Version 5.4 Coming Soon!

After the last big update to the Art Studio, the obvious choice was to turn my attention back to the Web Studio for a while. So I updated all the templates, created a new page on the blog to provide more information, and am dropping the purchase option and going strictly to licencing. Now I just have to revamp the text, do new videos, and I should be good to go.

I also whipped up another new offering in the genealogy series. Here's a preview for you.

    

It's a mash-up of the Family Tree (obviously) and a version of ASAW that I did years ago. Like version 3 of the Family Tree template, the grab-and-drag window is compatible with touch screen devices.

Current upgrades still include Legacy IE support for XP users, and Username/Password Protection for creating private sites. The next planned upgrade is full compatibility for mobile devices through responsive design via conditional stylesheets.

I started the mobile platform for the main site late last year before doing that Secret Santa piece for the pub xmas party that got me spending the next two months painting and redoing the Art Studio. It was kind of slow going...then I did the update for my Curriculum Vitae template and since it seemed like an obvious necessity, I designed it that way and everything just clicked for me...so I'll be using the same approach when I do the main site, and then the upgrade for the templates.

Well, on to the update!

New Update Online for Winter 2014

So after re-vamping some of my older templates, I decided to move ahead with an idea I've been kicking around for a while...formatting and hosting online CVs for people. Here's the basic spiel:


Why fight the hassle of registering and searching giant conglomerate job sites that are rife with Cutco jobs, fly-by-nighters and scam artists?

Why offer a potential employer the chance to look at your CV alongside hundreds or thousands of others?

Why spend your precious time and money printing and handing out paper resumes?

Give your target audience a direct link to a clean, professional looking CV that is JUST YOU. Show your initiative, and spend your time researching potential employers to email directly; don't waste it digging through convoluted job sites for a diamond in the rough.

Just provide your info, and C2Kstudios will provide the format and a month of hosting for your digital resume. Supply your own domain name or use C2Kstudios.com/yourpage and start emailing potential employers right away.

Be the diamond. Get your CV hosted with C2Kstudios today, and start contacting those potential employers directly...today!

For more details, please visit:

C2Kstudios.com/web#cvs

I replaced the Fiverr aside in the Web Studio...I haven't completely dropped it yet, but it's definitely been more trouble than it's worth. If you don't visit your account at least once a week they suspend your gigs until you reactivate them and then half the time it doesn't work properly so you have to contact them to fix it. I don't have time for that kind of nonsense. I'm thinking of taking my three basic Fiverr templates and turning them into a 3-pack for the main site. After that, Fiverr is dead to me.

In the meantime, I'll be reduxing the rest of my older templates, and finding some more places to advertise...most of the local online business directories here leave much to be desired. Besides, I need to start making a broader reach. Once all the updating is finally done I'll be able to spend some time and do some quality research.

Fresh Videos and a New Template Online Now!

Inspired by the number of views the Family Tree Template was receiving over all the other offerings, I decided to start making more genealogy inspired websites. My latest creation is the Family Albums Template, featuring a JQuery booklet plugin for making albums with grab-and-drag capability.

I had originally placed the albums directly in the index file, but soon realized that that would soon make it very LARGE so I opted for iframes instead. 

The booklet plug-in is pretty versatile, though it does have some issues. Nothing that I couldn't work around or do without, but still, it would be nice to figure out how to put a border-radius on the inner pages, or offer multiple album covers, or get the custom cursor to work through the script like it says it can...but that's why I offer free lifetime updates...a lot of that stuff gets solved eventually, the more I play around with it.

Well, here it is—the Family Albums Template!

I'm going to have to go back and take a closer look at that Google+ account... it still has not unlinked itself from the YouTube channel.

Introducing the Family Cloud Template

The next family site template is online: The Family Cloud Template features an interactive tagcloud window, the Harmony Background Canvas, and photo lightbox. Despite the two very vexing issues with Chrome, I still chose it for the video demo. Chrome on Vista (and I think 7 and 8 too) will not render rounded corners on the canvas element...I spent half an afternoon trying to solve that problem before I realized it was a bug that couldn't be solved (not by me, anyway)...it's also the only browser that I cannot make show the forward/back buttons in the infocloud (popup) windows through the JS string parameters...I'd have to install a bunch of extra code that is a headache I just don't need. Anyway, that's why it's a template, right? Well, here is the video...looks like my attempt to remove Google+ without having to completely delete my channel and start over didn't take... you can also see it here in the Video Studio.

     

Family Tree Website Template version 2.0 now online!

So last week, I sold a Family Tree Website Template. I had an update that was not yet posted, and after a bit of correspondence I whipped up a short demo vid and posted it to the Video Studio to show the client—which I think sealed the deal. Anyway, going back to delete the demo vid I took a closer look at the viewer stats...and discovered that the Family Tree template had about EIGHT TIMES as many views as anything else...so I though hey...maybe I should start pumping out the family tree templates.

So that's going to be the next project. Genealogy is so hot right now. Well, here is the new demo video...Enjoy!

Hmm...So a while back YouTube One Channel forced me to make the switch and then Google+ rolled in and screwed everything up...and now apparently because the videos on the YouTube Channel are associated with the new account they won't connect to here...grrr. Well, I'm dropping that piece of garbage, but they say it might take a couple of days. In the meantime, here's a direct upload.

Oops!

Wednesday, January 23

I've been plugging away at the HTML5 templates as of late...working on marking up some template chassis that I can use to make my templates with quickly. I was doing all my testing on the server and until now that hasn't been a problem, but my one master page is getting pretty big, with lots of 'modules' like photo galleries and videos, and when I'm doing testing I have up to 8 browsers open on my two main machines so I can see it like 90% of people out there are going to see it.

I guess the server didn't like that...I got suspended for the day for high CPU usage...the first time I thought it was all the browsers so the next day I stuck just to Chrome but it happened again...d'oh!

So I pulled the template vault off of the server and now I'll be doing all my back-end development off-line. I'll just upload each template for final testing....they'll be much smaller than the big master files.

Along with the new roll-out will come the next version of C2Kstudios.com...so there's something else to look forward to! I wanted to be done by the end of January, but these days, with the kids, this is just proving to be a horrible time of year. I wish I could take some solace in the knowledge that everything that we'll be exposed to over the next couple of decades will leave us with iron-clad immune systems for our later years...but sadly, I think those days are long gone....

Saturday, January 26

So late Tuesday night a friend of mine asked me a question on FB about his power supply...and the next day, mine started making a very unnerving noise. Right when I stopped writing this post on Wednesday, in fact.  Such is my life. Anyone who's read the Celestine Prophecy will know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I pulled it out, (gave the whole chassis a good cleaning while I was in there of course), and sure enough, the fan was now settling against the base of the shaft...i could hear it moving in there when I'd turn it over...So that night after dinner it was a bus-ride down to good old Canada Computers for a new one...thankfully, it wasn't too cold outside that night. Thursday I spent re-wiring everything; I made a couple of minor improvements to some connections and the position of my subwoofer but otherwise everything is pretty much the back to the way it was. I had thought about putting my second machine up off the floor, but that would mean putting it out of reach. On Friday the Bean had a PD day from school so I took the girls out for breakfast and hot chocolate at the pub where I work weekends. And now, it's on to the templates!

I'm pretty happy now with the "template chassis" I've been working on the last couple of weeks...the ones that were giving me trouble with the server... I've built them like frameworks with modules that I can take and create a template out of pretty quickly. They're colour-coded too, so it's easy to see across all browsers how margins are behaving and things like that. The main one is especially large; these are shots from Chrome at max zoom-out:

The rest are for different formats, menus, borders, things like that. So guess what I'm off to work on right now?

Ho Ho HoTML5 Templates!

So for the last few weeks I've been slowly working my way back through my current selection of HTML5 templates...updating them and getting them ready for the new roll-out. Doing some end of year maintenance and gearing up for the holidays...so I won't really be doing anything major again now until after the new year.

Here are a couple of template preview pics...I'll be redoing the demo videos and posting them to YouTube.

  

I had to go through my graphics inventory and make sure (as sure as is reasonable, anyway) that all the fonts and images and other media I'm using is all legit for commercial use and resale....I think I'm pretty much set now.

Also started a new ad campaign for the social mediaverse...this is just the first tiny sampler:

Have a Merry Christmas and we'll meet again after the holidays!

C2Kstudios

Been Busy Busy!

The last month has been ridiculous. What with the way of the world today, things just started costing twice as much, and so I had to go out and find a part-time job...I fell into something pretty sweet too, (which is usually how it works for me - I just seems to find myself in the right place at the right time when it comes to stuff like that), so the pressure is off, there.

Around the same time I got a call from my Uncle Mark. He took over my grandfather's business about a year ago, and now he wants me to help redesign his packaging and promo material for the international market. My first "corporate" design job! Very exciting. He had this idea that he wanted whipped up for a trade show in China next month, but soon came to realize that you can't just bang out an international marketing campaign in a fortnight...especially considering the fact that everything has to be done via email...unless he wants to fly me out to Vancouver for a week or something, which I wouldn't be adverse to at all... ;) ...it's been too long since I've been back 'home'.

Anyway, so the initial concept got shelved for the time being, but not before I was able to collect this:

 

Which felt so f*ing awesome! So then I went ahead and re-did the poster, without the mascots he wants to have created for his future campaign, and came up with this design for his China conference:

At full size, it's 3'x6', and because it's going to be positioned behind a table, he had me move everything up on the page as high as possible.

What are Colo-Majic flushable liners, you ask? Well, back in the 90's my grandfather had a colostomy, and subsequently invented a disposable liner for the pouch that ostomates have to wear. Now, Papa is in his 80s, and has decided it's time to pass the reigns. I'm sure he still has plenty of input into this new direction my uncle seems to be taking the business in...and probably will for a while yet; knowing that side of the family, he's got another 20 years in him, easy.

The Ninja Princess Template

The 2012 edition of my family website just went live yesterday (missed Leap Day for this post!). I did it up in HTML5...and I'm so impressed with the results that I've decided to switch the main site over as well. Look for it this Spring! I'm going to start pumping out the HTML5 templates soon, too.

In the meantime, here is the very first Web Studio demo video, of the HTML5 template I affectionately call:

C2Kstudios