ChristophDollis.com » Web Design

I’ve Installed WordPress, Finally. Perseverance or Stubbornness?

Christoph Dollis — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 13:09:52 +0000

I vote for the latter.

I initially wasn’t able to find the right way to convert my personally crafted web design into a WordPress (open source blogging software) theme… and now I have. While this blog is new, it was always my goal to use WordPress because it gives me more ability to customize and enhance it.

Plus WordPress produces “valid code” meeting web standards. I’d previously taken the time to write my hand coded (home page, contact page, etc.) pages XHTML 1.0 Strict and it annoyed the heck out of me to go to validate my source code produced by Blogger and find 277 validation errors in it.

I like it. Blogger was good. It’s what got me interested in web design in the first place as opposed to merely writing, which I’ve always enjoyed. This has much better features.

Want more on these topics? Browse the archive of posts filed under: Blogging, Success, Web Design.

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The place to come for more appointments, more people in the door, and more sales!(sm)
© 2007-2007 Christoph Dollis Enterprises. Moral Rights Asserted.

Last (Yeah, Right!) Technical Challenge

Christoph Dollis — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:31:00 +0000

Google Blogger has no way of publishing recent comments, properly sorted, in the sidebar for anyone who uses their own website design as a template.

The “New Blogger” supports this, but I like keeping my own style (such as it is).

So what I’ve done is created a second Blogger blog, had Blogger forward my comments from my main “real” blog to my Google Gmail address, and, from there, Gmail forwards them to my new Blogger blog’s publish-by-email feature and automatically publishes them as if they were posts.

Then, I grab the RSS xml feed “feed” from that blog, run it through a Javascript called “Hearsay” developed by Greg from Freshblog, and voila, recent comments.

Brilliant solution.

Alas, I am not an expert with Javascript and the dates are giving an error, which is why you may see something like:

Commentator Name (just now) on Blog Post’s Title:

Text of the comment…

… and a tool tip error when you hover over it if you really pay attention.

Not quite the effect I was looking for. So let’s see if the fine fellow from Melbourne who wrote the script a year ago as a public service will still support it.

He helped someone else out 5-days ago, so I am crossing my fingers!

UPDATE 7:54 AM: Greg replied from the other side of the world almost immediately and helped me fix the problem. I wanted to drop the dates and wasn’t sure how. Thanks.

UPDATE Monday September 23rd: I migrated to WordPress.

Want more on these topics? Browse the archive of posts filed under: Blogging, Web Design.

ChristophDollis.com Sales Pro
The place to come for more appointments, more people in the door, and more sales!(sm)
© 2007-2007 Christoph Dollis Enterprises. Moral Rights Asserted.

New Website Design, from Near Scratch – Supporting My Purpose

Christoph Dollis — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:32:00 +0000

Well, I moved away from the template and designed what you see.

Of course I used and modified others’ code in a lot of cases. Like the navigation tabs at top. Thanks Stu Nicholls of CSSplay.

I used a text editor. In other words, something like Windows Notepad. Very cool.

A few years ago, I didn’t know more than how to use a computer to make a good resumé and now, I’ve a decent site on the net and I know how it works.

Except for the parts published by Blogger, it validates as valid XHTML and CSS. I think it looks good.

So yes, I’m proud of myself today. Now to put it to good use.

The exact wording of my mission is a proprietary secret and besides, it could change. I came up with this wording while writing this website.

But it has the the words, “… salesman, helping other people succeed,” in it.

Want more on these topics? Browse the archive of posts filed under: Purpose, Web Design.

ChristophDollis.com Sales Pro
The place to come for more appointments, more people in the door, and more sales!(sm)
© 2007-2007 Christoph Dollis Enterprises. Moral Rights Asserted.

Business Cards and Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Christoph Dollis — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 07:42:00 +0000

I designed my cards to go with the site.

UPDATE Monday August 27th, 2007: Redesigned my site so the previous cards don’t go with the new design.

UPDATE Sunday January 20th, 2008: Designed proper logo, finally. See below for the newer newer cards.

(Click the image to see current contact information.)

(Click the image to see the slightly expanded bullet points on my homepage.)

The website itself is based on a template I enjoyed, heavily modified and “modulated” by yours truly. For example, this blog is powered by Blogger, but I integrated it into my existing site.

It’s a table based layout in an era where CSS (cascading style sheet) is supposed to reign supreme.

Oh well. Sometimes I like doing things the old fashioned way.

But change can be good. Like these last two months.

I’ve always had great communication skills, but I’ve been weaker on organization. I decided to plug this leak and study it with a vengeance.

The solution was to implement Getting Things Done®!

My USP is to be the salesperson who is organized enough to take action…

… not the young fellow with a pair the size of watermelons who knocks on your door at 9:23 PM when you’re putting your kids to bed. Nor the perfect secretarial type who has all his I’s dotted and T’s crossed, but is afraid to speak up or go for what he really wants.

More like a geek version of the former: someone with the courage to make things happen, but the organization habits to influence what comes next and stay on top of things.

WHAT DOES THIS GET YOU, the business owner, sales manager, or profit-seeking executive?

Only one thing: money in the door.

UPDATE Monday August 27th, 2007: But now I’ve got the XHTML and CSS to validate meaning it’s well formed and can be read easier in handheld devices and such. Sweet.

Of course, there is a but… the blog (as opposed to the rest of the website, which I hand coded in a text editor) is published by Google Blogger. It’s a great service yet it doesn’t produce code that validates according to web standards. The rest of the site does.

I also made custom tool tips for when you hover over a link… on the main webpage, not the blog. If I use them on the blog’s main area, then the “hidden” tool tip text shows up all jumbled in the links when people read posts in a feed reader or by email.

It’s already bad enough that the hidden text of the custom tool tips shows up on some handheld devices that don’t fully support CSS.

Here’s an example of the custom tool tip.This is just an example; this link doesn’t go anywhere. And if you’re reading it through feed or email subscription, you’ll notice it’s all mixed together in the link!

And unfortunately, even the full-size Opera web browser has a bug in its “hover” property that causes the custom tool tips to fail. I thought about not using custom tool tips, but I like them. Opera should fix its bug!

UPDATE Sunday January 20th, 2008:

Want more on these topics? Browse the archive of posts filed under: GTD / Productivity, Marketing, USP, Web Design.