Mortfiles Evolved

Dual language for Wordpress

// June 24th, 2009 // Comments // Development

Building a two language website using Wordpress is something of a challenge, but I have some ideas.

I have been pondering many approaches for making Mortfiles Evolved available in both Swedish and English and so far I have looked at using a Wordpress MU setup, using the translation service like I have here on this website, getting creative with custom fields and finally using something like WPML or xLanguage.

All choices have their advantages and flaws, but I think that I will go with WPML if it turn out ok, not just for the translation features, but also for the built in navigation that has dropdown features for the subpages that I want for this project. That way I get both in one package which sounds a bit to good to be true…

Taking advantage of the Social Networks

// June 24th, 2009 // Comments // Development

Social networks is huge and its a great source for marketing if done right. So far I have dabbled, but now it’s time to step up to the plate and take advantage of this.

I will favor 3 social networks for Mortfiles Evolved: Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. I choose these 3 because they are the ones I feel is most appropriate for my business and because its the ones that are most userfriendly and because of that most likely to attract my target group of potential clients. I will also take advantage of YouTube for my videos should I ever get around to actually produce them and Delicious / stumbleupon/ Magnolia (I have not decided which yet) for bookmarking, but the main focus will be on the big 3. If I ever find the use for it, or rather the time for it I’ll also take advantage of Slideshare.

Twitter is burning and it’s easy and fun to interact with, especially if you like me use the Flock browser to stay on top on what happens on Twitter, Flickr and Facebook among a few social networks. Services like CheepTweet and CouponTweet can be used for marketing. Tweetmeme is a great way to encourage retweets in a way that very much resemble the Digg version, but just more useful.

Facebook is just the most popular social setwork today and it’s where I spend alot of time already. The introduction of Facebook Connect opens up for a million and one uses and I don’t see an end to the reign of this king of social networks anytime soon. It’s a great way to quickly connect to new and old customers.

Flickr is the social network that I have least abused, but as it is a great source of inspiration and a great way to show off my work I will have to chage that soon. When it comes to visually display your talent, or lack thereof, Flickr is the place to be. Flickr is also a great way to connect to other designers in the industry to build up a connection network and to exchange thought and ideas regarding design.

Jumpstarting with Active Collab

// June 23rd, 2009 // Comments // Development

Although the new design is still far off (well, maybe not that far…) I invested in Active Collab today that will act as the project manager for Mortfiles Evolved.

The reason is quite simply that I need a projectmanager that works well right away as the old one is not working the way I want and its quite honestly a bit depressing to use…Active Collab is something I have looked at for well over a year, but never really had the drive to get, but now as I am rebuilding and rethinking my entire worksituation I felt it was time even if the cost was…not the best timing

I will leave it in its basic state for now while I fokus on more pressing issues, like getting the 3 webprojects I have setup and ready to go and fokusing on my PHP and Javascript classes. In the fall though it will be redesigned and merged into Mortfiles Evolved.

JQuery inspiration

// June 22nd, 2009 // Comments // Development

JQuery is quickly becoming my new favorite language and I keep struggling to find uses for all the wonderful ways you can enhance the website, but I’ll have to restrain myself or the website will be to cluttered again.

The Fancybox has many uses, like popups for different information areas and things like that, so that is on my deskof things that might be used. Stylesheet switching has always been something I wanted to try and now I can add it through the SwitchStylesheet script. Dropdown menus are always useful and its one of those things I have wanted to add for a long time. MarkItUp just looks so nice and is just waiting to get used somehow….

Jtip is another thing I think will be great to use as is the simple slider menu, that I will use like presented here. The tabbed interface also has a ton of uses and I probably have at least one of those around. NiceForms would be great for the signup forms and things like that, probably along with jQuery UI or something like that.  RSS will be much easier using jQuery Feed Menus and I love the graphics that Komodomedia do so well.

Mortfiles:revised

// June 22nd, 2009 // Comments // Development

Its been a while now since my last re-design of Mortfiles and to tell the truth its getting a bit bloated and unfocused, which is not exactly promoting sales and its holding me back from getting creative.

In order to fix this I am starting a project where I will rebuild Mortfiles to be a more focused project that IS focused on business and not as a playground for my mad ideas. This project will also merge Mortfiles.com and Mortfiles.se into one dual language website using Wordpress as backend. The new design will be more focused on sale and it will take advantage of JQuery to make things easier and better looking.

I am also going to work with WHMCS to build a better orderform to make things a whole lot nicer, which is something that I have put off for a while now as my heart has not really been in it. The WHMCS package is still the best for the job, but I will now merge the two installations into one, which means dual languages and dual currency setup.

I am going to change the project manager for Mortfiles Evolved and will go for Active Collab instead as I find it more intuitive and nicer in design to work with. I will rework it a bit to make it even more awesome, both through design and hopefully by extending it with some modules down the road.

Right now I am in the scribbling phase where I poke design thoughts and try to figure out what should go where and why, but hopefully it will come together soon enough.