So I had some wireless internet issues and tried flipping the wireless on/off switch on my  new Asus G72G laptop only to find, I could not turn the wireless back on!  Sure, I would flip the switch, but the laptop wouldn’t recognize it as being in the on position.  So after about five minutes of utter panic and dismay, I decided to go into my device manager to reset the wireless card.

Steps to disable:

Control Panel > View Devices & Printers > Your PC > Click on the Hardware Tab > Select Wireless Card > Select Driver Tab > Click Disable > Wait > Enable

Disable Wireless - Windows 7

Hopefully it works for you if you need it to.  Although, since your wireless isn’t working…  Hopefully you read this before you had it FAIL.

Florida Website Harris Resources

This website was designed for Julie Harris of Harris-Resources.com.  The website required registered users to be able to either post jobs or resumes depending on their permissions.  I worked with a website design firm in Florida to complete this project.

Jupiter Florida Website Design

Real Estate Website Design

Rose Vasha at www.rosevasha.com needed a website developed that would tie into the Florida Multilist and also display featured properties.  This website was designed with WordPress and Open-Realty.  While, overall I am pretty happy with the design, there are certain elements that were requested that I did not like, mainly the sand in the background and the music on the home page. I rarely use any type of textured backgrounds because they tend to distract the eye and I am not a fan of background music in general.

All and all, the site has been a success and if you are looking for real estate in Florida, Contact Rose!

Worlds In Motion

Part of the Heinz History Center, the WorldsInMotion.org website needed to be converted from its then, incomplete state into a finished ready to go website.  Because the website was unfinished and broken in many places I had a basic design to work from.  The structure of the website was recreated in a Joomla website install.  This offed the website’s managers to add their own content and modify existing content.

The design of the website is wonderful, but the previous design company had proprietary elements to the website that they would not release to the client.  This is such an  important aspect in selecting a website design firm.  Make sure that you get all you pay for.  You should be allowed to host your website anywhere and walk away with a functional website if you ever decide to leave the agency.

I get people asking me where to find the storage location of Joomla’s default images.  The default location is images/stories.  You can change this setting in the Global settings but keep one thing in mind… it will not be a retroactive change… so if you have your images currently in the stories folder and want them to be located in the images/ folder, the setting will not affect existing images.  If you have a new site, great.  You are good too go.  If you have an existing site, be prepared to do some leg work or keep the stories/ folder for all old images and start storing the new ones in the images/ folder

Online Quotation System

Website designed as a quotation builder

The WeldedWirePanels.com website was designed to help users get the best information on the Tamis Corp’s line of welded wire panel security fence.  The site offers multiple ways for the user to get in contact with a Tamis sales rep with multiple displays of the company phone number, a main contact form, product specific forms for more information, online chat and the quotation system itself.

The site is designed in a content management system with an integrated shopping cart converted from a payment function to only deliver a ballpark quotation.  At the point of checkout, a sales rep will be notified and can contact the user to discuss their needs further.

The site also produces a squeeze page housed in a lightbox when users first visit the home page.  This squeeze box is designed to point the user to any special offers on fencing packages.  It is built on a 15 day cookie and is much less invasive than a traditional pop-up window.

Joomla Plugin & Droid Application

So you love your Droid and you love Joomla! Well, now you can have them both in the palm of your hands!  Joooid is a plugin / Droid App at http://joooid.com/ created by Stefano Norcia.  This is a great little app that gives you an amazing amount of capabilities from your Droid.  All you need to do is install his plug in and follow the Joomla setup  instructions and you are ready to go.

Here is a video I created for the Hollow Tree Players’ entry into the Pepsi Refresh competition.  It is a great children’s theater group dedicated to improving the community.

Five Extensions you will use a lot

Expanding Joomla

Joomla kicks arse as it is, but when you have thousands upon thousands of people out there trying to make it better and more flexible, you are in for a rock solid content management system. Here are five extensions that will make your life easier and add to your Joorma experience.

1. Joomla Content Editor (JCE). The default editor is a pain and does not work well. USE THIS ONE.
2. Joomlapack. Great component for keeping backups of your site. Makes it really easy to more and restore.
3. Jumi. Is a good tool to use if you want to paste code into your site, Javascript, PHP, etc. It will keep it clean and tidy.
4. eXtplorer. You can edit all your files directly from inside Joomla.
5. Metamod.Good for having more control over your modules. Have a coupon in a mod you only want to run for a week? This is the mod for you.

The Tamis Corporation in Pittsburgh needed a product video produced to help promote their new standard barrier for crowd control.  The video highlights features and benefits of the Standard Barrier.  There were a lot of 3D models used to help illustrate the various features.  I decided to make the clip fast and upbeat for a high impact effect.