Using Related Entries to Set Sidebar Content in Expression Engine
Among the most useful features added to Expression Engine in the past year is Related Entries, or Data Relationships. This allows you to further section off content and data and use it in useful ways by creating relationships between weblog entries. One simple way I've started using this feature is to provide sidebar content that content editors and authors can relate to their entries. Details after the jump.
Phil Hertzler | 02.19.07 | 0 comment(s) | Permalink
Usability in the Movies
This Alertbox post by usability guru Jakob Nielsen is a few weeks old now, but still worth mentioning. The way people use computers in movies always cracks me up. Movies sure do paint a rosy picture as I struggle with clients to make sure simple things like forms are laid out in simple and effective ways. I generally find myself watching movies and TV uttering things like, "Oh, yeah right!" and "Are you kidding me?" as the hero (or villain as the case may be) easily breaks into complex government mainframes, which, for some unknown reason, have beautifully designed user interfaces. I guess command line stuff is too old school...
Check out the complete article, but here are a few of my favorite highlights...
Phil Hertzler | 12.27.06 | 0 comment(s) | Permalink
Punch Launches Ink & Paper
My friends over at Punch here in Richmond have started a new endeavor. They're selling rather nice paper goods under the label Ink & Paper, the first batch of which is a gift trimmings set (ribbon, gift tags, etc). The cost is only $9.95 plus $2 shipping. Proceeds on this product go to Art 180, a good cause that helps kids through art and activities.
I understand there is still time to get the set ahead of the upcoming holiday (I'm sure you can still buy it for next year), so go check it out:
http://www.inkandpaper.com/
Phil Hertzler | 12.13.06 | 0 comment(s) | Permalink
Stock Spam Hell
Stock spam is the current blight on my inbox. The stuff is impossible to stop. In particular because the spammers are including the information as attached images. My normal fix for spam, aside from running Spam Assassin on my mail server has been to set up rules to filter messages that include predictable stuff. Unfortunately, there's nothing that predictable about these spams except that they have image attachments. Filtering based on that would knock out a bunch of legitimate client emails as well.
Spamnation.info has some advice:
Phil Hertzler | 11.02.06 | 5 comment(s) | Permalink
Visualizing User Interaction with Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is a web service that allows you to see what — and more importantly where — your site visitors are clicking on your page layout. Is this button in the right place? Is it obvious that that thing is clickable? It's no substitute for being able to watch a real person attempt to use and make sense of your site design, but for the budget-minded site owner, it's a useful tool for making ongoing improvements to layout. Here's how it works...
Phil Hertzler | 10.27.06 | 3 comment(s) | Permalink
