WordPress Tags

Posted and filed under blogging, blogtech, Web Design.

I was very happy to see that the WordPress developers included the ability to “tag” posts. For a long time I’ve been using my own bastardized version of Bunny’s Technorati Tags to add tags to this site. A few days ago I decided to bite the bullet and convert to using the tag system that… Read more »

Blue Cross of California Member Registration

Posted and filed under rants, Web Design.

The new member registration form at the Blue Cross of California website has what I consider to be several major bugs. A user’s username must contain a number and a letter. Because this is not exactly a ‘net “standard”, they need to do a better job of bringing this to your attention. When you submit… Read more »

A Rant about Keywords and URLs

Posted and filed under blogtech, rants, Web Design.

A day or two ago I was pinged by a co-worker from my previous job. He wanted to know why, during its recent redesign, I didn’t include keywords in the URLs of the pages on a site I originally built a long, long time ago. I told him that there was no concrete evidence anywhere… Read more »

MTV Redesign

Posted and filed under media, Web Design.

MTV completely redesigned their site. They switched from all-Flash to (gasp!) all-HTML. Brilliant.

Photoshop Tutorial – Polaroid Images

Posted and filed under images, Software, Web Design.

A few weeks ago I saw an image on Chris Pearson’s Pearsonified that I just loved. He had taken a photo of something — I can’t remember what it was — and made it look like an old-fashioned Polaroid. “What a great idea!” I thought. Surely I can figure out how to do that in… Read more »

A Short History of DavidGagne.net

Posted and filed under blogging, blogtech.

I have been planning to add an “About” page to this site for about four years. Everybody who’s anybody has an “About” page. People who visit and know not what a blog is must wonder what this site is “About”. I just never seem to get around to it. I have no idea what this… Read more »

DropCaps, Amazon Tags for WordPress

Posted and filed under blogtech, Programming, Web Design.

I have finally updated two of my WordPress hack tutorials so that they are compliant with v. 2.04. The first one — DropCaps — allows you to put that nifty “dropcap” into a post. This post begins with a dropcap I. The second one — Amazon Tags — adds two new buttons to your editing… Read more »

SXSW 2006

Posted and filed under blogtech, travel, Web Design.

Currently in Austin, TX for SXSW. I’m on the 15th floor of the Hampton Inn and the view from my window at 2am is gorgeous. This is a great city — a lot like Gainesville, FL. The conference is just extraordinary. I have been taking notes like mad and will hopefully someday post many of… Read more »

Photoshop Badges

Posted and filed under Web Design.

For quite some time now I’ve been wanting to be able to create “new!” and “updated!” type images for use at work and here on my site. I wanted something like you’d expect to see on a box of Tide or cereal, y’know? The splash-graphic. The “new and improved!” image. I finally found the answer…. Read more »

Poor Programming

Posted and filed under rants, Web Design.

CapitalOne’s website is just terrible. About every third time I click the “LogIn” button on the front page it simply redirects me to the front page. Even on my work connection the entire site loads like it’s running on a 1992 486 box. There are ridiculous pop-ups thrown at me every time I attempt to… Read more »

Header Image

Posted and filed under blogging, Web Design.

So I took a stab at creating a header image. I used that crazy haettenschweiler font. I wanted to use the American Idiot font, but I could only find cheesy imitations and not “the real thing” in my five-minute Google hunt for it. This is actually the first time there’s ever been a header image… Read more »