We added a new look to my programming page recently. It’s only a start, but I already like it a lot better. I plan to add a great deal more about the kinds of programming I do later on. For now it talks about some of bigger projects we do. I dig it though, and I’m excited about continuing more work on it!

It’s a lot of fun changing the way websites work. In my opinion, it’s more fun to spruce them up than it is to make them sometimes. You can really take a look at each aspect and ask yourself, “What would make this better?” A question that is almost always fun to answer.

The first update I’m going to talk about is the BRAND NEW books page. I’ve put two of my three projects on there (with samples of both). The assassin book will show up there soon, but I can’t for the life of me think of a neat cover for it. We’re (my wife and I) are thinking we can make a temporary image that would work for any new project. But then we have to make that, so either way, it’s still not ready. I like it though, and I’m glad visitors will a chance to read what I write. Samantha made the cover for The Forest Awakens. My good friend Rob, of Evolinium, made the Draknor cover. I think both are awesome.

Another fun thing we added was the progress bars to match my current projects. This is fun because of the geek in me. I first saw it on Brandon Sanderson’s website. I thought the idea was fantastic. So set it all up in PHP so I could change the numbers in one place and everything would update itself.  It’s very fun. Samantha made the three bars.

I’ll have more new updates to share soon, but they are still not quite finished. I plan on updating pages all over the place, and adding fun ways to find them. Including a random option.

Today I updated the front page of my wife’s website. She designed it and it looks great. The new page required a change to her gallery uploading  system as well.  So now she can choose between a listed item and a sold item when she edits pictures. Sold items appear on the gallery still, but listed items now appear on the front page. When you click on one of the pictures it takes you to her Etsy shop to that item’s listing. It’s very neat.

Today I decided to move some websites around. The fact of the matter is that while I enjoy designing websites, it isn’t something that I want to be a major focus in my life. On top of that, I’m not sure any of my clients ever found me through that website.

Because of all these things, and the fact that it is time again to pay the yearly hosting cost, I decided to close down the site. Instead I moved it to this website and added Draknor Designs to the menu. The look of that site didn’t change when I moved it over, but I did update some of the features. Such as the contact page, email addresses, etc. I think I’ll still take web design clients, and I want to keep my Etsy shop, but I won’t be doing much advertising beyond that from now on. It’s time to look forward. Writing, and Education, are the areas I want to focus on now.

Another benefit to this decision is that now I have a user account system on this website. I needed it to move Draknor Designs, but there is really no reason it cannot be used for the main site too. I’d like to add some ways to add my stories, to upload my artwork, and so forth. I think this site will see a lot of changes over the next couple weeks. I hope you check back from time to time to see what’s new!

Today Lisa of PhotoAmato and I released her new special gallery website. The process went smooth as I could possibly have asked. Her photography always looks so good that building a site to show it off has been almost too easy. Thanks for all the help, Lisa. I wish the site great success!

Today we released the newest version of Old but New‘s personal gallery. I think it looks wonderful and I was happy to be a part of its creation. The gallery is completely database driven, meaning that all of the images are pulled from her photo uploading page. She has hundreds of pictures that it cycles between. There are still plans for improving upon the design, but I think that it came out simply beautiful. In addition, we have added a new Shop Page as well. Before this just sent the visitor straight to Etsy. Now it describes what Etsy is, and why she uses it.

One of my first major clients that found me through Etsy has proven to be a great one! Working with Photoamato has been very easy-going. For one, her photography is beautiful. It is always easier to build an interesting website when I have so many great pictures to work with. Because she had good basic idea of what she wanted already, all she really needed was a little guidance on how to get there. That makes web design go a lot smoother. Her willingness to try new ideas made the project a lot of fun as a whole. Her previous experiences with web design were limited to the most basic web language. Many people get stuck in that zone and have trouble trying new things. Not Photoamato! She was perhaps a bit reluctant, but showed a great willingness to at least let me try and sway her (which I did)!

These are a couple of my favorites from her Etsy shop:

The work we’ve done together has been aimed at her non-Etsy portfolio including events and weddings that she has photographed. I really like what we’ve done with it. She gave me some free reign to play with the front page of the new site. She ended up loving the ideas I had for it. I’ll offer a small sneak peak of the design!

As many know, I have been working on a website dedicated to the enormous department store that my family owned through most of the 20th century. The website has been a long, looooong process. I’m happy to say that, for the most part, it is in working order. There are some things I want to tinker with, but to the best of my knowledge nothing threatening. So now I get to sit back and watch who starts to find broken things first. If I’ve learned anything over the years as a programmer it’s that somebody can always manage to find a problem.

http://www.leonardbrothers.net

I’ve decided to participate in Barack Obama’s essay competition. Ten winners get to go to the inauguration on an all-expense paid trip. I’d be a fool NOT to participate. The deadline in tomorrow, so I will put my essay submission up probably on the 9th. Just to be safe…

Today’s writing is a little something I wrote up for the website release. It isn’t much, but it seemed appropriate.

Leonard Brothers Currency

Brothers Marvin and Obie had an imagination that drove their business just as much as their calculating business sense. When companies were nervous about the state of the economy–something present still today–the brothers decided to develop their own Leonard Brothers currency. This thinking kept their store one of the most predominant stores used during the dark period in American history. The store offered to cash paychecks for people when Roosevelt called for a banking holiday, and dozens of other businesses accepted the currency in their own shops. Many of the coins, and some of the paper script can be found at the museum with a large assortment of other interesting memorabilia. Even though the currency is nothing more than a souvenir in this day and age, the brothers’ investment in printing the money more than covered its costs.