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Tasteful Temptations, a great catering company based out of St Simons Island, GA needed their website re-designed so that they could update the website whenever they want.  Well, I made that happen.  I transfered their existing site from XHTML to a Content Management System.  I added some Javascript on the site to make it a little cleaner too.  There’s only one more addition that I need to make on the site, and that is a flash file for the Cakes page. (Wait till you see their awesome wedding cakes!)  So if you need a web designer, then contact me and I will build you  a website that is easy to update yourself!

I just finished another website for a custom drums company based out of Greensboro, NC.  This custom drum builder needed a web presence other than his Myspace page and he came to Avenue 3 Media to design and develop his website.  He wanted a website to showcase the custom drums that he has built and to convey his military themed business.  The word OPFOR is an acronym for something in the military (I still don’t know what it means!) and he wanted it to subtly be displayed throughout his website.  So I gave him some neutral colors and a text that really pops.  We also added a nice little slideshow with a bunch of his work to showcase.

So thanks to Big Jerm for the referral and I hope Opfor Drums continues to keep growing!

We all know that St Simons Island, GA is a great place to live, and if you didn’t know that, then now you do.  It’s a terrific little island just north of Jacksonville, Florida that seems to lag behind the times when it comes to the ever evolving modernity of urban life.  Now, in no way am I saying that St Simons has ever been urban – far from it actually – but it does represent a population of transplants and drifters from all over the US, especially urban areas.  Sometimes it seems like people here would love to have the urban lifestyle, yet mostly everyone settles for the small town, quaint island life that is truly indicated by the 7 degrees of seperation that everyone has in common.  Actually, it’s more like 3 degrees of seperation around here – everyone seems to know everyone in one way, shape, or form. Either a friend of a friend or a co-worker of your friend will seem to know someone else on the island! But my point that I am trying to make through all this is – St Simons businesses, for the most part, have TERRIBLE websites. Like websites that were built by 9th graders in 1997.  Yea, that bad.  And the reason that I hate it for them – is that these businesses are fantastic! There are some excellent little stores and some pretty good size businesses on this island that just have bad looking, poorly developed websites.  It’s my belief that a website should represent a company’s brand image and offer useful information to the customer.  Well, it’s a shame at what some of the local businesses websites offer around here.

Now, you might be asking, “is he knocking other local web designers?”  Maybe.  I don’t personally know any other web designers on the island, but if they haven’t updated the look of their clients’ websites by now, then they are just stealing money from them.  It’s ok to lag behind the times when it comes to urban sprawl and pace of life around here – but the web isn’t waiting for anyone.  It will always keep moving and if you aren’t moving with it – you’re standing still on a busy highway.

Anyway, that’s my take and I’m gonna continue to learn as much as I can and make better and better websites.

I’ve been working hard lately on a few projects for myself and a few projects for clients.  This is a sample of a site that is getting ready to launch.

I’ve been building a lot of WordPress based websites and finding out more and more that I LOVE WordPress. Here are some great reasons to have your website built on the WordPress framework:

• The best thing about WordPress is that you can easily control the look of the site purely through CSS.  Yes, you can add tables, but using Divs is so easy that I can whip up a simple site in a couple hours.
• Another great thing about building sites from WordPress is the ability to ad Google’s Adsense into your pages.  What’s better than earning a little ad revenue from your site?
• You can also edit the CSS directly from the internet through the WordPress “Editor” function under the appearance tab.
• The sidebar can be a powerful tool to advertise and keep your followers updated with your Flickr photos, twitter messages ( Tweets ), recent comments, links to other hot sites, new pages, and social networking sites.
• Another fantastic advantage of WordPress is the ability to integrate a shopping cart into your site via Plugins that make it SUPER EASY to add items for sale such as eBooks, MP3’s, Pictures, PDF’s, and other digital media. Check out the shopping cart I just did for the Coastal Players Tour.
• While we are talking about plugins – I might suggest some other great plugins that can allow users to post Video Comments on your blog, integrate Javascript (cool effects like those built by MooTools), and easily submit your site to search engines with built in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools.

WordPress as a content management system (CMS) makes it super easy for the client to edit and update his own website.  This takes away the need for a webmaster to constantly keep updating a website whenever the client needs something adjusted (that’s a great reason for me to like it!)  This gives the user without much web experience to keep their site up to date, becuase we all hate a website that hasn’t been updated in years.

I have recently finished a website for Communities in Schools, a local organization aimed to help kids keep from dropping out of school.  This great program is known throughout the US and has local “chapters” in many cities.  The local CIS here in Glynn County needed a website that could be easily updated and a place where locals could donate money or other resources.  I built this site using the WordPress framework along with some Javascript. Check out the website here.

Now the school administrator can login, update their live calendar, add new pages and links, and keep parents and donors up to date on all the latest happenings.  The custom WordPress theme that I built was based on a Mootools Javascript file and a very simple layout with a fixed background.

If you would like me to design a custom website for you that you can manage yourself – please contact me!

So I have been working on a few projects lately for a couple of great companies.  The first has been a freelance job for IdeaScale.com – a really cool website that hosts idea forums where anyone can create a webpage for free and post their ideas.  People can then view the ideas and vote them up or down – they can also add new ideas and keep one big brainstorm going.  It’s a really cool concept and I’m surprised that this is the first time I have seen it!  A lot of companies seem to be using it for their employees to add their input – sort of a virtual suggestion box that people actual read! But I have designed a few “skins” for their site – custom designs to make the page look like the existing page of another website.

The second project has been for SharkbaitSales.com – an online prospecting software.  I redesigned their home page and learn more page – also implemented a flash slideshow onto the homepage which explains their product a bit more.  They wanted a clean looking modern design.  The page isn’t up yet, but should be up within 3 weeks.  Very cool guys running this company based out of Philadelphia.

Well, the transition is complete!  I now have a new web design company name…. Avenue 3 Media.  You can check it out here. After creating my original web design company with the name a|e, inc web design (and with the non-matching website of www.eprosport.com) – I figured I should go with a name that isn’t so long and hard to figure out.  In some browsers it actually looked like ale inc web design.  So maybe a few people thought I was all about beer and spirits!  Probably not good for some folks.

However, the new name is great, I’ve got a few new tricks up my sleeve, some great partners which I can use to design some things that require additional expertise, and I think the new website looks great.  Avenue 3 Media is working on gaining clients and bulding terrific websites.  Call if you need one – or if you need some logo design help, wordpress themes, or photo re-touching.  The internet is always on.

While I am in the process of transitioning my website from Eprosport – to my new company’s website - Avenue 3 Media – I am currently desinging my own custom blog theme.  Please excuse the mess.  Hope you like my new website and logo.  I just created it from scratch.  The need for a new website was overdue.  This new website is much cleaner and more organized.  More pictures too!  Please contact me if I can build a custom theme for you or build you a new website!

I just finished building an entire custom website using a WordPress blog and a custom theme.  Now the user can have total control of his website directly from the internet!  I used the same technology that you are reading this blog with to build an entire website! How cool is that?  Sorry, may sound a little dorky (ok, a lot) but this is incredible for new clients of mine.  Let’s say you want a website where you can login in and update it yourself (also known as a Content Management System) – I can build one for you very quickly using WordPress.  What a great technology.  Anyways, the website I just built is for SwingLoft Video Analysis Software.  It’s the first Video Analysis Software of it’s kind for MAC!  And you all know that I’m all about the MAC.