Jared Ritchey Blog – Gets a Facelift!

Posted on October 31, 2007
Filed Under Design, Real Estate News | Leave a Comment

New Integrated Joomla – Open Realty – WordPress 2.3.1 Template

Yep design is done, ported, integrated and applied this week. I wrapped up projects outstanding and I’m in full preparation to complete a long overdue and greatly demanded set of WordPress and Joomla tools for Real Estate professionals.

Having worked round the clock since my 4 week absence, I’ve managed to take all the many notes, code snippets and features and build a design that will likely be here for a long time. Coining on WordPress’s new Tag Cloud feature among others the new blog will include a feature I’ve wanted since the day I decided to go online. Recognition as an online publication. Now that I’ve been granted an actual ISBN # from the government, I’m more motivated than ever to revamp my writing procedure and publish blog posts in a way that compliments and informs in the areas of my true passions, design and teaching.

This site will go offline for about 10 hours this weekend and periodically may toss a JavaScript error now and again but I’m looking forward to the blogs new interface and the MOOTOOLS features I’ve added.

Morgan Carey – Real Estate Webmasters Accused of Hacking

Posted on October 31, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News | 7 Comments

The self titled master of real estate marketing accused of hacking competitor

According to a post on the Pro Real Estate Network Forums, Morgan Carey the owner and chief administrator of Real Estate Webmasters has employed unethical and potentially criminal actions by hacking the PREN forum.

Apparently a simple compromise in the password used by a PREN forum moderator after it was concluded that the same identical password had once been used by the would be victim in the REW forums. The moderator, banned from REW for reasons unknown, appears to be specifically targeted when once considers that the PREN forum membership consists of many would be refugee’s from Morgan Carey’s militant banning rampage he is commonly known for. Carey, who is no stranger to allegations of unethical practices in his business ventures, was apparently tracked down through the use of the PREN forum IP trace feature indicating that the compromised account did in fact indicate numerous edits to the moderators posts all of which were designed to flatter and praise Real Estate Webmasters. It was then later discovered that not only were the moderators posts edited but moderator powers were abused to possibly remove back links and other unfavorable content to REW.

Morgan Carey – Illegal Hacking and Deception?

Call me always late, call me always slow, even call me ugly, but never call me presumptuous. This latest bout with Morgan Carey really comes as no surprise as prior encounters with his unethical webmaster practices have netted him a grand total 7 competing forums and services that seek to demonstrate ethics in a business many feel are tainted by the likes of Morgan Carey. It is not by presumption that Morgan Carey or his affiliations were singled out for the allegations when one considers a long checkered history of alleged deceptive and downright unethical practices in the design and marketing of real estate websites. Pro Real Estate Network founders discovered the offense by tracking a series of logins among other things via known IP’s associated with Morgans and his associates who were once active members in PREN. Very interesting!

It should be noted that Morgan has been the target of allegations in the past by members of PREN in yet another lengthy heated debate over his ethics, practices and almost Teflon ability to escape unscathed when fault appears to be his own.

Carey, a residence in beautiful Nanaimo, BC has escaped multiple attempts to sue largely because of his geographical location and the mounting difficulties that would be presented with any attempts to collect debts. This time however its not civil its potentially criminal and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has allegedly been notified but not verified at the time of this post.

After witnessing the unethical practices of Morgan Carey of Real Estate Webmasters over the past 3 years I’m surprised that so few have caught on to the devises used after being so widely published across the internet in public forums. As far back as 2004 Morgan Carey had altered the flash header files of Wyoming Realtor Jim Messengers main site stemming largely from claims that Jim’s well documented ownership of his impressive design was being laid claim to in the portfolio of Real Estate Webmasters. Apparently Morgan was not about to let go of Jim as a client and felt it necessary to give him a going away present by altering his flash header by the inclusion of bogus information and an altered contact phone number. To this day in DVD archive I still possess the offended original file provided by Morgan Carey as I had been ultimately hired to migrate and finish the transfer of Jim Messenger’s site to his new server. Had it not been pointed out to me by Jim Messenger, who is NOT a flash programmer, I would have overlooked the alteration and continued as normal working on the Jackson Hole Real Estate Website Project. Benefit of the doubt is my first conclusion I consider had confirmation not been presented so quickly after the discovery of yet another vindictive modification to Jim Messengers core files.

Shortly thereafter while working on yet another site once hosted with Real Estate Webmasters, PHP programmer Mike Morris had discovered during the repair and migration of Jim’s source code that a small hidden php snippets was inserted to literally send a CC or carbon copy of every contact form submission to a person named Aaron, a known employee of Real Estate Webmasters at the time. Shocking as it may be, I can’t even imagine why a person would want to have a carbon copy of someone else’s email submissions, but then it hit me like a hammer; Many pointed out, “some speculating” that one may easily conclude that Morgans objective was to fulfill in part his obligation to provide leads to other clients having been contracted to do so. Clever technique really but none the less just as unethical as a webmaster can be.

In defense however of Morgan Carey one could argue that Morgan is simply the target of vindictive behavior having risen in stature and status in the Real Estate Webmaster community as to foster such strife. All webmasters during their careers (especially freelance) will experience forum posts, angry emails, and bold yet offensive outright lies in blogs about them. Its par for the course and should be of little deterrence to a steady professional in this business. Quite honestly, its those that don’t suffer some objection that have me concerned more often than not. No press is bad press, right? Maybe!

Rather than continue to rant on this very shocking issue involving a person many consider colleague, associate and even friend, I conclude that to follow the events its best to just visit the Pro Real Estate Network forums today at the following URL.

Page Turn – Page Peel – Adobe Flash Effects

Posted on October 22, 2007
Filed Under Design, Portfolio | 8 Comments

This is now a Plug-in and component for OpenX Ad Management

I’ve updated this little snippet to work with OpenX. Its freeware which are welcome to request.

Variable Flash Elements Positions

A short blurb about the positioning elements like the Adobe Page Turn and Adobe Page Flip items on your site will save you a bit of headache others have experienced.

I published some time ago how to add variable code to control when a particular items shows up on a site based on its URL and this technique can be applied to the display of elements like the Adobe Flash Page Peel and Adobe Flash Page Flipping Book Effects. With the Page Flip or Flash Book as its sometimes called. I’ve applied variable code using PHP to display the book only one time per visit which used session cookies to work properly. With the variable code post I made, its easy to apply a feature in dynamic sites where an element like a flash item displays only on a particular page. Albeit easy in CMS Applications like Joomla, products like Open Realty and or WordPress (depending on the template) can be a bit difficult. You can read the post here.

FREE OsCommerce Templates

Posted on October 22, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio, Products | 5 Comments

Free standard osCommerce Templates easy to modify

Cleaning out my old project directory I discovered that I did in fact have about a half dozen good quality foundation templates for osCommerce MS2 and what I’ve done is install the latest MS2 version over on the LiveDemoSite.com to test them and I’m going to release them FREE.

These templates are NOT super beautiful, a bit heavy, and quite honestly won’t work if you have modified your osCommerce Core. This is one of the biggest reasons I admire the STS and BTS template features in some versions of osCommerce like oscMax, CRE Loaded and so on. Modification to templates in osCommerce requires so much time and energy that it frustrates nearly every designer I’ve ever worked with or been hired to product templates for. People usually if not always modify or extend the capabilities of their osCommerce sites with contributions that modify individual files many of which are template related. This poses a problem.

So, since I rarely suggest osCommerce templates to existing sites anymore I’m going to publish these as FREE providing you register and select “I Agree” that you understand that these are not intended to be added to existing live production sites as they will most certainly break any site with contributions having been added. These templates are for brand spanking new sites using osCommerce MS2+ and beyond that I can promise nothing.

osCommerce vs osCMax vs CRE Loaded vs Shopping Carts – FREE!

I’m a big fan of osCommerce and suggest it to people almost weekly but my latest passion has been in the area of integration as more and more people are realizing the absolute necessary requirement of SEF and SEO friendly commerce solutions. I absolutely love the iJoomla cart although some things about its functionality with OpenSEF is a bit of a mystery it along with CRE Loaded are likely my two favorites to date. A close second is the cart I use on this very site with WordPress along with XCart and of course osCMax. I’ve never been a big fan of ZenCart only because they seek to achieve way to much in the application.

CRE Loaded Templates vs osCommerce Templates

For speed and ease of templating I always suggest people spend the $10 and get a copy of CRE Loaded. The ease in which a template can be applied makes it worth the investment. Options like those for integration I tend to favor are certainly top on my list, but of the osCommerce flavors available, CRE Loaded and osCMax are by far the easiest to create and maintain various template features for. Integration is achievable as in osCommerce but require a bit more work.

osCommerce templates require substantial modifications to individual files to change the look and or feel of a site on a per page basis. Using some PHP in a BTS template for instance makes this relatively simple providing the site owner also invests in the CRE SEF plugin because some template changes are based on the URL.

All CRE Loaded and osCommerce Templates look alike – Beautiful Designs Not Possible?

Have you ever wondered why these templates all look and behave the same? Take any 50 osCommerce, CRE Loaded and Zen Cart templates, stack them on top of one another, and transparently look through them all. You will discover they are all essentially the same. Same features, same general structure, same general look and certainly the same bulky fat and heavy code. I’ve yet to see one of these actually available in XHTML and CSS compliant formats. The silly thing is that XHTML and CSS compliant is actually possible with some core modifications that neither CRE Loaded or others seem at all interested in. Why then are they so expensive?

The number one motive for me not releasing commercial grade CRE Loaded designs has been as I’ve elated to so many times in forums across the web. Simply “proprietary code” which sets all my commercial designs for clients above and beyond standard turnkey designs. I’ve been very tempted to make available commercial grade CRE Loaded templates with the kinds of features professional online stores deserve but have been unable to really package in a meaningful way a turnkey template solution that would be easy to install for novice users. The simple fact is that most of my CRE Loaded templates require some degree of time consuming modification to work per domain and has kept me from a turnkey release option.

Luckily times change, and I’ve been able to have some new code written that should make configuration relatively easy. I’m not going to promise anything, but will simply say keep your eyes on this blog in the next few weeks as I’m cleaning up and repackaging my CRE Loaded inventory for distribution. What you can expect is anything but carbon copy designs for the hundreds of dollars you normally expect.

CSS Design Magic – A Site Above – Make MONEY NOW!

Posted on October 19, 2007
Filed Under Design | 3 Comments

Established, Aged, SE Indexed, PR Rranking, Business Site Opportunities

Cleaning house and getting rid of several domains I’m putting up three for sale, two of which are immediate. These two domains were originally going to be created as a CSS gallery and a CSS repository for code and open source templates specifically developed to benefit its members by providing one way links. Time and energy are better spent elsewhere at this time and I’d hate to see good site names like this die. Each is aged better than 4 years and each has some kind of PR and does index in the SE’s. Markets can be slow and more people invest in other businesses to build residual incomes between September and December than other times of the year. If you are looking for a place to invest, then invest in your own site. These sites have great earning potential and as I mentioned are ALL AGED SITES which lends a great deal to their SEO prowess and potential. Please read more about these sites and contact me for further details.

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Updates! Dreamweaver Template Extensions

Posted on October 19, 2007
Filed Under Design | 2 Comments

Templates, Extensions, Products and Plugin Updates

People have asked what the delay was for all the plugins, templates and other products and its simply this. I’ve been gone for long period of time handling a personal matter. I haven’t fully returned to full time work here or at the school so I’ve let a few things slide.

Those who were curious about other aspects of the template design extensions for Adobe Dreamweaver should note that each of these are actually production ready and when I updated my WordPress to version 2.3 it somehow broke my shopping cart which I’ve simply not had a spare moment to fix. I’m going to install a file manager this weekend where you can simply register and download the files without using the shopping cart for all the items that are FREE. This will include all of the templates and some code snippets.

Code Snippets, Tutorials, Updates, Support Docs, Guides, Articles!

Since my absence I’ve managed to take a few hundred brainstorming notes while on the plane between California and Washington each trip and I’ve come up with a new method for publishing support materials and articles for code snippets and such.

My idea is to continue to use WordPress as my primary CMS for this site and then use Joomla 1.0.12 (my version which is modified to accommodate SEF better) as the primary article publishing medium. I’ll publish blurbs or introductions I’ll call the short version in my blog solely for WordPress impressive search engine friendly presence and then direct people to the full documented version of the articles in my new Joomla install. I’ll test this but if I’m correct, it should improve Search Engine rank in regards to getting pages out of “supplemental” status which Google now hides from people.

The new Joomla install location for articles will feature some cool stuff as well like the iJoomla Magazine component and my all time favorite DocMan for document and file management. I can’t count how many Realtors I’ve installed DocMan for that come very dependent on its features. Its a great product. Since I no longer use the Joomla PDF generator for articles, I drafted a new standardized look for all documents that I publish to this site. I simply draft all articles in MS Word, test them for keyword density among other SEO things with my tester, print it to PDF, create an HTML version and finally create a visually impaired version for the compliance people. All articles can be downloaded in DOC, RTF, PDF, MSReader, and HTML formats once complete.

Last the Articles Section will be here: http://www.jaredritchey.com/articles/ (Please ignore that template I was just messing around)

Photoshop Web Templates

Posted on October 3, 2007
Filed Under Design | 2 Comments

Interesting and hefty week of teaching at the college presented a desperate need to alter the semesters syllabus after realizing that the cutting edge is in the minds of the designers not the educators. Its been said that assumption is the mother of all screw ups and the reality of that statement rings true when you actually experience it first hand.

As an instructor for Photoshop for Web Design, its easy to fall into the assumption or should I say presumption that as an instructor I should know more and have more experience than the students I teach. As this modern world’s youth are raised in front of computers, It’s easy to realize the paradigm that the very nature, perspective and interaction between people and the expression of their knowledge is a reflection of how they were raised. Second nature to almost every student this semester, the computer and nearly every facet of it including the use of very advanced software took me by surprise more so then ever before.

Students, especially those that are emerging college students, have nearly a lifetime of exposure to computers and or software. In previous times such knowledge had been the realm of those considered geeky “professional” whom of which would have invested his or her entire life to become proficient. Today its second nature for many students.

Tactics change and so does the syllabus for Photoshop Template Building. More than just a trivial post, I’m forced to rethink my approach in the Rapid Template Design Kit tutorials which I’ll address yet again.

Until then, happy posting.


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