Our good friend Jason Santa Maria is leaving Happy Cog to do full-time freelancing. Did I not just say that 2009 was the year of the indie? Congrats Jason!
I spent December of 2008 in mixed states of both reflection and eager anticipation. I realize our economy is in shambles, and optimistic may not be the most popular word these days, but it’s hard for me not to be excited about things to come.
Just days before sticking a fork in 2007, my daughter was born, and a month previous, my wife quit her day job for good. What was to follow was both the most awesome year of my life both personally and professionally.
I was a little nervous with Mrs. Warren quitting her job. The main question on our minds was: How were we going to replace her income? We just bought a new house that year, and one income disappearing did make things feel a little more tenuous. Amazingly enough, just a couple weeks before she stopped working, some really good opportunities came in the door. I started working with Happy Cog on some projects followed by a fantastic project with the fine chaps at Airbag Industries. …
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In November, Leslie Camacho interviewed yours truly about a site we did this spring called Animal Internet. It was fun and I was honored to be interviewed. We chatted about what the site was all about and some of the specific challenges we faced when building the website. Be Good Not Bad partnered with Mark Bixby for the design and Corey Snipes at Twomile, Inc. for custom module development. Corey had never used ExpressionEngine before but by the end he was a pro.
From the interview:
It turned out ExpressionEngine was up to the task after all. It’s really a testament to not only the extensive built-in functionality, but the extensibility of the application. By the end of it, Corey was sold, wanting to use it on future projects of his own.
Corey and I are working on a new ExpressionEngine project this winter for some scientists at Harvard.
Read the entire interview on the ExpressionEngine site. While you’re there, check out the Showcase Gallery. It’s pretty wild how many sites are being developed with ExpressionEngine these days. …
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Every now and then a project comes along that just makes me so glad to be doing the things I do. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my work. I even look forward to jumping out of bed and starting my day. But sometimes a project is just truly exceptional. Recently, I had the honor of working on just such a project with the brilliant folks at Happy Cog.
From Housing Works’ about page:
Housing Works is committed to ending the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness. We believe that all people have the right to a rich and empowering life. Since 1990, we have provided the highest quality services for homeless men, women, and children living with HIV and AIDS in New York City and beyond.
That’s a powerful cause, and it’s awesome to get to interact with and ultimately help those who are carrying it out. They are an awe-inspiring group of people.
With the excellent art direction of Daniel Mall, front-end development by yours truly, and Expression Engine development …
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Sure, it’s been awhile, but one might say I’ve had my hands full. I got the itch to put together another set for you guys, so I hope you enjoy this one.
I make no promises that I’ll do this with any regularity. That way, every time I make one you’ll just be so excited and thankful that it’s there. Something like that.
Brian’s Mix Tape #3 [34.8mb / aac]
I listed all the tracks below, along with links to where you can get them. Please buy the music, unless it’s already free. Except where indicated, I linked to the albums at the Amazon MP3 store.
My mates at A List Apart are conducting a survey for people who make websites. If you are a designer, developer, information architect, project manager, writer, editor, marketer, or in any way/shape/form involved in making websites, go now and spend five-to-ten minutes and take the survey. Last year nearly 33,000 people took the survey and loads of really important information came out of it. For 2008, A List Apart gave the survey a good overhaul, tweaking/fixing/improving lots of things, especially for us freelancers out there.
This is an important time for this industry, as large companies are considering that maybe the website isn’t just an extension of the IT department, and maybe I can stop just checking “Other” for what industry I’m in when I’m filling out pretty much any form online. Data collected from The Survey goes a long way toward showing the world what’s going on behind the scenes of this internet people are so excited about.
I wrote an Expression Engine plugin to give some administrative ability on the front-end of the site for both members and super-users of a website.
I first wrote this plugin for Animal Internet, a website that we built earlier this year.
The Admin Comments plugin gives users the ability to delete their own comments on a site, super-users the ability to delete anybody’s comment, and also a super-user can choose to close comments instead of deleting them.
View the documentation and download the plugin on the Admin Comments Plugin Page.
It’s pretty handy. I’m using it on this site now. It even gets a cooler if you add in some javascript to make the experience a bit more fluid. I didn’t incorporate that into the released version of the plugin as the javascript is fairly specific to my needs and website, but I’ll include a little video here so you can see what the possibilities are.
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I had no idea what I was in for when Anna sent me a link to the site for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The name alone is fantastic, and then I’m greeted by a glorious graphic of Neil Patrick Harris donned in evil villain garb. Who could resist digging further?
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is the creation of Joss Whedon. It’s a 45-minute film he co-wrote and directed starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day. Whedon basically got a bunch of his friends to pitch in, and, without the aid of studios or major (even minor) funding, made a movie and put it up on the internet. It was free for about five days, and now it’s available on iTunes for a mere $3.99.
It’s a fantastic, funny story, and also happens to be a musical (I kid you not). You can tell it’s not heavily-funded, but honestly, more money would have just added a bit of polish. The brilliance, talent and entertainment is all there. It’s a great example of how much can be …
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It’s been just about a year since I bought my scooter. As you can see, I have gotten some decent use out of it, traveling over 1200 miles. I’ve had lots of fun driving all over the Denver metro area and finding the scooter to be even more useful than I anticipated. It’s nimble, fun, and exactly what I need for day-to-day driving. I think everyone should have one.
Here are a few stats for a year of riding (thanks to the geniuses at My Mile Marker):
I’ll post again next year with the results. I have a hunch the numbers will be higher since I’ve, again, moved my office out of my house. It’s the perfect commuting vehicle. I just toss my lunch, MacBook Air, and house keys into the little compartment in the back, don my helmet, and ride off to work. You can’t beat it!
To quote Ferris Bueller (who was referring …
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Be Good Not Bad is all about really good web design, based on the utmost respect for web standards, accessibility and respect for the user. Based in Denver, Colorado, Be Good Not Bad is run by Brian Warren, freelance designer, blogger, homebrewer and coffee nut.
