Viewing your site before it goes live – Flush DNS

Posted on February 27, 2008
Filed Under Code Snippets, Technical Resources | 9 Comments

How to Flush DNS – See New Site Before It Resolves Live!

One of the greatest techniques ever used by responsible web designers.

I was chatting with Mack McMillan of UltimateIDX the other day when we got onto discussing the subject we frequently encounter with clients.  Many times clients want to see their blogs and websites prior to them going live and many times that isn’t easily done without some clever techniques I’ll reveal herein.  After having encountered this many times I realized that I should come up with a small guide on "how to build and view a site development prior to it going live"  when I came up with a little tool to distribute in order to help. So this post is generically in response to a common question being asked in forums.   Read more

Page Peel Open Ads Now Available

Posted on February 26, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate Websites | Leave a Comment

Flash Page Peel Effect with Open Ads Advertisements

Well it took me longer than I wanted but the page peel effect now works with Open Ads in rendering the advertisements. I’ll have this packaged up by morning with reworked documentation and added to the product list for those interested in using it.

No major changes from the past version this version does require you to have the latest OpenAds from OpenAds.org and requires you to plublish ads using the using the JavaScript method.   More on this later when I get it packaged up.

UPDATED FEB 27th 9:14 AM || SMALL UPDATE REQUIRED

While my coder was fixing the Featured Listings Anywhere code to include animated featured listing display he spent a great deal more time cleaning up the config.php file for me and as such the Page Peel Open Ads tool is going to be a day late. I’m sincerely sorry for the delay but such events dictate our schedule.

Page Curl Effect – Open Ads

Posted on February 23, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate Websites | Leave a Comment

Page Flip and Page Curl Updates – Open Ads

Some time ago I purchased the resell rights to a product called Page Flip which we have since modified extensively.  I made the post here http://www.jaredritchey.com/flash-pagepeel-pageturn-effect.html originally.  Well after receiving the update changes to Open Ads It appears that the page curl snippet breaks. So I’m going to have my coder revamp that this weekend.

Previously this tool worked just fine with Open Ads and the guide that was included showed how to make it show up on select pages in your WordPress blog by using the custom fields feature and a snippet of PHP.  Well as it stands if you update your Open Ads your page curl will simply not work if you are generating ads from it.

I’ll try and get an update published tomorrow if I can get my coder to finish today.  Please remember, that if you purchased the existing version you will receive a FREE update once the code is completed.  Same is true of any purchases on any of my plug-ins that are commercial.

Royalty FREE images for designers!

Posted on February 21, 2008
Filed Under Products in Review | Leave a Comment

Royalty FREE Distribution in Templates and Other Works

One thing that frustrates many designers who build templates is the unbelievably high cost for purchasing images that can be redistributed within their templates.  Purchasing a template at iStock photo or Big Stock for example nets you a use license of a single domain or single purpose NOT for redistribution. 

Large companies like Template Monster and others have the kind of budgets necessary to either employ a photographer or purchase royalty free distribution rights to photos.  To give you an idea as to what cost I’m referring to, consider this;  iStock has an option for a limited use distribution costing $100 per image.  Getty Image charges anywhere from $200 – $1800 per image.  These kinds of expenses make delivery of commercial or even free templates cost prohibitive resulting in people using freeware images which are frequently of lesser quality.

Royalty  FREE Stock Images – Template Designers – Distribution

I’ve discovered in the forums I’m a member of that a new company is about to launch that provides an answer to this pressing need by selling images on CD in packages, each of which is Royalty Free and can be used in your commercial and non commercial templates.  What this means for guys like us is that when we publish a new template and we need images and photos for various aspects of the template, we will soon have an affordable resource that not only gives us an inventory of images but a quality selection for one low price. 

Although price has not been set in stone, it was told to me that the $75 – $200 range will be chosen depending on image set and category.  So for the cost of a single commercial royalty free image we end up with a CD ROM of images for us to select from.  It appears that the first categories photographers are working on at this point is those associated to industrial and commercial real estate with residential real estate scheduled for the mix soon. 

I’m excited about this concept and I think this is a long over due service for designers and desktop publishing professionals everywhere.  I know all to well how frustrating it is for small mom and pop rag sheet publishers to find good quality royalty free images at an affordable cost is.  Many small publications google for images and publish them in hopes not to be caught but with this solution you can receive high resolution images at a price that doesn’t break the bank.

My suggestion to this new company should they ever stumble upon my blog is that they should include a feature on their site called "CD Builder" in which a buyer can assemble their own collection of images from those available and pay accordingly.  This would be a service that would make millions in my perspective.  Best of luck to the EZ Royalty FREE and their venture.  When a link becomes available I’ll publish a link.

How to hire an SEO professional

Posted on February 20, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate News | Leave a Comment

SEO Service – Things to consider

I had intended on publishing an article in my blog regarding this subject but the exposure would be best served on the forums so feel free to check it out.

How to hire an SEO professional

Now Hiring PHP Coders

Posted on February 17, 2008
Filed Under Code Snippets, Design | Leave a Comment

Seeking PHP / MySQL Coder

Are you a good PHP coder who can code snippets quickly?  I’m looking to hire another PHP coder to help with some small customization and snippets for projects we are working on.  I’m taking all my years of code that we have held for commercial projects and converting them for FREE resources in my new resource directory.  I’d like a person to be well versed in PHP 4+ and although 5+ is the current thing its not the supported thing universally so I need someone who is conscious of that.  I’d like the coder to also be well versed in code sanitation to prevent potential security issues in these old snippets once updated.

The criteria for the coder is as follows;

  1. Commit to a 25 projects minimum and charge accordingly.
  2. Have a valid phone number in either the US, UK, or Canada preferably but not required.
  3. Can be paid by certified funds or a verified PayPal account.
  4. Must use my RTDS (Rapid Template Design Series) coding guideline.
  5. Should understand AJAX and certainly databases.
  6. Should understand XML at least from a dynamic generation perspective.
  7. Must code cleanly with well commented code.
  8. Dont Steal other peoples code. 
  9. Must be at least casually familiar with a few open source applications and have a good understanding of string replace type template engines.

Please contact me using this sites contact form and in your contact please include a phone number and the times of day or week you can work.  Please be fair and competitive in pricing.

Now Hiring Photoshop Designers

Posted on February 17, 2008
Filed Under Design | Leave a Comment

Photoshop designers needed for layouts based on our grid system

Are you an Adobe Photoshop designer?  I’m looking to hire a full time Photoshop designer to create layouts using our RTDS system in design.  I’ve considered hiring through freelance gateways but language barriers have always proven to be burdensome and quality isn’t always guaranteed.  NO XHTML or CSS required, just Adobe Photoshop.

The criteria for the designer is as follows;

  1. Commit to a 25 – 50 layout contract and priced accordingly.
  2. Have a valid phone number in either the US, UK, or Canada preferably.
  3. Can be paid by certified funds or a verified PayPal account.
  4. Must use my RTDS (Rapid Template Design Series) for layouts via our GRID system.
  5. Have a good solid understanding of color and color theory. ( I can send you my guides and application )
  6. Home based worker is the ideal for a very specific reason related to the RTDS.
  7. Must be attentive to details and I mean small details as well.
  8. Dont Steal other peoples work. 
    Yeah, its been said that "Good artists copy and great artists steal" but these layouts must be original work.  Inspiration or being inspired by other designers work I’m fine with, after all, who is so arrogant to believe they have an original idea anyway. Just be honest is what I’m asking.

Please contact me using this sites contact form and in your contact please include a phone number and the times of day or week you can work.  DON’T quote a price to me without knowing the details first.  I want this financially realistic for you so low balling me on price will make me think you are desperate.  I want FAIR pricing for good quality work, I’m not looking for a steal, just industry average pricing is fine.  I can show you pricing charts if you so desire.

Matt Cutts on Webmaster Tools

Posted on February 14, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate News | Leave a Comment

Matt Cutts – How to optimize your site for google.

Sitting in my bookmarks was a video I had totally forgotten about and upon looking at it again this early morning I realized that this video answers a few questions I’d been asked in one of the forums I’m moderate.  "Does Google crawl password protected areas?" The answer of course is no but this video does the ideal job of articulating why.

For a Realtor seeking to maximize their presence on the web, some of the things Matt discusses in this video are many of the things I have been writing about in the forums.  Some topics related to the proper link methods are always discussed it seems and more often lately are subjects about requiring users to register prior to viewing listings details is growing in the discussion boards as well.  If a user can’t see the data until they log in, then google can’t see it either and its one of those things I tell people to be very conscious of before implementing such requirements on their sites. Here is the video.


TEMP CODE: GDHXCDX17249629