Wordpress Tricks

I have received a couple emails about how I built portions of this site with wordpress so I’ve decided to put together a quick post with some of the things I’ve learned over the past couple sites I’ve built.

1. What theme should I use?
There are two ways to go about this question and it depends largely on your comfort level with PHP and CSS. If you feel like you can layout your own css and manipulate the PHP I would start with a blank template. It’s easier to set up the CSS, easier to change the PHP if you need. Start by checking out http://wpframework.com. They have a pretty little set up running.

2. How do you create multiple single pages?
It’s actually really simple. In your current single.php page delete everything and turn it into an “if” statement (other logical ways exist but you get the idea). All you’d need to do is the following to have two different single pages for your theme. In this code I have separated them based on the different category of content.  
<?php
    $post = $wp_query->post;
    if ( in_category(’23′) ) {
        include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/single_folioPersonal.php’);
    } elseif ( in_category(’22′) ) {
        include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/single_folio.php’);
    }
?> 

3. What Plugins are you using?
A bunch actually. Here is a partial list
- All in one SEO Pack 
- del.icio.us for WordPress
- Disqus
- Title Capitalization 
- Akismet  
- Regenerate Thumbnails 
- Twitter Tools 

Thats a start for now. I’ll update this post as I continue to change things and have more time to talk about how I setup the templates. Hope this helps.

Moved My RSS Feed

I have moved my RSS feed to another service. Please subscribe to my RSS feed at this URL: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Lednine

Thanks

A Rough Day…

Yesterday was a really hard for me at Xylem. Tough economic times have hit every aspect of the nation and Xylem was no exception. In the last 4 months we have seen the sales pipeline slow, clients push out payables, and client decisions take longer than expected. We have been staffed for a larger company and larger work load for some time and finally had to make the hard decision to re-build the company around the work we have. We had to see a lot of very talented people move on yesterday. All I can say is thanks to everyone. We’ll work together again some day. I’ll miss everyone.

New Look New Ideas

So I am in the middle of updating the look and functionality of Lednine. I’ll go ahead and apologize now for some of the css and js bugs. Still working out the kinks and I wanted to upload something tonight. In the next week I’ll re-release my work and other functionality as well as a few blog postings to start in a new direction. Thanks

Wordpress

I have been rebuilding this blog and I can’t say enough about how cool wordpress is as a blog/cms. It’s been so easy to make changes and so easy to configure. Anyways - I know this is nothing but I’m excited to get something up that I can update more frequently. I like what I have but it’s a pain to update. This new version will be cake to work with. Later

GE’s Smart Grid

Very cool site: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid. Great use of motion and sound to tell the story. Not to mention the rest of the crazy as3 and paper-vision.

It Been a While

So its been a while since I updated lednine. Time to get back on the wagon. In a first attempt to leave you with something a little different check thjis out. Anyone out there that is a typography nerd will get a kick out of this: http://www.maxkerning.com/

Finally a Break in the Madness…

Wow. Its has been one of those years. I have been so busy the last couple months that it has seemed impossible to even think about writing anything on this site. Well now that I will have some time over break I intend to post a few things that have been on my mind, some new work, and maybe even a couple functional updates. Thanks

Amazing Work with Quartz Composer And C++

Webcam Piano with Quartz Composer from Memo Akten on Vimeo.

New Personal Work

I’ll upload the rest of this to the site sooner than later but here is a link to some of my personal work: personal work