So, this week I began writing my first application with Cocoa in Objective C. To say the least, it was an experience.

I began first by checking out Apple’s Reference Library and Cocoa tutorials, found here, which gave me a decent understanding of how Objective-C in particular works and gave me a real preview of XCode. Truth be told, however, I’ve already learned a fairly decent amount of programing (having have started learning C at some point around 2005). So, to be fair, this tutorial is not for beginners; if you lack this amount of experience, however, This PDF tutorial (PDF linked) will get you started – it’s one I’m currently browsing, mostly because, while I have programming experience, I’m honestly no expert. Read more »

Generally speaking, Wordpress doesn’t like to create two post pages. It takes getting the platform out of its comfort zone to force it to make it do something it doesn’t like.

Technically, my own site has two post pages. It displays the first few characters of a post (first one thousand characters, to be exact) and displays them on the home page, and then takes the rest of my posts (all content included) and displays it on my Blog page. However, to be really savvy, it just takes a little bit of PHP plus maybe a plugin, and your web site’s guests will never know the difference! Read more »

There are a few fundamental features in a Wordpress theme. To create a custom theme, a developer must simply have a functions.php, a stylesheet, and an index.php with the loop in it. However, the Internet is expanding, and not only are themes becoming more and more complex with a greater amount of options, but further additions are being added to the amount of files included in your average theme.

This post, however, is not directed at the aged Wordpress designer who has been churning out themes since 1.5. This post, instead, is directed at designers which are simply just beginning to explore the possibilities of Wordpress.

I was one such designer not too long ago. I became acquainted with Wordpress through a job opportunity – I was hired by a company to create and edit Wordpress themes. I received a day or two of training learning the needed PHP and other tidbits – such as what certain files did, and how to install themes. To date, I have been programming Wordpress themes for about a year now – whether editing them for SEO, or creating completely new themes, or even redesigning other themes. Through my work, I have discovered the power behind not just the CMS, but also through the lesser-known power of index.php and hierarchy. Read more »

When going into design, the majority of students are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They were the kid who was always drawing and painting, the one whose parents probably covered their fridge in water colors. So, they would certainly think I’m crazy to say they should also program.

However, design is not art.

There, I said it.

One of the most common misconceptions I receive from my family is that I am in some shape or form an artist. While I do illustrations (such as the one pictured in this post – which, by the way, was inspired by this Adobe Illustrator coffee cup tutorial), I do not consider myself an artist. Granted, I am currently working toward a degree in software engineering, with design as my secondary major (and the way I put the food on the table), but this is why I have come to the conclusion that programming is an invaluable skill to any designer. Read more »

Finally!

I’m finally happy to announce that I was able to send live the code I’ve been hashing and dreaming up for the site is now live. You can see a footer now on every page, in addition to a few other minor changes to the site. Also, this past weekend we upgraded to Wordpress 2.8, and activated Akismet in order to control the spam comments we receive.

It feels very good to update the code for the site. As it stands, it was getting pretty stale, and I’m one who always tries to keep things up-to-date. Granted, we weren’t necessarily out-of-date, so much as there were many changes that I felt needed to be done, namely tweaking the comments page and adding in the footer. This site will always be an on-going project for me; as should all designer’s sites. Read more »