I am still in the process of modifying the styles and widgets to create a unique look for me, but I have at least started to add some of my work in a Portfolio section of the site.

Most recently I was introduced to Rails framework and the programming language of Ruby. While it seems like a fantastic way to develop ultimately it still comes down to having the right mindset for programming.

Yes, I think I will be able to write some Ruby on Rails applications (or at least decipher some of the many ones already out there), but no matter how simple the language you still need to fancy yourself someone who can map out things in structured chunks.

Even though I have a design background I never really thought of myself as a right side of the brain person. I am sort of middle of the road, but perhaps not far enough to the left to do any serious programming. We shall see.

Nothing special, just some over age guys with an excuse to play some songs and drink a few beers. Even so, it’s nice to be playing again. I also figured this would give me some creative inspiration to mess around with some site design again.

My thought is that I can at least keep a bit of a iterative progress check on how things are transpiring. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve got WordPress installed and set up in a new directory and done a complete reset of all the styles. Now it will be time to sketch out my ideas and then get to laying down some pixels. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t procrastinate too much.

I’ll be back with some details soon.

I can almost smell the cooking and hear the faucet and dishwasher running again. I don’t know how we ever lived without these little conveniences. The bathroom sink just doesn’t cut it for washing dishes. Thank god for my parent’s graciousness. We’ve had many a meal over there in the past month.

While I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, there is still going to be plenty of work for me to tend to. I still have to tile the floor and walls of my bathroom, sheet rock these walls, and finish the plumbing. Not to mention all of the patching of cracked plaster that seems to never end. And speaking of never ending, P-A-I-N-T-I-N-G! Will it never end?

Maybe by the time I’m old and gray I will finally get to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Wait a minute, I am old and gray.

Jesus! You would think that the single landing page that I designed over the weekend would be a snap to code. I tried to keep it very simple as I knew I needed to get the site for our VerdéBook out there this week. I had the overall framework down in about an hour. I was just tweaking and fine tuning things a bit and adding a nice ajax slide show type viewer into the overall layout, when I started to check out what things were looking like in IE, Safari and Opera (as I was already viewing it in FireFox).

Much to my chagrin it didn’t look all that great. In fact, my browser was actually displaying things differently than the same exact browser on another machine, running the same OS! I just don’t get it. I really love the idea of keeping compliant with my code, but does it really need to be that difficult?

I know that I am no code jockey so if anyone knows of a good cheat sheet out there so I don’t have to second guess my hacks or code, please let me know.

While I’m sure there will be some play time in store, this is a big show and presence for efotolab.com. It is our first west coast swing and as a player in the online photo lab space, we needed to take this plunge. The audience attending this show hits our sweet spot and as we continue to gain traction in this space, I truly believe our attendance at this show will make a huge difference.

Knowing that the WPPI audience is our target market means that our competition, along with all of the latest trends, will be at the show as well. It is always nice to see what your competitors are up to and with some luck we will be able to forge a few new key relationships with vendors.

Hopefully we don’t have too much idle time on our hands though.

While getting prepared for the rough in work, I had to research all of my plumbing fixtures, vanity and sink along with recommendations for installing ceramic tile. This is where my story really begins.

Don’t get me wrong, I am the first one to jump onto the internet and gather all the data necessary to make my decisions. But when it comes to bathroom renovation, the data is aplenty, well really just simply overloaded. I have now become even more confused as to when I started my research on best practices for proper subflooring in preparation for ceramic tile. From my old standby sites like thisoldhouse.com, diynet.com, and oldhouseweb.com there are simply millions of your run of the mill Joe Contractor sites, not to mention the blogs and prodcut manufacturer sites.

Hopefully you can see where I am going with this. I am going to Borders to get me a good book on tiling.

I’ve read plenty of articles about home owners who go through the same ordeals with regards to home renovation, but until you are in the midst of it you don’t really appreciate what they meant. We still have a good amount of work to complete in terms of major work, including finishing the family room and the entire kitchen redo, but I can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Once the major work is completed there will still be plenty for me to do. There are plenty of cracked plaster walls in need of repair, painting and some finish carpentry that I will need to handle. Perhaps by the summer, we will be bac to some sort of normal way of life around here. Stay tuned.

I’ve always been a data geek and even in those early days, I would consume myself with trying to interpret that plethora of highly illegible data, somehow trying to convince myself and my clients that our marketing efforts were driving traffic to the site. Well I’m still a fan of the statistics and data, but now the tools and event the metrics have changed face.

Up until recently I was still using WebTrends, however it was their OnDemand product. And while this was a far cry from the early days of its inception, I had always kept my eye on Urchin Tracker. Its simplistic interface, powerful log processing ablity, its humble beginnings and not to mention it was free, quickly made me take notice. As the software grew, others took notice. Most notably Google. Well, I guess the rest is as they say, history.

Now with the advent of Google Analytics (and I know it’s been around for quite awhile), measurement, analytics, trending, whatever you want to call it, is now at anyone’s fingertips. And the thing is it’s such a visual and informative interface, that you actually don’t feel like you are crunching data, but rather reading a story.

It always amazes me to see Google take yet another technology and improve upon it. I’ve definitely seen the reverse in many cases.