Coseismic Records of Tucson is taking that technology and using it to help aide the Tucson Tragedy Victims.  Coseismic Records together with Local Southern Arizona Musicians have put together a 2 CD set compilation album to raise money for the victims of the January 8th shooting through the Tucson Together Fund.

“We are so honored to take part in something that will help some of the lives that were affected,” said Danielle Crosby of Compose the Octave – an Artist on the Album, “Our thoughts and prayers have been with the victims and their families since that awful day.”

Make a Donation or Purchase an Album to raise money for the Tucson victims.

The moment I arrived, I felt at home. All these people knew what “The Loop” was. They were like me and wanting to download as much information as they can. I suddenly felt not alone.

After the Angry Birds attack in the opening speeches I was off to my first class. A bit of confusion on what room I was supposed to be in, I found myself walking into the right class a bit late. Mitcho the creator of YARPP. He was talking about A/B testing. He built an awesome plugin that does control testing without disrupting your visitors viewing experience or having to create a test site called ShrimpTest. ShrimpTest, nice. I like it! It’s a useful tool and I plan on using it on this site here in the future.

The second class was presented by Mark Jaquith, the lead developer for WordPress. I felt a little star stuck by now, you know the only kind of star stuck you can tweet to your geek friends because the “real world” would just look at you funny. He covered the importance of Theme and Plugin security. I learned some great tips and how to use:

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My third class was one I was really excited about. It was Chelsea Otakan. She discussed Typography and it’s use in WordPress. Typography isn’t my strong suite. I just think, eh… this font looks sweet. She taught me the important of feeling and emotion you want to get from a font and how to stick within the same families. I think I am going to revamp the typography on this website in the next week.

Boone Gorges was my fourth class, a philosopher and a BuddyPress developer. I was highly interested in BuddyPress because I am often approached by clients about Social Communities online. I am a die hard WordPress lover and want to use it for everything including Social Site setups. I was scared to use it. I am not sure why, fear of the unknown I suppose. Boone did an EXCELLENT job at explaining BP and how to set it up using a child theme. He even answered my question about how easy it is to upgrade. Nothing like upgrading a site and it falls to pieces over a plugin. **HEADACHE!!** Great Job, Boone!

After an excellent meal, Arizona style of course, I continued to my last 3 classes. Next up, Custom Post Types and the backend taught by Ryan Duff. SWEEETT!!! I am addicted to building custom post types, custom admins and basically anything that will make my client’s life easier when using WordPress. Ryan Duff was spotted wearing pink fuzzy slippers to prove he’s not sexist. He’s officially my hero. Ryan Duff is also a contributor to the WordPress core. And I am excited to learn that I can move my CPT menus in the newest release. I attempted this method on WP 3.0.4 and it failed. I thought I was doing something wrong. Ryan clarified this is a new method that is going to be released soon.

I was going to stay in the class for CPT and the front end, but I already know how to loop in the data and query the meta information. I was interested in Membership sites. They are another question I receive from clients. I was someone disappointed, not in the speaker but in myself for not reading the description. It touched more on how to market a membership site. I wanted to learn how to turn WP into a membership site. With a little direction from Chris Lema on twitter, he introduced me to MagicMembers. A big thanks to Chris.

My final class was Plugins for Designers. It was taught by Cody Landefeld. He showed us several plugins that are helpful to designers. Most of them I use already, such as Contact Forms 7. I swear by that plugin. I used to be a Cforms II stalker but found so much more functionality and ease of use with Contact Forms 7. Recently a great programmer I know developed an Contact Forms add-on for Campaign Monitor. You should get it if you haven’t already.

We finished up the day in the main room with Pat Tillman Donations, and give aways. I won a sweet book, “Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes” for being a Chandler resident. It literally took me 5 minutes to drive there.

Other things I learned and OH:

1. It’s WordPress not wordpress or Word press or word press. Whoops – I have some categories and tags to fix.
2. WordPress 3.0 has more downloads than IE9 Beta.
3. Write drunk, edit sober – Chris Conrey
4. The After Party is where the cool kids go. I just went home to my kids.
5. Passion without profit is called a hobby. – Cory Miller
6. Perfectionism is evil – Cory Miller
7. Don’t over complicate it. >Cody Landefeld
8. We are sorry about IE6. …Sorry – The Microsoft Guy
9. eval() is evil.
10. No non-profit should have advertising on their site.

Overall my experience at #WCPHX was amazing. There were some classes I missed and can’t wait for the PodCasts to be available. I will defiantly be there next year and planning to do the all weekend event not just the Saturday event. And my 5 year old daughter, McKenna, will be hacking it up at the WordCamp for Kids. If I don’t watch it, soon she’ll be out coding me.

In America’s Web Design Firms there is a huge trend to outsource IT, Web Design and Development work overseas to countries like India, Philippines and South America. Sending work overseas drastically lowers the hourly rate for work than it would for an in-house employee. The web firm saves on taxes and hourly wages but at what price? Usually the term you get what you pay for applies here. You are sacrificing skill, quality, and ultimately the security of your website.

Many web design production farms overseas build a fully functional website for $250 – $750. But you just paid your firm $5,000 for a design. Who pockets the difference? And you were delivered a low quality website. Most clients are not aware of the web design standards. They think the product they were just delivered was top dollar from the best web design firm in their town.

Clients are not XHTML experts. They don’t know how to view the source code of their site and see how it was put together. Was the design loaded into photoshop and exported as XHTML? Or did an experience web designer work diligently on their website testing it’s functionality and making sure it passes XHTML/CSS compliance standards.

They way you rank in Google also plays a part in the way your website was put together. If it was exported through a program you will end up with a ton of divs or tables that are mathematically position absolutely on the page. It’s not laid out relatively to the document therefore flowing and making it easier for Google to read and understand. In the long run this penalizes you in Google. If Google can’t read your content the way you wrote it and the way you intended it to be laid out than you are not going to see the results you were looking for.

As for a matter of security, how can an American company hold an overseas company accountable for any security breaches in a website? You can’t. Will the local firm take responsibilities for the mistakes? Do you know if there was maliciously placed code in your E-Commerce Cart? Is someone tracking your sales? Your customer’s information? Or their Credit Card information? Sure it can happen here with local companies as well, but you can sue an American Company for such violations. In America when you mutually come to an agreement and the contract is finalized, you are legally protected. We also have copyright laws to abide by. Do you know if that logo or that image wasn’t taken from another site, or used illegally?

Finally, our economy… the current state of our economy is lower than it has been in years. We have so much local talent why not use and stimulate our own economy? So many designers are looking for work and can produce beautiful designs and work. I once spoke with a friend that works for a company that does outsource some of their work overseas. He stated, “I am not apart of a Team unless I move to India.” It is sad that local talent feels their jobs are threatened by workers that cost half as much.

In conclusion, you don’t know where or who is working on your website. You don’t know what the real quality of the site is. Searching for a web design firm you should ask these questions:

1. Do you outsource your projects?
2. Who do you outsource to?
3. Are they overseas?
4. Who is going to take responsibility if things are not up to standards?
5. Can you get it in the contract that your project is kept in-house?

Enchanted Illusions is proud to say we keep 95% of all work in-house. When there are projects that are outside our expertise, we use other local web design firms and freelancers that we have built long relationships with over the past three years. We are 100% made in the USA.

Since it was released on WordPress.org, I have used this plugin on my client’s websites. I am usually impressed by his work but I was amazed at how easy it was to integrate into my Contact Forms 7 form I had already built. The addon uses the CampaignMonitor API to send the submitted email and name to the Campaign Monitor list of your choice.

Collecting your website’s visitors email is important for marketing to get people back to your site. A contact form is a way for people to sign up to receive more information, or to hear about special offers, or to get your newsletter. Remember to include a privacy policy that you will never sell their email address and they can opt-out at any time. Mention they can receive special offers just by signing up that are not available to others, this can be a great sign up incentive. The Contact Form 7 Addon for Campaign Monitor is a great tool to do this.

Download it from here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7-campaignmonitor-addon/

Or read more about it here:
http://www.bettigole.us/published-work/wordpress-contributions/campaign-monitor-addon-for-contact-form-7/

If you are interested in Campaign Monitor Services or a Custom Designed Template you can contact me and we will discuss your options.

Overall, your audience usually wants to see a personal side of the people they may be working with. It is sometimes considered the most important page of your site. Many will either hire someone else to do it or re-purpose documentation from another source, such as a brochure. Think about your Company Bio as your “Online Calling Card.” What your potential client reads can make or break the deal.

Before You Start, determine your strategy. What is the message you want to convey to your potential business ventures? Put yourself in their shoes, outline your expertise and goals and align them with their needs. What are the company’s accomplishments? If your company has won any awards, be sure to include them and link to the creditable source, such as the Better Business Bureau.

If you plan on incorporating employee profiles here are a few things to keep in mind. Try to keep things consistent. Having each person write their own bio can produce a tacky, unorganized page. You are opening yourself up for more misspellings and grammatical errors. This can reflect poorly on your company, giving the appearance of a very uneducated office. It is best to have one person write the bios for each person, thus maintaining the consistency and flow. Most companies use simple 5-10 questionnaires for employees to fill out for the appointed writer. These questions range from position to education.

Have your employees incorporate some of their personal lives into their questionnaires. A personal bio is the building block of your professional relationship. It helps your potential clients know a little bit more about you and your staff beforehand, and can help make them feel at ease.

A group photo conveys the message of a team and puts faces to the names. When taking a photo as a group or as an individual, plan in advance. Make sure your team is dressed in its office best and give plenty of notice. No one wants to be the one that showed up in jean shorts, flip flops and bed head. Use a professional, if possible. If your budget can’t permit a pro, use a nice digital camera with a tripod. If you are planning on using individual photos try to use the same backdrop/background for consistency.

Remember to include methods for contact with your team members. Include phone numbers, extensions, and emails. If you plan to allow social media connections, remind your employees that what they say and do on the internet that is linked with the company is a direct image of the company. To minimize client complaints, co-worker/boss complaints, and things that is NSFW (Not Safe for Work.) There is nothing wrong with denying someone’s Facebook page link if their profile picture is from last week’s keg party.

Remind your potential client that is them that matters, the client. Display testimonials of other clients if possible.

Re-read your company biography out loud and have another set of eyes proof read your work. Above all, be interesting, honest and sell yourself on why your company is unique and professional.

Typography can say a lot about your website. It sets the appropriate mood and theme, branding your website to the viewer. It is important to choose a font that is easy to read, conveys the message you are trying to send or have a clear meaning to the viewer the moment they land on the page.

In web design there are three clear types of typography:

1. Logo Typography
2. Heading Typography
3. Body Typography

Logo Typography

This is the most important. It is the font your viewers will remember the most. Coke products are known for the elegant fancy “C” in the logo. If the logo was designed with Arial it wouldn’t make an impression.

Heading Typography

This typography can be a mix between the Logo type and the standard body type (see below). Header typography needs to stand out. Your headings sum up the content that is written below and needs to grab your viewer’s immediate attention. With the use of Jquery font replacement scripts, heading type can now be any font type and be search engine friendly. Heading type is usually larger and a different color than the body type.

Body Typography

The types are limited for body typography and web safe fonts should be used instead. Unfortunately browsers can only use the font types that are installed on the viewer’s computer. Every user has different font types installed and it is unlikely there is a great number that has the font you want installed. No need to worry, there is hope. There is a list of standard web safe fonts that are installed on each version of Windows and the equivalent on the Mac OS.

These font’s are but not limited to: (Windows/Mac OS)

• Arial/Helvetica
• Arial Black/Gadget
• Lucida Console/Monoco
• Lucida Sans Unicode/Lucida Grande
• Palatino Linotype/Palatino
• Tahoma/Geneva
• Trebuchet MS/Helvetica

Overall, choosing the correct typography can become tedious but finding the right combination can improve your viewer’s experience on your site.