No sleep till Brooklyn

I keep finding new and cool things I want to add to the CMS. I need to keep reminding myself to keep it simple but there are so many good tools out there to improve it that they can’t be ignored. Some changes need to come to improve the overall experience and will do in the near future. Video embedding (maybe uploads) and Autosaving are first on the list.

The more I look at CMS options like Joomla and Drupal, which i find infuriating to use even as a developer, the more I feel I’m on the right track. Time to get things working right as it stands.

New additions coming to the CMS include some “Extras” that have been in production. These include Blogs and our fully-functional Jobs management system. The idea behind the Blogs is to make a customizable system to create individual Blogs for sections, News Blogs, and User blogs, as well as any other setup i can think of to include to make it completely flexible to use and add to your current site. There are some many brilliant Blogging tools and sites out there to use (good ol’ Tumblr), it’s hard not to get (steal, pinch, nick, etc) ideas form them when creating my own.

All fun and games.

Need Coffee.

Back to work.

The long and winding road

So what it’s been a month. Feels just like yesterday (yeah right).

Annual break is over and done with. As much sun as I can handle in a year and now back to the work in hand.

Recent changes seemed to have highlighted some mega flaws with saving images. I recently implemented a “Attach” option to let users attach uploaded images to other pages. Although this didn’t knock anything out, it helped point out the problems. Happy to say though that these are all fixed now any will be rolled out across the live sites very shortly.

Forthcoming updates will be very basic and cosmetic ones as I am readying the system for a more thorough testing schedule before being 100% happy that it’s all working as it stands. After that, there is a few new features to be added, such as repositioning of all pages (hopefully a live javascript drag and drop option can come in handy), finally putting the Extras page live, the Themes gallery, Blogs and News page options (very excited about these), and the main SplashCMS website for public viewing (and demo!!!).

The more i’ve been developing this system and coming across other new and quick blogging systems like Tumblr and Posterous, the more I feel i’m on the right track. Just keep telling myself to make it easy for the user. Don’t over complicate it. People still need it to be simple and not everyone has an iPhone or a Blackberry to email, tweet, blog, geo-locate and chat at the same time about where they are or what they’re doing. Sometimes all they need a structured website that works. I have lack of sleep and a Starbucks addiction to prove this.

Would love to say we’re near v1.0, but i’m miles off. Kind of glad too. Too much good work still to be done.

Time for coffee.

Cheers.

It’s been a while.

Ok, so what’s been happening…

We’ve updated our company website at www.cole-ad.co.uk with a snazzy new look. Plans are in place to introduce a SplashCMS website in the very near future. More on that soon.

Much needed changes with the navigation of the system has put back some progress. Just to put the finishing touches on this and we’re on to the next step. Hopefully.

Development time has taken a dip recently as i’ve been training for the Edinburgh Half Marathon over the past wee while. My late nights of sitting till 2am furiously typing away on code has been replaced by early nights and a lot of hard training. All worth it though. After Sunday’s run and a 2 week holiday in Spain (YAS!), it’ll be business as usual. Don’t if i’m a bit a mental here but i’m really looking forward to getting back into the work.

Lots of new template designs in the progress too. We have loads of visual ideas and designs lying about from sites that haven’t been used so these will all be produced as templates for the CMS and available to purchase when things start to go live.

More on the SplashCMS site and future developments in the coming weeks.

For now, I need to get back to work.

Cheers,

John.

Sabotage

Nothing grates on me more than these 2 things:

Number 1 - Hackers.

Fair enough, it was my bad to leave the ftp open for our own company site but come on guys. When it’s 10pm and you find out some Turkish dude has hacked half your clients websites, it’s no fun. I’m all for open source and breaking technological boundaries and all that, but keep it for the big guns. Surely you must have something better to do.

Number 2 - Credit where credit is due? Anyone?

I bite my tongue on this one to say what i really feel, or to give away the identity of the person in question, but when a situation arises between people and things become irreversible and slightly bad tempered (as much as you can in an email), it always amazes me the guile of some people to continue to take the credit for a design they never came up with in the first place. Surely you must know the person will occassionally check back to see what’s happening with the site, even when they’re not involved anymore?. Either that or i’m just nosey and i can’t help it. If something has went wrong in the past, i want to see what has changed so that i can better it. If nothing has changed, the site is the same, and yet someone else is taking the credit for it, that drives me NUTS. The site i am talking about has changed a bit though and does look pretty bad now so it’s not all bad. Kinda glad were not credited for it anymore.

…and relax.

More updates at the end of the week. Teaser site coming soon too. Can’t wait.

Cheers.

Today

End of a hectic week brings the end to some much needed normal work, to the beginning of the next round of development work on the CMS. I have a todo list as long as my Evernote page can scroll can scroll.

Ok, a little plug here for Evernote. I’ve been using this software for a year or so now i cannot be without it now. The syncing between computers is so vital to me on the go that it’s the only thing that’s actually keeping me from losing my mind. The other one i have to give mention to, and could not live without either, is Dropbox. This file syncing tool is one of the most powerful pieces of software i have ever used. I have a MobileMe account and after many attempts, have found the iDisk pretty useless. With using this i don’t have the need to drag my laptop into work in the morning or make sure i’ve copied it back onto a drive so i have the most recent version, only to get to work and realise it’s still on the computer at home. Doh!. No more of that please. Problem solved.

For more info go to Evernote here and Dropbox here and start using today. It will change the way you do things.

Back next week when the ball gets rolling again.

Have a good one.

Back in black

So, Easter Weekend over.

New ideas, fixes problems are arriving at me at a rate that i can hardly keep up with. Need to do a major testing session before i pass this back to my testers. Some major improvements and new features to include over the next 2 weeks, making my decision to lay off the coffee for a while a short-lived one.

Things are looking good for now. Just need to make sure that we stick with the original idea and keep it simple. I’m now seeing how easy it could be to add more and more to this and fill it with useless information, fancy bits of javascript to do this and that and have no real bearing on the end result.

Time to put the kettle on and get back to it.

Cheers.