Also for those interested, you can find the website here. It is relatively simple, but informative for those who still use IE6, and even provides information for corporate users and migration information.

Granted, it’s not exactly an explicit end of life announcement, but I’ll take whatever I can get from them at this point. Let’s face it…IE6 will be celebrating it’s tenth anniversary this year. It’s time for it to go.

First, we’re in the process of converting the site to take advantage of HTML 5. For the most part, there won’t be a lot of visible changes on this front at the present time, but some revisions to our existing code are necessary to make sure we’re ready to take full advantage of the future in the web market.

We’re also going to be making some cosmetic, face lift-style changes to the website. The overall design won’t be changing much, but little things here and there will be revised and updated to fix some things we don’t like, address feedback we’ve gotten, and also incorporate new elements associated with our growth.

The virtual consultation I’ve spoken of previously is also coming, but it has been delayed due to workload and also some unexpected complications and revisions we’re currently working through. The idea was to phase it in over stages, but some of the features we were going to include down the road are more necessary in the initial phase than I’d previously accounted for, so it’s adding some time to the project.

We’re going to be better integrating our social media (Facebook and Twitter) into what we do here. This ties in with the cosmetic changes and also reflects the long term vision we’ve had for the company and our growth plans. A lot of this will be more automated, which I’ve been working on the past few days to incorporate.

Something for penguin fans:We also will be making merchandise available more directly through our website, fun stuff related to our company name and the avatars we use on our website. As our Facebook followers know, we’ve been offering certain items for a while now, but we haven’t incorporated that into our main site to date. We’re fixing this problem.

And last but not least, we’re growing! Our Graphic Design department is growing to keep up with the needs of our clients. There will be more information about this later, but, from a web perspective, it means adding in new design samples and putting together information about our new partners. This one is coming very soon, stay tuned!

So as you can see, there’s a lot of stuff going on. We’ll be keeping you informed as time goes on about the many changes that are coming.

A few drinks of coffee (or cider, depending on your preference) later, the idea of doing a virtual consultation via the web was born. Of course, for the graphic designers, it seemed like such a simple thing…just build a form that requests information from the potential client of a specific nature in order to get rid of as many of those bumps as possible. At the time, being a web developer with a full-time job not related to web development, and a bit out of practice in a few areas, it looked like a daunting mountain looming on the horizon…rather scary, although you knew it was going to be fun to get to the top.

Fast forward two months, and with the extra time now available to me (even with jobs coming in), I’ve been able to put quite of bit of effort into this, and I’m becoming happy with it…the client-side functional coding is almost done (looks is another story, I’m just doing what I need to in order for it to work), and I’m beginning work on the server side of things.  If everything goes according to plan, I should have the first version of this out in a couple weeks.

One nice thing about this consultation is it marks my first big project getting into and really using the jQuery javascript library. The library is coming in very handy and will streamline a lot of processes, and also is helpful for some visual (and functional) eye-candy. Things like form sections being separated (it’s a long form), being able to save your progress, form validation on the fly, and also some convenience features.

If you’re interested, I have a rough draft now online that I can show off some of the client-side features I’ve been adding into this…some other features (validation, saving, submissions) are intentionally disabled (fill it out to your heart’s content, but you can’t submit it yet) as the backend required for those features is by no means complete. You can check it out at

http://attractivepenguin.com/consultation/graphics

Again, it’s a rough draft, and while suggestions are welcome, please note that the final project is going to probably LOOK much different.

I am officially dropping full support for Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6 and below. Previously, I would at the very least make rudimentary attempts to make a site look good in at least IE6. However, I feel the time has long come past for me, and for Attractive Penguin, to stop this. Instead, we will provide optional base compatibility, for an additional fee, only upon request.

Some of you are asking why there is even a suggestion of support, or why this is an issue. IE6 usage is still, sadly, fairly prominent out there, mostly by corporations and businesses who 1) are still running XP on their systems for cost reasons, and/or 2) are stuck with IE6 for the foreseeable future because their web-based applications they use in their business are tied heavily to IE6 because of its long lifespan, and an upgrade would break these systems. (And there are a lot of companies in that category.)

There’s another group out there who are asking why even base compatibility is an option. I refer you to the list above.

And for those who are wondering what “base compatibility” means, I’ll explain it here: it means the page will work in IE6. I won’t guarantee it looks as nice as your regular website, although I will guarantee it will look stylized and I will, as much as is practical, make it look similar to the full version of your website. But the use of Javascript, Jquery, or any other interactive functions will be limited at best, and full functionality will not be guaranteed for anything such as forms, slideshows, web applications, galleries, etc.

In short, once a website looks good and works correctly in the following browsers, and all other terms of the contract are met, I will consider my job done, unless requested, and there will be an additional fee for anything not on this list:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or higher
• Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher
• Google Chrome 8.0 or higher
• Safari 5.0 or higher (including for iPad)
• Opera 10 or higher
• Mobile phone support on a case by case basis.

I don’t expect this to create any problems, but I do want it out there so that people are aware.

ROCKNCSS calls itself “Your Everyday Web Design Inspiration” and features sites considered to be high quality in their design. Needless to say, we’re thrilled.

You can check it out for yourself at http://rockncss.com/?p=56 (for those who follow the posts on Facebook).

First, of course, is the best of wishes for the New Year to all of our customers, partners, friends, family, and fans.  We’re looking forward to another year of being involved with all of you!

And then comes those pesky resolutions.  Brittany hasn’t made hers yet for AP (that I know of…) but I’ve gone ahead and put together some to share with all of you.  And before we start, I know how resolutions go…so I’m asking for help in keeping them!

Here’s some things I’d like to accomplish this year:

• Being more active with this blog.  My recent schedule changes should allow for that.  Expect to see some resource links being added on here soon, as well as relevant internet stories (and our thoughts on them) and perhaps some featured sites and why we like them.
• Working on the CMS.  I’ve actually got a website live using it, and so far so good.  More information on this in a separate post coming soon.
• Going back to school!  Yes, I’m going back to finish my web development degree. So far so good on that front. Looking to start spring quarter, just waiting for my credits to transfer from Miami Dade College to Everett Community College.
• Adding in an online consultation and estimate system to our website, with a target date (perhaps ambitious) of March 1st.
• And, of course…your web project goes here!

What are your goals for 2011? Feel free to let us know!

We’ve just launched a new website for a client. This is the first site we’ve launched for a client here at Attractive Penguin, and I’m particularly proud of this one, I have to admit. You can access the new site here:  http://www.christinemesiani.com.

This will also be the first site I’ve launched with the packaged version of the content management system I’ve been working on creating off and on since mid 2007. I’ve released sites before using the CMS, but this is the first one that is “from the package” so to speak.  I’ll be continuing to update the CMS (including giving it a proper name!) but this will massively simplify basic site launches, as the framework for user and content management will be largely in place for sites that don’t require advanced functionality.  More info on the CMS to come later.

Another milestone for this site will be the inclusion of a custom-built image gallery script, including client-friendly management of the galleries and images as well as the built-in use of a lightbox, in this case prettyPhoto.  It’s just a simple gallery script, none of the kitchen-sink stuff you usually see, but that’s kind of the point.  I didn’t need 4500 features, just to allow clients to upload, reorder, and display images.

You can check out the site at the link above, and I am looking to have a working demo of our CMS system up and running within the next few weeks. We also are working on a couple other sites and hope to have more information on those soon.

So, our website is now largely complete…at least on the front-end. I am working on an RSS feed updater for our Twitter feed to post automatically to our contact page, and I might tweak some other things to run a little smoother, but the work is largely done.

On the back-end, there are a few more things yet to do. I’m largely using a modified version of WordPress to power the admin section and backend of the site, and I think I will keep that going, it actually works quite well as a CMS. However, I want to add more functionality to edit the portfolio/products section using a proper user interface for remarketing down the road. There are already a couple people who are interested in the functionality of the Lightbox code we are using, but who are not quite as interested in editing the code the old fashioned way to get the desired effect. So building a PHP backend that works with the wordpress code and the lightbox seems like the best answer. I’m hoping to have that finished within the next month.

Another project I’m working on is a sort of testing area on the site here for people to be able to view some of our custom applications and integrations and test drive them, to see how they work. I think this would be good for customers to have an understanding of the systems they would be using prior to using them. This would likely include wordpress, as well as a custom, much lighter CMS application I built a couple of years ago for basic update functionality, a calendar, a forum, and perhaps an image gallery. More word on that as it develops, and I don’t exactly have a timeline for that yet.

I’m also working on brushing the cobwebs off my knowledge of javascript. It has always been my weakest link in my toolbox, and I’ve let it slide a bit over the past couple of years, trying to do as much as I can in PHP to compensate. But with the growing capabilities of Jquery, Mootools and the rest, and especially seeing as how Flash (at least for video and basic dynamic capability) is really on the way out, getting reacquainted with the language is necessary.

And so that’s kind of where I’m sitting at right now. I’ll probably have something more “how-to” for my next article, but I wanted to start out with direction and where I’m going.

1. Not all photos on free stock photography websites are free. Let’s take for instance  the “stock.xchng” website, which will show you the advertised photos first. Usually they will be the more professional looking stock and when you try to download them, you will find they are not free after all. Sometimes they will lead you to purchasing stock sites such as istock. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t free stock on the website. The first line usually carries the premium stock. Lines after that will carry the free stock.

2. Not all free stock is without restrictions. There are some licenses that the original photographer may put on their stock. Some ask that you mention their name or you aren’t allowed to use  the image in it’s original form, you may also be asked to link the photographer’s website or email with any piece created with the stock. Almost all free stock websites allow the artist set these licenses. What you need to look for is standard licenses that just say you can’t claim the photo publicly as your own. But you don’t have to name the artist. Make sure you find photos you want with these settings.

3. Be Patient. You may not find the highest quality of work right off the back or even what you are looking for. You may have to dig through several amateur photos to find something of value but when you do it’s like a gold mine!

4. Sometimes free photos have very small resolution. On some of the websites, artist can make their smaller resolution photos free but charge for their higher-res ones. This won’t be good if you need a photo for print material. So be aware.

5. It’s nice to have free stuff. Remember the above tips and you’ll do fine when using free stock! Here are some websites you can check it out.

http://www.sxc.hu/

http://www.morguefile.com/

http://www.everystockphoto.com/