No link round up this week, I think most of the bloggers I read are still getting over SXSW. Instead let’s talk about something that was all the rage at SXSW, Twitter.
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I read about 20 nonprofit blogs. One of my favorites is Non-Profit Tech Blog. It is a great look at technology and nonprofits. In a recent post on Blackbaud the author struck a cord with me.
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This is Silas Man checking in for the day 
This morning went well. Unfortunately, the camera crew experienced some technical difficulties, I’m hoping to get a photo or 2 up by the end of today. It was great to interact with such great people at the press conference. There were a lot of questions about my role here at the conference.
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I’ve been a little busy at work lately, and the reason for that is because we have just launched three brand new sites: Westminster, Calvary Chapel Grass Valley, and Christian Management Association. Woot!
Each site is built on the open source platform WordPress, and while I certainly did not do all the work for each site (there’s a team for that), I did write and implement a bunch of customizations that are specific to each site, in addition to the template WordPress customizations I had mentioned in an earlier post. I think our team did a wonderful job with these three sites and they really showcase the kind of great work we do. So feel free to hope over and do some exploring, and if you’re doing some web building yourself, take a peak at what’s possible with just a few tweaks to WordPress
PS: This post was cross-posted from TanTanNoodles. So everybody, click here to read this post all over again.
Some corners of the web-design community are up in arms about a recent Microsoft decision to dump the current HTML email engine for Outlook 2007, instead adopting an outdated and flawed engine based on, no, really, Microsoft Word. What’s on the chopping block? Consistent support for background images and colors, nice margins, and overall control of object placement and spacing inside emails. If the rumors are all true, a lot of emails are going to start looking bad, and a lot of email designers are going to be tearing out their hair.
More after the jump:
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Like many of you, I came back to work today after being out of the office since Christmas, so the 110 emails that were staring back at me were not a surprise.
I’ve been doing a bunch of work with WordPress lately, mostly customizing templates and writing plugins to make it work more like a “real” content management system (CMS), rather than just a simple blogging platform.
Rather than try to explain all the technical details of what I did (I hate doing documentation), I thought I’d just show some examples from two sites that I recently worked on, GraceDC and Langham Partnership International. In this post, I’ll focus on some of the design and template related modifications I made to WordPress’ templating system to make the sites look and behave like the way they do.
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Christian Blind Mission International is one of my favorite clients; an organization dedicated to improving the lives of the blind and disabled worldwide through efficient, strategic, and often inexpensive means. 100,000 Miracles is a great example of their work - a drive to fund 100,000 cataract operations for the blind in small villages around the world, each for as little as $35. Silas put together a full package for the campaign that include viral components, online ads, and a number of avenues for bringing users to the site, and then keeping them involved throughout the campaign’s 100-day span. A couple of quick, free campaign tools we got to use:
Promotional site badges.
Viral video, hosted on YouTube.
Calls-to-action that encouraged name acquisition, like cheering for Henry Wanyoike, the world-famous blind runner.
It ended up being a nice example of what you can do with a tight timeframe and a few ideas.
Have any insight on other clever promotional ideas? Make sure to mention them in the comments…
Let me first clarify: I don’t have an uncle Sam.
The department of US Department of Health and Human Services recently released the 2006 edition of Researched-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines, a booklet (294 pages) outlining best practices for producing a website. Aimed at helping anyone consider what a good website should contain in order to aid the visually impaired (think Section 508), it includes an exhaustive list of best practices, and even ranks them based on the strength of the supporting arguments.
The National Novel Writing Month (affectionately NaNoWriMo) is more like an online community (dating back to 1999!) than a month of recognition. Participants each agree to author an original novel no less than 50,000 words all during the 30 days of November. The experience includes “real-life” local meetups, coaching tips and advice in a forums section, and an interactive tool allowing you to track your word count progress and share it with friends.
As web technologies have advanced, so has NaNoWriMo’s experience, rising from 21 participants its first year to over 59,000 just a year ago. The founders have also expanded their original scope, as the website is the primary vehicle driving efforts including fundraising, founding libraries overseas, and starting a young writer’s program.
Silas Partners exists to help Christian ministries fulfill their missions. Our specialty lies in helping ministries use the Internet effectively, in a way that supports their overall goals and strategic priorities. Read more >