rockoyster web design

Worpress 2.5 Released

rockoyster — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:50:26 +0000

The latest stable release of Wordpress with the rather scrumptious new admin interface has been released and I’ve upgraded to it quick as you like.

You can get it here.

Upgraded to Wordpress 2.5-RC1

rockoyster — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:28:50 +0000

Saw the link today on the Wordpress Developer blog so I thought I’d give it a go and join the testing throng. Didn’t have to change the theme or anything. Most of the changes are improvements in the admin side of Wordpress. Looks very pretty!

Implementing Clarity theme

rockoyster — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:07:57 +0000

Time for a change so I implemented this very minimalist theme that I found via Stylized Web.

Enjoy life - Eat REAL pasta!

rockoyster — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:04:26 +0000

That’s the catchphrase of Yarra Valley Pasta. They have had a website for some time but ofund it increasingly difficult to keep up to date and to add content. I converted their static site to Joomla 1.5 as a way of finding out how the new release of this great open source software differs from earlier releases.

Check out some great food at www.yarravalleypasta.com.au.

Showcase for a Tasmanian Artist

rockoyster — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:54:38 +0000

I recently built a site for Stephanie Tabram, a Tasmian landscape and still-life artist. In the longer term Stephanie wanted to update the site herself but in the short term I decided to hand code in PHP.

In due course I will migrate it to Drupal or Wordpress once I have worked out which has the more user friendly image handling capabilities.

View Stephanie’s work at www.stephanietabram.com.au.

Winding back on work

rockoyster — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 04:11:58 +0000

At the end of October I ceased trading as rockoyster. I’ll still keep mucking about with web sites but only as a hobby rather than as anything more serious.

Seeing I no longer have a registered business name I can’t keep my old .com.au domain name so I have shifted to rockoyster.net just as somewhere to house my portfolio and to provide a site to tinker with wordpress.

I haven’t got round to adding a more attractive theme just yet. It’s on the drawing boards.

Is SEO really such a mystery?

rockoyster — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:26:25 +0000

I recently got an offer from one of those interminable affiliate programs offering the secrets of SEO for a mere $19.95. This price never to be repeated shoppers - that’s right $19.95.

Seemed like an offer too bad to accept. Why spend money on rubbish when $19.95 will buy you a quite decent bottle of red?

Why does everyone seem to think it’s rocket science. With only a minimal amount of effort and a very tasty Joomla template one of my clients is now ranking number one on Google for “Shoalhaven Accountants”. Try typing it into a Google search without the quotes and see who shows up first Jeff!

Which content management system should you specify?

rockoyster — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 03:41:56 +0000

There are so many content management systems available today that the decision making process can become daunting. I have decided to restrict my development activities to just three; Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress.

But which one is best for your needs? Here’s a good article which compares Wordpress and Drupal.

No smoke without fire.

rockoyster — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 20:23:56 +0000

A couple of days after returning from a visit to Tasmania I was watching The Cook and the Chef on ABC TV. The program featured the Woodbridge Smokehouse just south of Hobart so I had a look to see if they had a web site.

I discovered they only had a placeholder page so I got in touch with them to see if they wanted some website work done. Turned out that website development had been in train for some time but had stalled. I put together a Drupal-based site for them which is now just waiting the addition of some content by the owners.

Take a look at the work-in-progress.

A new look for spring . . .

rockoyster — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:44:07 +0000

It was getting a bit tedious updating my old static website so I decided to shift it to Wordpress. Makes sense seeing I am focussing almost exclusively on building CMS-based websites these days.

There are so many CMS products about that it becomes a bit mind-boggling to choose. So I’ve decided to narrow the field and concentrate on Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla (although I won’t do any new Joomla sites until 1.5 is released).

For this Wordpress implementation I grabbed a good-looking template and ran with that. It’s not my preferred colour scheme but I’ll customise it further when time and client demands permit.