Design & Develop
  • Content Management
  • March17th

    Dynamic ad insertion and metadata management solution provider This Technology made the leap into the open source world on February 14 this year with SpotLink.

    This Tech

    Now, while something as unique and sexy as facilitating video-on-demand advertising would lead most people to assume a slick marketing engine behind it all, This Technology is about as anti-marketing as they can be. Their original website was a do-it-yourself roll out of a simple WordPress template.

    (PRO TIP: Need to get your website started quickly and missing the budget line item? DIY WordPress website! You can add the unique look and functionality later.)

    Our job was to design and develop a new WordPress template that looks clean and professional, focuses on the audience and products, and stays true to This Tech’s no-BS approach to business.

    The catch?

    Them: “I need it live on Monday”

    Us: “I think I’m running a fever…”

    Though not the smoothest website development cycle I’ve experienced – nothing like the ‘flu to scramble a brain and make things more complicated than necessary! – the end result achieves the goals quite handily.

    Website: http://thistech.com

  • February26th

    A recurring theme in our day is that clients want to be able to update their own websites. I have mixed feelings about this.

    Templates and training can go a long way to maintain the integrity of a website, but when it comes to content management systems (CMS), there’s a fine line between micromanaging your users and giving users so much control that the website is never compliant or properly organized again.

    I’ve yet to find a way to walk that line. At the moment, while I can control templates, menus, and stylesheets, I cannot control the content unless I invest a lot of time into custom forms for each area of the website. That’s not a good investment, because what I’ve learned so far in this business is that the only person that likes following a pattern is, well, me.

    Tool of the Moment

    In the last little while, this CMS called Etomite has saved my butt. It’s surprisingly easy and flexible, while being extremely powerful. That’s not to say it does everything I wish it would, but that’s the joy of open-source solutions: build it yourself, or plant an idea and see if anyone runs with it.