Its great to see a project that you and many others put time in to and see actual customers utilizing the new site. It was probably the largest site I have completed before working with lots of Javascript and CSS files.

The sites backend that was built at Commerce Generation is running Commerce Server with ASP.NET. Some features include:

• Warehouse integration
• Auto-ship prorgrams
• Account management and much more!

Lots and lots of hours, but worth it once you see your work up and running.

Ryan

Browser Version Market Share

Find Internet Explorer 6 at the top using 23% – was a huge shock to me. Waiting til it dies out and Firefox, Safari, Chrome and others start to take the market share for browsers. Slowly but surely, that number will dwindle as new computers are coming with Internet Explorer 8 preloaded. As for Web Developers, you all know this still means we will be using CSS fixes to fix double float margin and many other issues that we deal with when testing a website on IE6.

Last spring I came across Google Insights while I was working at EpikOne as a Web/Graphic Designer for the Spring semester. I used this for one of their projects to research currents trends that were developing among coffee, this was what the company was based around. I was using Google Insights to then gather information on current trends that were developing during a certain period of time and a set geography base for the search. After analyzing the data presented by Google Insights I took notes on the data given then worked that in to a new newsletter that was going to be sent out to a list of subscribers.

Lets cut to the chase, Google Insights can help you create a successful blog post because if you have an idea for a post in mind, send some keywords/phrases to insight. The interface of Google Insights is very simple, the landing page looks as follows:

Here are some basics steps that I take when I want to use Google Insights to writing a successful blog post:

• Think of a new blog post idea/thought to work with
• Write down some keywords/phrases, that visitors might search for
• Enter them in to Google Insights – If you need to add any filters (Area, Timeline, Country, etc)
• The results for your keywords/phrases will be graphed out for you and also a map overlay showing popularity, also showing a graph of Interest over Time
• See which keywords/phrases are doing the best, then work those around your up and coming blog post.

The simple tips above can help your blog post become more successful by analyzing what the current trends are relating to that one topic. Lets say I wanted to write an article about jQuery and AJAX, lets plug these in to Google Insights and see what it returns, below is an image that shows us Top Searches and Rising Searches.

Give this method a try out for yourself. Ponder up a new post idea, think of some keywords, plug them in to Google Insights, blow away, bring on the followers. This has become a common tool in my arsenal for blogging and designing. Great way to check if your blog post is running in to any current trends, that will lead in readers to your blog. Give this a try and see how it goes.

The old site was terrible and did nothing but turn potential clients away. I loaded up some jQuery on the new website but am removing alot of the components to increase performance.

If you are using qTip, don’t. It is 44KB packed, which is still incredibly large. They have a lighter weight SimpleTip, that I am switching too, that is less than 10KB.

You can check out the website, but there are still numerous changes to be done, but my thoughts were that it was acceptable and working to launch for now. Then go back and tweak performance, gzip, compress, and CSS sprites.

Work and school studies have been picking and I have been slacking on the blog posts and jquery goods, but there will be more.

So far I have been loving this, it is the perfect tool for your workspace. I highly recommend this to others. Thanks to the creator of this, can grab this bookmarklet and start using it.

1. Drag it to your bookmark toolbar
2. Open a site your are designing
3. To view your new CSS changes, just click the bookmark in the toolbar, and wa la

Quick and really easy. Thought i’d share this tool with everyone. Give it a try.

I have been doing some searching on Google with little results, but hopefully something will come up.

I recently started working at Commerce Generation in Burlington, VT so pardon for the delay in articles. I have several quick posts with some tips to publish in the next couple of days.

In the mean time sorry for the error in the syntax highlighting.

If you’re in the Northeast, try to stay dry!

Not too crazy of a tip, but one I found out, that is pretty neat.

I will be back on the 4th and back to reality, catching up on the site work that I have in store for me, along with the many blog posts I have as drafts right now. I have been slacking on that. Also, working on finishing the new layout for my site. Giant to do list, but I hope I can get it all done and get caught up. Cheers

I am trying to free my schedule from client work to start working on the new layout, stil need to work on the move right text, bottom posts boxes, colors, and what the single page is going to look like, all in all its a work in progress. Almost done with a jQuery tutorial on submitting a  comment form and having the results loaded using jQuery/Ajax. The comments on the page are loading using PHP, JSON, and jQuery, very slick. Expect that very soon.