While working with Drupal, I tried and tried to fine a sitemap generator that will help index a site and submit the sitemap to Google. There were two module XML Sitemap (use to be Google Sitemap) and the Site Map module. I tried to run both but the problem with Site Map module was that it created URLs that were not using pathauto URL aliases, which means that Google will try and index two different URLs that were actually the same. So I went over to XML Sitemap module and it seem like they are working on yet a newer version that has not been release which means the older version has issues that will be slow to resolve. Google also has it’s own sitemap tool you can install on the server, but it seem a bit more complicated.

So I went ahead and search elsewhere..where else right? Google of course and I found XML Sitemaps. It uses PHP and generates XML, Text, HTML site maps. There is a free version online you can try out, which I did and I pretty much immediately bought the Unlimited Sitemap Generator, the standalone version. It’s only $19.99 and for what it does or did when I tried it, I think it’s way worth it. I didn’t have to waste my time or wait my life away. It works and creates the XML Sitemap that used the URLs I wanted. It also obeys robot.txt and you can add additional strings you don’t want to include which helps to get rid of those ?sort= type of thing. I didn’t need the html part of it and I believe the order of it is the way it will be, which I don’t mine since I just want the XML sitemap for the search engine.

So yup, it’s only $19.99 and you can try the free version first: XML Sitemap Generatordistributed raman amplifierматраци

Ok, so I’ve read quiet a bit of Drupal Vs Wordpress articles and I think what it comes down to is what you want to use it for, BUT also personal preference.

LOVE AND HATE Drupal:
Why I love and hate Drupal? I really do love it that there’s so much you can do with it. With CCK (content Construction Kit) and Views, you can almost do anything and you don’t even need to know how to program in PHP. There are blocks you can move around and QuickTabs modules that let’s you add tabs with content…really easy once you get the hang of that! I mean I tried it years ago and it didn’t even have CCK and Views and yes I did abandon it then. But I came back and was starting to love it, HOWEVER, for the past few days, I’ve been a little frustrated with Drupal. I started to try out Drupal 6 and really like all the jQuery and easy to move things and reorder things with drag and drop. Then I came to one module. The FileField module - it requires PHP 5.2. Ok, so I know a lot of open source people are pushing for PHP 5.2+, but my server only supports PHP 5.1.6 and it’s not that easy to just ask them to upgrade it since it deals with Plesk and Redhad and CentOS or whatever more. Urrghhh. So yeah, I feel like I’m stuck OR I have to downgrade and go back to using Drupal 5. OH wait…the new v5 FileField for CCK also requires PHP 5.2. (I’m going to scream my head off).

So you get the idea. I love Drupal for what it can do and really is good for “community” type of sites, but you can get stuck because of one module and if you are not a coder and just hack around things, then it can be difficult.

With Wordpress, it is easy to use and yes the UI is easier to use as well. My husband tried Drupal - not even installing and all that….just using it to post things and him and a colleague of his HATED IT!! He said something about the UI and just everything hahaha. The point is, he gave up. I don’t blame him. I gave up before too, but I did come back to it and I hope I don’t have to give up on it again!

Wordpress in my opinion is good if you are just running a blog or community blog. It seem to be good with SEO just out of the box. BUT if you want anything more than that like user interaction type of community site, then Drupal will be better.

Yeah, I don’t know. I think I just need to step away…and get a banana split!

Since I’m on an iPhone high… I’ve always had problems typing with my thumbs on the iPhone. Seriously, no matter how nice the touch screen keypad is, I just want to type like I’ve learned since Junior High (Yes geeky it is…taking typing class). I was searching for a keyboard for the iPhone because I knew there was this foldable keyboard for the Nokia
N95. To my surprise, I found the MacAlly BTKeyMini. It’s doesn’t fold as small as the other one I’ve seen, but I’m just glad there will be a keyboard for the iPhone.

It is new and is on Pre-Order. It is “suppose” to be out in March and this is on their website:

“Please Note: The BTKEY Mini for the Apple iPhone will not ship until Apple updates the iPhone to accept bluetooth input. No date has been given as of yet.”

The cost is $92 and shipping was quiet a bit also, but to me if it takes double as long to type with my thumb and will spare my thumb from getting thumb ache, then it’s worth it. If you think an hour is worth $92 to you or say it’s what you charge per hour, then I think eventually you will save an hour by having this keypad. Does that make sense? Maybe to some I guess…if you are one to think that, then you should pre-order.

Sorry if I keep talking about the iPhone, but I think every designer should have one or would at least want one. Yes, it’s that great!

UPDATE: yeah, I don’t think apple will support blue-tooth in the next release….sooo…more waiting. I really wish apple would just come up with a cute foldable keyboard that fits into my purse.

MacAlly BTKeyMini for Apple iPhone

If you use Evernote and iPhone, this Clarifi Case from Griffin will be useful for you. “Your macro and close-up shots are instantly finer in detail, more accurate in color. With Clarifi’s lens, your iPhone can image an entire business card with astounding clarity.”

I’m not sure how long this will last, but if you use the coupone code “Macworld2009″, you will get a 25% discount. I was purchasing one for my husband and decided to get myself one while the discount is still active! I saved $17 or so. Oh and it was free ground shipping!!

Griffin Clarifi Case for iPhone - Greate for Evernote

So if you like COLOURlovers.com, you’ll probably like the iPhone Palettes App. It allows you to use a photo from your iPhone library or take a new photo and it will create color palettes for you.

You can also “browse, seach, and import palettes from COULOURlovers.com. There are a lot more features and I’m not going to go into details. You can check them out for yourself at the developer’s site.

At $9.99, I thought it was a bit steep but thought I should get it just to see what it does. There is a lite version you can try out for free, but as with any free tryout app at the app store, it usually isn’t as good as the full version. The thing I wish it had was a thumbnail of the picture I took to create the swatches. As a designer, sometimes I like to reference to something I’ve seen and how the colors are used, not just having some colors on the screen. So yeah, I hope the developer can improve that. I know images from libraries can be deleted thus they won’t be available, but if there is a way to auto create an album or some sort just for the Palettes App, so you won’t delete that folder, then that should work. But anyway, like I said, if you like COLOURlovers already, then you’ll like this app for your iPhone.

If you don’t have an iPhone…what are you waiting for. Seriously, run out and get one!!! I can’t imagine life without one now….

I’ve been visiting the MAC Cosmetics website for some time and just noticed the other day that it has been redesigned. I have to say that I love the new site.

It looks great and has nice functionalities. If you play around with it more, you’ll probably find cool things here and there. One thing I thought was great but almost missed was the thin color strip to the right of the navigation. It opens up to a thicker bar and you can view products based on colors. I thought that was nice, but like I said I almost missed it since I thought it was just a decorative design element. I love grays, so naturally I like the colors or non colors as backgrounds and the use of flash was nicely done as well.

So whether you like looking at nice sites or enjoy colorful makeup, it’s a site worth seeing. Oh their Hello Kitty collection should be out soon so watch for that… If you’re a girl or… a guy who likes stuff like that…

Mac Cosmetics Website : Redesigned

I just thought this will be interesting for all designers - there is an independent film about typography through the usage of the font Helvetica. I have not seen it yet since it was only released Nov 20th, but I love documentaries so this is one I’ll be looking forward to watching.

“Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Helvetica is currently screening at film festivals, museums, design conferences, and cinemas worldwide, followed by the DVD release November 20th.”

Visit the website for more info!

So I wanted to find something where my clients might be able to update a flash site themselves. More and more clients these days are looking into updates internally, so of course you have to use some kind of content management systems. I just never knew there were ones for flash. I came across a couple that were worth the consideration:

1. Flashblocks
2. fCMSPro

I checked out both and did the demo for both. I opted to purchase the Flashblocks just to try. I really like Flashblocks, it’s pretty easy to use for both client and myself. You do need to know the basics of how Flash works of course. The one problem I ran into is for some reason my server did not upload the images from the image browser (RESLOVED-SEE UPDATE BELOW). At one point, it has the uploading process bar hang, but when I refreshed, the file did show up. So I updated php on the server and now the images does not upload at all. I’m quiet certain it’s a server setting issue because I tested it out on another server and the images upload quickly and without any issues. Although I can’t get it to work yet and will have my host look at it when I have a chance to get back to it, I would give this 2 thumb and 2 toes up. It’s really awesome. Though I do wish it would have a version that uses MySQL database.

UPDATE: I love Flashblock! Ok, so the creator of Flashblock is just awesome. He continued to work on resolving my issue with the server and figured it out. It was one little server setting that caused the issue I had and everything is working out perfectly. He is a very nice person and I feel lucky to have found this Flash CMS Flashblocks.

First it was google penalizing some big name directories that sells paid text link ads without the “nofollow” tag or redirects (passing PR). Their site names are not even shown on the results. Now Google might be penalizing blog sites that sells text link ads or engage in exchanging network linking that passes PR.

You can view a list of big name sites such as Engadget to Washington Post on the DailyBlogTips http://www.dailyblogtips.com/google-changing-the-pagerank-algorithm/ and Andy Beard http://andybeard.eu/2007/10/pagerank-update.html that have been hit with a lower PageRank. Wow, even Forbes.com!

Matt Cutt from Google has been saying over and over that paid text link ads that passes PR is against googles’s policy. They do have all the power to do what they want to since they are in control of the whole Goodle PR. The only thing users can do is not use Google. But really…can you not use Google? I use Google for search, email, calendar, weather, analytics, and 411. I mean Google does offer a lot of free things, so is it so bad for google to ask people not to have paid text link ads on their site that passes PR? I guess it depends on who you ask. If your site is making an income solely on provide Google Juice, then you’ll probably hate what Google is doing. If your site is high traffic and really doesn’t matter if you have PR or not, then it wouldn’t matter to you that much.

Does PageRank really matter that much? I guess it depends on what you are trying to do. For companies with sites that can’t really be SEOed, it’s easier to buy text link because it does help those keyword show up higher in Search Engines. Though for sites - especially design sites that are heavy with Flash or design sites that just want to keep it clean without a keyword sprinkles, it is usually done through other forms of marketing and the point is to have the site be seen by people, not just by spiders (though spiders do a pretty good job designing their web - yeah, that was dorkist).

I’m guessing that currently google is penalizing sites manually, but maybe they could be “testing” their new algo (though there are still PR7 sites selling text links…so maybe not). The problem is how will they be sure some links are paid for. Who knows…but seriously, Google is starting to piss a lot of people off who use to be fans. I don’t know how they can stop using Google though…

Anyhow, you can read Matt Cutts blog about backlinks http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/tell-me-about-your-backlinks/ from Dec 2005. It mentioned two sites buying links from ketv.com. The odd thing is the ketv site has been a PR6 and until recently, I guess it’s going down to a PR4 - why wasn’t the site penalized even back then if Matt Cutts knew about it? If you want to know more about what you can or might be able to do and not do, then read his paid links post from him.

PR is useful in some ways, but I don’t think it’s everything in getting good organic traffic.

A List Apart + An Event Apart + 33,000 web professionals + 37 questions survey = The Web Design Survey 2007. The survey showed stats based on age, gender, ethnicity, job title, geographic region, education, and etc. The raw data from the survey were translated by statisticians Alan Brickman and Larry Yu.

“We did not learn everything we hoped to. Ambiguities in some parts of the survey yielded ambiguities in some data. After an analysis of the survey itself, we now possess detailed recommendations for improving future surveys.” –A List Apart

I’m sure as a designer, it is still something fun to look at since it’s been translated into graphic charts even if it’s not perfect.