Web Development Blog by Jake Strawn

Will the work ever end?!

Jake Strawn — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:47:48 +0000

I'm not going to pretend to complain, because work has been booming over the month of September, and now that October is here, things don't look much calmer coming into this month.

Looking for Drupal Freelancers

Jake Strawn — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:20:33 +0000

As I continue to move forward on securing funding to open a full service web development shop, I'm going to be needing a good "core" team of freelancers to handle much of the grunt work.

Ridiculous work load & plans...

Jake Strawn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:05:07 +0000

Things have been crazy of late since taking the YourSports project. It is coming along nicely, however, my inbox, and voicemail have been working overtime taking messages on potential work that I'm scrambling to bid on and fit into the current schedule I'm working with.

Busy of late, brainstorming ideas...

Jake Strawn — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:55:45 +0000

I've been running like a chicken w/my head cut off the last week or so with projects, and new work coming my way. The latest of which was the YourSports contract. It's rewarding to actually have to turn work down, but I just wish my pocketbook reflected that as well!

Twitter uses more memory than Gmail

Jake Strawn — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:37:25 +0000

I've been playing with the awesome Google Chrome all day now, and love it so far. I was messing around with the built-in Task Manager that Chrome offers to manage how each site/tab is eating memory, or bandwidth and CPU usage.

The following is what I saw:

Himerus Inc contracted by YourSports

Jake Strawn — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:42:37 +0000

Himerus Inc. has been contracted by YourSports.com to create a dynamic video community powered by user voting.

Moving RSS Feeds to FeedBurner

Jake Strawn — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:53:28 +0000

I've used FeedBurner briefly before, but now as I move into a mode that is forcing more users to stand up and notice my work, and maybe even listed to a bit of what I may have to say, I'm now moving the 3 main feeds from the home page to <

Pro Drupal Development Second Edition

Jake Strawn — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:27:58 +0000

Review Introduction

The following is a review of Pro Drupal Development (second edition) by John K. VanDyk. I received a free copy from Apress by mail on the 25th of August. I was hoping to get it a few days before the release, but snail mail got it here on the day it was slotted for official release so I felt a little less special although I still ripped into the packaging like an 8 year old at Christmas!

I was a big fan of the original book by John K. VanDyk and Matt Westgate, and that book helped guide me through many of my first Drupal sites. That book was an invaluable resource in turning me to the Drupal revolution, as now all of my personal and corporate sites are based in Drupal.

The first thing I read in Pro Drupal Development (second edition) was the foreword by Dries Buytaert, the Drupal founder and project lead. One funny, but true item that stuck out in the first paragraph was:

Idea: Drupal 6 Module: Ping This

Jake Strawn — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:16:23 +0000

UPDATE: This module has an official release thread here at himerus.com. Further comments should be submitted there.

In Route: Pro Drupal Development SE

Jake Strawn — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:54:21 +0000

Earlier today, I got an email from one of the Apress editors asking for a quick review of a proposal they had received on a title regarding jQuery and Ruby on Rails. It ended up opening up some communication again regarding my potential to autor a title on either jQuery or maybe Drupal depending on what's on their current list of needed titles.

After sending my review back in, I was offered to pick out a title I'd like, and my favorite Apress editor would send it over to me! So of course, the first book I thought of was Pro Drupal Development, the second edition, which updates on the first edition, and covers Drupal 6 topics.

I couldn't be more excited to get my hands on this title, and it wasn't until later today I realized that it's not even set to release until the 25th of this month, but my copy is in the mail today!

Finalizing the corporate re-design

Jake Strawn — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:44:26 +0000

So after some thought & persuasion(s), I decided to rework a few elements to the new corporate design for Himerus Inc. The sticky notes were cool when putting together the old version of the site, but not up to par with this re-design, so they had to be re-thought.

Quick review of Ping.fm

Jake Strawn — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:54:05 +0000

After about a week of getting the great opportunity to test out Ping.fm, I wanted to take a few to post a quick review of my experience w/the service so far.

With the never ending growth of social media/networking sites, it becomes impossible to maintain all of these sites with current information. Ping.fm simplifies this problem for overly social internet whores. Until I discovered ping.fm, I was only using Facebook, and just discovering Twitter. I simply refused to join all of the sites that "everyone" found popular. But since I am using Ping.fm now, I have joined up with about 10 total social sites!

New Corporate Design - Himerus Inc.

Jake Strawn — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:28:14 +0000

After recently doing a complete overhaul of JakeStrawn.com, and this new himpressive theme here at Himerus.com, my corporate site was lacking some luster that in originally had in concept, and needed a fresh new design.

Custom Drupal Templates by Path

Jake Strawn — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:54:52 +0000

I've had this issue crop up before, but never had a pressing need to solve it, or much time to search around to find the solution. Drupal has a great system of template naming where it allows you to use multiple different names for a template file (tpl.php) that will be used for a page depending on it's path.

Resize Embeded YouTube Videos

Jake Strawn — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:15:46 +0000

If you've ran across the issue like I have, chances are YouTube videos do not fit your website perfectly. My website and it's columns are not the same width as a YouTube video, so if I post a video either in my main column, or side column, it is either going to blow out the column (right side), or not fill up the column (main column).

Isaac Hayes dead @ 65

Jake Strawn — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:42:37 +0000

Just saw this from a CNN feed...

Least efficient shipping in the world??

Jake Strawn — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:57:31 +0000

So here I sit, twiddling my thumbs until my new Sony Cybershot DSC-T70 gets here.

Getting Social: Twitter, Flickr & Others

Jake Strawn — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 06:10:21 +0000

Well, it's been awhile since I really went about promoting myself, and pushing what I do and who I am to the world, however, with the upcoming possibilities, it's time I organize my online social life, and employ the tools best suited to get me in and keep me in contact with the people I really give a crap about, and the network of people I don't know but might share interests with.

Ten Drupal 6 modules for every site

Jake Strawn — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:26:33 +0000

The following post lists and important group of modules that I use on every, or almost every drupal site I complete, either for myself, or for clients as well. The following drupal modules have features that I simply can't live without.

Some of the modules may be for administrative or development purposes only, and others may affect the front end disply of content. I've really used no criteria to select these modules other than I've used each of them multiple times, they work well, and the features are some that I feel should be included in EVERY drupal installation, and hopefully some of these items will be included in the Drupal core eventually.

Bert & Ernie rap

Jake Strawn — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:18:21 +0000

Dont know how long this had been around on Youtube, but it's freaking hilarious and awesome and makes ya bob ya head all at the same time.