A Great Blog

TSA Presentation

2012-10-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at the Texas Society of Architects Convention in Austin, our TSA New Media iPhone Apps subcommittee gave a presentation to a large audience. There were numbers of people standing on the sides and at the back of the room. The turnout was enormous. I felt a little vindicated after seeing this degree of interest in a program I've been trying to get past the Program Selection Committee for the convention for the last two years. Andrew Hawkins, Ken Ethridge and I worked very hard to put together 77 slides that covered a variety of iPhone applications that architects can use to improve their productivity and promote their practices. We collaborated via Skype and Dropbox and I think learned a good bit ourselves about what these tools can do during the production of the presentation. We also prepared a handout that lists even more apps that we have used and find helpful. It is now linked to our presentation in the TSA's own iPhone application for the convention. You can view the PDF file that we used at the following link.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5049915/Apps%20for%20Architects%20FINAL.pdf

UgolferU Site (cont.)

2012-09-22T05:41:00.001-07:00

The logo for the UgolferU site is finished. The process was interesting and I have learned a lot about PNG files. It took a while but I finally decided that something that would make the logo unique was an image of something that was really mine, my golf glove. I took a picture of it hanging on my bag, created a grey scale image, bumped up the contrast and cut the glove out of the background. Placing the image on a transparent background in Photoshop let me place it on top of the "U". The image then had to be saved as an Interlaced PNG file which retains the transparent background but that can also be loaded into this blog as any photograph can. I've created an image with a black "U" for light backgrounds (see below) and an image with a white "U" that can be seen in the UgolferU blog page.

UgolferU Site (cont.)

2012-09-17T13:54:00.004-07:00

Work on the UgolferU site continues. The ads area of the site has been expanded to include the Google Affiliate Network options. This feature allows site owners to include ads by specific advertisers in their site. These ads are beyond the standard Adsense option. Publishers (site owners/bloggers) can apply to Advertisers that are part of the network for permission to place their ads in the publishers website. If the advertiser likes the look of the site, he makes the code for his ads available to the site owner.

The UgolferU site has also been expanded to include photographs of the courses I've played. The website design is very versatile in that the photos fill the available screen for the device the site is viewed on, no matter its size. So the images can fill the large area available on laptops as well as the small area available on iPhones, iPads or other hand held devices.

UgolferU Site

2012-07-13T08:55:00.002-07:00

I'm continuing to refine the UgolferU website with the addition of Google Adsense features. After signing up for an Adsense account and getting the direct deposit feature approved for my payments when ads are clicked, I proceeded to select the design features for the ads that would look best with the site. After designing the ads, the Adsense site produces code for that design that needs to be inserted into the UgolferU site design. This is where knowing the RapidWeaver software that I used to produce the site comes in handy. I knew (after a good bit of study) where this code needed to be place in the site. I can now produce all kinds of Adsense ads and the code for them and place them in the UgolferU site so that they look good. Producing a website(s) that will generate income from clicks by visitors is very exciting idea.

Another Website

2012-06-25T08:46:00.000-07:00

The site for Callahan Engineering is up and running at Callahaneng.com. It has lots of content and we're all very happy with it.

I have also just finished with a new website located at UgolferU.com. The site is another example of the design variety that is available with RapidWeaver. It uses various background images that fade in and out and a blogging feature that is tied to Google Blogger.

Website Work

2012-06-05T08:53:00.001-07:00

I've not posted anything since March. That's the trouble with blogging, you need to keep up with it. I need to get back into it and here goes.

I've been working on a website for a structural engineer friend of mine. I'm using RapidWeaver and the process is smooth and easy. We're just now finishing up with the final revisions to the text of the site. It's located now in a "temporary" location on his server that's not viewable to the public. The main issue has been the home page color scheme - we like the red oxide color that we normally see on steel members that arrive at construction sites. Below is little preview.

Website Software

2012-03-29T14:29:00.001-07:00

I can not say enough good things about RapidWeaver. This is the software I use to produce my websites. It's easy to use, there are a number of clear, straightforward tutorials and it runs like a charm on my Mac. Using it does not get in the way of being creative. The Citygraphs site has turned out great and it's easy to make corrections and additions as I learn new tricks.

iPhone Blog Entries

2012-03-21T11:49:00.001-07:00

This entry is being produced on my iPhone. And we'll see if a photo can be attached.

Remote Blog Entries (cont.)

2012-03-19T20:40:00.001-07:00

This is really a pretty cool deal. Once the Blogger setup is done and the settings are entered into the website blog page, any device can be used to post entries to the website blog. This entry is coming from my old Dell. And images can be posted, too.

Remote Blog Entries

2012-03-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

This is the first blog entry created by Google's Blogger.