Category: Projects

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Working with Joomla for BigBlueBargains

BigBlueBargains v2.0A number of sites on the BigBlueNetwork are in desperate need of some tender love, or at the very least, an updated look with fresh content. One such site is BigBlueBargains. The site was previously driven primarily by affiliation with MyCoupons, but most of the links have gone dead. And the site itself looks like something out of the ’90s.

While I’m at it, I’m taking time to revisit the tools to manage the content on this and other sites in the network. Previously I’ve looked at Drupal and even used it for other projects. It’s a great system, but the administrative side is really bare-bones and difficult to decipher.

For BigBlueBargains I’ve been developing an entirely new site with fresh content using the free Joomla content management system (CMS). Joomla is probably the closest competitor to Drupal, but the administrative interface is much easier to use and much more robust.

I need to do some load testing to make sure Joomla will scale to handle the volume of traffic I’m expecting — while co-existing with the other sites on my server. But so far, for someone with limited time to maintain a number of sites, Joomla is looking very promising.

I’m still fleshing out the content, structure and design of the new site, but would love feedback. If you’re interested in taking a sneak peek, leave me a comment and I’ll email the link to you.

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A Minor Memorial Day Update

Repeat visitors to www.jeffhester.net (you know you are my favorite) will notice I’ve changed the layout a bit. I’m sticking with blue, thanks to the beautiful Mac-inspired iTheme from N.Design Studio.

I’ve also (finally) added real content to the About page, just in case you were wondering what this site was all about, or who in the world that Jeff Hester character is. Let me know what you think.

If you’re new here, move along and pretend that it’s always been this awesome.

P.S. – I’m not sure why, but I can’t seem to turn ON the comments feature on my About page. In the WordPress editor, both comments and trackbacks are enabled for that page. Any WordPress junkies out there who can lend me a clue?

UPDATE: I learned that I needed to add a call to the comments template in the page.php file, thanks to the WordPress support site.

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24 Hours of Flickr

I first participated in the “a day in the life of…” group on Flickr two years ago. It was a great experience, and the created some fun posters — part collaborative art; part social networking experiment. Now Flickr has officially sponsored their own similar group.

24 Hours of Flickr will hold their own DILO-type event this coming May 5th. Anyone can join, and by posting your photos (which must be taken on May 5, 2007), you implicitly agree to having it published in a special 24 Hours of Flickr book that’s been planned.

24hoursofflickr.jpg

Of course, it’s great fun, but especially if you join in. Grab your camera, join the group, and get ready to post some pictures from your day.

Read more from the Flickr blog.

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February masthead

Vegas SkylineA while back I promised I’d be updating the site header each month. I’m not really following a theme, though so far I’ve been using photos I’ve taken.

This month, you get a panorama I stitched from a series of photos I took in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago at the Ghost Bar. It’s located on the 53rd floor of The Palms hotel, and it’s definitely a great place to go to drink in the view (and a martini or two).

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Updates

I’ve updated the header image with a photo I took in Barcelona last week — just a day after they put up the Christmas lights. Barcelona was a fantastic city and I will definitely return for further exploration. If you’re interested, you can see more photos from my visit to Barcelona on Flickr (oh, and friends see the “extra” photos 😉 ).

On another front, I’ve updated the BigBlueBall forums to run the latest-and-greatest version of vBulletin. I love vBulletin for their forums, but upgrading is always a pain in the ass. Of course, it would be easy if I didn’t customize the look or use any add-ons, but where is the fun in that?

My next step is to install and test vbDrupal. This branch of the Drupal CMS integrates with the vBulletin member database. If all goes well, I’ll be using it to manage the non-forum areas of BigBlueBall.

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BigBlueBall IM Podcast #11 is out

BigBlueBall IM PodcastFor those of you who were wondering when you’d hear the next BigBlueBall Instant Messaging Podcast, your wait is over. BigBlueBall Podcast #11 is now out with the latest IM news. This show includes a special member-contributed surprise — the premier of The BigBlueBall Song.

So what’s up with the delay? Was it a slow news month in the IM world? Was my agent negotiating for a better contract? I wish! The reality is much more mundane. Sometimes life conspires to devour all available time. Between business trips to D.C. and Houston, major life changes, helping my daughter in Santa Barbara resolve car issues and juggling several intense projects, the podcast got pushed back.

The part that takes the most time with the podcast is the editing, and I’d like to move away from doing any major editing at all. The one thing that stops me is my lack of knowledge in the area of audio recording. Normally, I use Skype with Skylook to record the show, then bring it into Audacity to add in the musical intro, bumpers and outro.

What I’d like to do is record the entire show “live,” including the music and any prerecorded parts (i.e. listener call-in segments). What I need is the ability to create a queue of those prerecorded bits, such that I can click “play” at the appropriate moment. Then when the entire show is recorded, the only editing I’d do might be compressing or normalizing the audio (and hopefully I can minimize that, too).

If you’ve got some advice for how to do this on Windows XP, preferably with Audacity, please let me know.

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Judging a Book by its Cover

smallnewbig.pngI’m currently reading Seth Godin’s Small Is the New Big, a provocative book about being innovative and doing what matters. Godin suggests that competence kills innovation, something akin to what Clayton Christensen postulated in his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma (in which he coined the phrase “disruptive technology”). To acheive remarkable results requires extraordinary, not competent, action.

I’m on an extraordinary journey, and looking for like-minded, extraordinary people. How about you?

I’ve had a few comments about the visual changes to the blog. They generally go something like this: “What’s with the retina-scarring orange?!” It is rather, vibrant, isn’t it? It’s part of the natural evolution of the site, and part of that extraordinary journey. Maybe if Crayola expanded their color line, they could call it “Extraordinary Orange.” Any way, it’s not a fixture of the site. As with life, change is the one constant we can all rely on.

And so, beginning October 1st, I’m going to be unveiling a new header each month. So for now, enjoy the orange.