I have been working on a new site for Margaret Roach that will be known as The Sister Project. It has greatly expanded my belief in blogging as the new publishing and WordPress as the leading software. I will be writing more about The Sister Project (TSP) after we launch in late November.

One of the five TSP blogs is Galleries where we will display curated submissions of poetry, prose, photography and art. The Galleries need software to organize and present the art and photography. There are many WP gallery plugins available but our research led us to NextGen Gallery. It offers a variety of options and seems to be well maintained–many plugins are not. As with many Open Source programs, the instructions and tutorials could be more thorough. After spending many hours “under the hood,” I think I know how NextGen runs but some things are still not clear. That is why I am doing this test post using paintings I made almost twenty years ago. I want my clients to be aware of this solution and it gives me a chance to post some paintings from one of my favorite series.

Below and in the sidebar are thumbnails of my Field Report art. Almost all of the drawings and paintings are based on one avocado plant that I grew in my apartment. Other works based on the direct observation of nature are also included as part of this series. This last week I went to the Morandi exhibit at the Met. I suppose Field Report is my “Morandi” statement.

(This is the navigation for the NextGen Gallery.)

Last Spring, Marco Ventura told me that he wanted to have his illustration portfolio on-line and asked me to design it. Marco lives in Milan but his reputation and clientele are international. I met him when I was assigning illustration for the Time magazine feature Spotlight. (Before I knew Marco, I was unfamiliar with Italians answering the phone “Pronto.”) He had digital files of all his work and sent them to me by email. I made my presentations to him using Skype.

Marco wanted a very minimal site with a white background and images that were not too large. Like many of the artists and photographers I have dealt with, he was concerned with… Read more

Today I updated crime and mystery writer Donald Westlake’s website with three of his books that are being republished by Chicago Press. (see for yourself) So, why am I blogging about it? Because I admired these cover designs. I mentioned it in a reply to the publisher (”Tell your cover designer ‘Nice job, Bub.’”) and they wrote back that they were designed and illustrated by David Drummand. I Googled him, found his portfolio/blog and added him to my Blogroll. Reading about good design process is always rewarding.

This also gives me a chance to talk about Donald’s website and some of the business lessons I learned. He is a friend of a friend and about ten years ago I heard him mention at a party that his webmaster was changing fields and he needed to find someone to take it over. That is how… Read more

This week a web client emailed me asking:
Did all of your clients get this (domain transfer) notification?
I assume it’s legit? I just paid for the five year renewal of the domain name.
Will you handle the transfer or should I?

Well, it was not legit and it makes me furious. The client had received a snail mail letter informing them to transfer their domain name to Domain Registry of America (www.droa.com). It was worded in such a way that they thought it was imperative. Sneaky bastards.

I did a search:
1. This from PCmag.com - http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2007/10/beware_of_domain_name_scams_in.php

2. From someone who describes a letter like my client’s: http://trinaallen.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/domain-registry-of-america-scam/

3. In trying to explain why the registration WHOIS information is public, I found this:
“The problem is two-fold: ICANN (the guys who “overlook all the domain stuff on the Internet”, for lack-of better phrasing) voted in a new rule that states all domain owners _MUST_ have legitimate contact methods shown in their WHOIS records. That is, the owner of the domain must put a legitimate address and telephone number in their WHOIS records.” (from http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,16948194 )
(see UPDATE 4 below) 

Read more

I have spent many hours exploring the terrific navigation methods developed by Gerard Fernandez at DHTML demos. This has been a great education and I would like to write about all that I have learned: DHTML, CSS, JS, SVG, VML, XML, AJAX, Spry, MooTools and DOM. But I think I will wait until I get feedback from you, my loyal readers, about which subjects are most important. Also ask about browser redirection. Not all of these work in older browsers. (Add surfing you web site on a smart phone to the list of future discussion.)

Another July deadline was completing the redesign of the SYSTEMarchitects.net website before the opening of the Home Delivery exhibit at MoMA on July 17th. This was an exciting challenge. Jeremy Edmiston is a talented architect, who does brilliant work and is the principle of SYSTEMarchitects LIc. Several factors fascinated me about this assignment. First, I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a major in architecture and worked for a number of architects in Minneapolis before I was sidetracked by the other muses. But my design foundation was most certainly laid back then. My professors used to say that architecture is the mother of all arts. Let’s just say that it is a “culture” I am familiar with and love. This was a wonderful opportunity to reacquaint myself while working with a visionary in the field.

Second, Jeremy had unique demands. He showed me some sites that he liked and told me he wanted his site to be “an experience.” This would be a test of my design methods. Generally, my approach to site design is Read more

In June I commented on my work with Margaret. Since then I have designed a book for Ellie McGrath at McWitty Press. The book, titled TREK, is a memoir about an American woman, married to a German, fleeing the Russians and Germans with her two children at the end of World War II. The publication date is set for October. I built the 264 page book with InDesign. Always enjoy working with Ellie and adding to my InDesign skillz.

Yesterday WordPress made note of awaytogarden.com, saying “a beautifully designed new WordPress powered blog.”

This is fantastic. I had put blogs on Kurt’s and Jamie’s sites, but there I adapted their blog to the site design. Awaytogarden.com was to be only a blog. There are thousands of blog templates out there and Margaret’s friend Kit had short listed about forty of them, but I had my own idea about what functions best for reading that kind of information. So I adapted. (note to self: make blog entry listing my skill levels in various software. ie: HTML = expert. PHP = copy & paste)

Long Story Short: for WP to say “beautifully designed” is, well, personally thriLLING!!!

Last December Margaret Roach contacted me about doing four websites for her. She was leaving Martha Stewart after twenty some years to get back to her roots. Roots, as in gardening. She is an amazing gardener and garden writer. You can read all about it here: www.awaytogarden.com.

That is the blog that I set up for her. She had not blogged before and we set out to learn together. She is a master now. As you know (or more likely have heard/read) the blogoshere is vast, complicated and growing. (yes, i am going to say it: Viral.) Margaret is smart, hard working and a very good writer. She is my source for blogging needs. Not that I need them, but my clients will.

I expect to be designing more sites with blogging software (right now WordPress) because it allows the client to manage/edit his own site through his/her browser: Safari, IE, Firefox. Tip: check out the browser Flock. If you are into Web 2.0 and social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.) this browser wants to be your tool.

That is why you are reading this, right? You are thinking about your website? You may not want to blog or even hate the idea of blogging, but you would like to edit your own text, yes? I do have clients using Adobe Contribute to edit their sites now. Foremost all of this depends on the client’s level of digital savvy. Just knowing how to do email and surf is probably not enough. But close.

Why am I moving from Contribute to blogging? Mostly because WordPress offers so many add-ons. They are called plugins: guest books, mailing lists, photo galleries, newsletters. Maybe too many. Part of what can be annoying about blogs. But I am on a quest to make websites with WordPress that doen’t look like a blog. I want your site to have your identity when a visitor arrives, not the feeling you are coasting in the blogosphere slipstream. (I couldn’t help it. I get a metaphor in my head and I just can’t trash it)

That is the beginning of my journey with WordPress. Next I want to add more about the WordPress theme Revolution.

(Below is an entry from my previous Blogger blog that is very relevant.)

MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2008
Learning About Feedburner

Today I read an interesting article in the NYTimes about a site www.politcalbase.com. NYT describes it as Web 2.0
I went to check it out and saw that it is also a blog. Its RSS link (in Safari) took me to their Feed with extras that I would want for my client’s blogs. On the page http://feeds.feedburner.com/PoliticalbaseBlog, is a Subscribe Now! box.
Did some more investigating and signed Kurt up with a Feedburner acct (Google now owns Feedburner)
Haven’t finished investigating but i did get this:
!!!! http://feeds.feedburner.com/KurtAndersenBlog !!!!!
That is what I would want an avid reader of to find, a way to subscribe to the client’s blog. I subscribe to Richard Lacayo’s TIME Looking Around Time blog and now I have a link to it on my Yahoo! home page. It tells me the title and when it was posted.

Well, I have not figured this out completely. If you look at the above address in FireFox and you will see what I want. But it is not giving me the Extras I want in Safari though it does for politicalbase.com. Maybe I need the free Pro account. Tomorrow.

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• Addenda

  • This is posted to demonstrate the Widget SideBlog. In this SideBlog called Addenda, I can add snipettes of appropriate information. Entries need to be marked as "Asides" category. See Dashboard > Settings > Sideblog. Advanced info here.

• More Adenda

  • This is exciting. Thanks to Michael Martin I believe I have finally found a Sideblog plugin solution  for adding posts to Steve Brodner's sideblogs. I have been looking months for this. There is also this post about PHP coding not using the Sideblog plugin.