Still As Life

Powerhouse Music and Technology is a music store that sell musical and computer gear. They specialise in guitar parts, especially pickups, knobs, scratch plates, effects peddles and other guitar modifications.

I have been working on their site since the beginning, including the transition to a Zen-Cart based website.

Zen-Cart provides a vast amount of functionality and automation of things, thus it can almost be used entirely in the place of MYOB Retail Manager style inventory and sales management, it prints invoices, keeps the website up to date with current stock and so on.

Everything is customisable.

It does have a few downfalls, for example, only one image can be used for each product, unless you know how to use FTP and know HTML image tags. If this is the case, than you can put more images in the product description since it allows HTML to be entered in it.

It also does not have built in warranty claim management or return authorization management, so this must all be done manually by email, phone, or any other means.

Powerhouse Music and Technology has recently undergone a makeover. I did not design the original Zen-Cart website for them as they found a template much to their liking. I did do all of the custom graphics and so on, as well as all of the custom code.

Over the past week or so, we have been going through the website and making various changes to the template. For anyone that had not seen it previously, it had a dark grey/blue background and used varying shades of dark blue throughout the website. It was a fixed width and had a plain black background behind the main content area. Boring.

If you have a look at it now, you will notice a few key changes that we have been working on. The first and foremost is that the website has been lightened significantly without changing the colour scheme. It is now a much lighter grey/blue with darker rows alternating lighter product rows so they are easier to read.

The second main change to the website is that the background is no longer a boring plain black that does nothing but emphasise the empty background. It is now a tiled pattern based off the material covering of an early Vox Guitar Amplifier. The pattern does not scroll with the rest of the website so it remains the same no matter where you are or what your screen resolution is. The decision to do this was made because having the website automatically adjust to fit different resolutions, while being based on the current template would take a lot of time and work and would rewriting the majority of the CSS. Thus, something else was needed to emphasise the content.

The background does this perfectly. The colour scheme does not clash with the current colours and even the black material on it's own without the stitching provides a better background than the plain black because it contains various shades. The background as a whole however now emphasises the content and makes the website more interesting, especially on higher resolution screens.

There have been other changes made as well, though not so significant, with the switch from dark to light, the text colour has all had to be changed and in doing so, the link hover colour has been changed to a green rather than a blue, to fit in with the green used in the logo.

The menu has also been adjusted to remove gaps in it that left it seeming empty, which it is far from being.

Finally, there have been a few fixes to widths that had not previously been noticable with the darker background that became apparent with the light background.

The past couple of days we have been gradually working through the site and picking up the colour glitches here and there that have been caused by the change and were missed for whatever reason in the main styles. So if you have a look and notice anything that doesn't quite seem right, such as unreadable text, it would be great if you could let me know.

Thanks.

Labels: code, design, work

The past month, I have been brainstorming and experimenting with idea's on new and interesting (to me) things to do on the web.

So far I have a few things. Of course, high up on the list is to market TerraMedia and Ultralight more, but at the same time, there have been other things come up as a result of that.

Company and product image.

For example, I have been trying to come up with a new and interesting logo for TerraMedia. I did a subject at university first semester last year that was based entirely around product and company image, through logo's, packaging and so on. KIB101, Foundations of Communication Design 1 is the subject. Great subject, I learned a lot doing it. The problem is, I could not get past one of my early logo idea's which I realised after I finished it, that it was very similar to the old Sony Walkman logo which is a trade mark, and while it's not the same, I didn't particularly like the idea of Sony having a reason to come after me. Thus, I ended up with the current logo, which is nothing too special, I like it, but it's not what I would ideally like.

So, this is something I have been aiming to change. I still don't really have anything set in stone yet, but I have some idea's that I am working on since my mind has seemingly been freed of it's mental block at the moment. How long this will last I cannot say, but hopefully for a while yet.

In working on this new logo, I have also been considering redesigning the TerraMedia website, and reworking it to better fit my new marketing strategy (which is at the moment still in it's planning stages, so I can't give you details because it is not yet in an entirely logical structure and will most likely come across as a bunch of babble). I spent a couple of hours with Rhi on Sunday afternoon brainstorming possibilities in this regard, and along with things I have since come up with on top of our combined masses of brain power, I think we have some very interesting idea's that I plan on experimenting with. I'd show you, but that would ruin the surprise.

Rhi is also helping me out with the new logo design which is awesome as she is a fantastic artist! So a big thanks goes to her!

Portfolio.

Next on the list is a possibility I have been throwing around in my mind and have just begun experimenting with using Joomla!

Joomla! comes with a weblinks component when you install it, and that, combined with part of my new marketing strategies has thrown into the works a directory style portfolio. In a way, like a Yellow Pages of web site's by TerraMedia. Of course, there aren't that many at this stage, and it probably doesn't sound like much, but the idea's that are whizzing through my mind regarding this have me really intrigued about setting it up. I have something partially working at the moment. I'm hoping to get it up and running properly within the next couple of weeks.

This also is a reason behind the changes I would like to make in the design of the TerraMedia website. The current design does not incorporate any real portfolio the way I would like, thus it does not have one, which is not a good thing, in fact, it is a very bad thing.

Next up is email.

I have a Microsoft Exchange Server partially setup for TerraMedia. It's still in it's trial phases at the moment, but I am hoping to have it setup properly soon. This will make maintaining my email's, contacts and calendar (why does the spelling of calendar look wrong?) far easier from all over the world, not that I'm frequently all over the world, but you never know.

Once the Exchange server is fully setup and operational, TerraMedia will be offering it as a service instead of our current webmail/POP3 email service, if anyone is interested, pricing will be sorted out shortly. I aim to have this fully operational within the next couple of weeks as well to coincide with my plans.

Blogging.

I am planning on rearranging the news and client information blogs so that they are one and the same rather than two separate ones. I also accidentally blocked myself from allowing RSS, ATOM and OPML feed's from the news page, which is potentially problematic and another driving factor of a new design.

Blogging part 2.

Still As Life is still running off of what is essentially a standard template. Yes, I have changed it significantly. Background image, size, footer, menu etc, but it is still basically a standard template. This I do not like. In my brainstorming for TerraMedia, I stumbled across the foundations of a new design for Still As Life hiding in the dark, atramentous recesses of my mind.

So this is underway as well. I have it in progress, on the Still As Life server, but I'm not going to give you the link because that would ruin the surprise. If you can figure out the path to it though, enjoy and keep in mind that it is still in progress and the colours are far from final.

More Still As Life?

Yes, there is more. Still As Life was not originally intended to be solely the home of the personal blog of me, Matthew Brown. No, it was also meant to be a haven for my fractal gallery. Yes yes, there is my Deviant Art gallery, which does give me unlimited space and bandwidth for free. However, it is not really what I want. I have been tossing around ideas in my mind ever since I first began considering names for this blog. There is actually an installation of Coppermine Photo Gallery setup on this server and has been since I set up the domain. It's just one of those things that never quite went ahead.

Is there anymore?

As a matter of fact, yes! I just don't remember what else there was at the moment, that was actually part of the reason for this blog, so I don't forget everything. Oh well, I'll remember sooner or later. I actually have paper with stuff on it all over one of my walls for this reason as well, however this is one of the things that hadn't made it to paper yet. Though Rhi thinks the paper makes it look like I have gone mad with illegible scribble writing and drawings that look like they are part of the writing and so on. I am happy being mad.

Last but not least, in my creative and un-mentally blank mood, I have been doing some drawing (that does not look like scribble) as well. I have the outlines of a picture that I am quite proud of so far. Hopefully the rest of it will work right and I don't end up with, well, badness.

Labels: code, design, internet, rants, work

There are a few other websites now live that I have been working on as well.

You may or may not have seen the first two Domain Resorts websites that I worked on, if not, they are:

• Domain Resorts and Residences
• Domain Resorts and Residences Santai

Since completing these two, I have also been involved in working on five other websites for them through Webtrix™ Technologies.

The websites are as follows:

• Domain Resorts and Residences Drift
• Domain Resorts and Residences Beach Shacks
• Domain Resorts and Residences Mainwaring
• Domain Resorts and Residences Pandanus Pocket
• Domain Resorts and Residences North Stradbroke Island

For more websites that I have worked on, have a look at my portfolio.

Enjoy.

Labels: design, internet, work

The Swallow Fashion website has been live for about a week now. This is a website that I have been working on for Webtrix™ Technologies for some time now.

It was a very slow website to develop, however, it has turned out quite nicely. I was not the only person working on this website mind you, it was just one of those ones that takes a long time to get done, for no real reason.

Swallow Fashion have 3 stores in Brisbane city and do just about anything with clothes that you can think of. They mend, make dresses,perform alterations, dry clean, can work with leather and furs and so on.

I might be biased when I say I don't like some of the parts of the website that I didn't do. However, if you know what parts of the site they are, you can probably understand my dislike of them.

Labels: design, internet, work

The all new Alstonville Pathfinders website is officially live. There are still a few minor changes to be made, such as the addition of the final logo when it is completed and so on, however it is predominately done and ready for use.

It is designed around Wordpress and incorporates an easy to use and update calendar and image gallery.

I might be slightly biased, but I think this is one of the hottest Pathfinder Club websites out there.

Feel free to agree or disagree. I don't mind.

Labels: design, work

I don't get it. What is with people? EVERY resume that we have gotten today has had spelling errors, or grammatical errors, or just doesn't show anything useful. There is one, it's two pages long and looks fancy and fairly professional, but the information provided is exactly like the one I posted yesterday! It conveys absolutely nothing useful at all!

There is another, the prospective interviewee has written their resume in Seek and has just linked us to their Seek resume page rather than taking the time to bother doing up a professional looking one himself. His content is reasonable, and I will admit it does look fairly professional, but then you start to read it, and there are lower case headings, comma's at the end of sentences and so on. It would be nice to get a decent looking resume for once. I thought this job of knocking back people would be hard since I don't like to hurt peoples feelings or anything, but some of these resume's make it pretty easy, he hasn't even capitalized the first letters of his first and last name!

On an interesting and slightly less...annoying...note, one in three of the applicants live within a five minute walk of my place.

Labels: rants, work

At work at the moment we are looking for more staff and there are job advertisements on places like Seek, University of Queensland Student Union Employment, Queensland University of Technology Student Guild Employment and so on. Now there have been a lot of resume's come through and since I do most of the email work, I have the job of going over each resume and deciding which one's are worth printing and forwarding to my boss, and which ones will get a lovely little email in response that reads:

"Dear Jeremy,

Thankyou very much for your application, however at this stage all of the interview places have been filled. Should any of these fall through, we will be in contact again.

Best regards,

Management"

Isn't that nice?

Anyway, here I am going through these resume's, and only a couple of them I would even consider interviewing, but the majority met my boss's criteria, so theres 8 or so got printed out and forwarded onto her. Then there was this one:

Name: Billy K

Address: 85 Bad St

Phone: 0400 000 000

Email Address: billy.k1989@hotmail.com

Drivers Licence: No

Personal Qualities: Friendly, Fun, keen, patient

Interest & Hobbies: Hanging out with friends, going to

movies, talking to peple

Schooling: ********** State High School 1998

Objective: To get a job to save some money and get

Work experience

Availability: Casual

References: Will give when you call.

Of course, this isn't the actual resume, but this is exactly how it was formatted and the exact same way it was written, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, some things not formatted the same as the rest, and so on.

Now, I'm not the employer, but just reading that, why would I want to work with them? So why would an employer want to consider employing them? The resume doesn't even take up a page.

So apart from that, what's wrong with it? Where have they worked before? There's no employment history, there aren't even any references, he says he will only supply them on request, so how do we know anything about him prior to speaking to him? He hasn't even given his last name, just an initial!

Additionally, he only has one school listed, which he left in 1998, so either he is in his late 20's (which is fine), or he dropped out of school. Either way he's been out of school for 9 years and doesn't have an employment history, has he even worked at all in that time? He hasn't said he's doing anything else at the moment, such as tertiary education, nor does he have a drivers license, so how do we know he's even motivated to do anything but the absolute minimum?

His interests are fine, but they show nothing and are basically wasted space. Everything likes those things. They don't stand out. So again this works against him as it builds on what I said before, it shows he isn't motivated. In addition to this he doesn't have any skills listed aside from his "Personal qualities", so how do we know what he can do?

Even his "Objective" is shocking. It confirms our belief that he most likely has not had a job before, despite being out of school for almost 10 years and that he isn't motivated!

This in turn leads us to wonder if he is even being honest in his "Personal qualities" as he clearly is not "keen", not about working anyway.

So please, someone tell me, why oh why would someone want to employ him?

It leads one to wonder about the effectiveness of Centrelink and their job diaries. People have to apply for jobs to keep getting paid by Centrelink, of course they don't have to get one...

I cannot stand these people who seem to think they shouldn't have to work and should get everything for free.

Seriously, this place is so easy to get a job if you show any interest or initiative at all, I mean, its a surf shop, I'm not even interested in surfing or anything surfing related, yet I got a job here!

Labels: politics, rants, work