General

The catch-all category. Shouldn't be a very useful category if I can get the right categories set up!!

Basecamp with Attitude

While checking for some loose ends and filtering through the To-Dos in Basecamp today, I was dished the following bit of attitude from the previously-always-friendly project management app: I imagine that this wouldn't have been a big deal if my wife wasn't sitting beside me snickering under her... Read more »

Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts to Move a Message to a Folder

Inbox Zero So I've been following Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero series from the fringes, interested in the concepts and envious of the many mac only solutions that he provides. I've wanted a one click solution for organizing my inbox for some time, and looked but not found the answer. Well, spurred on... Read more »

Stop For a Minute, and Imagine an Internet without Open Source and the Sharing of Ideas

...Imagine no shoulders to stand upon: remove that blog that helped you get MT installed the first time, that WP plugin that gave your site that extra oomph. Imagine no Drupal or any other sort of free CMS, no code to pull apart and learn, no free forums, no blog comments (no Firefox!). Imagine not... Read more »

What I Love About Macs

Right from that first computer there were some things you just had to love about using a Mac, besides just being different. Yes sir, there are innumerable things that I could list as being "the reason why I use a mac". But the top reason? Would you like to know the single most glorious, rewarding... Read more »

A Need for Change

I think Dave Shea put it best when he wrote I was no longer writing quick posts, I was writing “articles”. Any time I sat down to write, why, it had better be good and in-depth. I'm finding the same thing - not that I write as well as Dave, mind you, but I do try to write well. I have... Read more »

9rules Network Spanish - A Call for Spanish Websites

The official announcement - found here - states: I am happy to announce that we are opening our doors to Spanish content sites. Starting September 2 at 12am EST we will be doing a 24 hour submission round for all Spanish language content sites. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the entries,... Read more »

Olympic Logos

The Olympic Spirit I have to say that, for the most part, I do like these logos. It must be interesting trying to capture the feel of a city (and perhaps country) together with the feel of the Olympics. In my very modest opinion, and having never been to Moscow, I would say that my favourite... Read more »

9 Rules Networking

Part of the Team One of the things that I love about the web is community, no not that community, but forums and other places where people help other people become better at what they do. One look at the line-up that the 9 Rules team has built and I'm really looking forward to collaborating and communicating... Read more »

Happy Holidays!!

23rd of December, time for some down time!! Wishing all you peeps and readers a Happy Holiday season...... Read more »

Some Basecamp Tips

Basecamping with a large group We've recently started working with quite a large group of people (~ 20, large for us) and are managing the project with Basecamp. That application is a dream for larger collaborative efforts, and a big thumbs up to 37Signals as they are continually improving the product. Some... Read more »

Web Design 2004 - Your take

Well, the posting has been thin here of late (and the web design blog-o-sphero has been quiet too, no?), so I thought perhaps an attempt at something interactive would be fun. To that end, I invite all you folks out there who still subscribe or visit (if(stillexists($readers)), that is) to post the... Read more »

Looking for an app

Wanted: an ftp client that will upload a set of files from one source to multiple ftp locations (i.e. something that will update a script that runs in many locations). I'll admit that I haven't had much time to dig around and look for a solution to this. Heck, maybe one of the ftp proggys on... Read more »

Google Desktop

Stickin' it to the big M$ Not much to say about this, except that I'm off to check it out. Google is really making it happen: first the search engine (remember that? ;-), then adwords and adsense, then gmail, and now desktop search. When is that browser coming out? Anyway, the new Google desktop... Read more »

Picking up the Rhythm

Well, the straw that broke the camel's back was Google updating it's PR values on the toolbars (propagating now-ish). It is definitely time to post. There are kids being born (congrats!), success being realized (congrats Scrivs, on that and the win!) and just too many things happening to stay... Read more »

Picture of the Internet

the picture of internet Update: Well, as discussed in the comments, that 'went south' rather quickly, so I removed the link... Am I late to this party? It hit fiftyfoureleven, but if it can't pick out images in CSS we've likely contributed nothing. Perhaps it's time to start using... Read more »

E-mail Software and Spam Filters

The time has come Alright, the time has finally come for me to face up to the reality of e-mail spam, and I'd like to clear this up while on hiatus. For the longest time I had no troubles whatsoever with spam. I'd get maybe 5 a day, nothing too hard to deal with. But lately, I guess I've... Read more »

Design Criticism Extended

Intro This is an example of something that I will, in the future, be putting in another section of this site. A smaller, more often updated area that I am supposed to be programming while on hiatus. And on with it already Derek Featherstone has taken a specific quote and make it generalizable by substituting... Read more »

Author Status: 503

Hello all, just a short note to say that posting here will be on hiatus due to a temporary overload, and for some reprogramming, rethinking, and very subtle restyling. Focus This blog originally started with some good intentions and neat ideas. Some happened, many didn't, and now when I take a... Read more »

Gettin ripped

I've seen it happen to others, but I never thought someone would rip this sites misfit of a design (have a look at the messy CSS, I dare you ;-), but alas, Aaarrgghh! hzzp://kkkk.mycocoon.com/blog/bbs/ Seems that they went lazy and just grabbed the images. Maybe this is a benefit of having messy... Read more »

Monday, 23rd of August

Mail getting thru So perhaps I over-simplified, however I still think that something should be done to make this stuff work better. It seems that on-site e-mail forms are the way to go - I wonder why we don't all use them. Diggin deeper Moving forward, Maximizing Ham by Craig Cook of the Focul... Read more »

Your Mail May or May Not Have Gotten Through, or, Defensive Communication

The situation You blog. People find your blog interesting, you get traffic. You get comment spam, you get e-mail spam. You run spam filters to keep your inbox clean. You've become popular amongst your peers. They send you e-mail. Maybe they hear back from you, maybe they don't. Your peers are... Read more »

Scrivs Sends Traffic Thru the Roof

Thanks! Thanks Scrivs for the nice review and suggestions. Heck, maybe we'll even get vaulted ;-] (granted the css is a mess) Who are these turkeys? Lacking an about page (we've been busy), so... We are a small team of four people, and I (see sidebar) get to do all of the writing. With that... Read more »

Back in the Groove

Just a note to say hello, we're back, and hopefully regular posting will follow! The crew here have been hard at work on a few sites set to launch by the middle of next month, and I took some offline time (gasp!) to put the hammer down and get some designs and other IA related stuff sorted out.... Read more »

Doing Good With Gmail Invites

If you would like to have a chance to win one of five Gmail accounts, all you have to do is donate $5 or more to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I know that most people who read this likely have g-mail accounts already, but if not, go and help out a great cause. Didier Hilhorst says it best:... Read more »

Moving Forward

Well, it's been a good week here at fiftyfoureleven. We're updating some past work for a website about the Costa Blanca area of Spain, and we've signed a significant maintenance contract with an existing client. More maintenance please This group, which specializes in selling property in... Read more »

Comment Spam and Google - Yesterday, today and tomorrow

Disclaimer This little theory popped into my head after writing up an SEO strategy presentation I'll be giving to one of our clients this week. It is not heavily researched, but I think it is somewhat accurate. Keep in mind it's just an idea, and I'm not going into too much detail with this,... Read more »

Blog Turbulence

Well, for the few who do visit this site (me, myself and one other person, I think) some things to note: The UI of the weblog will be fluctuating for the next little while, in an attempt to test a few ideas. You may arrive here and find some very nasty errors, either mySQL or PHP (thanks Ethan!).... Read more »

DNS Propagation

I've never paid too much attention to our sites when we switch servers, and truth be told, we've only had to migrate servers a few times prior to this last switch. This time, however, we rolled the user tracking script that we use into this new version of fiftyfoureleven. We planned on doing... Read more »

Redesign in Progress

Well, if you can see this that means you're seeing the next version of fiftyfoureleven.com, a new site on a new server. It's been a while between posts, but a new 1500 page website and three new projects started, and we barely had time for sleep (the story of the internet, no?). We'll be... Read more »

Temporary Fresh Look

It's been a week of cleaning up little annoying end-of-project details. As a breather for my head, I threw together this little test-layout, believe it or not inspired by Shaun Inman's design. Its nowhere near Shaun's in terms of anything, really; this idea simply found it's way to... Read more »

Weblog Update

It's been a busy weekend and will most definitely be a busy week. We have two new sites ready to go, however one is a little behind on content, so may not launch this week. The other is also awaiting some last minute translation copy, but will hopefully launch this week. Due to the above, the 'blog... Read more »

Solidaridad

... Read more »

Fast CSS Style Switching with PHP

Updated: New content added 12/03/2004. Here's a little something that has come in useful for me on a few occasions. It seems to be inevitable that at some point along the life of a project, someone from your clients company decides that they don't like the <insert style element here />... Read more »

The Weblog Wobble

Trying to decide what to do about which weblog software to use is a pretty hefty decision. If you think that you are going to stick with your weblog for a significant amount of time, you need to do your research. There are many choices out there, each with their own large user base, so I think it would... Read more »

Rolling out a blog.

Lessons Well, I'm a few days into having started this weblog and already I'm feeling behind. My fault for having chosen to try and 'roll-my-own-script' while in the middle of a deadline... I've also learnt that I really need to have a good look at my posts, pre-posting, and make... Read more »

This is my first post.

Well. Here it is, the first post. I had intended to get something up here a lot sooner, but alas work has me in shakles. No permalinks yet, no archives, no comments. I intend to write my own code... 'A weblog. But why?' you ask. This blog is intended mostly for professional use; that is, discussion... Read more »

Home » Blog

Check out the blog categories for older content

The latest from my personal website,
Mike Papageorge.com

SiteUptime Web Site Monitoring Service

Sitepoint's web devlopment books have helped me out on many occasions both for finding a quick solution to a problem but also to level out my knowlegde in weaker areas (JavaScript, I'm looking at you!). I am recommending the following titles from my bookshelf:

The Principles Of Successful Freelancing

I started freelancing by diving in head first and getting on with it. Many years and a lot of experience later I was still able to take away some gems from this book, and there are plenty I wish I had thought of beforehand. If you are new to freelancing and have a lot of questions (or maybe don't know what questions to ask!) do yourself a favor and at least check out the sample chapters.

The Art & Science Of JavaScript

The author line-up for this book says it all. 7 excellent developers show you how to get your JavaScript coding up to speed with 7 chapters of great theory, code and examples. Metaprogramming with JavaScript (chapter 5 from Dan Webb) really helped me iron out some things I was missing about JavaScript. That said each chapter really helped me to develop my JavaScript skills beyond simple Ajax calls and html insertion with libs like JQuery.

The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

Like the other books listed here, this provides a great reference for the PHP developer looking to have the right answers from the right people at their fingertips. I tend to pull this off the shelf when I need to delve into new territory and usually find a workable solution to keep development moving. This only needs to happen once and you recoup the price of the book in time saved from having to develop the solution or find the right pattern for getting the job done..