blog | CreateSean Web Design

User Image and WYSIWYG Editing in EE

Saturday June 20 2009

Very cool customization screencast using three add-ons, FF Matrix, LG Replace, LG TinyMCE and imgsizer, to enable clients to drop in images with full control maintained by the developer on how things look, yet the client has control on where the images appear in the post.

Very cool—more details in the forum thread.

ExpressionEngine HowTo: FF Matrix + LG TinyMCE + imgsizer + LG Replace from AJ Penninga on Vimeo.

Sean inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Jun 20, 2009 at 08:23 AM
(0)

| tags: clients, expressionengine, screencasts, |

Developing EE Sites on Windows

Thursday June 04 2009

I wrote an article for EE_Insider titled Developing EE Sites on Windows. In the article I discuss the programs I use in my development process including Xampp, Notepad++, WebDrive, IE Tester, IE web developer toolbar, IE debug bar, and Firebug. If you like the article leave a comment.

Sean inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jun 4, 2009 at 09:45 AM
Expression Engine | (0)

| tags: expressionengine, workflow, eeinsider, article, |

ExpressionEngine Tips

Saturday May 30 2009

Ryan over at EEinsider has started a new feature where users can submit various EEinsider tips to share with the community.

Ryan has launched this new section on his site with a contest:

Over the next two weeks, I’m going to award a free EE Code T-shirt to five different people who contribute tips. In order to qualify you have to add at least 3 tips and one of those has to be deemed (by me) to be excellent and helpful. Winners will be notified by email.

I’ve already submitted four tips: Dynamic="off", EE Code in CSS stylesheet, Add Tabs for better development, and Save Templates to Files. I’ll be adding more as I think of them and have also subscribed to the tips RSS feed as I’m sure I’ll learn something from these tips.

Go on and share your own tips.

Sean inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday May 30, 2009 at 03:08 PM
Expression Engine | (0)

| tags: expressionengine, tips, |

chickens and eggs

Friday May 22 2009

Two days ago I had a meeting with a potential client about working on their site. The meeting seemed to go well and when I got home later that day I sent an email thanking them for their time and also saying that I was looking forward to the meeting we had scheduled for Monday. Everything seemed good.

Yesterday I recieved an email, late in the afternoon, informing me that they had chosen to go with someone else. This is my first real rejection and it sure doesn’t feel very good. I’ve had other potential clients go elsewhere, but not after a face to face meeting. And definitely not so quickly after initiating discussions. It definitely doesn’t feel good. It probably hurt me more than it should since I was counting chickens, but only had a couple of eggs which didn’t hatch. Essentially at this point, I have one client site which I am going to finish up shortly and then no leads on any other work. EEforums4You hasn’t brought any work, but has cost me money—graphics and advertising which had me focusing on the income from a job which I hadn’t secured rather than on building a relationship with the client and better undersanding their business and goals.

I did reply to the client again and thanked them for their time and also for considering me for their project. I also said that I hoped we could work together in the future. This is all true and even if it wasn’t I would still say the same things as it is the professional approach. Sure I ~~was~~ am hurt, but it’s not going to help anyone by being anything other than professional.

I have thought carefully about what we talked about in the meeting and what was said in the rejection email and have determined what I probably did wrong. I will definitely be aware of this in the future and will be sure to not make the same mistake again.

The important thing here is that I learn from this experience. Rejection is going to happen as a freelancer, it’s just a matter of reducing how often it happens, learning from it and growning a thicker skin. What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.

I will use this time to tweak the design of CreateSean—I want it to be a little more exciting to look at. Perhaps some shiny, glossy gradients and drop shadow on the content boxes or a new background color instead of white. I’m happy with the basic colors and layouts, just need to bring the design to the next level. I’m also going to dive into learning some basic php and maybe write a plugin/extension for ExpressionEngine.

Sean inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday May 22, 2009 at 10:15 AM
(2)

| tags: clients, professionals, |

Who do/would you like to know on twitter?

Tuesday May 05 2009

I was thinking lately about twitter and how valuable it is to me as a web developer. I heard about twitter when it first came out, but thought it was stupid and just didn’t get it despite twitter being very popular with teachers who blog (my current day job). However when I made the decision to go into web development full time I tried it again as a way to connect with other web professionals. Living in South Korea it is very difficult to find other English speaking web people and I really do thrive on connecting with people in my industry. Anyhow this time around I really got it, started following several ExpressionEngine developers as well as other big names such as @Shaun Inman, @Eric Meyer, @Paul Boag and @Jonathan Snook However I didn’t get real value from following the big names—though I do still follow most of them.

The people I got the most value from are other ExpressionEngine developers and Tweeters with a smaller following. This post is devoted to those people. You are the people I would really love to meet in person.

First I’m goint to mention the people I have met from twitter, which aren’t many. I met @Gord Sellar a few years ago at a expat Korean blogger meet up. He’s a great guy and I wish I had more opportunities to hook up with him. @Dave Jansen is a Dutch web developer and php programmer who moved to Korea to be with his girlfriend and is an all around great guy. Dave also did the graphic design on EE Forums 4you Next is @peacecheese He doesn’t have his real name on his twitter profile so I’m respecting his privacy. Peacechese has been in Korea longer than I have (a rarity) and is a great guy to chat with. Finally I’ve also met Daniel Craig—not James Bond, but another long time expat in Korea.

Next the people from twitter I would most like to meet and the reasons why. If you don’t get mentioned don’t be disappointed, that doesn’t mean I don’t value you, just that these people are most interesting to me.

Number one on the list has to be @Leslie Camacho who just happens to be the President of ExpressionEngine. Leslie is incredilby friendly and helpful and I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with him on The EE forums, email and twitter. It’s not every day that the president (though not at that time) of the best CMS on the planet does a video blog directed at you in response to a thread were I was asking about how to transition to web development. When I get the chance to meet Leslie I plan to take him out for the best dinner and beers he’s ever had.

Number two is @Andy Harris who went way above and beyond for me on both twitter and the EE forums when I first started out. Andy provided so much help for me that I was compelled to thank him by posting a gift to him in England where he lives. Andy also deserves some beers from me when/if we get a chance to meet.

Tied for third place are @Steven Hambo, @Micheal Boyink, and @Chad Crowell Steven, Micheal and Chad are all very helpful tweeters as well as interesting people. I’ve also had the pleasure of doing some outsource work for both Chad and Steven and will hopefully be able to do so in the future. I’m still debating on whether to move back to Canada or move to Australia (and possibly immigrate)—If I do make it to Australia, I am definitely planning on meeting Steven.

I also find following @Marcus Neto interesting—he really knows his stuff and also links to photography on occaision which I find interesting. @Mark Bowen has got to be one of the most prolific posters on the EE forums and is also a helpful guy on twitter. Bonus he flies helicopters—how cool is that. @Emily Lewis is just interesting and is passionate about microformats—something I still don’t fully get but find interesting to read on her blog.

Finally I would really really like to meet @Reese Spykerman and @John fuller who are also like myself expats living in Asian countries. Reese is in Malaysia and John is in The Philippines. Both of them are interesting to follow and I’d like to sit down with them and talk about expat life and running a small business abroad.

Anyhow these are the people on twitter that I would most like to meet in person. This post is not meant to be a popularity contest it’s here to make a big public thank you to those on twitter that have been incredibly helpful (and interesting) to me. Alternatively, you could consider it the ultimate #followfriday list.

Who do you want to meet and why? Who have you met?

Sean inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday May 5, 2009 at 05:47 PM
(7)

| tags: twitter, |