Template Monster Conversions - CMS CSS / XHTML

Posted on November 9, 2007
Filed Under Design, Products | 5 Comments

Real Estate - CMS - Joomla - WordPress - Open Realty Template Monster

It seems to be an increasingly popular request by people wanting to take a design they find in a template club or template house and have it converted to function with a CMS. The converting of stock templates from Boxed Art, Template Monster, and other template suppliers into a fully dynamic solution for popular CMS can be a rather complex chore. Many of these template suppliers provide visually attractive designs in largely static variants that are all to often also coded using standards now since expired.

Taking one of these designs and converting it to a valid XHTML / CSS layout then porting the template to work with Joomla, Open Realty, WordPress among others is really a task best suited for the Rapid Template Design Series. This single minded approach assists myself and my partner with the kind of conversion speed necessary to put the RTDS through its paces.

But how much is a conversion to one of these flavors of CMS solutions? Lets look at just three in summary to help you get an idea.

Joomla - Converting templates to XHTML / CSS for Joomla CMS $125+

Joomla as many would agree, is likely the worlds most popular and effectively built CMS solutions available today. What once cost corporations and government agencies tens of thousands of dollars in the past can now be done for a fraction of the cost. What I mean by that statement is that CMS solutions were and quite honestly still are expensive investments. With the availability of applications like Joomla the cost can be reduced and better allocated toward training and features in design that better suit the visitors needs.

Taking a template from one of the template suppliers and converting it is by no means a quick operation as many things need to be taken into consideration. When such requests are asked of us we always recreate the design in XHTML / CSS valid layout prior to porting it to Joomla.

WordPress - Converting templates to XHTML / CSS for WordPress $125+

WordPress stands in my fully biased position as the ONLY blog worthy of attention by serious site owners. I make such a bold statement like that after spending several years working with this marvel of publishing prowess and I have found no application quite like it anywhere on the web.

When serious businesses want to improve market effectiveness many opt in for WordPress. Every single real estate site I’ve ever built that ranked and did so well, did so because of WordPress. I can go on for hours on the ways we achieve this but very few words would articulate what WordPress is prepared to provide out of box.

The simple fact is no one wants a site that looks like someone else’s (carbon copy that is). So many times we take clients Photoshop concepts or templates from a variety places and convert them to work with WordPress after XHTML / CSS validation is achieved. The powerful benefits in the RTDS makes this possible for a fraction of the cost of a custom design and reduces turn around to an afternoon in most cases. WordPress template conversions are particularly suited to my field of expertise.

Open Realty - Converting templates to XHTML / CSS for Open Realty $125+

Open Realty is one of the premier Real Estate Listing Managers available today. One of the difficult things that has troubled Open Realty site owners is the lack of good quality templates at turnkey prices. Custom designs begin on average at $350 and quickly go up depending on integration and features.

Using the RTDS with client provided designs reduces costs to well below $200 on average. Frequently I encounter people who wish to have an attractive template monster design converted to operate with Open Realty. I’m happy to say that in the three years I’ve been building templates for Open Realty I’ve only encountered two designs that could not be effectively converted. Some designs are simply better suited for CMS systems like Joomla with an Open Realty Integration.

Open Realty Joomla WordPress Integrated - Converted templates as XHTML / CSS $425+

Not yet in my product list, the conversion of a commercial template from a template club to an integrated solution is by no means a simple procedure. However with the code snippets we use for integration we are able to bring together truly impressive designs in a valid XHTML / CSS solution to site owners at a fraction of the cost of full blown custom coding.

Feel free to contact me with questions regarding templates you are considering for conversion.

Morgan Carey - REW PREN Hacking - Timely Apology

Posted on November 2, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News | 6 Comments

Well articulated apology given by Morgan Carey

Morgan Carey, the owner and co founder of Real Estate Webmasters provided a rather lengthy and well articulated apology today regarding the disparaging events that victimized the PREN forums earlier this week.

Informative, clear, and certainly well presented, Morgan Carey stated that upon careful examination of the evidence being presented by PREN administrators and technical staff, he was able to successfully ascertain that the hacking could very well have been a rogue employee. After Morgan Carey conducted his own exhaustive internal investigation, Carey appears confident in his findings as he expressed his apology directly to PREN by stating;

“… PREN although I will never agree with your practices of allowing anonymous users to post defamatory statements regarding REW, I do think this staff member crossed the line.”

Mr. Carey continues on with the apology by stating his concerns regarding the apparent rivalry between his forums at Real Estate Webmasters and the forums for the Pro Real Estate Network. The 1,000+ word post went into lengthy detail regarding what Morgan believes to be the true nature of the unfortunate disruption regarding the PREN forums and states that similar although unrelated attacks on his own forums have taken place over the span of Real Estate Webmasters lofty presence on the internet. Webmasters and forum administrators would certainly agree that sites that are on the top in stature and presence do in fact become targets of malicious attacks and defamation which is simply a painful reality we all face.

Morgan Carey, more apologetic than sympathetic in his post made several references to the rivalry between his forum and forum(s) in a less than direct way which could leave some to conclude that the motive was entirely predatory. Predatory attacks do take place as we see headlines of such behavior between rivals all the time. Morgan Carey was careful to disclaim such motives outwardly but the voice of his message leaves an impression that such a motive may have been the case. When one considers that no fewer than 7 (seven) forums did surface as a result of rivalry or differences in authority and opinion by former long standing members and co-founders of REW; rivalry seems to be an appropriate conclusion in the hidden suggestion of such.

Rogue REW Employee Hacks PREN forums?

As it appears, the most informative and important facet of this event is the revealing of Morgan Carey’s internal investigation. The investigation apparently netted REW staff the conclusion that it may likely be the fact that REW’s own employee perpetrated the malice against the PREN forums. Interestingly enough, each of the forums, REW and PREN, do in fact use the popular vBulletin forum software to power their growing communities. An employee with knowledge and familiarity of vBulletin could in fact compromise passwords.

However, a question sits on the tongues of the curious; Was this event by direct command or was it fully without express knowledge of Morgan Carey that the compromised password and act of violating the PREN’s forums was ensue (ensue not always clear). Either way, from a legal stand point we discover that REW could very well be fully liable for the acts of its employees rendering express knowledge moot in the eyes of the law.

Since Morgan Carey is not known for his technical ability but rather his SEO prowess, does lend a level of credibility regarding his denial of involvement. The mining of vBulletin passwords is a lofty task for the non technical as the software does not divvy up such information easily. Compromised passwords take the kind of knowledge only the very skilled would possess.

Alternatively, a plugin could have been installed allowing vBulletin administrators (or assigned powers to be) to see and or edit passwords on a whim. Morgan states that such an ability is not in their means and not part of their administrative practices. It is known however that vBulletin third party developers have made available many expanding additions to the software that give more control and power over their forums. Some are less than ethical in my biased opinion. Some of these plugins provides forum owners casual access to information perceived to be private as in private messaging between members as well as monitoring of other member interactions. Interestingly, such features would not likely be installed without the express knowledge of a forums owner.

Bench warmers on the sidelines still express opinion regarding these events as clearly drawn lines of bias or should I say indifference riddle the forums and blogs around the web. One thing is for certain, should the investigation conducted by the US Justice Department net contradicting evidence to this latest explanation, many may conclude the outer most extremes of webmaster ethics in ways that could harm the entire industry. Webmasters have been coming under increasing fire in recent months as an apparent trend in forum moderation seems to also include censorship, deception and outright policing of member interaction in what is perceived to be a community or publicly accessible forums. Fallout and swift changes in pledge of allegiance may surface.

PREN administrators oppose the notion in Morgan’s apology that they participate in the practices of allowing anonymous or guest users to make posts. PREN policy is “policy” not “police” and albeit more open to the freedoms not afforded elsewhere with opinions, guests and the anonymous are not permitted persons to make posts.

Morgan Carey’s apology, although clearly sided and albeit carefully written with disclaimer verbiage, does seem genuine rather than damage control motivated on the surface. Conclusions I’m sure will meet with disagreement, Morgan’s timely apology presents some logical answers that will be the subject of many forums and blogs today I’m sure. The rogue employee findings does answer some very interesting questions which will be discussed abroad. Such a finding would not be impossible or even out of the question as you may very well agree.

Regardless of differences between those pro or contra, Morgan Carey’s apology was timely and appropriate as was foreseen just 24hours prior. We eagerly await the feedback we are sure to see across the web. As an active member of Real Estate Webmasters forums myself I’ve been hesitant to visit and make posts because of perceived rivalry between the forums even though I’ve found interaction with REW members rewarding in the past. As the Administrator or Moderator of many forums across the web, situations like this leave me in a state of empathy and concern for those determined to undermine one another. Lets hope this isn’t the case!

PREN Recovered Hacked Posts

Posted on November 1, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News | 2 Comments

Hacked posts in PREN potentially recovered

Alleged hacking by Real Estate Webmasters - Morgan Carey - May have done little damage.

After careful examination of the backup inventory it was discovered today that it may be possible to recover many of the deleted posts perpetrated by the user of the compromised moderator account.

Today, after being notified that the FBI will be looking at the server logs, I was expressly instructed to stand down on any updates, repairs and modifications in my attempts to recover the missing posts in Pro Real Estate Network Forums. Luckily, the vBulletin software features many essential characteristics beneficial to commercial forums that forever secure it in my preference as the ideal commercial tool for building large well managed communities. Had it not been for some of the applications features for backup and recovery the data that had PREN owners so very concerned, could have been lost forever. Essential to the government during its investigation into the allegations of Morgan Carey’s alleged intrusion, PREN owners and administrators vowed to cooperate with the investigation by providing critical historical data archived as a procedural practice since the forums inception.

PREN administrators, eager to assist in the investigation, express appreciation and gratitude for the absolutely stellar cooperation received by RackSpace, the company that manages the many servers used for PRENs business ventures. Gladly we can adequately defend and boldly protest that vBulletin itself was not compromised by a flaw or security threat present in the application as once considered.

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