A lot of CMS Web Work going on from Virginia to Las Vegas to Atlanta to Peoria to San Jose, Washington and even Italy in a Way
This has been a busy winter for webdesign, building WordPress powered CMS websites(even rebuilding my own portfolio page and next month my own website), and doing upgrades and cleanups and more.
Just off the top of my head, I’ve recently worked on projects for a new Sports Photographer in Atlanta, a great Hotel in San Jose, an Event Management company, a Marine Fuel (price tracking) company covering all of North America, a Private Investigator and Executive Protection (bodyguard) firm in Virginia that also trains people through their accredited training program to work as bodyguards or as private investigators depending on the course.
I’ve helped launch a wildly successful legal blog in Las Vegas, updated the design of a good friend, anchorman and voice actor in Vegas, tweaked a site for a over worked father and client of mine in Peoria that has snow removal contracts all over town in the winter and manages a Lawn Maintenance company in the summer along with a Handyman business too!
I’ve been getting crazy with Crazy Mike working in the Video Search Optimization field of YouTube on his iPhone, iPad, & Android Apps website that is just shooting through the stratosphere thanks to the fact that he worked his ass off in the right category at the right time.
I’ve also helped a good friend clear out some hackers and some nasty javascript out of one of the best English (written) travel blogs for Italy.
Phwew!
I’m still working on my book, right now we are getting the sample chapters produced in audio. The next step is to continue tightening (and finishing) up the book, then raising some money to complete the rest of the book as an audio book. The goal is to have this all done by May, when I will be heading to Blogworld and the American Book Expo in New York City.
Still running like a fool too, working to get up to a marathon by the end of the summer, if not sooner. Yes, still running in the toe shoes as well, using the new Bikila LS variety these days, and my old Bikilas. Tried buying a new pair of Bikilas, but they were a size too small and I’ll probably give them to someone that can fit into a 44.
That’s the quick overview. Today is Saturday, I’m wrapping up work on the dock early (2:32 pm) to get ready for the annual St Patrick’s Day party on Cramer Mountain just across town. Lots of beer, cabbage, corned beef, music, friends and a few Irish flags! Spring’s almost here in North Carolina and it feels very good to be busy doing what I enjoy and helping people left and right (which I enjoy even more).
WordPress Pros; No Cons? :)
This evening, I participated in a quasi panel, discussion about the Pros and Cons and situations in which WordPress or Joomla could or should be used.
I came in on the WordPress side of things.
Keith Schilling covered Joomla, a system that I am somewhat familiar with, but not at a very deep level. I’ve worked in it a few times, but would never claim any expertise.
Below are my slides from the WordPress portion. My original Presentation was provided in MindMap form.
What to do with All my Old Blogger Blogs? Created New Templates –> Maybe some Adsense Content too…
Years ago, I created a LOT of Blogger blogs. Some of you may recall 
that this particular site started out as a blogger blog too.
When I first set them up, I was basically just looking for an html playground to fool around and learn more about web design.
Then I started learning a great deal about blogging with them.
Before you know it, I had graduated to CMS based sites powered by WordPress and all of a sudden I found myself with all of these old Blogger blogs under my account.
Most of them are languishing, but they do prove useful from time to time when I need to use a shot gun approach to the long tail that still remains. 
Well tonight, I took a very small first step in doing something with those old sites.
I started by doing what I always like to do best, Learn Something New.
This time, I was learning how to design Blogger Templates (like a wordpress theme) using my preferred design software, Artisteer. (If you want a 5% discount on it, follow me on twitter @brettbum and shoot me an @message and I will send you a code for a discount, which can save you about $5 – $10 off of a license.
Anyway, I started making Blogger Templates and updating 2-3 of the blogs that are still loaded up with content. (Some of the content I just deleted or consolidated into other sites, like this one.)
It was kind of fun.
Now, I’m even thinking about quickly creating unique blogger templates for all of my old Blogger Bogs and maybe refreshing some of the content there for a simple, basic adsense play. Nothing grand, but if it buys me a free dinner once a year and continues to enable me to blast the long tail shotgun from time to time too, well that’s just icing on the cake.
Just a quick note, I took some screen video of the process making these templates which I will share soon.
Launching the Peoria Lawn Maintenance Team Site
This week I’m working on several projects including the launch of a new site for the Peoria Lawn Maintenance Team. Its a new site for an old company. In fact the company is well known to me as I used to work for it years back.
My father, Steve Bumeter runs it and I’m helping him build out his web presence a bit more as he works to grow and fill out service in more of the corners and niches of the tri-county area surrounding Peoria, Il.
The site is designed to be very very simple and run with a color scheme that relates to the Cub Cadet equipment that my father prefers to use these days.
Generally, when I work on sites of this nature, the first step is to make sure that the site gets listed well at a local level. In some markets this can be accomplished relatively quickly and in others it can take some more time and effort.
In addition to the initial website, we also have to walk through the basics, new vehicle signs, business cards, flyers, t-shirts for employees and more.
Added Seating in the Dock Office for Labs on the Lake
This week I’m going to start hosting what I’m currently calling a Lab on the Lake, a hands on tutorial/mentored training program for people in the Greater Charlotte area that are interested in learning web design, WordPress and a number of other items (more details to follow).
Well the first thing we had to do, was add seating and tables for more laptops. We made a start of it yesterday but still have more to do.
There’s Something About a New Theme!
Today, I gave myself a Valentine’s Day gift and upgraded my blog theme.
All in all I’m very happy with the way it turned out, and I haven’t noticed any glitches yet, but I’m sure there’s something somewhere.
In addition to a new logo, that actually has an apostrophe, I upgraded the entire site, new color scheme, new menus, new sidebar boxes, even a new footer.
Customize Your Sites theme today!
You don't need any programming experience to design Custom WordPress Themes. :)
