We’ve got a new Keurig coffee machine and it’s awesome. Been trying  out some coffee. So far the self-filled k-cup filter is not so hot, but I don’t think I have the grind right. We’re looking for some decaf, too, so I’m reviewing the decaf k-cups here http://www.greenmountaincoffee.com/mainlayout.aspx?ck=1&DeptID=OurCoffees&CatID=KCup&SubCatID=DecafK-Cups and also watching this new site which is pretty cool http://TheBestDecaf.com. They cut a k-cup in half  and are studying the coffee contents.

I love jQuery, but sometimes I feel I will go mad working with it. Ugh.

Getting a number of projects for the upcoming holiday season. All ecommerce projects. A few Magento, and x-cart redos. Getting busy!

There is nothing but spam so I’ve turned off comments. Email me if you want.

I have a project that can’t even afford $200 for design work, but needs a logo and theme. 99Designs is a great resource, but for even lower budgets like this wine project, what’s a good source for design help? Leave a comment if you know of any helpful info.  The time frame is next 2-6 months so not in  a hurry, really cost is the only factor. I’m thinking local webmaster school student project or something…

I’ve decided to drop out of facebook and LinkedIn. It seems they are just for other people to use tofind opportunities, trading off the fact that they know me. Enough of that!  I don’t need to dedicate more time and effort towards making Facebook or LinkedIn or everyone else happy and successful. I’ve got my hands full as it is!

We’ve been using Drupal for a number of projects. It’s got a steep learning curve, but I like it as a PHP platform. We are now evaluating Magento as a shopping cart solution, and suffering from the huge differences in basic PHP infrastructure. My boss is wicked smart and he thinks Magento will be hot a few years from now.

One of the big issues with Drupal was that it wasn’t search engine friendly, and we did a ton of work on that. I just started looking at Magento, and this article on Magento SEO suggests we have some work to do with Magento as well.

I’d love to see us move to a unified platform that was great for PHP development, and good enough for search engines. We could make some killer user interfaces if we didn’t have to worry about implementation and maintenance issues (Drupal) or search friendliness (SEO). Google seems to be getting very smart these days. Maybe pretty soon it will be smart enough so we don’t need any extra SEO consultants. Ha!

I’m working on a development project for a relative of a good friend.  It’s really low budget, because he has a lot of family obligations is not in a position to invest in anything right now with this economy,  but I am happy to help him get something started. It’s an online wine store intended to be a “wine convenience store”. It’s like 7-11 in that it’s drive-by, open all the time, and has a simple collection spanning the spectrum of cheap rose through unoffensive table wines, with  one or two “top shelf” wines in the $40 range. The whole idea is one-stop, limited number to pick from, and something to please everyone “common” enough to shop at a 7-11 for wine.

This is a small project with very limited budget.. we’re talking a few hundred bucks to get everything going (and I mean everything!).  I’m thinking Magento shopping cart for easy of implementation and because traffic won’t be huge (so a slow Magento won’t be a problem).  I have been reading up on Magento SEO and my dev cart is working great.

I’ll probably also be given the job of building a blog about the store, so I can skin WordPress to match the Magento store. I’m looking forward to it, even if it’s not a very profitable job given the budget. It’ll be my first wine site.

Update: We have a domain now, WineEleven.com!

Working with WordPress, I find a great interface but a slow, manual process for configuration. Lots of mouse clicks, small setting; it really is designed for users and not developers. I wish it were easier to pre-set the configuration parameters.

I bet if WordPress pulled out all of the settings and configuration parameters, that would not only make it easier for developers to preset (and diagnose other installations) but it might highlight some existing redundancies and conflicts that exist in the core system.

Updated : lots of improvement, but the Word Press back end still requires submission to “their way” of doing things, lol.