.carolinecblaker.

Oil Paintings, Latex Paintings, Data Art.

Rants and Raves - Web Development

A casual blog reporting on the life and times of Caroline C. Blaker

  • New website design is live!

    New website design is live! image Hola everyone! I'm pleased to finally be showing you the design I've been working on for months for this brand-new look and feel for carolinecblaker.com. In the spirit of "The cobbler's children never have new shoes," often does self-serving work of professional web designers and developers go un-delivered. We are not always our own best clients. Suffice to say that some upcoming events, including the shedding of an old web server and a baby due date fast-forwarded this project on my list. It's now live, at least in a skeletal, many-features-coming form. I know, I know, "Yeah Right!" Actually - many features that you cannot access are already installed - but there are reasons why they're not live yet: like they're not flushed out visually, or they need a tiny bit more development time, or going live to avoid a complete shut-down of the site was more important in the interim than their addition to a dev to live environment site. For those who don't speak geek - I've set myself up to be...

  • New carolinecblaker.com is in development

    New carolinecblaker.com is in development image This website is my first website. As someone who builds websites every day in a high-demand environment, I have a fondness for this one that supercedes my love for my work (which I LOVE a LOT.) In the past, it has been the canvas for my development skills. If you have been visiting for more than a few years, undoubtedly you remember it being riddled with bugs, impossible to use, or just having one of those "what was she thinking?" moments. As it turns out this problem is systemic for artists, but I'm not just an artist. I'm a professional web developer AND artist. I have the time, the know-how, and the motivation to produce a superlative website to showcase and sell my art work. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. Aside from personal vanity, I do have motivation for the work I'm doing for this website. Lately, I've noticed that despite my fondenss for this website, I hate updating it. Yep, you heard me - it's a pain. When the last iteration of the design was built, it was the eas...

  • ExpressionEngine and how I ranted for 1 hour about it

    ExpressionEngine and how I ranted for 1 hour about it image On September 1, 2010 I gave a Webuquerque Presentation extolling the virtues of the content management systems I use, religiously, for client sites, ExpressionEngine. Using ExpressionEngine, I've never been able to say no to a client feature for any lack of the system's capability to handle the request, as it has enough built-in that its easy to add functionality on as a PHP programmer. Turns out I was giving a presentation to a group of hungry webbies who had been fed up with Content Management Systems of all walks mainly due to their 1) high barriers to entry and 2) their lack of support and never having quite enough stability to support deployment of projects. Who could blame them? I assured them that with ExpressionEngine, deployment and support are assured, and the barrier to entry is just low enough to be affordable yet high enough to keep the code out of the hands of hackers and/or other unsavory types. The video The Photos Notice some PSYCHED winners of Twitterscapes as doo...

  • A web-based developer makeover

    It feels oddly empty and voided: my schedule that is. I have a couple of projects to look forward to, but like any other new job or career situation, this one is taking its sweet time loading up on things to do. I have officially taken the plunge into freelance and have a little too much time on my hands. Wait, no scratch that. I have all the time on my hands that I used to want before I quit my job. Aha! As I’m looking around at my online presence, I see no shortage of tidying, organizing, and clarifying that needs to happen before I start to see a lot of work. Not that I don’t deserve it - I do, but the website focus is changing from “Here I am” to somewhere between that and “Let me work for you!” I have a couple of major things going for me - I’m on a site platform that I love, Expressionengine. Its all a developer could ever want, and can be made into what the client needs in every situation. (I’m not only the hair club president, but I’m also a client.) I also have a de...

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