Curiosita Labs

Thoughts on programming, web development and design.

Circuit Board

6 Chocolate Shops to Indulge and Inspire You

By

On March 11, 2013

In CSS, Design, Web Development

What better inspiration than chocolate? Chocolate Shops are fun to visit. You can usually find something to tempt you. From chocolate truffles to old fashioned candies, the following sites tempt you with their products and design.

Chocolate Shops

Indulgence Chocolatiers

They sell exceptional chocolates to the Milwaukee Area and beyond. Their site opens with a banner that shows their chocolate. Each page shows a different picture of chocolate in the header. Their minimal design uses a blue, gray and white color scheme.

Indulgence Chocolatiers

Sweets Chocolates

Sweet’s of Lake Forest sells chocolates, toffees, ladybugs and more. The site opens with a large photo of a Sweet’s gift tray as part of the background. It works with the blue, white and brown color scheme. It has a simple, modern design to help you focus on finding and buying the right chocolate selection.

Sweets

Victorian Chocolate Shoppe

Victorian Chocolate Shoppe is an old time candy shop. Their website has an old time feel. They use elements of vintage design like dark colors, a script font, antique scroll border and a victorian wallpaper like background.

Victorian Chocolate Shoppe

Ashley’s Confectionery

Ashley’s Confectionery makes creamy homemade fudge, finest hand-dipped chocolates, old-fashioned candies and more. The website has a fun, modern look. It uses bright colors like pink, green and blue. The site uses segued shapes to draw your eyes to the call to action.

Ashley's Confection

Gail Ambrosius

Gail Ambrosius makes fine chocolates by hand. Her shop is located in Madison, Wisconsin. The website has a simple, modern look. It uses different shades of browns to create the look and feel of chocolate. The home page shows you different pictures of their chocolate and store.

Gail Ambrosius

DB Infusion Chocolates

DB Infusion Chocolates sells hand crafted chocolates. Their website is like their chocolates is uses a blend of modern with classic elements. It uses vintage design elements like dark, muted colors, paper-like background and chocolate wallpaper for the site background. From modern design, they use contemporary elements like a modern, fun font and simple, yet attractive buttons.

DB Infusion Chocolates

Website Redesign: Moving From HTML to PHP

By

On March 6, 2013

In CSS, Design, Programming, Web Development

I updated Burlington Footwear‘s website. It was a static website built using HTML and CSS. I created this site when tables were the way to build sites. Over time, I changed the pages to use CSS for more of the layout. The site was becoming a chore to maintain. It was showing its age and needed to be changed. The goals for the web site redesign are update to HTML5, use CSS for layout (no tables) and move to PHP. I found a basic tutorial on how to make a PHP Website From Scratch.

Burlington Footwear

Website Redesign from scratch

I started from scratch with an HTML5 template. I rebuilt the page using CSS and HTML5. The home page is a simple two column design. I reused some of the CSS from the old site with slight modifications. It looks similar to the old site but better. I replaced the images used in the navigation with a CSS Navigation List. The site has less images to download which should help make it load a bit faster on all devices. As mentioned in Front End Performance for Web Designers and Front-End Developers, if you can do it in CSS you should.

Moving to PHP

The next step was changing the HTML page to PHP. The site has several elements that are use on every page. To make maintenance easier, I separated the common elements: Header and Footer into separate include files. I copied my original HTML file and changed it to PHP. I added the include files in the appropriate spots. I tested it on my web server. The page looks exactly like the HTML page.

For the rest of the site, I used the PHP file as my starting point. By using the tutorial as a guide, I was able to achieve the structural and programming goals for the redesign.

4 Tips to Help You Build Better Software

By

On February 28, 2013

In Design, Programming, Web Development

Code listingHow do you build better software? Building better software means knowing why projects fail, making them secure and building a product that people will use. The following articles help you to improve how you approach software development.

  1. Software projects can fail. The way we build software can help to create a project failure. Ulrika Park, Scrum Master at Smart Bear, has complied a list of 50 ways software development can “fail”. She explains what we can do to fix the issue and what we need to stop doing.
  2. When building software or web applications, security can be overlooked. Sometimes you are so excited by an idea, that you jump into writing code that you forget to secure your project. Use these 10 Tips for Secure Development. By keeping your development environment and project secure, you can lessen the cost of dealing with exploited code and reputation management.
  3. Better products consider their users. They choose to use new technologies and programming languages and database that have a supportive developer community. The product is easy to use. Want to build a product that stands out? Here are three tips to build a better product.
  4. When you have poor or badly written code, it can affect the performance of your software. If your users don’t like the performance or even look of the product, you may loose people to your competition. How do you improve you your code? By writing, clean code. Here are the Top 9 qualities of clean code.

How much should you charge?

By

On February 23, 2013

In Programming, Web Development

Whether you are an independent consultant or a web development agency, you need to figure out how much to charge for your services. At a recent Milwaukee Web414 Meetup, Rob Martin talked about how to figure out what to charge? He suggested to not use fixed pricing. Some projects are easier and less complicated than others. If you under estimate a project, it could cost you both money and reputation. While working with his wife in her company, they developed this formula. Rob called it the CRV Model. CRV stands for Complexity, Risk and Value. When considering a project, you need to consider how complex is the project, what are the risks and the value.

The goals of using the model are:

“Pursue the right work. Avoid the wrong work. Mitigate risk. Charge according to value.” – Rob Martin

 The CRV Model

The CRV Model requires math. Not simple math either. It is a scary looking mathematical formula.

CRV Model - Rob Martin

CRV Model created by Rob Martin (version2beta)

In order to calculate a price, you have to consider overhead, complexity, risk, value, estimate in days and materials. Each one of these factors can affect the price of the project. It can help you to spot projects that you should stay away from. Rob Martin broke down the model and described each part and provided examples on how to use this formula. You can see the detailed break down in his slides on the CRV Model. He also made a CRV Factor Calculator. You can use this calculator to help figure out what to charge.

Have you found a better formula for figuring out what to charge you clients?

WordPress Tips from Milwaukee Meetup

By

On February 5, 2013

In Design, Programming, Web Development

WordPressAt the Milwaukee WordPress Meetup, we discussed tools and tips for managing and enhancing your sites.

Managing WordPress

Every web site requires maintenance. WordPress is no exception. The following tools will help you maintain your WordPress site.

  • When you manage multiple WordPress sites, it can be time-consuming to update each one. ManageWP helps you to manage your sites easily. You can choose a pricing plan that fits your needs.
  • Not all Plugins work for your site. When you delete them, they may leave tables in your WordPress installation. You can use Plugins Garbage Collector to clean up the extra tables.
  • You may have some options in Plugins that you don’t use. Options Optimizer lets you turn off unused options.
  • Sometimes WordPress sites load slowly. One cause may be a plugin. You can use Plugin Performance Profiler to tell you how efficient your plugins are. Not all plugins run as well as you need them to. If you have a problem, you can use Plugin Performance Profiler to determine the troublemaker.
  • To speed up a WordPress site, use WordPress caching. Plugins like WP SuperCache or W3 Total Cache.

What about SPAM?

Unfortunately, you need to deal with SPAM. In WordPress, you have a couple of options. You can:

  • Turn off comments. No comments means no SPAM.
  • Use a Plugin called Disqus to manage comments and discussions on your site.
  • Use FaceBook comments. The comments appear on your Fan Page.

Security

WordPress continues to fix bugs, security issues and add new features. An out of date WordPress site can be open to getting hacked. We discussed two things that you can do to help make your sites more secure:

  • Keep WordPress, Plugins and Themes up to date. You can use Automatic Updater to help keep your site up to date.
  • Be careful when selecting themes or Plugins. Some Plugins or themes may hide malicious code. You can scan your WordPress site for malicious code by using free or paid tools.

Themes

WordPress has many options for themes. You can create your own or use themes built by others.

Learning More about WordPress

When you want to learn more, where do you go? You have many options for yourself and your clients. You may want to look at:

Page 36 of 52

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén