Archive for the ‘news’ Category

We support Kiva, a U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose slogan is “loans that change lives” with a mission to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Imagine the idea of random acts of kindness and helping someone realize the dream of a better life for their family by offering funds in the form of microloan support through Kiva. If you are an active customer for my design services then a portion of your fee for custom cms web design or matching artwork may have already helped a Kiva entrepreneur.

The Kiva community allows a person to invest a nominal amount towards microloans to entrepreneurs mostly in poorer countries who would not otherwise qualify for a traditional loan. You get to choose a specific entrepreneur by trade and geography after reading their bio and history.

As of November 2009, Kiva had facilitated over $100 million in loans in their first 4 years since incorporating in 2005. Understand that lending to the working poor through Kiva involves risk of principal loss, yet you can place as little as $25 towards helping prequalified persons attempting to make a better life for their families.

Kiva does not guarantee repayment. Kiva does not offer any financial return on your loan. However, the principal repayment rate is greater than 98% to date, so helping ease poverty and seeing that success rate is very gratifying. Once repaid you may withdraw the funds from your account, loan it again to another needy person, or donate it all to Kiva.

Note: A 15% donation added at checkout to funds the first time you lend is voluntary and may be declined, yet helps defray Kiva operating costs. You have other Kiva donation options on future microfinance loan purchases from 0-20%, also. The donation portion for USA lenders is tax deductible.

Visit their website to learn more about helping people help themselves with microloan support through Kiva. While there, visit my microloan lender page to see profiles of entrepreneurs I helped.

Recent completed web design work includes multiple cms and blog conversions done for the Mountridge LLC family of websites including: AdamsHomeownerServices.com, MainStreamMemorabilia.com, and AdamsFloridaServices.com.

Both Adams sites were converted from static pages to a custom cms content management system which allows the owner to add, edit, or delete content 24/7. The MainStream Memorabilia online store website was updated with a bolder look. All 3 Mountridge LLC websites include custom matching WordPress designs that were converted from Blogger.

Visit each blog for news or advice about products and services from the following links, and then use top navigation to view the matching look of their main websites.

Adams Homeowner Services handles Florida vacation or long term rental property, the MainStream Memorabilia e-commerce store offers movie and tv star autographed memorabilia, and Adams Florida Services specializes in residential or commercial Orlando area landscape and lawn service.

This month marks one year since my son Roger launched the custom cms web design for Haggetts Aluminum in Florida. Just last month the owner mentioned how pleased they are with sales coming from the website. It makes my day to get happy web design client feedback since Roger chose a career in website design and took over the CodeRepair.com site.

The team at Haggetts is very busy and they credit the performance of their website as the key reason.

A quality web design with proper optimization will attract traffic from search engines. The real goal is to make a positive first impression so those visitors stay and become customers. It’s great knowing my son, who’s slogan is “The next generation in custom website design”, has made a difference for Haggetts Aluminum.

Check out the custom home page awning factory video tour showing how they manufacture custom aluminum awnings. That 2-1/2 minute video presentation is a dynamic sales tool 24/7 with the factory tour, background music, and narration.

Does your website attract search engine traffic and make a positive first impression? If not and you’re ready for a new custom cms web design or makeover of an existing website, contact us today for a prompt review and quote, or follow the link in the first paragraph to check out Roger at CodeRepair.com.

In anticipation of the production release of a stable version of WordPress v3.0 soon I registered a new domain and launched a WordPress live demo website earlier today. The initial design uses the pre-production WordPress v3.0 RC1 version (release candidate 1) introduced one week ago on May 28, 2010.

The following bonus extras included with a custom WordPress theme design from us in our standard package have been installed, tested, and passed functionality on the new demo website:

All in One SEO to optimize posts for search engines, Sociable to insert social site icons and links automatically on every post, WP dB Backup to automatically backup your WordPress installation plus email it to you, and finally SI CAPTCHA to place an anti-spam code and input box at the bottom of every post to help fight comment spam.

Follow this link to the new WordPress Road Test website that will eventually allow privileges for new customers to practice making WordPress posts and let them study advanced blog and cms tutorials. The site is not for v2.x or older WordPress installations. The May 2010 RC1 replaces the BETA version and is the next step towards release of a stable production version v3.0 of WordPress later in 2010.

Other than adding the plugins named above and a footer link to the WordPress design services on this site, the look and layout of the WordPress Road Test site use the default out of the box theme from WordPress v3.0 RC1. All that may change as the www.wpRoadTest.com site evolves.

A new video tutorial has been added to the main site. An advantage of owning a custom cms web design is you may add, edit, or delete content unassisted.

With a matching custom WordPress theme for your blog or podcast, you also have a comment spam magnet which prompted this WordPress anti-spam video tutorial.

Here’s an excerpt explaining results:

Today’s tutorial using SI CAPTCHA solved my comment spam problem. The advice in this custom cms training video tutorial allowed me to reduce that 100 per day to zero instantly.

Mini-review: The SI in SI CAPTCHA stands for Secure Image which is a spam solution I have used for years in custom cms web design. The WordPress plugin version uses many of the same files and was already proven to be an effective tool to fight spam robots from putting comment spam in contact forms, so it was an easy choice.

Watch the video to learn how you can download, install, and activate this WordPress anti-spam solution in less than 3 minutes! After making the video I used a stopwatch to time the installation on another blog and actual time from log-in to done was 1:23, yes 1 minute and 23 seconds.

A new custom WordPress design page addition was released earlier on the main site with details about WordPress design, setup, and installation services, plus extra bonus features for our clients.

The bonus content includes additional plugins with some of the best and highly rated options that are uploaded, installed, and activated. Here’s a summary quoting from the new Custom WordPress Design Services page:

All in One SEO to optimize posts for search engines, Sociable to insert social site icons and links automatically on every post, WP dB Backup to automatically backup your WordPress installation plus email it to you, and finally SI CAPTCHA to place an anti-spam code and input box at the bottom of every post to help fight comment spam.

Unlike off the shelf templates that are sold and resold to unlimited site owners, our custom blog designs are one-of-a-kind unique custom WordPress themes.

Contact us with any questions or to learn more about custom wordpress design services.

For clients interested in a custom cms web design with a matching custom WordPress blog, you may want to review the Custom WordPress Theme Portfolio.

This flash gallery presentation features 10 unique and one-of-a-kind custom WordPress blog themes with graphics linked to actual blogs. The flash gallery is inserted here for reference, also.

Each example custom WordPress theme is an integrated custom blog with graphics and navigation to match the main cms content management system web design. Use your back button to return to this review of the WordPress theme portfolio. View the examples then email us from any page with questions.

This entire website underwent a makeover recently with a cms redesign and blog conversion. I decided to stay with a similar beige color scheme to keep things familiar. The main site for custom cms web design, the custom cms websites advice blog, and the website design mailbag podcast were all redesigned. The advice blog and podcast were both converted from Blogger to WordPress, as well.

While a fresh look for this site is considered every 2-3 years, the blog format for the advice blog and podcast needed more immediate attention. Blogger announced a few months ago that they would no longer support ftp publishing of new blog posts effective May 1, 2010 which left some site owners wondering what to do.

I created custom WordPress blogs for several clients in the past, and one advantage of WordPress over Blogger is the open source software package that runs the blog is on the owner’s server. The real concern was for future changes in Blogger that would force some blog owners to redesign (again), so my advice to clients was moving from Blogger to WordPress to retain complete control over publishing.

In addition, I expanded the custom search engine (CSE) from Google to all pages in the top right sidebar of the main site, blog, and podcast. This advanced function allows visitors to search over 500 pages of content with advice for custom cms web design and related services.

The latest custom cms web design project just completed was a recruiting custom CMS and blog that went online earlier today for SynergyHire LLC of Atlanta, Georgia. The main site and matching blog allow the owner to add, edit, or delete content 24/7 without paying each time.

Here is a reduced size graphic screenshot of just one page:

Compare the main site to the matching Atlanta Recruiter custom WordPress theme used on their blog. As with all my designs, the custom integrated blog is a unique one-of-a-kind design for a consistent look moving between the main site and blog.

Other features to consider are the custom logo, clean layout, and special page with 12 audio players to demo their innovative automated candidate phone screen service. Upon review of the initial custom cms web design launch the owner commented “I give you two thumbs up… you did a GREAT job on this Jim!”.

This is urgent news. The official WordPress website warns users about older WordPress versions under attack. The most recently released version v2.84 is NOT affected by this security issue and virus attack. For anyone who prefers waiting before upgrading their WordPress blog, this is a wakeup call.

For my clients, your custom WordPress blog design was not affected if I designed and manage your blog. Your blog was upgraded when v2.84 was released, and before this most recent attack began.

If you have a personal blog hosted on WordPress.com, your blog was not affected. For other WordPress blog owners who have not upgraded to v2.84, follow the link above for full details from WordPress. In the future, my advice is to heed the warning of the nag screen in your admin section if informed you’re not running the latest version.

Running the latest version of WordPress is particularly important for fixing security vulnerabilities, as well as enhanced functions.