A New Logo
by Andrew Embler
No, not for us. We already have a new logo. No, the logo I’m talking about is for Wal-Mart:
It’s interesting they ditched the hyphen - makes sense though, since I could never remember if Walmart was spelled with one or not. The iconic Walmart star is present, but they’ve moved it from the middle. Upon seeing this logo with the star at the end, the first thing I thought of was an asterisk, meant to denote some bit of trivia or impart a cautionary reminder about the company in question.
Walmart*
(* - May prove hazardous to liberals, leftists, protectionists and yuppies.)
(* - Prolonged exposure may lead to nerve damage.)
(* - Watch for falling prices…or reap the whirlwind.)
(* - Surgeon General Recommends a Lifestyle Free of Excessive Bargains.)
And so on… Any you want to add?
Concrete5 Says Goodbye to Internet Explorer 6
by Andrew Embler
…For editing, at least. Sites built with Concrete5 will work in any browser, if they’re coded for it. But the editing interface and the dashboard, both of which feature some pretty complex interface work, are only supported in:
- Safari 2+
- Internet Explorer 7+
- Firefox 2
Other browsers, like Camino and Opera, will likely support Concrete5 just fine. But IE 6 will not. Not even close. As I was mulling over this blog post I caught another one on the same topic. It seems that Apple is doing exactly the same thing with their forthcoming suite of web applications, MobileMe.
Not bad company to be in, and necessary. The sheer amount of time that goes into debugging things for one specific, eight-year-old browser is mind-boggling. However, dropping IE 6 support is not without its pitfalls: the sheer amount of time saved might overwhelm the typical developer, as she finds herself with much less to do and much less stress about the web in general. The key is to fill this time with something productive. Try tending a garden; read a lengthy Russian novel; teach yourself Spanish; take a cooking class.
(Oh, and install that IE 8 beta in some of your free time - it’ll be released before you know it. And Firefox 3 just came out, so you’d better download that. And Opera 9.5. And Safari 4 is on the horizon.)
Maybe you’d better read a shorter novel after all.
chuga chuga…
by Franz
one week later, we’re ranked 800 out of 179,523 projects on sourceforge, with over 150 downloads. We’ve got handful of people helping in various countries, we’re hard at work on our hosting and marketing materials… Our booth for osCon2008 is purchased, we’re hoping to leave that event with 30 active developers contributing their time… we’ve basically got 6 weeks to get ready… very exciting…
..go team!
by Franz
Just had our 100th download of concrete5 on sourceforge. We’ve been talking to several developers who are helping us further refine the install process. Some guy from Brazil is even pitching in!
open source is neat.
You’ve got some %$&*ing mail!
by kate
Okay, who the hell turns their speaker volume up so loud that you can hear “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!” from their AOL account through their floor (our ceiling)? Our upstairs neighbors have received four pieces of mail today. We need to figure out a way to strike back. I’m thinking ceiling-mounted speakers and Ahnold.
DESTROY.
Developers are Human, too
by Andrew Embler
From the beginning, Concrete has been designed as a system that makes the creation of pages easy, with a flexible “block” system available for placing items of content within these pages. As Concrete has matured, new data types have been created for different types of tasks. In Concrete5, for example, we have all sorts of these: single pages, page types, themes, blocks, elements, user attributes, page attributes, email templates, and more.
Pre-pre-pre launch!!
by Franz
Well we still have a long way to go before I’d call it a polished product that didn’t have a lot of lose ends, but the whole thing is stable and the important bits are working well. The UI has also settled down so it really feels like cleanup time to us. We’re launching concrete5.org to try to drum up some help from the open source development community as I type. Sadly there’s nothing for me to do but bug people about getting C’s in the right cases right now, so I’m posting here so my team will stop scowling at me.
concrete5.org is live! yay, tell your developer friends.
sweet ass new logo.
by Franz
Dig the new logo treatment.
Why Our Office Rules
by Andrew Embler
I arrived at work today and prepared to engage in my typical morning routine. Step 1: Put lunch in fridge. Step 2: Brew Coffee. Step 3: wait nervously until step 2 completes. Step 4…well, you get the idea.
Back from the Yucatan
by ttrupp
So, after a bit too much sun and tequilla, I’m back at work after a couple of weeks on the Yucatan. Back to the “real world”. It’s a bit of an adventure emersing yourself in a foriegn country where you barely speak the language. The strange thing is that first week I was surrounded by not spanish speakers, but chain smoking germans. I was studying at a small spanish school down there where most of the residents were from northern europe. Fortunately for me, most of the europeans knew about 4 or 5 languages, so english became the spoken language when I was in the room. I was staying in Playa Del Carmen, which is a cool little beach town that has become the fastest growing city in North America. It’s a lot cheaper & more laid back than the spring-break-partier destination of Cancun to the north. After refreshing my poor Spanish skills in Playa I rented a car (driving in Mexico is insane btw. One-way streets and individual lanes are sort of arbitrary concepts there). I headed south to spend a few days in these primitive cabana-bungalows in Tulum, which turned out to be on a nude beach. Then ventured inland to explore the various mayan ruin sites around the peninsula. Uxmal was probably the highlight. A good trip all and all. It definity served its intended purpose of giving some time to reflect and to momentarily re-evaluate this strange american culture we live in.
The Business of Bullshit.
by Andrew Embler
Hey all, this is Andrew. I’m Director of Technology here at Concrete Websites, and I’m going to take the reins from Franz for a second.
I’ve been making websites for more than ten years – first as a production/HTML guy, then a web and database programmer, and now as a director of some very talented programmers. Through it all, a number of things have remained constant. One of those is the impressive amount of bullshit involved when talking about the web. For example, in preparing for this post I took a trip to The Web Economy Bullshit Generator, and while its layout is dated, its content is as hilarious and spot-on today as it was when it debuted. And as the web changes, new sites have arisen to chronicle its changing lexicon. Everyone, it seems, is hatin’ on buzzwords.
first use…
by Franz
So I originally architected Concrete CMS in a nice little bar in SE Portland to deal with an adCouncil gig we had with too many stakeholders and not enough time. That was many years ago, and since the early days my dear friend and comrade Andrew Embler has taken the lose direction outlined in my sketchbook of “blocks and collections” and made it work on fixed budgets for demanding clients. Concrete has had some really compelling concepts since those early days, but like any box of tools you use hard - there’s some idiosyncrasies that drive you up the wall. Being the guy finally responsible for training clients, and getting content into working sites that make sense - I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on the complete re-haul concrete5 for some time. I’ve peered over shoulders a lot, but today was the first time I got to play with it on a site I need to deal with.
funny ass links
the web will save the world.
by Franz
Some sites that I think are making the world a better place:
Minti.com - a parenting site that people seem to really use to reach out and find solutions and fellowship in parenting.
FreeRice.com - a mindless game you can play where the more you play the more rice they donate to the World Food Program. Does it make a difference? I dunno, but I like the idea of the energy people put into games being recycled into something useful.