Paul Stone Design - Blog

One of the reasons I recommend ExpressionEngine: mass traffic is no problem

2009-05-15T14:14:00+00:00

When I recommend ExpressionEngine to my clients, they mostly haven't heard of it. One question that they often have is whether it is robust enough to handle their amount of traffic. My answer is, of course, yes, but it's obviously hard to prove it.

Hop Studios have published a post that hopes to help us all prove that ExpressionEngine can handle what we throw at it (hosting permitting). They've done this by listing out what they perceive to be the largest ExpressionEngine sites they know of, and boy are there some big ones! They get phenomenal amounts of traffic.

Continue reading: The 10 Largest ExpressionEngine sites on the Hop Studios website.

If you have any other questions about ExpressionEngine that you would like answering to help you make the decision to choose it as your CMS of choice, please either ask in the comments or send me an email via the 'Contact' section.

An updated Tweetie for Mac bookmarklet

2009-05-14T22:16:00+00:00

What follows below is a variation on the Tweetie for Mac bookmarklet that comes "included" from atebits, the Tweetie for Mac developer.

First there was the iPhone app which seemed to become everyone's favourite. Then atebits, the developer, set about (Mac) world domination by releasing Tweetie for Mac which brought many of the features people loved about the iPhone version into a native Mac app.

One of the added extras provided is a bookmarklet which allows you to share the web page that you are currently viewing with all of your Twitter followers in just a couple of clicks.

The bookmarklet works as advertised, but I didn't want to have to re-type what the page was I was looking at to put it into context (the shortened links don't give much away, do they!). So I set about updating the bookmarklet slighty.

What I came up with was a bookmarklet that by default creates a tweet with the page title, alongside the link.

So for instance. If I clicked it on this page, the resulting tweet would look like:

An updated Tweetie for Mac bookmarklet | Blog | Paul Stone Design (Web sites, email newsletters, flyers, brochures and emarketing from a Ealing, west London, UK freelancer):: http://paulstonedesign.com/blog/article/an-updated-tweetie-for-mac-bookmarklet

Ouch. That's almost going to be as much work deleting all the other un-needed text. Definitely not under 140 characters!

So, I changed it again so that if any text is selected in the page that is used instead of the page title. So now, if I select the words 'variation on the Tweetie for Mac bookmarklet' on this article and click the bookmarklet the resulting tweet would look like:

variation on the Tweetie for Mac bookmarklet: http://paulstonedesign.com/blog/article/an-updated-tweetie-for-mac-bookmarklet

Much more manageable! You'll still have to manually shorten the urls within Tweetie though unfortunately - if anyone's got any bright ideas on that one let me know (I thought about trying to poll one of the shortening services APIs but I think there are security issues in the browser with trying to make an AJAX call to a different server to the one you are on).

So without further ado, you can click and grab it below, and drag it up to your bookmarks bar.

Post with Tweetie

Paul Stone Design accepted into the ExpressionEngine Pro network

2009-05-01T21:46:00+00:00

I'm delighted to announce that I have been accepted into the ExpressionEngine Pro network.

The network is made up of freelancers and companies that have completed a certain number of quality, web standards-based ExpressionEngine sites.

The network is run by EllisLab, the people who make my content management system of choice, ExpressionEngine. The purpose of the network is to allow those in need to:

Discover graphic designers, programmers, flash developers, business consultants, and ExpressionEngine experts who can help you with your web development needs.

So if you've been looking for a decent content management system for your website, please feel free to get in touch with me to discuss it further.

Bookmarklet to add the currently viewed web page to Omnifocus

2009-03-13T12:26:00+00:00

A couple of problems I came across whilst using OmniFocus were that:

whilst on the Mac the the 'Add to Inbox' keyboard shortcut doesn't work inside Firefox
when I am away from my Mac (i.e. at work on my PC) I have no way to send stuff into OmniFocus for later (of course, I could use the iPhone app, but typing out long protracted URLs isn't the best use of my time!)

So I set about writing a bookmarklet for my browser that would take the web page I'm looking at, wrap it up in an Gmail/Google Apps email and send it to an 'unused' email address (I use my MobileMe one) so that later, when I start up Mail.app on my Mac OmniFocus would process them into its inbox.

Setting up OmniFocus

If not turned on already, go into OmniFocus' preferences, go to the Mail settings and use the check box to create the Mail.app rule to process Omnifocus actions in the inbox.

Writing the bookmarklet

Here is the initial code for the bookmarklet:

javascript:(function()%7Bx=document;y=window;if(x.selection)%7Bsel=x.selection.createRange().text;%7Delse%20if%20(y.getSelection)%7Bsel=y.getSelection();%7Delse%20if%20(x.getSelection)%7Bsel=x.getSelection();%7Dif%20(sel=='')%7Bsel=document.title;%7Dm='https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to='+encodeURIComponent('YOUREMAILHERE')+'&su=%5BWeb%20clip%5D%20'+encodeURIComponent(sel)+'&body='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+'%20at%20'+encodeURIComponent(document.location);w=window.open(m,'addwindow','status=no,toolbar=no,width=575,height=545,resizable=yes');setTimeout(function()%7Bw.focus();%7D,%20250);%7D)();

The procedure

If you use Google Apps, you need to replace the trailing mail in https://mail.google.com/mail/ with a/YOURDOMAIN.COM/ so it becomes https://mail.google.com/a/example.com/?view etc.
Add your email address where indicated
Copy it all
Right-click on your toolbar and click new bookmark
Give it a name (e.g. +Omnifocus)
In location paste the code you copied from the text box above
Click OK

That's it. Next time you are on a web page that you want to save for later, simply click the bookmarklet button. The email will pop up. you can change stuff, added extra text into the body field (which gets used as the note) and press send. The item will end up in your inbox (the task name will be prefixed with [Web clip] so that you can easily spot them/search for them.

Some things to know

Your destination email provide might not support emails like name+omnifocus@example.com so you may need to use the other way Omnifocus allows, which is to prefix the subject with something as described in the OmniFocus preferences.

If you didn't select any text on the page, the document title will be used as the task name. If you did have some text selected on the page, that will be used for the task name.

Customising the bookmarklet

You could change the prefix ([Web Clip]) to something else, or remove it completely.

You can add contexts (for example, you may think that everything that you will be clipping needs to be done online, so you need to add @online after the subject

You can add start dates, due dates. All the things as outlined in the OmniFocus user manual.

If you find any problems with it, have any difficulties in customising it the way you want (I certainly did!), please leave a comment below and I'll see if I can help.

Getting started with Search Engine Optimisation

2009-03-13T12:06:00+00:00

I was going to write an article about SEO, giving some simple advice and examples as it is a question I get asked about all the time. But Chris Coyier over on CSS tricks wrote an article just like I had envisaged recently, and to be honest, I couldn't put it better myself.

The Checklist

1. Does this page have a good amount of honest information on it about the subject?

2. Is the information on this page well structured in the markup?

3. There aren’t any stupid cheap “tricks”

4. Is the URL for this page clean and relevant?

5. If you were researching this subject, would you find this page helpful? Would YOU link to it?

6. Is the website a reliable source of quality information?

Check out Chris's original article, with more information here: Common Sense SEO Checklist

If you'd like help with Search Engine Optimising your web site, please drop me a line. Although I'm not anywhere near an expert, I can provide you with some consultancy to get you started.

Twitter to begin charging brands for commercial use

2009-02-12T11:48:00+00:00

In what is going to undoubtedly prove unpopular amongst the businesses already using the service, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone (no relation) has hinted that they are looking to create commercial accounts that businesses will need to pay for if they want to continue to use the service.

Via: Brand Republic

Co-founder Biz Stone told Marketing: 'We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.' He would not be drawn on the level of charges.

Let the backlash commence

It will be interesting to see which businesses "drop-off" once they are made to pay. And it will be interesting to see how Twitter deals with rolling out such a pay model - there will be problems with the whiners who will complain that they can no longer get everything for free, and there are a few grey areas such as prominent individuals at businesses, or celebrities.

I'm just delighted to hear that Twitter have finally started to hint at how they are going to monetise the service - it's all very well getting VC funding, but I'm a firm believer in charging from the outset for a product/service. If you have faith that it's going to be the next big thing then it should be a no-brainer to try to get income from the get-go. That's how businesses have worked for years because it's a sensible way of doing business. Imagine opening a shop where you gave everything away for free for two years - you just wouldn't think of doing it, and certainly nobody would give you millions of VC funding to do it.

Freemium makes business sense

The reason a lot of start-ups have all free accounts at the start is that they want to get people using their service (and maybe they're not neccessarily confident that people will use it if they charged from the start). Trouble comes though when you try and impose a pay model onto your thousands of happy users - it's like taking away a child's favourite toy unless they give you some money. If you try and monetise your service from the outset though, this problem can be avoided as people already have the expectation that if they want the full service they are going to have to pay. Which sounds very reasonable to me. A prime example of doing things this way round is 37Signals who make several business-focussed web apps (project collaboration, intranets, contact management system, group chat). Each of their products has a free plan that lets you test it out to see whether it fits your needs. If it does and you want some of the extra features then they ask you to pay a reasonable monthly fee.

So if you're about to take over the world with the next big internet thing, give something away for free to give people a taste, but have premium plans that give them the whole service. You'll be a lot happier earning real money. If only Twitter and countless other start-ups had done that from the outset.

What do you think?

Should internet web sites like Twitter be free to use for eternity? Would you rather internet services be funded purely by advertising? Let me know in the comments.

Citroen unveils refreshed logo - looks sadder :(

2009-02-12T10:36:00+00:00

Citroen, the car manufacturer, has unveiled its new logo, but I can't help thinking it looks sadder than ever. It essentially looks like two unhappy mouths on top of each other - think smileys - :( .

The 'mouths' used to be more angular so I'd never seen them as mouths before, but now they have rounded them off they jumped straight out at me as being unhappy mouths. Maybe it's just me though...

You can view more on the new logo here: http://www.brandrepublic.com/Design/News/879225/Citroen-brand-unveils-new-logo/

And of course, you can see it in situ on their site: http://www.citroen.co.uk/

What do you think?

Do you know of any other example of logos with negative connotations depending on how you look at them?

A Firefox keyboard shortcut to quickly jump to links in a web page

2008-03-05T22:16:00+00:00

If you use Firefox as your browser, and you’re a fan of keyboard shortcuts, then this is the tip for you. Using this shortcut may mean you never need the mouse again. Ok, maybe not strictly true, but it may mean you reach for the mouse that little bit less often.

There are loads of great keyboard shortcuts for the Firefox browser, but one that I’ve been using more of lately is the “Quick find” shortcut. That’s what Firefox calls it at least, but I don’t think that it is a very good description of what the shortcut actually does.

Basically, the “Quick find” shortcut allows you to search through all of the links that are on the webpage. All it takes is for you to hit the single apostrophe key ( ’ ) and start typing some of the letters of the link you aer looking for. For example, if you are viewing this web page with Firefox, simply hit the single apostrophe key once, and start typing the word, ‘porfolio’. You’ll actually notice that you only have to type the ‘p’ before Firefox find the link you are looking for. Hit return, and the link will be ‘clicked’, all without leaving your keyboard.

You actually don’t need to start with the first letters of the link either. If you type ‘ee’ in the ‘Quick find’ search field you’ll be jumped up to the ‘Subscribe to the site feed’ link at the top-right of the website.

I imagine that this feature is designed to be an accessibility function as it speeds up the process of going through the links on the page dramatically. Without using this method, a user would have to use the tab key to cycle through every link one by one.

Do you use this shortcut already? Do you have a killer keyboard shortcut for Firefox? Let me know in the comments.

Creating a polaroid effect in Photoshop

2008-02-15T10:34:00+00:00

The last tutorial I did on how to get a Polaroid effect using Photoshop was all very well, but the end result was more just a photo with white borders rather than looking exactly as it would from a Polaroid camera. This tutorial sets out to acheive this, and this time a template is included for you to download.

The tempate used in this tutorial is again dependent on smart objects. If you just want to take the Photoshop file and run, by all means feel free.

All you have to do to put your photo in the ‘frame’ rather than my one of Florence is:

Click the ‘photo’ layer in the layers pallette
From the menu at the top of the Photoshop window choose (Layer > Smart Objects > Replace contents…
Navigate to where you have your new photo stored, select it and click Place
You may have to re-transform your photo to fit correctly in the photo area (to do this press Ctrl + T on the PC, or Cmd + T on the Mac)

Doing it yourself

If you’d rather set the template up yourself, then you need to (sorry – screenshots to follow):

Create a new canvas with a white background
Draw a white rectangle, rotate it slightly and give it a drop-shadow and inside stroke
Ctrl or Cmd click on the thumbnail of the photo paper so that the outline of the paper is loaded into a selection
Choose Select > Modify > Contract… and shrink the selection by a certain amount of pixels (the amount depends on how big your canvas is to start with – try it a few times until the border is how you like it)
Set the default colour by pressing the ‘D’ key
Swap them around by presing the ‘X’ key
Pres the Alt + Delete key to fill the selection with black
Ctrl or Cmd T to initiate a free tranform and drag the bottom middle handle up a bit so that the bottom border is thicker that the top, left and right ones. (Just use your eye on this step to get it how you’d expect a Polaroid to look).
Now select File > Place…, choose your photo and click Place. This will place the photo as a smart object into your photoshop file. It should have place it above the photo area layer (the black one) – if it didn’t just drag it into the correct place.
Now hover the mouse between the photo layer and the photo area layer and press the alt key. You should see the cursor change to something that looks like a venn diagram. Click the mouse button once and you’ll see the photo layer be clipped to the area below it, thus hiding the bits you don’t want
Now all that remains to do is to rotate all your layers slightly to bring the photo to life.

Ways to promote and track your new website

2008-01-20T19:45:00+00:00

So you’ve launched your new website, you’re really proud of it and you can’t wait to see the punters roll in. But how are you going to know who’s looking at what? And how are you going to get them there in the first place? In this article I’ll be looking at some tools and techniques for promoting your website and tracking the activity on it.

Letting people know what’s the latest and greatest on your site

The best way to do this with people who have already discovered your site is by using RSS feeds. If people have an RSS aware browser (or have a toolbar like Google’s installed) they can easily subscribe to your sites feed so that they are told when there are any new articles or pages. It’s much better than sending out emails or waiting for people to remember to visit your site, and more and more people are using them now. They’ll be able to see your latest content through their browsers bookmarks (Firefox call this Live Bookmarks), their web-based feed reader (Bloglines, Newsgator) or a personalised homepage (Google, My Yahoo, Netvibes, etc.)

So if you want to get this set up on your site and it’s built on a CMS you may be in luck. The chances are that it has the ability to author rss feeds built in, so you could be only a couple of clicks from getting it set up.

However, I recommend signing up for the free Feedburner account. If you use their feed from the word go and put all your RSS “traffic” through them you can get some interesting insights as to how many people are subscribing and what stories they are clicking on. With the pro account you get more detailed statistics on reuse, but I won’t go into those here.

So that’s your feed sorted out. Now what about those people who don’t know you yet? For this we have pinging. This is basically your CMS sending out an announcement to a specialist site that lets people find new content super fast – who wants to wait for slow old Google to index a site these days!? Chances are that you can just flick a switch and turn that on if it is not already. Feedburner also has a function for pinging certain websites. Ping o matic, technorati, etc.

Networking with a difference – getting yourself seen

One of the best ways to get your site into Google (that’s the search engine you care about most right?) is to get some honest to goodness quality links to your site (they list this as the most important thing to do to get your site into their search engine). Now this can take some time, and link exchange websites have had their day. One of the best ways, in my opinion, is to network. Network online that is.

One of the easiest ways to get links to your site is by joining a forum at a website for your industry and setting up your signature so that it has a link to your site. These may not get ‘counted’ by search engines depending on how the forum has been set up, but many forums allow this as long as you are not too over the top with the sales speak. Now I’m not saying that you should go and spam forums (please, please don’t do that, ok?). But if you are an expert in your field then contribute to the community when it’s relevant. The benefits? Well there’s these for starters:

you’ll get some links on a relevant forum that Google may pick up on
you may develop a name for yourself and get some good contacts
other people may even learn something from you or repost your comments on their blog or website

Speaking of blogs. The same rules can be applied. Read relevant blogs, comment when you’ve got something worthwhile to say and put a link to your site in the space provided. (Go on, try it on this post. I’ll leave it on there unless it’s blatent spam…) Going one step further, you could set up your own blog, but that’s an article in itself.

Analytics – going all big brother

The next thing to get set up is analytics. There are many different ways of doing this. Log file analysers, hosted solutions, cookie this and javascript that. But the best way that I have found to keep an eye on what’s working on a site and what’s not is to install both Google analytics and Mint.

Google Analytics is free and exposes a lot of information. And I mean a lot. I haven’t found anything really revolutionary yet, but it is free and you can spend hours looking at data if you really want. Things of note: check on your adwords referrals and where the user went then. How long people stayed on, how many pages before the hot footed it out of there, etc. Major gripes with Google Analytics: you can’t create and save reports. It would be fantastic if you could pick the information that you care about and just get the system to run it off every month and send the report by email.

A great option for a quick overview of how your site is developing is Mint. It costs $30 per site that you want to track and shows you less information than Google. “What’s that? Less information… and it costs money?! Have you gone mad? First things first, lets get the money out of the way. It’s $30 per site…. forever. There’s no hosted solution going on here, you have to host the app and database on your own server so the software is offered with a licence similar to a desktop app. That is: you buy it, get small updates, but may have to pay for larger updates. Added to this, Mint is the baby of one Shaun Inman – his blood sweat and, I’m pretty sure, tears have gone into creating it so why not give a little back? It’s about to make your life a lot easier after all.

OK. Secondly, Mint does provide you with less information than Google, but that’s the beauty of it. It clears out the cr*p and leaves you with a clear view of how many people visited when, what they looked at, what keywords they used to find you in a search engine. Using an add-on that has been developed by xxx you can also check your Feedburner stats so you don’t have to jump over there all the time. Speaking of add-ons; they’re called pepper in Mint. There are a bunch of peppers available written by both Shaun and other developers so you can make Mint just how you like it.

Sit back and watch the masses descend

OK. This is not necessarily going to happen straight away. No matter what tools you have installed, you still have to have decent content, and enough people who agree with you who want to link to your site. But this should be a good start to at least give you a helping hand to promote your site and track the visitors you get.