the hand, and everything looks just beautiful. But this phone is less capable as a reader than the iPhone is. Otherwise, the HTC Hero is a real win.
