Good Intentions

The lack of updates here probably had you thinking we had just up and closed shop, huh? Nothing could be farther from the truth. We’ve just been busy, and it seems like everytime I think I have two minutes to write, I get interrupted about one minute into it. Here, in no particular order, are the updates:

• I’ve been making some minor changes here at News Goat. The menu consisting of one non-working button has been replaced by a search option. I’ve imported all the lengthy stories into MT, but I haven’t published them yet. I don’t really want them all to show up on the front page as if I just wrote them, so I’m going to try to put them in at the approximate date they were originally written. Once that’s done, I’ll make the old /story links work again. I’m also going to add category- and author-based archives to the side menu. And, once I have everything exactly the way I want it, I’ll likely change everything.
• I’m looking at this project as the possible backend for the new Crafty Goat. It has one remarkable feature that puts it ahead of all other e-commerce systems I’ve used: it is designed to be modified. Changing the look and how it works is incredibly easy. And, now that I have a fully working backend system, maybe I’ll get off my own lazy backend and get it done. :-)
• We have a variety of leads we are following up on, at least one of which would be a huge project. We meet with one of our leads tomorrow. In preparation, we have been designing some templates that, even if we don’t use them for this client, most likely will come in handy at some point.
• We will be presenting to the OKCPCUG next month at their general meeting. Angela & I plan to demonstrate how easy it is to publish a personal web site. We will cover a variety of blogging tools, as well as Mozilla Composer and HTML-Kit. The presentation is on July 24 and is open to the public. We do not know the location yet, but when we do it will be published here and here.
• Be watching Clemency Ministries for new tour dates and new pictures.
• We got a new dog! Her name is Kelly, she’s a beautiful black lab mix, and she occassionally coos like a turtledove. I kid you not. I’ll post pictures soon.

And, before I forget: I’m working my way through The Poynter Institute‘s tutorial on the use of color. It’s an excellent lesson for those of us who are developers first, designers second.