Blog

Recently added 2 additional images to Nora Larimer’s site.

http://noralarimer.com/gallery/index-landscapes_01.html

You can purchase original paintings directly from her site as well as giclee reproductions.

The new website for Securanix Network Security Specialists is now live. It includes an updated look and feel, more accessible navigation and quicker loading times. In addition, links are now included on every page to translate into another language. The site validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

For this project we’re also using the PEAR XML_RSS module to display the CERT Incident Notes and Advisories on the homepage. This will automate the process of displaying security headlines on the site.

Part of the goal of the redesign was to improve the professional image of Securanix, and we feel that we succeeded in this area as well.

Updated Rachel’s site the other night with the latest WordPress beta (1.0.1). The upgrade went fairly well, although it did take a little tricky manipulation of table names in MySQL. Basically the old b2* tables were still there from an earlier install, and at first I wanted to use the new wp_* table names. So I began by doing a fresh install (of course, none of the old posts showed up). So then I eventually figured out that if I renamed the old tables with the wp_* prefixes that I wanted the new tables to have then the upgrade script would migrate the content properly. This worked well.

I am loving how WordPress is developing as a piece of software. It has vitality. It is growing in elegance and simplicity. It is Open Source.

Particularly, I appreciate the mod_rewrite ease-of-use. Basically, you simply decide what format you want your archives to be in (suggested is something like archives/2004/01/01/post-title-name) and the admin area gives you the exact code to paste into your .htaccess file. It is very slick, and then it works like magic. Considering how tricky many people find mod_rewrite, this alone is an awesome part of the system.

I’ll be upgrading this site’s installation as well soon, I think. I still have some other stuff to deal with first, though.

Another great feature is the inclusion of an “Edit this post” button in the template tags. Makes it super easy to edit any entry right when you see it. I had hacked this into my installation before, but seem to have lost it somewhere along the upgrade line, so it is great to see an official implementation.

Things are continuing to hum along here at Serafini Studios. Kristin is going to be the writing instructor for the Principia Upper School Teton Trip again this year. She is also continuing her other school visits, inspiring thousands of children each year.

On the project front, exciting progress continues with Vibe Phone. We’re working on interface design, graphics, usability and functionality.

Securanix continues to develop in interesting ways. We’re working on the initial plans for a number of security-related products.

Sites we’ve been spending some time with recently:

• Smarty
• NukeCops
• Xaraya
• PHPWiki
• freshmeat.net

Also, been thinking about non-profit foundations and how they might relate to helping empower young people (elementary-age and up) with technology education including HTML and publishing to make a difference in their own lives and open up opportunities…

Found via BoingBoing - it’s an entire mp3-only album of 8-bit video game console composed Christmas music. You can download each song in mp3 format and print out an album cover.

There’s lots of other cool music available on the site as well. Check it out!

Link: www.8bitpeoples.com

My favorite so far: Let it snow by Bit Shifter. Composed using Nintendo Gameboy.
Download mp3 (2.5MB, 192kbs bitrate)

Just finished updating NaomiWrites.com with a new layout and the addition of a picture gallery. Using Open Source software called Gallery to handle image management. It is still pretty tricky to incorporate Gallery into a site without a lot of tweaking of header and footer files, but it is a nice and powerful system. You can view a slideshow, automatically order prints of your images and create as many albums as you want. Also it uses ImageMagick to resize images so you can upload a large image and it will create a thumbnail for you. Very nice…

We’re also using WordPress for the blogging software.

Visit the site at www.NaomiWrites.com.

posting using graffiti on my new i330 over at Hal’s place.

Today I received my new Samsung i330 Palm / mobile phone. I purchased mine from Ebay and so far I’m totally happy with the purchase. Having a Palm again is really nice. It should make things a lot easier on all fronts.

Also, it is possible to skin the phone — check out http://i330.nopdesign.com to see how it works. Very cool.

i330 FAQ- http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/portal.php?device=i330

i330 Forums - http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=114

Found this nice tool for checking all 10 Google datacenter search engine results at once (each updates on a different schedule).

http://googledance.seochat.com/

Today we finished updating NoraLarimer.com with updated keywords to help improve search engine placement.

Nora is a longtime client, and when the site was originally built we placed an emphasis on clean design and letting her paintings stand on their own. Since then, we’ve added many paintings to the site, her recent work using watercolor tiles and implemented a Paypal shopping cart throughout the site.

Nora wanted to improve her search engine listings — a lot of the new content we’ve added to the site, like giclee prints weren’t part of her original content.

Nora’s current Google results include #1 for her name - Nora Larimer and #7 for watercolorist.

Our current efforts are focused on improving her results for terms including giclee, watercolor tile, watercolor originals and others. These are fairly competitive search terms, so we are not necessarily expecting #1 positions for each. But we should see improvements for each term now that we’ve added them to the site.

Do you come up where you want to in search engines like Google?
Post your site in the comments and we’ll take a look.