A new year and something new for me. I am joining @artgillespie and @espressojunky at the best little iOS shop in Tucson @tapsquare—
Sam DeVore (@sdevore) December 30, 2011

Things went very smoothly — I followed instructions in the WordPress.com Support documentation and in various dashboard screens, and they were very helpful. I especially was impressed with the Google verification steps and how easy it was to add MX records for my Google Apps integration.

Probably the most annoying thing was waiting for propagation after updating nameservers, but there’s not a lot I could have done about that anyway.

A few hiccups:

• Old email subscribers: I had to email my old list to ask them to subscribe again on WordPress.com (I was using FeedBlitz before).
• Link importing: I had to split up the OPML file to import with categories, otherwise I’d have a flat import with no categories.
• I used Textile on my old blog, so I had to run a small PHP script to update the content in posts/pages to plain old HTML.

The plugins I’m going to miss the most are:

• Readernaut, which I used to list books I’m currently reading in my sidebar, as a widget.
• Broken Link Checker, used to find broken links in my old posts.
• Live Comment Preview: I love this feature, I often used it myself to make sure my comment is good to go before posting it.

For my theme I’m using Twenty Eleven with the Custom Design upgrade, including some custom CSS and Typekit fonts for the blog title and all headings.

Here’s a detailed description of what I did.

Before the switch:

• Review all plugins, make a list of those I can’t live without.
• Review custom functionality that I would lose in the switch.
• Register a WordPress.com blog to use as the placeholder.

A few weeks went by in between. On the switch day, I started out by changing my nameservers at my registrar (GoDaddy). I knew I’d have access to both sites during the switch, so I started the process immediately.

During the DNS switch:

• Export all my self-hosted WordPress content and import to WordPress.com blog.
• Export OPML for links, import one category at a time into WordPress.com blog.
• Set up contact form in new page, using the contact form shortcode.
• Create a custom menu for top-level navigation.
• Set up General Settings (reading, discussion, time zone, et cetera).
• Clean up Textile in posts and pages. (I used a quick PHP script to read content, change it to HTML, and save it back to the database).
• Enable new theme —Twenty Eleven — and purchase Custom Design upgrade.
• Set up Gmail and Google Apps to work with domain mapping at WordPress.com (support docs). Specifically, under step 8, add my DNS to WordPress.com.
• Changed some settings for other sites and services that relied on the domain, simpledream.net, going to Dreamhost.
• Moved Subversion repositories, backups, archives, tools, and several self-hosted web apps to a new domain that I’ll keep at Dreamhost.

After the switch:

• Verify my site with Google Webmasters.
• Make sure stats are working on WordPress.com.
• Test posts and pages.
• Have a cold drink.

I don’t think I’ll miss updating my plugins and core WordPress files; it’s awesome to just concentrate on publishing content.

Last week I blanked out my keyboard with stickers to force touch typing using Blank Keyboard Stickers in white from 4keyboard.com on my Mac keyboard.

I first considered getting the droolicious Model S Ultimate Silent Keyboard from Das Keyboard, but since it’s a bit pricy I opted instead to use the stickers as a low-cost first step.

Today I changed the keyboard settings on my Mac to use “Dvorak” instead of “Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘” to force myself to relearn my keyboard shortcuts.

So far, so great.

At our Automattic company meetup in September Matt handed out paper copies of The Dvorak Zine, a fun, well-written treatise on why Dvorak is better than the traditional QWERTY keyboard layout. I read it on the plane ride home, played with Dvorak settings on my laptop a bit, and vowed to make the switch during my next extended time off work.

Here is the timeline from my switch.

1. September 16th, 2010: Read The Dvorak Zine.
2. November 22nd, 2010: Started practicing with Master Key during a week off from work.
3. December 3rd, 2010: Removed QWERTY from my keyboard settings.
4. December 9th, 2010: Finished Master Key Dvorak drills (set to 40 WPM goal).

For fun, here are some stats as of December 9th, 2010 based on my Master Key drill results.

My tips and recommendations: Get Master Key, add Dvorak to your keyboard settings, and practice. Then remove QWERTY from your keyboard settings and use Dvorak for everything you type. Pace yourself and be patient. Keep practicing and don’t give up.

For more on Dvorak, see Matt’s 2003 classic: On the Dvorak Keyboard Layout.

Update December 14, 2010: My goal with learning Dvorak is to get faster and more efficient at typing than I was with QWERTY—with which I type 75 WPM with accuracy. The 40 WPM mentioned in the timeline was during drills used to learn Dvorak; that speed is not the end goal.

Update December 28, 2010: This week I passed the Master Key drills again with the speed goal set at 50 WPM. My average speed is approaching 60 WPM.

Update January 17, 2011: Now averaging 65 WPM, see notes in Still Learning Dvorak.

Update November 22, 2011: An update on my Dvorak learning experience, one year later: Dvorak Redux.

Since starting simpledream web studio I’ve told people often that I’d like to be a freelancer for the rest of my career. I love working from anywhere—in the RV, co-working at Spoke6, in my home office.

That said, I have kept an eye on a few companies I’d love to work for: companies dedicated to open source software, that allow for location-independent employees, and have a great reputation in the industry. Automattic ranked high on that short list. When Matt Mullenweg contacted me about working with Automattic, I jumped at the chance.

I’m proud to announce that they’ve offered me a full-time position, and I’ve accepted it. I feel I’ve found a perfect match with the fine folks driving WordPress.org, WordPress.com, BuddyPress, Gravatar, Akismet, IntenseDebate, PollDaddy, and many other great projects.

Why would I love working for Automattic? It’s a distributed company: I can work from anywhere. They work on exciting, innovative projects. They are a prominent and active member of the open source community, and I want to be involved in that. There’s room for me to learn and grow. My day-to-day schedule won’t change much—I’ll be working a similar schedule and setting my own hours.

I’m stoked about my position as “Theme Wrangler” with Automattic. I’ll be working on web design and development projects, mostly revolving around themes and WordPress.com. I’m sure I’ll also use my Spanish and French skills since people all around the world use Automattic products.

If you want to learn more about Automattic, explore Automattic.com. And if you’re looking for an engaging job with smart people, check out the Jobs page and How We Work.

What’s going to happen to simpledream?

It’s been a great run! Five successful years managing my own business is easily one of my best and most fulfilling accomplishments. I learned, grew, and prospered as a consultant and contractor. The lifestyle I dreamed of—traveling around the US with my wife and working remotely–became a reality. The business, simpledream web studio, enabled that to happen.

I’m closing down the business soon. I’ll be helping to migrate my clients to new companies, passing them on to the capable hands of other web designers and developers.

I’ll be keeping the simpledream name, domain, and site alive as part of my personal brand. I plan to continue posting here about web design and development, web standards, and—of course—cool stuff going on with WordPress themes.

Stay tuned!

AZ-Birding.com, a free service of WINGS, launched in February 2009. I have worked with WINGS since 2005, and this latest project is exciting since it brings focus to Arizona (as compared to WINGS worldwide presence) and enables anyone to hire a local birding expert to explore the state’s wonderful birding specialties.

The site’s main focus is taking reservations, so the majority of the work revolved around managing calendars, the reservation process, and the guides’ availability with a custom CakePHP web application. The CakePHP app has two parts: public-facing pages with reservation forms and guide information and an administrative area for WINGS to manage all the details.

The goal for the administrative aspect of running AZ-Birding as a service was simple: automate the process as much as possible. To do this, the app has built-in functionality that runs automatically to produce reminders, late notices, and feedback requests (sent out to clients after their birding experience is over). This automation reduces the office workload for WINGS while ensuring a high-quality, consistent experience for clients. This hands-off approach safeguards against common situations where an administrator would have to step in and take action, like when a birding guide might be out of the country—or offline for a few days—and cannot respond directly to a reservation request.

The pages that don’t pertain to managing reservations are managed with WordPress. This decision was based on two realities: much more development time and effort would be required to cook up a CakePHP-based CMS, and WINGS is already familiar with the WordPress product and interface as the content editor and producer of the WINGS blog, Wingbeat.

As an added bonus, the site also tracks the latest Arizona bird rarities—meaning WINGS can post alerts when rare or special birds are sighted in Arizona. The home page and the “Latest Rarities” page both feature these alerts (entered into WordPress as blog posts) as well as custom data delivered by eBird, a free service of Cornell Lab or Ornithology. For example, the eBird data feed for “Notable Sightings in Arizona” not only brings more value to the AZ-Birding website as a birding resource, but it also provides potential clients with an idea of what to look for—hopefully enticing them to place a reservation if they see something that excites them. All the bird-related content on AZ-Birding is geared towards providing a reason to book the short-term tour with the service’s expert birding guides.

Two people contributed to this project outside of simpledream, and I owe them thanks. Sam Devore did the heavy lifting on the data modeling and backend CakePHP setup, and also contributed greatly to the project planning efforts, including work on user actions and workflows during the planning stages. The AZ-Birding logo (inspired by the gorgeous Elegant Trogon) was designed by Julie Hecimovich.

See the official announcement from WINGS, view all the screenshots on Flickr, and read more details in the simpledream portfolio.

On January 21st, 2009, DigitalFusion announced the new CPi Syndication website.

The site was released today and has been in development for over 1 year. The new site is completely powered by DFStudio and our entire software team contributed to the project — Michael McHugh did the design for the site and Lance Willett implemented that design while Matt Gile and Michael Rush worked on changes and extensions to our DF Studio system to meet CPi’s requirements.

CPi specializes in the syndication of the highest quality American and international photography. You would normally need to be registered user to access the images, but CPi has teasers on their home page that give you an idea of the type of photography they offer.

I handled the front-end development for the new site, including implementing the design in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as well as integrating it with the backend framework (written in Java). The team has been very busy with client projects as well as continued work on DF Studio, DigitalFusion’s flagship web application for professional photographers (we recently released version 5 of DF Studio, but more on that in a later post).

I have one (1) registration for SXSW Interactive 2009 available for sale at a discounted rate. Since I purchased it early (last September) the face value is $375, which saves you $75 over the rate if you register before February 13, 2009—and $120 over the walk-up rate.

By SXSW rules I can transfer it to another person, so please contact me if you are interested.

(Why is it for sale? I planned on going this year, but am now unable to attend.)

From the Recent Client Projects and I Should Have Blogged This Months Ago departments, I present a brief report on a website realign for Summit Hut.

I was fortunate to work with my great friend and mentor Aaron and several former coworkers from my days at the Hut (I worked there 2001–2005). The subject matter was close to my heart, and having worked on the website for a short period of time before leaving the company, I was thrilled to help with the task of realigning and recoding Summit Hut’s flagship website.

View screenshots, visit the live site, or for more details on the part I played in the realign, continue reading.

Disclaimer: Please note, I am not involved in the upkeep and production of code or graphics for Summit Hut; my role was to build a solid foundation for future development and visual merchandising. I did produce the first home page graphic (view screenshot), but the home page graphics and various and sundry sidebar callouts throughout the site have changed since the site launch in February 2008.

Notes and technical details

I was in charge of visual look-and-feel, basic interaction design, and coding the HTML and CSS for the page templates.

Visual

My goal was to create a mood that was simple, clean, and sophisticated with a subtle regional feel for Summit Hut’s location in the Southwest.

The visual tone took cues from Summit Hut’s in-store merchandising and signage. The chosen color palette, typography, and imagery were all tailored to match the wonderful feeling one gets when stepping into the company’s high-end retail shops. I intended visual chrome such as icons and buttons to produce a clean and professional look to match the company identity as a premier outdoor retailer.

Considerations included better readability, clearer navigation, enhancements to the display of vendor brands and product images, and improved product merchandising.

Merchandising an online store can be quite challenging, especially if you want to reflect how the real-life store works. There are really two parts to it: decorative and organizational. The first is extremely important since it conveys value and desirability to the products; the second provides a clear arrangement for easy searching, browsing, and choosing. My goal here was to remove obstacles and let customers figure things out easily while providing a pleasant, easy, and fun shopping experience.

Code

The recoded page templates were probably the most urgent need; the former summithut.com sported a table-based layout, spacer GIFs, and other typical markup-cluttering artifacts. Valid XHTML and CSS to the rescue! Building on Aaron’s solid programming and site framework, we worked together on producing lightweight and reusable HTML chunks (by reusable chunks I mean in the spirit of microformats). For the style sheets (CSS) I used principles of grid-based layouts and the excellent Blueprint CSS framework as a starting point for resetting and standardizing the layout, text treatment, and interaction messages.

All the benefits of standards-based development apply to the updated pages: faster loading times, code that is easier to read and update, improved usability and accessibility for traditional and non-traditional devices, as well as flexibility for future website features and visual changes.

Interaction

Interactive design tasks for the realigned site centered on product browsing, selection, and the checkout process.

For purposes of keeping this report as brief as I can, let’s take the example of the product browsing and navigation. The previous product navigation involved a clunky accordion-style navigation on the left of every page. The new site splits the top-level navigation into a horizontal dropdown menu on every page, improves the search tool, and provides multiple ways to visually scroll through products. Product browsing can be in a list view or thumb view, and the sidebar menus allow you to drill down and refine the offerings easily.

The dropdown navigation for products was an important piece of this realign (view screenshot). The amount of products and product categories in Summit Hut’s online store makes the product navigation interaction a complex and difficult one. The information architecture is based on the store’s internal organization, which doesn’t always mimic how customers shop. The dropdowns provided a great way to simplify the complexity, and with Aaron’s excellent choice of jQuery (with the Superfish plugin), this interaction works wonderfully.

There were many, many, more improvements to Summit Hut website; I can’t list them all here, but you can view the old site on archive.org and then browse the current site to see for yourself.

Digital Fusion is hiring a QA person. Apply today if you live in the Los Angeles area and fit the bill. You get to work with a great team!(Tags: dfstudio, digital-fusion, photography, qa, development, testing, jobs)